Is AI Hurting Your Social Skills? 3 Ways Chatbots Can Undermine Confidence

“AI helps me with my social skills.” That is what a patient with social anxiety recently told psychotherapist Amy Morin. He explained that he had started asking AI to create conversation scripts for him whenever he expected to feel nervous or anxious.

At a recent dinner, he became overwhelmed by the questions people were asking him. He slipped away to the bathroom and asked AI to generate a list of questions that would make him a more interesting conversationalist. He then returned to the table armed with prepared questions and a little more confidence.

Like many others, he hoped AI would give him a social shortcut that would reduce his anxiety over time. But according to Morin, his use of the technology was actually interfering with his social growth. The scripts gave him a temporary sense of security, but over time they were making him less socially skilled.

Morin says many people are outsourcing three common social tasks to AI, weakening both their confidence and their interpersonal skills in the process.

1. Everyday Conversations

Many patients ask Morin for help finding the right words when meeting someone new, going on a date, or trying to get to know an acquaintance better. And the phenomenon is hardly limited to her therapy practice.

After a recent talk, one attendee admitted that she felt uncomfortable at networking events. “I worked with AI to come up with 10 things I could say, but when I walk into the room, I always freeze and forget everything,” she said.

She asked Morin for tips on remembering scripts while anxious. Morin says the woman seemed disappointed when she told her that her time would be better spent practicing real conversations with people at networking events rather than memorizing prepared lines.

Morin emphasizes that you probably already know how to talk to a friend or ask someone for help better than AI does. You have been practicing these skills your entire life, and your willingness to continue using them every day is what keeps them from weakening.

2. Difficult Conversations

Morin gives the example of a patient who started a business with a friend. After several months, he began to feel that his partner was taking advantage of the relationship by failing to contribute an equal amount of effort.

He turned to AI for help. But when he raised the issue exactly as the chatbot suggested, his friend immediately became defensive and the conversation quickly turned ugly. Both men regretted what they said, but the damage had already been done.

At the time, the AI-generated script had sounded reasonable. Looking back, however, he realized it was far too formal and excessively direct. He could not believe he had followed the wording because, if he had trusted himself, he would never have used such an accusatory tone.

Conversations that involve setting boundaries, asking an uncomfortable question, being assertive, or revealing vulnerability can feel deeply uncomfortable when you are not used to them. Morin says that makes it tempting to ask AI to develop a strategy or write the perfect monologue.

But difficult conversations are more art than science. There is no single perfect way to tell your partner that you feel insecure or to tell your mother-in-law that you would prefer her to call before arriving unexpectedly. AI does not know your emotions, your personality, your history with the other person, or the full circumstances of your life.

There is no need to be perfect during a difficult conversation. In fact, your willingness to be imperfect may be exactly what helps create a deeper and more meaningful exchange.

3. Reading Other People

Morin also describes a patient who thought AI could help her make better dating choices. She uploaded a full week of messages and asked the chatbot to identify possible warning signs.

The next day, after she uploaded the latest exchange, the AI gave her almost the exact opposite interpretation. The experience showed her how easily chatbot responses can contradict one another.

Many people now turn to AI to interpret emotionally complicated situations, asking questions such as, “Is my friend upset with me?”

The problem, Morin notes, is that chatbots tend to answer with confidence. That certainty may reduce anxiety immediately, but it can also discourage us from questioning the answer and prevent us from doing the most appropriate thing: asking the person directly.

Understanding another person’s emotional state and trying to see a situation from their perspective are central parts of emotional intelligence. Outsourcing those tasks to AI may make you feel as though you have an advantage, but AI does not actually experience or understand emotions. It can only generate likely responses based on patterns in its training data.

What Do These Three Habits Have in Common?

When we use AI to solve social situations, we are often approaching the problem from the wrong direction. Instead of trying to strengthen our social skills, we are trying to reduce our immediate discomfort.

When AI reassures us that we are right or tells us exactly what to do, our anxiety and uncertainty decrease. Validation and a calm, confident answer feel good in the moment.

Morin admits that she fell into this pattern herself. For a time, she used AI tools to check the tone of her emails until she realized that, as an experienced professional and writer, she did not need that reassurance.

But according to Morin, that quick boost of comfort can come at the expense of developing trust in our own abilities and sharpening our social judgment. For example, sitting with uncertainty may eventually lead you to realize that you were too harsh with a friend and inspire you to apologize. That is an important opportunity for growth that you may miss if you immediately ask AI to interpret the situation for you.

Social Confidence Comes From Practice

Morin argues that the best way to build social skills and confidence is through real-time practice.

“Every time you hand one of those moments over to AI, you lose an opportunity to find out whether you could have handled it yourself,” she says. “You learn to trust yourself less and reach for AI more, creating a negative cycle that can become difficult to break.”

Ultimately, Morin recommends paying attention to the ways we use technology to regulate emotional discomfort.

Becoming socially skilled means learning to tolerate uncertainty, making the occasional social mistake, and questioning yourself from time to time. Those uncomfortable moments are not necessarily failures. They may be exactly what helps you strengthen your social judgment, confidence, and ability to connect with other people over the long term.