It might seem strange that AI can even attempt to offer this kind of assistance. But millions of people are already turning to ChatGPT and specialist therapy chatbots, which offer convenient and inexpensive mental health support. Even doctors are purportedly using AI to help. Some experts say this is a boon. After all, AI, unhindered by embarrassment and burnout, might be able to express empathy more openly and tirelessly than humans. “We praise empathetic AI,” one group of psychology researchers recently wrote.

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Over the past few years, wellness advocates have championed “niksen” (the Dutch art of doing nothing) as an antidote to burnout. Before that, we had il dolce far niente, a 200-plus-year-old Italian phrase that refers to the pleasures of doing nothing: a romantic concept that enjoyed a little comeback when it was name-checked in the 2010 movie “Eat, Pray, Love.” “Actually doing nothing is something a lot of people find aversive,” explained Michael Inzlicht, a professor in the University of Toronto’s department of psychology. “People associate doing nothing with boredom, which is an emotion most people try to avoid.”

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“People avoid effort, but it’s also something that we can learn to like,” said Michael Inzlicht, a colleague of Dr. Bloom’s at the University of Toronto. In addition to pleasure, humans seek out things like competence, mastery and self-understanding. “You can’t get those without pushing yourself,” he said.

Joshua Aronson, New York University
Avi Ben-Zeev, San Francisco State University
Elliot Berkman, University of Oregon
Kirk Brown, Virginia Commonwealth University
Daryl Cameron, Penn State University
Belle Derks, Utrecht University
Jennifer Gutsell, Brandeis University
Greg Hajcak, Florida State University
Eddie Harmon-Jones, University of New South Wales
Jacob Hirsh, University of Toronto
Cendri Hutcherson, University of Toronto
Sonia Kang, University of Toronto
Michael Larson, Brigham Young University
Lisa Legault, Clarkson University
Ian McGregor, University of Waterloo
Marina Milyavskaya, Carleton University
Sukhvinder Obhi, McMaster University
Liz Page-Gould, University of Toronto
Travis Proulx, Cardiff University
Blair Saunders, University of Dundee
Brandon Schmeichel, Texas A&M University
Zindel Segal, University of Toronto
Alexa Tullett, University of Alabama

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