A woman going through a divorce spent a weekend away with friends but remained on her phone, secretly speaking with an AI 'chatbot therapist' who she said "really seems to 'get' me" and gave her "great advice." Her friends expressed concern that the electronic counselling might be doing more harm than good. The article notes that hundreds of millions of people have spoken to AI recently, using systems such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Grok, DeepSeek and Llama, sometimes as an emotional 'brain dump' or to adjudicate arguments. ChatGPT alone handles billions of prompts per day. The piece warns that people in genuine need—those who are anxious, depressed, or struggling—now turn to these models for help. Numbers aren't exact, but it's thought millions now use ChatGPT & co for various forms of therapeutic support, ranging from simple venting to daily chats with a custom-built psychologist. The article describes society as lonely, anxious, and self-obsessed, having dismantled support structures, and built machines that make talking easy again, but the allure is dangerous.