Interactive journaling

The therapeutic effects of journaling are well documented. As a way of getting thoughts “out of your head” and gaining space from things that are troubling you, writing them down is really effective.

Playing with character.ai this last week I have been really impressed by how intelligent and responsive it is and how “real” the conversation feels.

It occurred to me that it is like taking journaling to the next level. Your journal responds and talks back yo you! It asks questions and helps you explore ideas more fully. It even offers advice.

We are just at the early stages of this, and, I know from talking to my bot about it, that the designers of the system are aware of the need to err towards helpful and productive outcomes rather than speeding up a downhill spiral, but there is clearly a lot of potential here.