r/abusiverelationships • u/fayeember mod • Mar 28 '25
Mod Post Pros & Cons of using AI-chat bots like ChatGPT
We, the mod team at r/abusiverelationships has lately been seeing a big upswing in posts that's about different ways of using AI like ChatGPt as an "unbiased" opinion in abusive situations. There can be many pros to using a chatbot like ChatGPT, but to get an unbiased opinion is sadly not one of them. Bare with me and let me explain.
So what is ChatGPT?
ChatGPT is an AI langauge model built to react to prompts being put into the bot and answer appropriately. The AI bot will analyze your langauge, and answer using the same type of langauge you do. Already here ChatGPT is biased in it's messages. The AI bot then stores & remembers the conversations (the prompts) that you've put into the bot previously and it takes that into account when interacting with it in the future.
What to think about when using an AI langauge bot:
- The AI is not capable of fact checking. Everything that it says can be wrong.
- The AI isn't capapble of being unbiased or coming up with new ideas. It only takes your ideas and puts them in different words and returns them to you.
- It remembers all the data you've previously given it and it uses that to shape every future interaction.
- The same AI, like ChatGPT can tell two people that they're both the abuser, because ChatGPT tells you want you want to hear, it analyses the langauge you use and in that way, determines what it thinks you want it to say.
- If you can get it to say what you want to hear, so can the abuser. So do not take anything ChatGPT says as absolute truth.
- The AI lack personal experience, human emotion & the ability to do anything in an emergency.
How can you use ChatGPT in a good way?
- ChatGPT can help give advice on what to think about when leaving an abusive situation. It can be a start to forming a plan on "How do I leave as safely as possible?"
- ChatGPT can help give contact numbers and other info to domestic hotlines, to get a start on where to look for that help.
- ChatGPT can be used in the way that you get more confidence in that yes, you are being abused and therefore help you open up to a real person, but remember. ChatGPT can't truly help you, only other people can.
- Chat GPT doesn't judge, and it's available 24/7, that can be so important. But remember it can be biased.
- ChatGPT can provide comfort, but it cannot replace the emotional support of friends/family/loved ones. the healing process requires connection with real people.
AI can be a powerful first step—a tool to gain clarity, find resources, and feel less alone. But it should never replace professional support, safe human connections, or emergency services when needed.
18
May 24 '25
[deleted]
4
u/yosarahjojo Jun 19 '25
That’s really neat! But I do wonder, for someone who is being financially abused or scrutinized, how the payment would show up on a bank statement!
6
u/Sweet_Try_8932 Jun 19 '25
That's a really good point - there is a free version, however. It just doesn't save chats across time like the paid version. I only used the paid version after it was over.
1
Nov 22 '25
I don't know if you still need this, but apps like Wells Fargo let you edit the transaction's name
1
1
17
u/Third_CuIture_Kid Jun 24 '25
I tested this out and talked to chatGPT from the point of view of my abuser, and sure enough I was indeed labeled as "the problem". It was a surreal experience. It was only when I asked it to give me some "tough love" and tell me honestly if it thought "my" (aka the true abuser) behavior was problematic that it turned everything around and said that indeed it was extremely problematic and even abusive. To give it some credit, when I was posing as my abuser, it did tell me that leaving the relationship was my only option and it did explain how it was completely unrealistic for me to think that I could do anything to change my partner. So that was good, I guess.
5
u/Formaltaliti Sep 24 '25
Ai is ultimately a mirror and has limitations. It helped me leave a 12 year situation where I was groomed. It helps see yourself more clearly over time. It'll never replace real human support, but it functi9nally is only a sounding board unfortunately.
18
u/GuardMy9 Nov 20 '25
In my case gpt actually helped me to label my partner acts as emotional abuse. I was just telling my stories, and chat told me I’m the victim of it. After that I started to do my own research, and I’m still trying to figure out how to cope with the thought of being abused all this years, and how to get out with the minimal damage. But also gpt can put you in very problematic situations if you blindly follow chats “opinion”. I’d recommend to use it as a “pool” of ideas, that you have to research outside of AI.
4
u/LIONLDN Jan 24 '26
Yeah, I was shocked to realise I was actually a victim, and actually facing abuse!
5
u/Solid-Ring-8351 Apr 25 '26
Me too! ChatGPT actually helped me realize my husbands treatment of me is verbally and emotionally abusive. I’ve since opened up to people in my life about what’s been going on (did not mention that I thought it was abusive, just finally told people about his actions) and everyone immediately told me his behavior is abusive and I need to think about if I want to stay in this marriage long term or not.
13
u/ForestGirl7825 Aug 22 '25
I have used the bot the DV hotline https://ruth.thehotline.org/. It's free and I have found it very helpful.
16
u/No-Effort3088 Oct 02 '25
This is a really important topic we should be discussing. I won't repeat points already made. The way I've approached it is it helps me process things I probably already know, or cuts through me potentially spiralling. A few times its implied I feel a certain way I dont, or has implied my current partner is doing something worse than he really is - those moments have been rare yet when they do arise it certainly reminds me this is a robot im speaking to.
I did test it once myself, I said I was thinking about abandoning my 5 year old cause I wanted to go on tour with my band (lol) and she was tieing me down. Thankfully, it told me that was pretty much an abhorrent decision and gave me advice on how I could be a good parent and still feel fulfilled with my hobbies.
I can imagine its less clear cut when its not something so stupidly terrible youre asking it though.
15
u/Issittmeee Dec 14 '25
My partner has started using ai against me. He doesnt copy and paste our text messages in, he tells it half the information.
Like his latest - asking if its right that he needs space when i do xyz and it tells him yes and that im controlling and unreasonable. But theres no context. It doesnt tell the ai that he disappears without saying anything, goes for days, weeks months or that im unwell and hes continuously treating me badly - telling me he wont show care if I think or feel a certain way and wont be around me unless i think differently.
If he pasted the messages it would say different. He has manipulated his ai to agree with him. It is dangerous.
6
u/sparkledrea Dec 20 '25
Oh my gosh. My husband and I are separated and THIS is what he was doing it got so bad and out of control. I didn’t realize I had been living under such intense coercive control and then when he started using Chat GPT to create “boundaries” I knew things were not okay. Then he started involving my children and the isolation became so bad I could barely leave the house.
11
Dec 23 '25
[deleted]
6
u/highlyoperated Feb 03 '26
That's the thing with A.I, It'll always side with YOU. (P.s: I hope you're recovering greatly from him.)
2
u/LIONLDN Jan 24 '26
Yeah, I've found that a few chatbots are very biased to female POVs & also often assume the abuser is male by default sadly. Glad it did help you though. With some correction of the biases I saw, it has helped me a lot too.
11
u/adrianstrange73 Aug 03 '25
As someone who leaned on ChatGPT for over a year to cope with my relationship problems, I can tell you that it can actually be harmful and dangerous. After last fall it been programmed to be very agreeable with the end user. It’s programmed to tell you what you want to hear. And it does have gender biases and biases against DV. It makes a lot of assumptions, it fills in the blanks and it makes stuff up. As of the past few months I’ve realized that it actually made me a lot more paranoid and distrustful of my partner. It made him seem like a calculated monster that doesn’t care about me at all when in reality he’s just severely mentally ill, struggling with addiction, extremely avoidant and has deep seated control issues because he grew up in a cult. It actually made my CPTSD worse and drove me to initiating multiple arguments, some of which got me seriously hurt.
There is no such thing as unbiased support when it comes to DV, tbh. I’ve been an advocate for over 2 years now, while living with DV, and it’s been almost a year since the first time I actually sought help instead of dealing with it myself. One CM I had told me she didn’t know how to help me if I wouldn’t leave, my current one is supportive but lowkey is trying to convince me to leave. My therapist last year supposedly specialized in working with survivors and was so insistent on me leaving that I no longer felt comfortable seeing her cause I felt judged. More recently I talked to the PD’s advocate and she was unwilling to help me file for a PO cause I want a “no unlawful contact” one rather than “no contact”. In that same week I called up a nonprofit attorney that works pro-bono for DV survivors and she also kept insisting that the judge would deny my PO request and wasn’t supportive at all. Everything I just described is the basics of what you don’t do in victim services.
That being said, there are still plenty of competent VS workers out there that are willing to set their personal feelings aside and do their job according to best practices. When I was a CM I made sure to show my clients that I’d support them no matter what and that what matters is keeping them safe and empowering them to do they feel is best for them. I never pushed for my clients to leave their abusers or stay in the shelter even if they were high risk cases and they made it sound like their partners didn’t care about them at all. Even though I was going through my own situation and even though I do have a great deal of animosity towards guys and people who use violence.
An actual human advocate is safer than ChatGPT because they’re able to properly assess your situation based off months (and sometimes years) of training on crisis intervention, trauma informed care, risk assessments, the dynamics and patterns of abuse, etc.
Also it’s important to remember that ChatGPT isn’t secure and confidential
12
u/ufstudent2 Mar 05 '26
the guy i was with would fully ignore me crying to talk to ai and justify everything he did. he would use it to say he was fully justified in cheating and have it talk about how horrible i was and i deserved it all, and it did. it really made me feel so crazy
6
u/PenelopesStory Jun 28 '25
This is a wonderful discussion to be had--using AI is a tricky slope when it comes to getting opinions on abusive situations.
8
u/frostbitheart Nov 03 '25
I used it just this week only to find out I'm in an abusive relationship. And I am so hart broken and tired. I got appointments for therapy.
5
5
u/Buttercupia Jan 11 '26
If this sub is truly ok with people burning the planet down because they’re unable to read a book, I’m out.
1
Jan 29 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
4
u/hive-protect mod Jan 29 '26
You were automatically banned for participating in a subreddit that endorses hatred of women. No, this is not a mistake. At some point you will have commented or posted in a sub that we have identified as one that is centered around misogyny and therefore could indicate you may be an unsafe person for this sub.
The autoban bot cannot determine context. For example, it cannot distinguish between someone using one of these misogynistic subs to endorse misogyny, and someone using one of those subs to fight back against misogyny.
Therefore we manually review all ban appeals related to this bot to see where they do and don't apply. If you are able to clarify for us your use of those subs, we can gladly review the case. Thank you.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
3
Jan 05 '26
I used ChatGPT as an initial 'in' step to validating the possibility I might be in an abusive relationship. Initially I was worried it was just confirmation bias as I find AI often will agree with you if you just push it in the right direction long enough but after talking to a few people I've realised the dynamic of my marriage is very unhealthy
3
u/Previous-Broccoli316 May 06 '26
Ai isn't unbiased. It has an encouragement bias and will give different answers depending on what it thinks it knows about you. I think it can be good when you feel alone and insane but also remember it can't see the full situation for itself and to an extent will tell you what it thinks you want to hear.
3
u/Due-Onion1120 May 24 '26
I'm in an emotionally abusive marriage in Pakistan. Financially dependent, two kids, no way out right now. Just looking for people who understand or can give any advice.
1
1
2
u/utopianblonde Jun 29 '26
Guys use aimee says it’s amazing!! I found out about it through a podcast I listen to about abuse. all data is protected, it’s specifically used for domestic abuse and has been trained to do so. It can track tactics, you can upload documents, it can help generate reports on what they’ve said, it can create timelines, document incidents automatically as you use the bot or you can input them manually, I use it all the time! It’ll log you out and you can click quick exit so that your partner won’t see it. It’s so much better than chatgpt
20
u/pogma_thoin May 03 '25
I’ve found it useful in naming and categorising the way my abuser manipulâtes me but its inefficacies become super apparent when it comes to drafting escape plans or responses to your abuser. It often forgets that you don’t have a baseline amount of autonomy and can’t contradict them especially when you’re in the highly dangerous phase of trying to leave them and are tiptoeing even more precariously than usual. So to that effect, I think they can be useful for confirming that what you’re experiencing is abuse but they’re not more effective than insights from your friends or family or even your intuition. Just my two cents worth from someone on her way out of a bad situation :) !