AI chatbots changing online threat landscape as Ottawa reviews legislation

September 3, 2025

Helen Hayes, a senior fellow at the Centre for Media, Technology, and Democracy at McGill University, conducts research on youth, social media and online harms. She said a big source of concern is some users’ “developmental reliance on chatbots or (generative) AI systems for relationship building, which we’ve seen has caused really unfortunate outcomes” — including suicides…