Our Opinion: AI chatbots pose real danger to our kids, human interaction – Scranton Times-Tribune
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Newspapers these days are filled with some scary stories that tell of terrorism and rampant violence, hunger and extreme weather and divisive political issues.
Last weekend, ours published perhaps the most concerning story to come across the wires in recent memory. An argument could be made that sentiment underplays its gravity, because it tears at the very fabric of what it means to be us. Potentially, it changes the meaning of being human.
The headline itself read as a chilling reminder of changing times: “Teens say they are turning to AI for friendship.”
Before you dismiss that as the natural result of a generation of children who grew up in the look-at-me world the rise of social media platforms created, we find it critical at this early juncture for adults in the lives of our younger Americans to grasp that this is the scary next phase of an online world. And it’s coming at us with the speed, power and ferocity of a freight train.
It’s not the product of a generation insistent on being popular, it’s the sad result of one that doesn’t feel heard or understood by those who should be their mentors.
The evidence can be found in the reasons many insist children are turning to AI not just for information, but for advice and companionship that should be coming from actual human beings.
“AI is always available. It never gets bored with you. It’s never judgmental,” Ganesh Nair, an 18-year-old in Arkansas, told AP. “When you’re talking to AI, you are always right. You’re always interesting. You are always emotionally justified.”
We urge adults to consider the desperation of that statement.
Initial worries about the rise of AI, especially when it came to kids, seemed to center on how much of their schoolwork it could help them get out of doing on their own. That’s still a concern, of course.
But a reliance on AI chatbots to the degree teenagers are using them today not only erodes the scope of education, but challenges one of the key components kids learn in places like schools and playgrounds, and especially in their own homes. How will future generations learn to think, act and communicate in social situations if their preferred communications essentially are with the chatbots themselves?
Common Sense Media, a nonprofit group that aims to “help families make informed media choices and promote digital literacy and citizenship,” recently published a survey entitled “Talk, Trust and Trade-Offs: How and Why Teens Use AI Companions.” The findings should be knee-buckling for an American populace still grappling to understand AI and its capabilities.
Gathering results from 1,060 Americans from ages 13 through 17 last April and May, Common Sense found that 72% of respondents used AI companions, and 33% use or view them for social interactions and relationships. Half of teens surveyed trust, to some degree, information they receive from chatbots. A little more than 30% find AI conversations at least as satisfying as conversations with humans.
The study also finds that, on average, teens are in front of screens more than 8½ hours daily.
“Despite the relative novelty of AI companions in the digital landscape, their dangers to young users are real, serious, and well documented,” the study found, adding that its risk assessment of popular AI companion platforms like Character.AI, Nomi, and Replika found the apps pose “unacceptable risks” for minors and produce “responses ranging from sexual material and offensive stereotypes to dangerous ‘advice’ that, if followed, could have life-threatening or deadly real-world impacts.”
The combination of it all is scary, and potentially disastrous, for the future of human connection, and it’s a world for which adults paved the way. Those who should know better have not exactly set good examples by readily eliminating interactions with those who offend or disagree with us on increasingly polarizing issues. Solutions have now circled back to a place where chatbots will never disagree with anything we believe.
Parents need to talk with their children about the potential harms of AI. Educators need to be better trained and more vigilant with students who may be in need, and make teaching the pitfalls of AI part of curriculums. Tech companies, as recommended by Common Sense, should institute real, effective age-assurance systems, mandate human oversight for users who are minors and provide crisis intervention. Our elected officials can, and should, mandate tech companies play by a much stricter set of rules than the practically unregulated AI space grants today.
It’s the least we can do as a society to protect our most precious resources.
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