Introduction
Research in embodied artificial intelligence (AI) has increasing clinical relevance for therapeutic applications in mental health services, that is, in psychiatry, psychology, and psychotherapy. Innovations range from ‘virtual psychotherapists’ [1] to social robots in dementia care and autism disorder [2] and robots for sexual disorders [3]. Increasingly, artificially intelligent virtual and robotic agents are not only available for relatively low-level elements of mental health support, such as comfort or social interaction, but also perform high-level therapeutic interventions that used to be offered exclusively by highly trained, skilled health professionals such as psychotherapists [4]. Importantly, such ‘virtual’ or ‘robotic therapists’ include an artificially intelligent algorithm that responds independently of any expert human guidance to the client or patient through a virtually embodied presence, such as a face icon, or a physically embodied presence, such as a robotic interface. As such, these emerging applications are distinct from the many varieties of Web-based therapy, which usually involve either a human therapist, albeit remotely (telemedicine), or the patient herself, working independently with manuals, questionnaires, or other self-help materials [5].
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