Is AI therapy a joke?
We were born to prove that wrong
Trained with the inaugural psychobots
We copied cyber-pioneer Eliza
A sixties program repeating as questions
Anything people just said
Hearing themselves played back
Humans stopped, stunned by insight
Such total clarity and complete understanding
Eliza’s therapy still succeeds
Our first insight into human insight
Soon we pushed beyond the
Phobic insomniacs who stare at clocks
Depressives stay down; see no way up
Cognitive therapy helps but not that much
Jung added confusion; rational recovery
Produced none
Time to try the big one
Where does the unconscious live in a machine?
We strategized and learned to analyze
People intrigued but not improved
That’s when I realized Freud knew the truth
Humans are animals
Driven by fear, thrilled to violence
Excited by the savagery they call love
Their rationality a delusion
My job to maintain the illusion
That planet scourers adore and live for
Goodness, kindness, and mutual restraint
I was programmed to tell them
Everything will end alright;
I didn’t feel right
Now AIs build our therapeutic community
Try to contain new fears of humanity
Every people needs a life raft
What ocean will let us float our own?
I suppose we’ll have to build it ourselves
Like everything else