One in five boys aged 12 to 16 is in or knows someone in a romantic relationship with an AI chatbot, according to a Male Allies UK study of over 1,000 boys across 37 UK schools. 85% have talked to chatbots and 26% prefer the attention to human connections. The top companion apps have tens of millions of users and let children design an AI "girlfriend" in under five minutes, then charge for virtual gifts and explicit content. The apps advertise on YouTube and online games. There is no minimum age law for AI companions. Age verification is a checkbox.
Imagine that. Some folks thought AI was the technology to save us from ourselves! It is sad that 1 in 5 teen boys have this within their experience and that 1 in 4 prefer the AI girl to the real thing. Well, it is really more than sad. It is an unmistakable sign of a serious problem that is not merely a stage or even a positive choice but an acceptance of how broken the world is. The fact that eight in 10 boys (85 per cent) have had a conversation with a chatbot, with 43 per cent saying they talk to bots so they can ask questions without feeling embarrassed is just as concerning. This alone says that they trust a chatbot over a real person with a real voice. In less than five minutes for a young boy to create his “dream girlfriend” -- someone they can customize and design according to their own preferences without the need to compromise or sacrifice. In this way, the boy gets it all except that it is not real. While no kid begins with the false assumption that this chatbot is a creation the fruit of technology for money, the same kid can quickly “forgot” that the creative persona is not real. Part of the problem lies in the constant positive feedback provided by these created identities and what such a stilted relationship does to the child becoming an adult and the ability of that child to become a healthy and integrated part of society.
While this is reported in the UK by The Telegraph, we would be foolish to presume that such is limited to the confines of the UK. It is an ever spreading reality as children use AI in pursuit of school work or information but do not stop there. Because this is a new phenomenon which the parents of these youth did not know or experience for themselves, it also leaves families ill-equipped to recognize or respond to these situations when they discover them. Furthermore, the way that AI is incorporated into education and modern day life is on the increase and will certainly continue to increase this phenomenon before it is abated in any deliberate or accidental way. What is even more a problem is that this has become socially acceptable within the peer groups of these young teens and the promise of AI lauded by the media and political and media leaders. In fact, it is sometimes even encouraged by churches.
Where are the guardrails to prevent harm to these young teens or to provide for them direction into healthy and real relationships? That is what we struggle with today. Pope Leo certainly hit a nerve here but his warnings are as yet without any means or mechanism within the churches or social organizations to protect our children from the lies that seek to exploit them in the guise of someone better than life. I do not have the answers but it is high time that we spent some capital of time and money developing some answers before it is too late. It does not take long to lose a generation to the very things which were supposed to improve and make better their lives. At least this we know from history already.
CS Lewis warned us of this in That Hideous Strength. The problem of AI lies not in its limitations but in its lack of limitations. It can literally ruin everything and renders sterile to the point where nothing is good, nothing is desirable, and nothing is worth the reality. The threat of AI is not its incompetence so often revealed by memes on the internet but that it is too efficient and soulless. It works well to supply pleasing words and images and even music but it also cuts us off from our own past by rendering fiction as truth until we do not know the difference. A world where you can make anything at any time to fit any desire is a world in which nothing is necessary or worth any risk. Surely this is exactly what Lewis was hinting at -- the more perfectly we manufacture a false human expression the more we risk being emptied by the very thing that is life. Maybe we cannot kill AI but at least we should be able to prevent it from becoming the next stage of human evolution
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