Many people believe the biggest threat from AI is what it knows about you. They’re wrong. The real threat is what it can make you believe.
AI DISTRUST AND THE INTERNET
You wouldn’t be alone in thinking that the information that AI is feeding you is inaccurate. According to a YouGov survey posted in April 2026, over 65% of participants were concerned with AI creating fake or misleading content, specifically related to online content creation. We already see this, with fake and misleading articles being posted across the internet constantly.
Although this is nothing new, the rise of AI makes this process significantly easier.
Even though people have actively expressed distrust in AI misinformation, the practice of fact-checking your sources has significantly declined. A study done by SparkToro in 2024 concluded that over 58.5% of searches end in “Zero-ClickSearches” meaning that after someone searched, they did not click on any article. This number has only increased over the years as AI overviews have become increasingly more popular.
As a result, we are seeing a growing trend where people rely on AI-generated summaries and overviews without verifying the information themselves, even though the majority of the population has expressed distrust in exactly this.
COMPANIONSHIP WITH AI CHATBOTS
If you believe that AI spreading misinformation is limited to Google overviews, it does not stop there. Earlier this year, Linewize and Qoria released a study conducted in 2025 that produced concerning results.
The study collected data from over 1,000 schools’ staff across the United States, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and Australia.
For the sake of clarity, we will focus only on the results from the United States. Nevertheless, the findings across each country shared similar characteristics.
- 60% of USA schools report that students are confiding in chatbots/companion bots
- Almost half of USA schools report that students are developing emotional attachments to said chatbots.
- Only 3% of schools reported no concern at all for mental health impacts on students
- 77% of respondents reported fear of students accessing misleading content
This is not only an extremely concerning study, but also a reflection of how the future of the world could go if AI emotional dependency increases at the rate that it has over the last few years.
At first, concerns surrounding AI in schools focused primarily on cheating and academic dishonesty. However, the issue has evolved into something significantly larger.
Let’s take a step back from this for a moment and analyze what this actually means.
1. Youth is becoming increasingly dependent on AI, frequently confiding in and relying on information that AI is giving them
2. Schools across the world have showcased an extremely high percentage of student emotional attachments to these AI Chatbots.
These two points together are already devastating for the future, as it is showing a trend towards not only attachment and validation to something not living, but a decrease in the tendency to critically evaluate situations and to gain an informed opinion.
The adult population is currently skeptical of AI, but the question arises: what happens when the youth grow up and become the adult population? How will the prior addiction to this new technology influence the future of the country and the world?
One conclusion drawn is that manipulation becomes extremely easy.
Governments around the world have expressed wanting to buy out large AI companies, and have started to build their own infrastructure. How will this affect future access to information?
Can we be certain that companies or governments will not use this information to manipulate the population towards certain decisions, just as they have done with various news outlets in the past?
WHAT DOES THIS ACTUALLY MEAN FOR OUR FUTURE
Although the results for youth, not only in Canada and the United States but around the world, look very concerning, this does not mean the issue is too late to address.
The government must make new legislation to address this concern as soon as possible, as we are possibly fighting the largest mental health and addiction battle in human history.
Legislation moves slowly, but addiction doesn’t. Canada and other nations need to stop looking at what people are right now, but rather at what they are becoming before it is too late.
