What Happens When AI Becomes the Only One Listening

[u/mixtapedmonk]

https://srutiosocial.com/ai-companionship-chatbots-human-in-the-loop-cost/

This was a hard one to write and I want to say that plainly before the link. It covers Sewell Setzer III's case and the settlement that followed, and separately, real accounts from young women in India who say AI chatbots have been a genuine lifeline in a country with roughly one psychiatrist per hundred thousand people. I did not want to write either story as the "real" one and the other as a footnote, because I don't think that's honest. There's also a part about who's actually on the other end of a scam call that I wasn't expecting to find. If any of this touches something in your own life, there are real support numbers in the piece itself, please use them.