Protecting kids from chatbots

Monica Hinderer joins Doug discussing the impact of chatbots on children. They share the importance of children using their imagination but point to the danger of chatbots due to the difficulty in differentiating between an online program and a real person.

Monica speaks to the underlying problem of loneliness in our culture and the anecdote of giving our children real life experiences of feeling loved and wanted. Chatbots are a tool and not a substitute for human connection.

Listener questions and comments:

• John - I have three kids and the youngest is 19. I didn't allow them to have phones until high school.  It's still problematic and hard to control what they see.  I'm in tech, and they still found their way.
• Chris - My wife and I argue a lot in front of the kids. How do you deal with kids who see mom and dad arguing?
• Blaine - Positive uses of AI chatbots: I use this at work to prepare technical reports for everything from helping me simplify a paragraph or pointing it to a website.
• Teresa - We know that AI is artificial, godless and in competition with God. Maybe the Amish have it right.