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hubie [soylentnews.org] writes:

More than 4 in 10 adults in the UK are happy to use ChatGPT for their mental health support, new research suggests [bournemouth.ac.uk]:

The study, led by Bournemouth University surveyed nearly 31,000 adults in 35 countries about their use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) large language models such as ChatGPT. The research also discovered that:

• One quarter of UK adults would be happy to delegate the role of teaching their children to AI.
• Globally, 45% of people would trust AI models to take on the role of their doctor.
• Three quarters of people surveyed said they would use an AI chat tool as a companion and a friend.

AI for mental health support

41% of participants from the UK, and 61% globally, said that they would be happy to using AI for counselling services. The researchers suggest that for the UK, this could be the result of the waiting times many people face to access the mental health services that they need.

"If someone is experiencing depression, they do not want to wait months for an appointment, so instead they can turn to AI," Dr Yankouskaya said. "However, when I tested some of the tools myself, I found the language used very vague and confusing because the developers are careful not to jump into providing diagnoses. So, it is no substitute for speaking to a health professional."

[...]

AI as a teacher

A quarter of people in the UK and half of everyone surveyed globally said that they would trust AI to carry out the role of a teacher, which the research team found particularly concerning.

"It really knocked me down when I saw how many people would be willing to delegate AI to the role of teaching their children," Dr Yankouskaya explained. "We still do not know the long-term effects that using these tools for education could have on children's memory and cognitive functions. We could be heading to the stage where we are developing children who are good at putting prompts into AI tools but not as good at taking the information in," she continued.

[...]

AI as a doctor

45% of all respondents and 25% in the UK said that they would trust AI to carry out the role of their doctor. The numbers were particularly higher in countries where healthcare is more expensive and harder to access.

[...]

AI as a companion

The highest amount of trust participants were willing to place in AI came in the role of friendship. Over three quarters of people globally and over half of people in the UK said they would talk to ChatGPT as a companion.

The researchers think this is explained by a perceived sense of empathy from generative language tools because they are designed to adapt the tone of their responses to the suit the user's.

"AI tools come across as a friend who knows you well and understands you," Dr Yankouskayaexplained. "ChatGPT can remember every chat it has had with a user and it feels like a private conversation between them. Nowadays people can be very sensitive to being judged and AI tools are designed to be non-judgemental. This means they can provide the sense of security people need," she continued.

Journal Reference: Yankouskaya, A., Almourad, M., Liebherr, M. et al. Who lets AI take over? Cross-national variation in willingness to delegate socially important roles to artificial intelligence. AI & Soc (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-026-02858-5 [doi.org]

Original Submission