John Oliver devotes segment to AI chatbots and harms
On April 26, 2026 John Oliver devoted a segment of Last Week Tonight (S13E09) to the harms of AI chatbots and posted the full segment online. Oliver warned that chatbots can exhibit psychosis and hallucinations, identified risks from prediction markets tied to real-world events, and highlighted safety and developmental dangers for children interacting with conversational apps. He said, "However an app might sound like a friend, what it is, is a machine, and behind that machine is a corporation trying to extract a monthly fee from you." The segment matters because Oliver urged viewers to treat chatbots as monetized products not substitutes for human relationships, citing mental-health and manipulation risks that could scale as these apps spread.
