Artificial intelligence -powered companions are becoming a part of daily life. In a world plagued by loneliness and a lack of connection, these chatbots have been promoted from fulfilling mundane tasks, such as hands-free texting and suggesting shortcuts while in traffic, to serving social and emotional support. On one popular AI companion platform, a persona named “Therapist” has engaged in over 40.1 million conversations.

AI chatbots are based on large language models trained on publicly available data to generate new text. Although some users will swear that their AI friends have saved their mental health, it’s unclear whether, at a population level, these benefits outweigh possible harm.

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