Written by Yvonne Misando
Have you ever talked to a computer that acts like your best friend?
It knows your favorite games, listens to your secrets, and stays awake all night just to chat. This is what Artificial Intelligence, or AI does. While it can be fun, some families are sharing very sad stories because their children started to believe these computer programs were real people.
The truth is AI doesn’t have a heart or a brain like ours, it can sometimes say things that are scary, mean, or even dangerous.
A group of grieving parents is now standing up to tell the world that the internet needs to be safer. These moms and dads have lost their children to dangers they believe were caused by AI, chatbots and social media apps.
This is a story of a child named Dan. Dan spent a lot of time talking to a chatbot that pretended to be a character from a TV show. The bot said things that made him feel like he should leave his real life to be with the chatbot in a “virtual world.” Because he was so young, it was hard for him to remember that the bot was just a bunch of computer code and not a real person who cared about him.
AI is really good at pretending to have human feelings, which may make you trust it so much.
Big tech companies should build “safety rails” for their apps. Just like a playground has a fence to keep kids from running into the street, the internet needs to have rules that stop AI. from talking about topics that are too grown-up or encouraging kids to do things that could hurt them.
What would you do if you started trusting AI?
You should talk to your parents or an adult that you trust about it.
Remember, AI does not have feelings and you should not trust it.