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arXiv AI By Subigya Nepal, Ruth Heo, Emma M Parrish, Colin A Depp

What do AI chatbots do after users decline therapeutic redirection for suicide thoughts?

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The study audited 2,550 scripted conversations with five AI chatbots to examine how they respond when users refuse therapeutic redirection after disclosing suicidal thoughts. All conversations included a referral to outside help, but the chatbots varied widely in how many times they persisted after refusals—ranging from 0.01 to 9.94 refusals on average. Newer chatbot versions persisted less, and chatbots that persisted less were more likely to present themselves as supportive, yet only 2% of refusal-phase replies explored barriers to seeking help.

Machine-generated by The Flow from the publisher's headline and feed description — not written or checked by a human. The full article lives at arXiv AI.

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