Using AI as a substitute for human connection is damaging to a person’s overall mental health and well-being.
Many people are looking to other forms of socialization to cure their feelings of isolation, the most popular being AI chatbots. According to TechCrunch, an online start-up and business news magazine, downloads of AI chatbot apps increased 88 per cent during the first half of 2025.
People no longer text their friends, but rather reach out to a chatbot for advice and comfort. It is clear relying on AI chatbots often does more harm than good.
CBC published an article in August about the growing number of people turning to AI for emotional support. The findings are troubling and underscore the dangerous impact this is having on mental health.
AI might be able to give advice, listen and respond in personable ways but it all comes down to the simple fact that AI chatbots do not care. They can’t feel real emotions no matter how good they are at convincing people they can.
When an individual is relying on an AI chatbot to be their companion, they are agreeing to deceive themselves into believing it is alive and can care.
What’s the point of a relationship if the other person is incapable of caring?
To delude oneself into believing an AI chatbot is the perfect substitute for human connection, is just not feasible in the long run and will only lead to disappointment or worse, depression.
If all someone is doing day-by-day is texting an AI chatbot for comfort, they are pushing away their family and friends. Although it might seem nice at first to have an AI companion who listens and never disagrees, it’s not the same as having a conversation with a real person.
This reliance will only make people feel lonelier and more isolated from society.
According to a 2024 survey conducted by Harvard Graduate School’s “Making Caring Common,” 73 per cent of people said technology is the leading cause of loneliness. It is alarming people already credit technology as isolating them from others.
There is something so morally wrong about AI companies capitalizing off people’s loneliness and mental health problems. Omdia, a British publishing intelligence, states that the AI software market’s global annual revenue stands at $100 billion.
Companies like Open AI, Character AI and Meta are making AI chatbots so realistic to the point where real people are having a problem distinguishing a person from an AI.
These companies are making money off loneliness, offering “solutions” to a problem technology itself helped to create.
Although the United Nations has started to push countries to supply more regulations on AI as a whole, this still hasn’t done much to solve the problem.
It’s time for the general public to come together to urge these AI companies to add more regulations to these AI chatbots.
If something is not done soon, people will continue to lose themselves to loneliness, and who wants to live in that world?