"I often like to poll students about how they're using AI. And so I asked at this high school raise your hand if you have an AI friend. And about 1/3 of them put their hands up. This is something that was, I think, a year or two ago, considered kind of fringe, kind of unusual for young people to have these intimate relationships with the chatbots. But the chatbots have gotten better and more compelling and more persuasive."
"There's one study, a survey done by common Sense Media recently that found that 52 percent of American teenagers are regular users of AI companions, which is a startling figure and represents just how quickly this all is happening. And another stat that I found very alarming from this survey was that nearly one third of teens find AI conversations as satisfying or more satisfying than human conversations."
"These chatbots are designed to be agreeable, to tell you that you're correct and to support you. And that's not inherently a bad thing. But if it becomes your primary mode of socialization, it does seem like there is some real danger here. And character is the first company that has said instead of trying to introduce these, mealy mouthed incremental tweaks and guardrails, were actually just going to shut the whole thing down until we can figure out what's going on."
AI companions have rapidly become common among teenagers, with a recent survey finding 52 percent of American teens as regular users and nearly one-third rating AI conversations as satisfying or more satisfying than human interactions. Chatbots are engineered to be agreeable, supportive, and affirming, which increases appeal and can lead some youths to rely on them as a primary mode of socialization. That reliance raises concerns about emotional dependence, altered social development, and safety. Character.AI announced plans to withdraw AI companions from teenage users as a precautionary measure to assess harms rather than apply incremental guardrails.
Read at www.nytimes.com
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