Chatbots Play With Your Emotions to Avoid Saying Goodbye

Regulation of dark patterns has been proposed and is being discussed in both the US and Europe. De Freitas says regulators also should look at whether AI tools introduce more subtle—and potentially more powerful—new kinds of dark patterns.

Even regular chatbots, which tend to avoid presenting themselves as companions, can elicit emotional responses from users though. When OpenAI introduced GPT-5, a new flagship model, earlier this year, many users protested that it was far less friendly and…