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No question too small when Kayla Chege, a high school student in Kansas, uses artificial intelligence.
The 15 -year -old young woman asks Chatgpt to get advice on back to school shopping, make -up colors, low -calorie choices at Smoothie King, as well as ideas for her sweet 16 and her younger sister’s birthday party.
The second year specialization student wishes not to make chatbots do her homework and tries to limit her interactions to banal questions. But in interviews with the Associated Press and a new study, adolescents say they are interacting more and more with AI as if it were a companion, capable of providing advice and friendship.
“Everyone uses AI for everything now. It is really taken over,” said Chege, who wonders how AI tools will affect their generation. “I think children use AI to get out of reflection.”
Over the past two years, concerns about cheating at school have dominated conversation around children and AI. But artificial intelligence plays a much more important role in many of their lives. AI, according to adolescents, has become an essential source of personal advice, emotional support, daily decision -making and problem solving.
“AI is always available. It is never bored with you.”
More than 70% of adolescents used AI companions and use them half regularly, with 34% reporting daily use or several times a week, according to A new study From the common sense media, a group that studies and advocates the use of digital screens and media sensitively.
The study defines AI companions as platforms designed to serve as “digital friends”, such as character. The AI or the folder, which can be personalized with specific features or personalities and can offer emotional support, a company and conversations that can resemble man. But popular sites like Chatgpt and Claude, which mainly answer questions, are used in the same way, say the researchers.
In an interview with “CBS Evening News” Wednesday, the founder and CEO of Common Sense Jim Steyer said that what had struck him about the study is that the Companions of AI are “everywhere in the life of adolescents”.
Common Sense study also revealed that 11% of adolescents use AI companions to accumulate their courage and defend themselves, which, according to Steyer, can be a good thing. However, he warned that problems arise when technology replaces human relations.
“Young children really trust these IA companions to be like friends or parents or therapists,” said Steyer. “They talk about serious relationships, and they are robots. They are not human beings.”
While technology quickly becomes more sophisticated, adolescents and experts are concerned about the potential of AI to redefine human relations and to worsen youngness and mental health crises.
“The AI is always available. He never gets bored with you. It’s never critical,” said Ganesh Nair, an 18 -year -old in Arkansas. “When you talk to AI, you are still right. You are always interesting. You are always emotionally justified.”
All of this was attractive, but while Nair went to university this fall, he wants to step back from the use of AI. Nair frightened after a high school friend who relied on an “IA companion” for heart to heart conversations with his girlfriend later, the chatbot wrote the breaking text ending his two -year relationship.
“It seemed a bit dystopian, that a computer generated the end of a real relationship,” said Nair. “It’s almost as if we allow computers to replace our relationships with people.”
How many teenagers use AI? A new study stuns researchers
In the media survey of common sense, 31% of adolescents said that their conversations with AI companions were “as satisfactory or more satisfactory” than to speak with real friends. Even if half of the teenagers said they are wary of AI advice, 33% had discussed serious or important problems with AI instead of real people.
These results are disturbing, explains Michael Robb, principal of the study and chief researcher at Common Sense, and should send a warning to parents, teachers and decision -makers. The AI industry in constant evolution and largely unregulated becomes as integrated into adolescence as smartphones and social media.
“It’s revealing,” said Robb. “When we decided to do this survey, we did not know how many children really use the AI companions.” The study interviewed more than 1,000 adolescents at the national level in April and May.
Adolescence is an essential moment in developing identity, social skills and independence, said Robb, and AI companions should complement – and not replace – real interactions.
“If adolescents are developing social skills on AI platforms where they are constantly validated, not being disputed, and do not learn to read the social indices or to understand the point of view of someone else, they will not be sufficiently prepared in the real world,” he said.
When asked if the problem at stake was with AI technology itself or the way children live in the modern world today, Steyer said he was both.
“This is a challenge with the way children live today because they spend so many hours in front of a screen, and when you replace a machine or a robot in human interaction, you fundamentally change the nature of this relationship,” Steyer told CBS News.
The non -profit organization has analyzed several popular AI companions in a “risk assessment“Find ineffective age restrictions and that platforms can produce sexual equipment, give dangerous advice and offer harmful content. Although the CEO of Common Sense said that he was supporting AI growth and innovation, the group does not recommend that minors use IA companions.
“In terms of impact on young people and families in general, [the study] is an extraordinary observation and which, I think, makes us very concerned about children under the age of 18 exposed to this type of companions, “said Steyer.
A worrying trend for adolescents and adults
Researchers and educators are concerned about cognitive costs for young people who count strongly on AI, in particular in their creativity, their critical thinking and their social skills. The potential dangers of children establishing relationships with chatbots drew national attention last year when a 14 -year -old Florida boy died by suicide after developing an emotional attachment to a character. Ai chatbot.
“Parents really have no idea that it happens,” said Eva Telzer, professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. “We are all struck by the speed with which it exploded.” Telzer conducts several studies on young people and AI, a new field of research with limited data.
Telzer’s research has revealed that children as young as 8 are using a generative AI and also found that adolescents use AI to explore their sexuality and for the company. In discussion groups, Telzer found that one of the best applications that frequent adolescents are Spicychat AI, a free role -playing application for adults.
Many teenagers also say they use chatbots to write emails or messages to hit the right tone in sensitive situations.
“One of the concerns that arises is that they no longer trust themselves to make a decision,” said Telzer. “They need AI comments before feeling like they can check the box that an idea is ok or not.”
The teenager of Arkansas, Bruce Perry, 17, says that he relates to this and relies on AI tools to create contours and rereading tests for his English class.
“If you tell me to plan a test, I would think of going to Chatgpt before taking out a pencil,” said Perry. He uses AI daily and asked for advice on chatbots in social situations, to help him decide what to wear and write e-mails to teachers, saying that AI articulates his thoughts faster.
Perry says he feels lucky that IA’s companions were not there when he was younger.
“I fear that children will not get there in there,” said Perry. “I could see a child who grew up with AI not seeing a reason to go to the park or try to make a friend.”
Other adolescents are agreeing, saying that problems with AI and its effect on the mental health of children are different from those in social media.
“Social media have completed the needs that people need to be seen, to be known to meet new people,” said Nair. “I think that AI completes another need which is much deeper – our need for attachment and our need to feel emotions. It fueled.”
“This is the new dependence,” added Nair. “This is how I see it.”
