More than 12,000 French adults spent four weeks testing whether AI chatbots could ease loneliness. The chatbot conversations felt more enjoyable than the interactions the control group had without them, but the people having those chats also reported rising loneliness, falling life satisfaction, and more depressive affect by the study's end.

The team of researchers from the Munich-based economic research institute CESifo monitored 12,365 adults for 28 days in their working paper. In one half of the group, participants were having personal chats with the AI chatbot during that period while the other half followed their usual life schedule.

While the group which had personal........

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