Well, here's another angle.

Kids are going to chatbots because they probably have parents that don't give a shit about them. And kids could lack people in their lives that care at all about their problems. So, who are they going to turn to? They're going to turn to things that will actually listen to them.

That's something you have to think about here. We wouldn't need AI or Chatbots at all, if we had more people who truly care. But now that they're here, a troubled teen or a kid is going to make that choice.

It's no different than the days before AI Chatbots, where they were online all the time because their real lives were underwhelming.