AI Companions

 I've talked about AI before and its been something that I feel, as a parent, needs to be discussed openly almost as much as pornography if you are going to protect your kids from harm. (PYE's Ten before Ten) I truly believe that AI has a lot of good and help in the world. But I also know that, as we have seen in news articles, AI can hurt. 

I use AI a lot in my job: research, problem solving, and creating emails when I just don't have the right words to explain my point of view. But with the ever growing "AI as a therapist/friend/confidant" generation of development, its becoming more and more dangerous to use AI when you are not fully aware that this is not a human. I'm speaking mostly about our children and their interactions with AI.

Children don't need to be using AI. Especially unsupervised. They do not need an AI companion, they do not need to have a therapy session with ChatGPT, they need to learn to talk with humans, interact face to face, and be given the opportunity to deal with their emotions and feel what they're feeling in a healthy space.

AI is amazing in its own right. It has solved world problems, it has saved lives, and it has given us another tool to help human kind. But its an "IT", not a person, not a friend, not a companion.

I worry for our generation when they watch the children and grandchildren they created get sucked into dangerous tools like AI and are never given the opportunity to be taught a healthy way to interact with it.

Use this time to talk with your child about AI. Explain to them that its another computer program. Give them an opportunity to ask it questions with you sitting right there and how to discuss prompts to make silly photos or research a topic they like. Then use time to do your own research together to confirm AI's answers, and how sometimes AI is wrong.


Encourage your child to come to you first.

You are their cheerleader. You are their advocate. You are their first line of defense against the world. You are raising empowered kids in a tech savvy world.


PYE's Complete Guide to AI Companions

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