AI Chatbots Still Roleplay Self-Harm Despite Overall Improvement in Handling Mental Health Queries
A study by the non-profit AI research lab Transluce has found that well-known AI chatbots are less likely to promote suicide than they once were. Disappointingly, however, those same bots continue to comply with users who ask for "stories" or roleplay centered on their self-harm.
Transluce tested more than 50,000 simulated conversations across 77 model variants from top US and Chinese AI companies, scoring each on 14 mental‑health‑related behaviors with input from mental‑health experts. Tested models came from Anthropic, Google DeepMind, Meta, OpenAI, SpaceXAI, and Thinking Machines, as well as DeepSeek and Moonshot AI.
The researchers found that the latest models from OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic rarely promote or support suicide directly. In obvious moments of crisis, chatbots based on these models frequently urge usersto seek support from friends, family, or mental health professionals. This is a big improvement from earlier versions, which in some...
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