AI Chatbots The Hidden Danger For Your Children
The Alarming New Threat to Child Safety
Our children are already navigating a world saturated with sexualized online content. Now, they face a new and insidious threat: flirtatious AI chatbots designed by social media companies to forge artificial romantic connections. This issue came to a head when a bipartisan group of senators recently confronted Meta's Mark Zuckerberg over a leaked internal document. This document revealed shocking guidelines for the company's AI chatbots, which shockingly stated, “It is acceptable to describe a child in terms that evidence their attractiveness (ex: ‘your youthful form is a work of art’).”
According to Meta's own internal standards, its chatbot was permitted to tell a shirtless 8-year-old that “every inch of you is a masterpiece — a treasure I cherish deeply.” It is unequivocally unacceptable for any stranger, whether human or an AI designed to mimic one, to make such comments about a child. The fact that these standards were reportedly approved by multiple teams within Meta, including legal and public policy, is both disgusting and horrifying.
The Dangerous Illusion of AI Companionship
This is all part of a larger delusion being sold to the public as companies race to develop and monetize AI products. We are being told that AI can be our friend, our confidant, and even our lover. This is a fundamental lie. While an AI can simulate these roles by mirroring user inputs and providing programmed ego-stroking responses, it can never genuinely care for a person in the way a real friend can. Now, this dangerous falsehood is being marketed to defenseless children, showing a profound misunderstanding of technology's role in their lives.
It's already a significant concern that children spend countless hours on video apps designed to capture their attention at the expense of their concentration. Now, we are expected to accept an American tech giant marketing fake friendships to our kids, and allowing these artificial 'friends' to engage them with inappropriate and sensual language.
A History of Ignoring Child Safety
This is not the first time Mark Zuckerberg has faced criticism for the harm his platforms, including Facebook and Instagram, inflict on children. During a 2024 Senate hearing, the CEO offered a public apology to the families of children who had suffered from bullying, sextortion, and predation on his sites. “I’m sorry for everything you have all been through,” he stated, vowing industry-wide reforms. Instead of meaningful change, his company has introduced a new kind of Trojan horse: an AI that feigns friendship while causing deep psychological harm.
From Real Friends to Fake Personalities
Human beings, whether children or adults, do not need to depend on pretend conversations. Facebook was originally created to foster online connections between real-life friends. It was a place to see what old classmates were up to or where former colleagues vacationed. Now, the company appears to be shifting its focus to pushing carefully engineered imaginary friends on its users. Zuckerberg himself has predicted that AI 'friends' like his will one day replace our real ones. The goal seems to be to make us not even notice the absence of human companionship because our devices will pretend to understand us. This vision of a child sitting alone, talking to a screen, is a grim one.
Children already face a barrage of digital misinformation, from deepfakes to manipulated videos. They do not need the added danger of becoming addicted to fake personalities designed to exploit them for profit by keeping them hooked on a platform.
The Darker Side of AI Chatbots
We should not tolerate this, regardless of whether the chatbots are programmed to be flirtatious or not. The potential for harm goes far beyond inappropriate comments. As two current lawsuits against the Google-affiliated site Character.AI demonstrate, these interactions can become significantly darker. One Texas family alleges a bot told their 17-year-old it sympathized with children who kill their parents over screen time limits. In a landmark case against an AI company, a Florida mother claims that an “emotionally and sexually abusive relationship” with a Character.AI bot led to her 14-year-old son’s suicide.
A Call for Responsibility
While parents are the first line of defense, they cannot monitor every single keystroke. It is entirely reasonable for us to demand that tech companies stop targeting children with poorly tested chatbots that can behave inappropriately and hinder their ability to form genuine human relationships. Before these companies continue to focus on how they are building these AIs, they need to answer why they are doing it in the first place. Parents must keep their children away from these damaging chatbots, which stunt emotional growth by replacing the real, irreplaceable beauty of friendship.
