DeepMind, Google's AI arm, is working on ambitious new tools that could function as a personal life coach, The New York Times reported.
According to internal materials seen by The Times, at least 21 personal and professional tasks are being tested. That includes the ability to give users life advice, ideas, planning instructions, and tutoring tips.
One example in the report is a user asking the AI for advice on how to tell a close friend that they can't afford to attend her destination wedding because they don't have a job.
Such AI would naturally involve users exploring tense or complicated situations in their personal lives, and implementing the advice of a chatbot.
That marks a departure from the company's previous stance, where AI safety experts warned executives in December of the dangers of people becoming too emotionally attached to chatbots, according to The Times.
Over 100 experts with doctorates have been contracted in by ScaleAI to help test the capabilities of the life coach tool, the NYT reported.
It suggests that Google is examining ways to get a leg-up on its competition in the AI sector.
Some companies have already been testing ChatGPT's capability as a therapist for mental health care.
And a chatbot called Pi — from a company cofounded by DeepMind's Mustafa Suleyman — is designed to serve as a personal assistant.
While Replika has allowed for many people to go one step further and develop romantic relationships with an AI.
A DeepMind spokesperson told Insider: "We have long worked with a variety of partners to evaluate our research and products across Google, which is a critical step in building safe and helpful technology. At any time there are many such evaluations ongoing. Isolated samples of evaluation data are not representative of our product road map."
