AI Systems in Text-Based Online Counselling: Ethical Considerations Across Three Implementation Approaches

TL;DR

This paper examines ethical issues in deploying AI in text-based online counselling, analyzing three implementation approaches and emphasizing the importance of privacy, fairness, autonomy, and accountability.

Contribution

It provides a comparative analysis of three AI implementation strategies in mental health counselling, highlighting ethical considerations and guiding principles.

Findings

Ethical principles vary across AI approaches

Textual constraints influence AI integration

Attention needed for implementation-specific hazards

Abstract

Text-based online counselling scales across geographical and stigma barriers, yet faces practitioner shortages, lacks non-verbal cues and suffers inconsistent quality assurance. Whilst artificial intelligence offers promising solutions, its use in mental health counselling raises distinct ethical challenges. This paper analyses three AI implementation approaches - autonomous counsellor bots, AI training simulators and counsellor-facing augmentation tools. Drawing on professional codes, regulatory frameworks and scholarly literature, we identify four ethical principles - privacy, fairness, autonomy and accountability - and demonstrate their distinct manifestations across implementation approaches. Textual constraints may enable AI integration whilst requiring attention to implementation-specific hazards. This conceptual paper sensitises developers, researchers and practitioners to navigate AI-enhanced counselling ethics whilst preserving human values central to mental health support.