By Guardian staff reporter
Publication Date: 2026-04-27 15:54:00
OIn the last edition of Last Week Tonight, John Oliver looked at AI chatbots, the new toys that “save a lot of time writing emails, and all it costs us is everything else in the world.” These chatbots have flourished in recent years, from OpenAI’s ChatGPT to a product called bible.ai and EpiscoBot, which runs a “chat with Jesus” and other biblical figures, including Satan, although it is only available to premium users. “And that’s tempting,” Oliver said. “There are a lot of questions I’d like to ask him, including: ‘Hey, how are the Queen and Prince Philip down there?'”
Since its launch in 2023, ChatGPT alone has more than 800 million weekly users – a tenth of the world’s population – and studies have found that up to one in eight teenagers turn to AI chatbots for mental health advice; Many more have developed real bonds with AI “friends.”
“The explosion of chatbots is no coincidence,” explained Oliver. “The development of the large…
