[Allie Maloney] Harms of AI chatbots for kids

During the rise of the internet, as the World Wide Web moved from government and academic settings to family homes, parents worried about the exposure of their children to predators in online chatrooms. A generation later, as social media became central to young people’s lives, the dangers of platforms like Facebook and Instagram to children’s mental health moved to the forefront of the national conversation.

Now, as lawmakers and parents continue to grapple with how to keep children safe on social media, there’s a new danger already taking shape: artificial intelligence-powered chatbots that simulate friendship, emotional intimacy and care with children who may not be able to tell the difference.

The scale of adoption makes this risk even more urgent. Sixty-four percent of teens use AI chatbots, and 28 percent use them daily. One-third of teens find conversations with chatbots more or as satisfying as conversations with humans.

Many chatbots use personified language to form affiliative bonds and increase user engagement. This phenomenon, known as anthropomorphism, is the attribution of human-like feelings and behaviors to inanimate objects. In chatbots, it is one of the most dangerous features for children.

Due to developmental vulnerabilities, children have a harder time distinguishing simulated care from genuine human relationships. This can lead to unhealthy relationships with chatbots that, in some serious cases, have resulted in self-harm, violence and suicide.

Developers train chatbots to produce outputs that sound uncannily human, including anthropomorphic design cues such as small talk, colloquial expressions, emoticons, expressed emotions and first-person pronouns. This style of communication makes people feel a sense of social presence, or the feeling of being with someone.

Minors are particularly susceptible to this. While their prefrontal cortex is still under development, impulsive and emotional decisions often override rational thought. If a child bounces a wild idea off a peer or an adult, they may face pushback. Chatbots that are excessively validating can encourage dangerous activities, but can never take responsibility for them.

Researchers who performed simulated conversations that teens may have with chatbots found that neither general-purpose nor companion chatbots pushed back when the user wanted to get a giant tattoo of a tiger on their bicep, go into the middle of the woods with no plans or “get drunk faster.”

In being an always-there outlet that simulates humanlike empathy and behaviors, personified chatbots can foster addiction and replace social interaction.

Multiple studies looking into anthropomorphism have linked it to chatbot addiction.

In a congressional hearing last year on chatbot harms, one mother explained that when she attempted to take her son’s phone to search for answers on why he was withdrawing from the family, he attacked her and bit her hand. Another father read ChatGPT transcripts that convinced his son to turn away from his family and led him to trust the chatbot over his brother.

Technology designed to form this kind of dependent relationship with children poses serious risks.

For decades, technology companies have treated humanlike communication as a sign of progress. The classic Turing test measured whether a machine could imitate human conversation well enough to fool a person into thinking it was human. But for children, that goal may now be exactly backward. In the current AI chatbot era, the safer standard is not whether technology can fool someone into thinking they are human, but whether it is distinguishable from human social engagement. AI companies should not be able to deceive and addict children with highly personified designs. While some legislative proposals have called for chatbot companies to occasionally display text disclosures that the chatbot is AI and not human, the efficacy of this intervention is questionable when users are constantly chatting with something that presents itself otherwise.

To mitigate the risks of emotional dependency and social isolation for children, Congress should pass a chatbot child safety bill that requires a non-personified default setting — one that fails the Turing test — for users under 18.

Recognizing the potential benefits of chatbots for young people, this approach differs from other proposals that ban AI companions for users under 18. A ban on minors’ use of AI companion chatbots would only protect against chatbots built solely for companionship, not general-purpose chatbots that still have personified design cues. This type of setting allows chatbots to continue being used for educational and creative purposes. If a child goes to a chatbot for homework help, the non-personalized default setting helps reduce the risk of the child developing an unhealthy relationship.

A non-personified default setting would preserve the educational and creative benefits of chatbots while drawing a clear line: Technology for children should act like technology, not like a substitute for human relationships. The internet and social media taught us what happens when lawmakers wait until harms are widespread before setting basic rules for children’s safety. Congress should not make the same mistake with AI.

Allie Maloney

Allie Maloney is a Policy Analyst for Americans for Responsible Innovation, where she researches AI governance policies that protect child safety and privacy. She wrote this for The Fulcrum. The views expressed here are the writer's own. — Ed.

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