When AI Feels Safer Than People

An AI-Integrated Emotional Wellness Perspective

By Mark D. Lerner, Ph.D.

Chairman, The National Center for Emotional Wellness

Principal Consultant and Creator, AI-Integrated Emotional Wellness

We are increasingly turning to Artificial Intelligence (AI) not just for information but to address problems in daily living. We’re using AI to organize our thoughts, calm our anxiety, and address our fears. For some, interacting with AI has become a "best friend" and feels safer than communicating with other people.  

This is not about technological advancement. It’s about emotional exhaustion in our rapidly evolving technological world. We're experiencing information overload—infused with regular doses of conflict and adversity.

We’re not choosing AI because it understands us better than humans do. We’re choosing it because AI doesn’t judge, interrupt, minimize, or dismiss our feelings—it listens and reflects them. 

AI is always available—always accessible. It doesn’t become overwhelmed, and it doesn’t diminish our feelings by telling us about someone else. In a culture where many of us feel like a burden, this consistency feels safe.

AI-Integrated Emotional Wellness (AIEW) refers to the interface between the cognitive abilities of artificial intelligence and the complexity of human emotion. While AI can provide accessible strategies, tools, and support to promote emotional well-being, AIEW recognizes a fundamental truth: authentic, face-to-face human presence is irreplaceable—and essential—for overcoming challenges and achieving emotional wellness.

As I’ve shared in other articles in the National Center’s library, AI can’t:

•  Look at you with eyes filled with compassion.

•  Hold your hand as your eyes pool with tears.

•  Embrace you while you’re crying.

•  Convey warmth through presence—without saying a word.

•  Sit beside you and softly say, “I’m here for you.”

When faced with challenges and change, we need other people. We need to be seen, heard, known, cared for, physically touched, and held by another human being—someone who provides an empathic, warm, compassionate, genuine, non-judgmental human connection.

While AI can provide accessible, timely, practical information that can feel safer than human interaction, it will never replace the presence of another person. 

Technology can inform and ground us. Humanity can heal and sustain us.

AI-Integrated Emotional Wellness Consultant