People Are Spilling Their Secrets to AI...but Don't Trust AI Companies

­We’ve reached a strange impasse in ‘net security. It seems that we’re simultaneously spilling all our secrets to AI chatbots while overly anxious about data harvesting. And a new survey from Proton confirms this disparity.

In “People don’t trust AI, but they tell it everything”, Proton summarizes it thusly – while two-thirds of AI chatbot users share sensitive info with their digital confidant, less than 1 in 5 trust AI companies to safeguard their data.

And Proton’s not the first entity to point out this strange dichotomy. A significant number of Americans (about 1 in 5) have turned to AI for companionship or romance, and an overwhelming percentage of those users share their most intimate secrets with – let’s be honest – their digital beau’s parent company.

Oh, and in audit after audit, digital romance apps, and chatbots in general, are abysmal in data protection – in many cases, data harvesting is the explicit goal.

With so many users – 10s of millions of people worldwide – building personal relationships with AI, and the vast majority of them voluntarily giving up important, personal data, hacking isn’t nearly as important for malicious individuals. Not when AI companies can get users’ data so easily, freely, and legally.

Sadly, the reason for this disparity between skepticism and blind trust reflects the state of our society and its pervasive alienation.

“People are confiding in AI much faster than they trust it, but not because AI has replaced human connection — friends and family remain the first choice for every sensitive topic,” Proton concludes. “Rather, AI is the option that people reach for when convenience and freedom from judgment matter more.”