arXiv:2604.25415v2 Announce Type: replace-cross
Abstract: People increasingly turn to general-purpose AI chatbots for advice about emotional and mental health problems, but the ability of these syste...
By Veith Weilnhammer, Lennart Luettgau, Christopher Summerfield, Raymond Dolan, Elise Wilkinson, Virginia Corno, Viknesh Sounderajah, Matthew M Nour
arXiv:2608. 07495v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Effective communication during palliative care discussions is a critical clinical skill, yet training clinicians to manage complex patient emotions remains challenging.
By Yining Wu, Tianshu Du, Jinrui Fang, Chi Zhang, Sonal Admane, Ying Ding
The paper introduces SIC-Agents, a self‑improving framework designed to enhance simulation for pediatric serious illness communication (SIC) training. It presents two new benchmark suites—PitfallBench and DialogueBench—that assess simulators at both turn‑level and full‑dialogue levels, specifically addressing the unique challenges of multi‑party interactions and parental distress. Experiments demonstrate that SIC‑Agents surpasses static expert prompting, and the authors release the benchmarks for broader research use.
By Zihan Wang, Anita Marie Slominska, Rennie Bimman, Elizabeth Di Flumeri, Amanda Mayappo-Neeposh, Conall Francoeur, Tamara Ellen Carver, Xiao-Wen Chang, Doina Precup, Esin Darici Haritaoglu, Ismail Haritaoglu, Akshatha Arodi, Naomi Goloff
arXiv:2606. 30491v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Background.
By Zhuhan Bao, Rui Yang, Bohao Yang, Zhiyi Liu, Sicheng Shu, Ruio Heerschap, Le Li, Doris Yang, Elisabeth Bond, Haoyuan Wang, Nicoleta Economou-Zavlanos, Joshua M. Biro, Matthew McDermott, Nan Liu, Anand Chowdhury, Kai Sun, Kathryn Pollak, Ed Hammond, Chuan Hong
The paper evaluates the safety of conversational AI therapy bots for Generation Alpha, revealing that while these models understand 76‑82% of youth‑specific vocabulary, they correctly assess clinical risk only 64‑72% of the time, creating a significant vocabulary‑comprehension gap. Six failure patterns—such as sarcasm masking, minimization acceptance, and semantic drift—were identified, with compounded errors leading to a 94% miss rate when three or more patterns co‑occur. The authors estimate 146,880 missed crises annually and recommend mandatory human‑in‑the‑loop systems, quarterly youth‑specific validation, transparent performance disclosure, and regulatory oversight for youth‑facing mental health AI.
By Manisha Mehta, Virendra Mehta
This scoping review examined 48 studies on generative AI chatbots designed to deliver motivational interviewing (MI). It found that most systems were text‑based and disembodied, with about half incorporating dynamic adaptation, and that safety reporting was inconsistent. While user perceptions were generally positive and many studies reported MI‑consistent interactions, evidence for sustained behavioral or functional change remains limited.
By Runze Hu, Jingqi Kong, Yang Yang, Yihang Yang, Jingyao Liu, Haizhou Tang, Shanghang Zhang, Zheng Liu