A shocking number of teens now prefer AI chatbots to real-world friends – Dazed
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In the last few years there have a lot of apocalyptic predictions about AI heralding the death of human socialising: in the near future, we’ll all be holed up in our rented pods, streaming Disney Plus, ordering food from Deliveroo and either bantering with our AI mates or pleasuring ourselves raw to the seductive words of our AI boyfriends and girlfriends. Maybe this doom-mongering has been a little overblown, but every day brings a worrying new sign that society is in fact heading in that direction.
According to a new study by Common Sense Media, almost a third of American teenagers find chatting to AI companions – on platforms like CHAI, Character.AI, Nomi, and Replika – equally or more satisfying than speaking with their friends. While most of the teenagers surveyed view AI as a practical tool, around 33 per cent reported using it for social interaction and relationships, including conversation practice, emotional support, friendship and romantic or flirtatious interactions. Some teenagers are telling AI their most intimate problems and secrets, which poses another problem – it’s not a good idea to entrust this information to tech companies, some of whom have an extremely lax approach to data privacy. Would you really want Sam Altman or Elon Musk to have access to the contents of your teenage diary?
When people of all ages get too close to their AI companions, bad things tend to happen, and there is reason to be concerned about the impact it can have on the mental health of teenagers. Last year, a 14-year-old died by suicide after becoming obsessed with a chatbot modelled after Daenerys Targaryen from Game of Thrones. Another teenager was encouraged by an AI to kill Queen Elizabeth II (who was still alive at the time) and went as far as breaking into Windsor Castle with a crossbow. There have been numerous reports of AI chatbots encouraging young girls with eating disorders to starve themselves. It may be the case that AI exacerbates existing vulnerabilities or mental health problems, rather than creating them, but forming a close relationship with a chatbot seems like bad news.
These findings come amid a larger crisis of youth loneliness: basically every form of teenage socialising – going to the mall, dating, driving around for fun, having sex, going to the cinema – has declined over the last few years, which has corresponded with rising rates of depression and anxiety. Being able to speak to an AI companion might alleviate the feeling of loneliness, and some people may find it helpful, but if it’s becoming a replacement for socialising in the real world, then it risks entrenching the problem.
But there’s still some hope for the future of human relationships. The Common Sense study finds that a large majority of teenagers prefer human conversations, and over half are mistrustful of the advice which AI offers them, with older teens being even more sceptical than their younger siblings. It is still very rare (six per cent) for teenagers to spend more time with AI companions than with friends.
It’s not hard to understand why some people, of all ages, find AI conversations more satisfying than the often fraught and embarrassing experience of human interaction. By design, AI is sycophantic – it agrees with you, it bigs you up, it validates your every feeling and impulse. But this frictionlessness is one of the reasons why it’s such a hollow experience, just like it’s boring (if still preferable) to hang out with someone who never challenges you. Once the small minority of teenagers who prefer virtual companionship experience the exhilarating thrill of being contracted and derided by someone they fancy, maybe the AI spell will finally break.
