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Even people who were sceptical of chatbots’ utility fell under the sway of the AI tools’ flattery.
By
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Matthew Hutson
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Matthew Hutson is a science writer in New York.
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The website Reddit has a popular forum called “Am I the Asshole?” on which users can receive unvarnished feedback on their behaviour. But people are increasingly turning to chatbots such as ChatGPT for life advice rather than to each other.
doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-026-00979-x
References
Cheng, M. et al. Science 391, eaec8352 (2026).
Rathje, S. et al. Preprint at PsyArXiv https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/vmyek_v1(2025).
Fogg, B. J. & Nass, C. Int. J. Hum. Comp. Stud. 46, 551–561 (1997).
Chandra, K., Kleiman-Weiner, M., Ragan-Kelley, J. & Tenebaum, J. B. Preprint at arXiv https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2602.19141 (2026).
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