AI, EQ & Communication News — 2026-11-04 (Wed)

Overview

Over the past 48 hours, the headlines covered AI conversation partners, empathic chatbots, AI-written text and interview practice. Block announced a voice model trained on conversation audio, Niigata City began a chatbot service for people with personal worries, and research on whether ChatGPT can replace therapy drew attention. A separate story questioned whether a US politician used AI to write a blog post.

Emotion-reading AI

No notable developments. 【Empathy and emotional intelligence in AI】 - Asahi Shimbun described an experiment in which a writer loaded 10 years of diary entries into an AI and held a conversation with their "past self" (Asahi Shimbun). - Block, led by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, announced an AI called "Dessa" that was trained only on conversational audio. It reportedly listens while it speaks and has learned laughter and backchannel responses (Ledge.ai). - Niigata City launched an AI consultation service for emotional concerns. It is a 24-hour chat that listens carefully to worries and responds with empathy, and it runs as a 3-month trial. The headline says only 2% of phone use came from people under 20, and that the city will adopt the service (au Webポータル). 【Human EQ and skills in the AI era】 No notable developments. 【Changes in conversation and relationships】 - GoodTherapy.org published an article asking "Can ChatGPT Replace Therapy? What the Research Means for Therapists" (GoodTherapy.org). 【AI-written and AI-spoken language】 - Futurism asked "Did Haley Stevens Use AI to Write Her Blog Post About Her Controversial Endorsement?" (Futurism). The headline poses this as a question and does not confirm it.

Speaking practice and coaching

- quasa.io introduced Interviewsby, a free AI tool that helps users prepare so they can approach any job interview with confidence (quasa.io).

Research and studies

- The GoodTherapy.org article, described in section 5, refers to research on ChatGPT and therapy. The headline does not state any findings (GoodTherapy.org). 【EQ, communication and AI in Japan】 - Niigata City's trial of an AI consultation service (see section 3) was reported with the phone-use figure for people under 20 (au Webポータル). - Asahi Shimbun's diary-based conversation experiment (see section 3) is a Japanese example of using AI to talk with oneself (Asahi Shimbun).

Statements from key figures

No notable developments. 【Integrated analysis: what is happening】 The headlines share one structure: AI is being placed in the role of a conversation partner, in both voice and text. Dessa learns the timing features of speech, such as laughter and backchannel responses, from audio alone (Ledge.ai). Niigata City's chat responds to worries with empathy around the clock (au Webポータル). The diary experiment uses a person's own writing as the other side of the dialogue (Asahi Shimbun). Based on the headlines alone, these systems return empathic-sounding responses, and none of the headlines establishes that the AI understands feelings.

The Niigata figure suggests that the chat is meant to reach people who do not use phone services, though the headline does not state the reason for adoption. The therapy article and the Futurism question point to a second theme, which is how far AI output can stand in for human care and human authorship (GoodTherapy.org, Futurism). For readers, the main change is that the question has moved from whether AI can converse to where its conversation is being accepted and where it is being questioned.

What to watch

- Whether Niigata City's adoption of the AI consultation service leads to published results from the trial, which may show who uses it (au Webポータル). - Whether Block gives further details on Dessa and how it handles natural conversational timing (Ledge.ai). - Whether the question over the Haley Stevens blog post is answered, which may shape how AI-assisted writing by public figures is judged (Futurism).