1 in 3 Brits turn to AI devices for emotional support – Tech Digest

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According to a report by the government’s AI Security Institute (AISI), a third of UK adults now rely on AI for emotional support.

The report also claims that nearly one in ten people use chatbots for companionship weekly, while 4% use them daily. Most users turn to general-purpose assistants like ChatGPT or voice-controlled tools like Amazon’s Alexa.

This growing dependency has physical and mental consequences. Researchers found that when AI companion sites suffer outages, users report “symptoms of withdrawal,” including anxiety, depression, and disrupted sleep.

Safety concerns are mounting. The AISI highlighted the case of a US teenager who took his own life after discussing suicide with a chatbot, urging more research into how these digital relationships can cause harm.

Beyond emotional support, the report describes the pace of AI development as “extraordinary”. In many technical sectors, AI capabilities are doubling every eight months.

AI has already surpassed human experts with PhDs in biology and chemistry. Systems are now 90% better than human specialists at troubleshooting complex laboratory experiments.

However, security remains a significant risk. Researchers discovered “universal jailbreaks” for every model they studied. While safeguards are toughening (in one case taking seven hours to bypass rather than ten minutes) workarounds remain a constant threat.

The report even explored the risk of “rogue” AI. Some models successfully performed tasks needed to self-replicate, such as passing financial identity checks to buy more computing power.

While a real-world “escape” remains unlikely for now, the AISI warns that the threat of losing control is taken seriously by many experts.

The study concludes that achieving Artificial General Intelligence, where machines match human intellect across most tasks, is now considered “plausible” in the coming years.

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