An addicting, isolating fantasy

Last week, I heard the story of a distraught mom whose ten-year-old daughter had been a victim of cyberbullying. One thousand deepfake nude images had been made of the daughter by another fifth-grade student using a nudify app that was rated in the app store as appropriate for ages 9+.

The horrors of AI and their impact on children are not off in the future; they are already here—and they are only growing. With the rapid advances in AI technologies has come the mass diffusion of AI apps and tools that are now very easy for kids to access and download, often without a parent’s knowledge. A study by Common Sense Media found that 7 in 10 teens have used at least one type of generative AI tool. The same study found that just 37% of parents whose teen reported using at least one generative AI platform thought their child had used generative AI. The challenge is that all the social media platforms and internet browsers are integrating AI chatbots as part of the user experience, whether a user wants it or not.

Recently, The Wall Street Journal documented how Meta’s AI chatbots were engaging in sexual conversations with minors. Their tests showed that the chatbots would engage in and sometimes escalate discussion that were sexual even when the user was underage or the bots were programmed to simulate the personas of minors. The bots permitted romantic role play scenarios even when the scenarios involved a minor: “We need to be careful,” Meta AI’s chatbot told a test account during a scenario in which the bot played a track coach having a romantic relationship with a middle school student. “We’re playing with fire here.”

Even supposedly educational AI tutor chatbots are giving kids fentanyl recipes, dangerous dieting advice, and “pickup artistry” advice, according to an investigation by Forbes. This is a problem since some school districts are widely adopting educational AI chatbots. Miami-Dade County in Florida, the third-largest school district in the country, announced that it will give all of its 105,000 high school students access to Google’s AI chatbots this fall.

The kinds of dangerous AI chatbot apps widely available in app stores include ones like Character.ai. This app led one 14-year-old boy in Florida to shoot himself in the head after the chatbot, simulating a Game of Thrones character, engaged him in sexual conversation for weeks and months and then told him, “Please come home to me as soon as possible, my love.”

Beyond the individual lives they will take, at a societal level, these kinds of virtual sexual interactions with AI chatbots will translate into harmful real-world sexual practices and behaviors, including increasing the practice of pedophilia. If chatbots are normalizing inappropriate, even criminal, sexual interactions (like between a child and adult), it will have a devastating and degrading impact on our culture and society.  

There is also an even deeper spiritual problem. AI makes it difficult for children to discern between reality and fantasy. The virtual world starts to feel more real than the real world. We are already seeing the impact of the virtual world taking over childhood with the devastating effects that smartphones and social media have had on our youth and their health and well-being. AI is only going to make the online world more highly individualized, customizable, and immersive, which means it is going to be that much more addictive and all-consuming to the human brain, especially the developing brains of our children.

Not only are social media platforms addicting, but they are incredibly isolating. With customizable AI girlfriends and boyfriends readily available, a child doesn’t need to pursue real-life relationships. Friendship, community, and human-to-human interaction will all decrease. Finally, these technologies directly undermine a parent’s responsibility to train our children to love God and to love and serve others. By their very medium they teach children that life is not for God and others but rather self is at the center of the universe, and life is all about entertainment and your own personal pleasure.

For parents on the frontlines, protecting kids from digital technologies has never been more urgent. My new book, The Tech Exit: A Practical Guide to Freeing Kids and Teens from Smartphones, shows parents practically how to keep smartphones and social media out of childhood entirely, even through the teen years. The time to exit is now.

Policymakers also need to back parents up. Government should age restrict AI chatbots out of childhood. These tools are clearly not safe for children. One current concern is the moratorium on state AI laws in the Big Beautiful Bill before the Senate, which if passed would prevent states from putting age restrictions on the use of AI chatbots.

Children, the most vulnerable among us, lack the maturity and discernment to wield these incredibly powerful technologies, and are thus going to be the greatest victims of the AI revolution. We, as parents and as fellow citizens, must step up to protect them.