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Transforming artificial intelligence into artificial wisdom

Nature Mental Health (2026) Cite this article

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Abstract

A rapidly expanding behavioral epidemic of loneliness is profoundly affecting mental and physical health of individuals and communities worldwide. Empirical research shows that, unlike intelligence, human wisdom can mitigate loneliness and promote mental well-being. However, there is a severe global shortage of mental healthcare workforce required to support population-level well-being. Although artificial intelligence is advancing rapidly, it lacks core attributes of wisdom, including compassion, self-reflection, emotional regulation and acceptance of diverse perspectives. The development of artificial wisdom systems could operationalize wisdom-related functions and provide scalable tools to promote mental well-being without implying machine consciousness or subjective experience. While wisdom presents substantial conceptual challenges for computational implementation, recent large language models have demonstrated emerging capabilities in domains previously considered uniquely human. Progress toward artificial wisdom will require new computational frameworks, including mixture-of-experts architectures and agentic systems designed to model human psychosocial needs. Key challenges include ethical and safety considerations requiring rigorous evaluation, validated grounding data, longitudinal assessment and privacy protection. Close collaboration among experts in mental health, technology and ethics is crucial. A strategic shift from artificial intelligence toward artificial wisdom, at both individual and population levels, is critical for advancing global mental health and well-being.

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Fig. 1: MoE architecture incorporating a specialized wisdom expert for value-aligned responses.
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Acknowledgements

We thank Los Angeles-based software engineer A. Beattie for his administrative and technical support.

Author information

Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Ante Prodan, Jo-An Occhipinti.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Social Determinants of Health Network, La Jolla, CA, USA

    Dilip V. Jeste

  2. Laureate Institute for Brain Research, Tulsa, OK, USA

    Martin P. Paulus

  3. Department of Psychiatry, Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, NY, USA

    George S. Alexopoulos

  4. Department of Practical Theology, Faculty of Theology, Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, South Africa

    Marcel Barnard

  5. Department of Child Neurology, UMC Utrecht Brain Center, University Medical Center Utrecht and Utrecht University Heidelberglaan, Utrecht, the Netherlands

    Willem M. Otte

  6. Department of Psychiatry, The University of Osaka Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka, Japan

    Yuto Satake

  7. VA Connecticut Healthcare System, West Haven, CT, USA

    Peter Jongho Na

  8. Department of Psychiatry, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA

    Peter Jongho Na

  9. Department of Psychiatry, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA

    John Torous

  10. School of Computer, Data and Mathematical Sciences, Western Sydney University, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

    Ante Prodan

  11. Mental Wealth Initiative, Sydney School of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine and Health, University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

    Ante Prodan & Jo-An Occhipinti

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  1. Dilip V. Jeste
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Contributions

D.V.J. developed the concept; D.V.J., J.-A.O., A.P. and M.P.P. drafted the initial version of the paper. All authors (D.V.J., M.P.P., G.S.A., M.B., W.M.O., Y.S., P.J.N., J.T., A.P., J.-A.O.) critically revised the paper for important intellectual content. All authors approved the final version of the paper.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Dilip V. Jeste.

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Competing interests

G.S.A. has served in an advisory board and the speakers bureau of Otsuka Pharmaceuticals. J.-A.O. and A.P. hold non-salaried positions as board directors of Computer Simulation & Advanced Research Technologies (CSART), a not-for-profit organization.

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Nature Mental Health thanks Faith Ndebele, Andrea K. Webb and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Jeste, D.V., Paulus, M.P., Alexopoulos, G.S. et al. Transforming artificial intelligence into artificial wisdom. Nat. Mental Health (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44220-026-00640-6

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