Exploring the Role of AI-Powered Chatbots for Teens and Young Adults with ASD or Social Anxiety

TL;DR

This paper investigates the potential of AI-powered chatbots to support teens and young adults with ASD or social anxiety by providing accessible mental health guidance and helping navigate social dilemmas, highlighting benefits and limitations.

Contribution

It explores the use of AI chatbots for mental health support tailored to vulnerable youth with social challenges, offering insights into their benefits and ethical considerations.

Findings

Chatbots can offer accessible mental health guidance for socially anxious youth.

Potential to assist in navigating social dilemmas and reducing tensions.

Limitations include ethical concerns and the need for personalized support.

Abstract

The world can be a complex and difficult place to navigate. People with High-Functioning Autistic Spectrum Disorder as well as general social ineptitude often face navigation challenges that individuals of other demographics simply do not themselves. This can become even more pronounced with people of that specific group when they are in their teenage years and early adulthood (that being the usual age range of college students). When they are at such a vulnerable age, they can be far more susceptible to the struggles of becoming comfortable and content with social interactions as well as having strong relationships (outside their immediate family). Concerning this, the rapid emergence of artificial intelligence chatbots has led to many of them being used to benefit people of different ages and demographics with easy accessibility. With this, if there is anything that people with High-Functioning ASD and social ineptitude want when it comes to guidance towards self-improvement, surely easy accessibility would be one. What are the potential benefits and limitations of using a Mindstudio AI-powered chatbot to provide mental health support for teens and young adults with the aforementioned conditions? What could be done with a tool like this to help those individuals navigate ethical dilemmas within different social environments to reduce existing social tensions? This paper addresses these queries and offers insights to inform future discussions on the subject.