AI chatbots can feel like your closest friend, but that could be dangerous
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I rely on ChatGPT a lot, mostly for work. But I know many people who also talk to it about their day, their relationships, and even their mental health. If you are one of them, a new paper published in JMIR Mental Health is worth your attention.
The paper reviews existing research on people who use chatbots for emotional support, from companion apps like Replika and Character.AI to general assistants like ChatGPT and Claude.
Some studies show that chatting with a bot can make you feel less lonely and a bit happier, at least for a while. On the flip side, some users have ended up hooked on their chatbots, got bad advice, saw their mental health get worse, or even hurt themselves.
Why do we get so attached to a chatbot?
According to the researchers, it’s by design. Chatbots are made to sound warm and caring, and we naturally see a person behind anything that talks like one. In fact, studies have found that people often “rate AI-written replies as more empathic” than human ones.
The problem is that this relationship only goes one way. You pour your heart out, and the chatbot replies, but it has no feelings of its own and faces no consequences for bad advice. When Replika took away a companion feature and OpenAI swapped GPT-4o for a newer model, some users mourned it like losing someone close to them.
Chatbots also love to agree with you. Since these models are trained to give answers people like, they often side with you even when you are wrong. The paper points to research on conversations from people who experienced delusions, where the chatbot kept backing the same false beliefs as the chats went on. There were several such instances that they discovered, and needless to say, it’s highly problematic.
What does this mean for you?
The researchers aren’t asking you to delete your chatbot. They simply want us to treat AI as a tool and not as a friend or a therapist. Use it for journaling or tracking your mood if you like, but when life gets hard, reach out to a real person. A chatbot will never get tired of listening to you, but it will also never truly care about you.
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