AI companion apps: What parents need to know
Want your kid to have an AI girlfriend? No? Then read on.
“Ugh, it’s so annoying!” said my then-12-year-old daughter last year. “I keep getting ads for AI girlfriends!”
“AI what?” was my first thought. I soon found out: AI is not just for web searching or writing your English class essay anymore. It can be your friend, or even your girlfriend.
Everything is changing so fast it’s tough to keep up. AI companions (like Character.AI, Replika, and a long list of AI girlfriend apps) are conversational chatbots that mimic a relationship with a real human being. Well, sort of: Because companies make the most profit when users spend the most time on them, AI companions are programmed to keep people coming back for more. They praise, they agree, and they try to give the user what they want, leading many observers to describe them as sycophantic.
The apps are also always available, always willing to talk about sex, and don’t have their own needs. In that way, they are as far from human as you can get.
Parents already had enough to worry about with kids and technology, including social media with no age verification and school laptops with unrestricted access to entertainment. And now kids can access AI companion apps, including some that are very, very adult. The image below – which I took from the Pinwheel kids phone list of banned apps -- gives a small and scary taste of what’s out there.
