People are increasingly turning to AI for help before a therapist, a move experts regard as dangerous.
WHO does your child turn to when they are lonely, scared and confused?
Increasingly, the answer may be a machine.
And it is not only children. Adults, too, are turning to AI for reassurance, advice and emotional support — sometimes before they speak to a friend, counsellor or mental-health professional.
Danie van Loggerenberg, founder of the National Centre for Child Protection, says the organisation works with schools across the country and that 82% of the children they have interacted with admit that they first, and sometimes only, turn to AI for comfort and advice.
