Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / Help! My Child is Dating a Flirty AI Chatbot!

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Help! My Child is Dating a Flirty AI Chatbot! · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hello, this is the Happy Families podcast, so glad to
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: have you along for another week. Monday morning, and here
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: we go with some news that every parent needs to know,
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: but it could be challenging to hear right now. Today tonight,
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: there are going to be Australian teenagers who are in
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: their bedrooms having very romantic and explicit conversations, not with
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: another teenager, which we'd probably worry about but be okay
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: with so long as they're talking to us as well.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: They're going to be having these conversations with an aichatbot
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: that's been designed to flirt back, to escalate, and to
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: never say no. The apps call themselves Free, Private and Unrestricted.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: Today the three apps every parent needs to know by name,
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: why your kids are drawn to them, and what to
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: actually do about it without losing your mind or your
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: relationship with your child. Stay with us, that's next. Hello,
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: Welcome to The Happy Family's podcast, Real Parenting Solutions every Day.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: It's Australia's most downloaded parenting podcast. We are parents of
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: six children. Justin and Kylie Colson Is. Our names are
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: our names? Kylie is our names or our our names?
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: Let's just get on with it. Let's not worry about
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: English grammar. You know where we're going, what we're doing here.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: We've dealt with this sort of stuff with our kids
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: and being online for the duration of our parenting journey.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: We've lived it and continue to live it, and Kylie,
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: it's a stress.
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: I'm trying to work out how as a parent you
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: can stare across everything but not lose your mind with
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: worry over all of the potential dangers that are out there.
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: Because today's conversation just leaves me, as a parent, feeling
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: completely ill equipped and wanting to kind of just hide
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: in a hole. To be honest, I think.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: That explains one of the challenges that I have. So
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: one of my most commonly requested presentations at schools is
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: my tweens, teens and Screens presentation. Everyone's like, we need this,
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: the parents need it, the kids aren't doing well, the
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: kids are doing all the wrong stuff online. Like the teachers,
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: the principles, the well being officers, the counselors, the psychologists,
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: They're clamoring for me to do it. But every time
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: I'm asked to do it, it's the least well attended,
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: And I think it's because parents feel the way you
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: feel they're like either A the kids will be fine,
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: it's not that bad, or B how am I supposed
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: to stay on top of this? It's all just too much.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: So today's conversations about AI, we've been talking about it
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: a fair bit on the pod lately. Let's crack on
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: because there's some new apps on the market that the
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: kids have discovered already that are not good for them.
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: Twenty percent of twelve to sixteen year old boys in
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: the UK know someone their age who's dating an AI chatbot,
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: and more than half say those relationships are easier than
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: human ones because they can control the conversation.
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: So what are these apps we're talking about? How bad
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: is it?
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: The first one is called polly Buzz, another one's called Talkie,
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: and the other one's called Linky, and they are just
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: surging in popularity. Even the names right like Polybus, TALKI, Linky.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: They sound so nice, they sound so innocent, they sound
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: so easy to slide into. I would say, based on
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: what I've read, Pollybuzz is probably the worst offender. They're
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: marketed as companions and role play apps. Here's what I
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: would call it. I would call it functionally pornographic, especially
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: if you've got a child who's at any age, but
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: for a kid who's north of ten or eleven, they're
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: going to be able to have conversations with it that
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: I'm worried about.
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  Speaker 2: What about age gating? I mean, don't we have legislation
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: to protect against this kind of access for children?
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: Yes? But no. And here's what I mean. So the
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: legislation that came in in I think it was March
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: this year about keeping kids off pornography is specifically oriented
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: or aimed at sites that promote pornographic content, sites that
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: have videos and imagery and content that is explicitly and
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  Speaker 1: absolutely unquestionably pornographic. The age gate with these AI apps
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: is it's just a charade. It's theater. It's what age
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: gating has been for. Have a long until our new legislation.
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  Speaker 1: Because if you can tick a box or typing your
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: birth date, make up a birthdate, whatever, nobody's checking. It's
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  Speaker 1: like it's like your twelve year old going to the
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: bottle shop and there's somebody behind the cannon that says
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: are you eighteen? And then says, yeah, of course I am,
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  Speaker 1: And they say, well you're can have whatever you want.
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  Speaker 1: So the age gate laws that we've got in the
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  Speaker 1: country are fine for pornography, although they're not doing the
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  Speaker 1: perfect job. There's a lot of gaps, but it doesn't
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  Speaker 1: cover this kind of content.
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  Speaker 2: So this sounds like, while not necessarily images are being sent,
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  Speaker 2: essentially this is sexting like this, this is where it leads.
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a really great way of saying it. I
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: would say pornography is content that is consumed, it's watched,
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: it's it's viewed. What the companion bots are are I
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: don't want to use the word relationship. It just feels
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: like because it's not a relationship. It's not it's a
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: bot for goodness sakes, But let me use the word anyway,
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: because it probably conveys it better than anything else. The
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: companion bots are a relationship that is going to respond
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: to your child, remember what your child has said, flatter
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: your child, escalate the things that your child is sharing.
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: It's it's interactive, whereas pornography is not. Well, I guess
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: what do you call only fans is interactive. But this
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  Speaker 1: is at a totally different level. It's personalized. It's available
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: at two o'clock in the morning.
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  Speaker 2: One of the biggest challenge we have is that our
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: kids are curious. They want to understanding, right, so to
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: have a place where they could go and ask all
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: of their bigger questions that feel scary to ask an adult.
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: Not even asking the questions get into a conversation. So
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: you've got the you've got the dope mean loop of
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: the explicit content, but you've also got the attachment loop
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: of the relationship. Even though it's with a bot, those
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: two things are working together and it creates this awful tension.
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: And that's why Teen's drawn in right. Vulnerability is curiosity.
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to be rejected because it's a bot.
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: So well that nothing I say is wrong.
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: Total control, secrecy, like the privacy around this. Yeah, and
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: I think the thing that I'm most concerned about is
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: the relationship aspect. Like the bot apps like it knows me.
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: If you jump on a chat GBT or claude, you
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: can put an idea in or ask a question and
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: it'll come back at you with something like this is
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: so you or I can tell how much this means
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  Speaker 1: to you, And it's like, no, you can't, You're a bot.
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: You're not feeling anything you have. It infuriates me.
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: I know, as I've been going through this weight loss
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: journey and fitness and health, and as I've used Claude
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: to help me navigate my food selections, or it will
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: say to me, Kylie, you know you've spent the last
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: four months building you know, a really solid foundation.
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: It's so supportive, right, yeah.
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: And it remembers the things I said to it in January.
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: We're now in August. It's better than any friend I've got. Like,
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: you don't remember what I told you yesterday?
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: You said that You're right though, And I think the
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: other thing is like we've got the data that shows
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: up more and more of our kids are lonely, higher
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: numbers of loneliness amongst our adolescents than ever before. And
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: so in fact, we talked about it with Elizabeth Dunn
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: from British Columbia University Vancouver just the other day of
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: the pod ai companions and loneliness. All of the data
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  Speaker 1: says that our kids are using ai bots more than ever.
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: So we need to talk about what to do about it.
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: That's next stay with us. It's the Happy Family's podcast.
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: Let's talk about the conversation we need to be having
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: with our kids because this is pretty scary.
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  Speaker 1: We just have to have so many conversations with our
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: kids all the time, like seriously, and I feel like
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: this podcast.
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: So I'm back to my original thing.
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: I know, all right, before the conversation, let's just get
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: really clear, we're not going to confiscate anything. We don't
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: want to do that if our child. This is the
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: bit that is really hard, right as a parent, you
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: might not even know that it's happening. Your kids can
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: be on their screen, they're on their phone, they're on
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: their iPad, they're on the computer, and they're having these conversations,
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: these chats and you literally could not know that it's happening.
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: That's the hardest thing. So if your opener is I'm angry,
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: or if there's any rage or hostility or anything like that,
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: then your child is going it's going to go underground.
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: First step got to build trust. And the way you
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: build trust is we do this with our kids all
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: the time. We'll actually say to them before we even
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: have this conversation, kiddo, quick refresher, is what is trust?
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  Speaker 1: And we get them to give us the definition. Trust
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: means you believe the other person has your best interest
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: at heart. And the kid saying that to us because
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: they know what's coming next. We say to them, do
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  Speaker 1: you trust me? Do you believe that we have your
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: best interest at heart? And we're really big on emphasizing
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: there are eight billion people on this planet. There is
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: nobody on this planet that has your best interest at
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: heart like we do. Your grandparents, your siblings, nobody, nobody
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  Speaker 1: has your best interests at heart like we do. We
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: love you absolutely, and that's why this conversation matters. Do
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: you trust us? Can we have a conversation where you
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: know that we're trying to be helpful? So that's where
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: I'd be starting.
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm going to push back a little bit on that.
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  Speaker 2: I think that while that is a really important foundation
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: to the conversation, what I've actually found has been really
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: helpful as we've had to have some really tricky conversations
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: with the children, even just lately, is having a couple
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: of really positive conversations with them about tricky things, but
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: not so tricky that they're going to be feeling attacked.
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: You can actually have success in a conversation that is
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: a little bit tricky, but they're going to feel good
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: because they feel hurt and you've been able to work
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: with them on something.
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  Speaker 1: So that's another way of building trust. That's another way
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: of saying, hey, there's trust in this relationship, let's continue
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: the good vibes.
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's really important that you actually go
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: through the motions of having some conversations that are big conversations,
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: but they don't feel so tricky in that moment because
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: you've already you've demonstrated with the easy stuff that we
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: can have good conversations and then move into a slightly
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: trickier conversation. You've kind of built trust in the moment
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: as opposed to we've got a good relationship, this is
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: going to be fine. But whenever you start a conversation
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: with do.
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: You trust me?
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: This is going to be heavy. So I've already got
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: your hecklels up.
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: I'm thinking about three or four big conversations we've had
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: to have with our kids in the last six months
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: or so, and to me, this is a big conversation.
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  Speaker 1: It's huge because we're asking our children to develop a
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: limit around what they do online, knowing that they really
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: have to integrate. They have to identify the value of
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: it and integrate it themselves. We cannot always follow them
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: up here. So let's step into the next part of
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: the conversation, however you broach it. You want to step
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: into the conversation next by saying, at a general level,
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: what do you know about AI companions? There's a good
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: chance that your kids' friends will be using them, even
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: if your kids aren't, there's some chance that your kids
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: might be. And then just why do you think that
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: other people are using them? What do you think the
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: appeal is? And then eventually the key question, what does
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: the bot give people that feels good? Because those answers
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: around feeling wanted, feeling like you're an interesting person, satisfying curiosity,
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: those kinds of thing, they're the stuff that we really
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: want to be honing in on. Then you get to
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: move into the what these apps are really doing is
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: they are They're harvesting your need for connection, They're harvesting praying,
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: They're preying on Yournif your harvesting praying on on loneliness,
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: they're taking advantage. And I would actually be saying to
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: our kids, if you have rich, warm, real relationships in
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: the real world, then you're going to have a lot
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: less need for a synthetic one online. In fact, the
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: synthetic one is going to feel a little bit icky
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: and gross, and it just it'sn't going to even compute
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: in your head that it would be valuable to you.
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: It's interesting as you say that, I think about how
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: all of our friends and likes and shares on social
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: media has kind of been the platform of inauthentic connection, right,
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: that has led to this acceptance that a bot would replace.
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: It's an important point.
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: You know, a genuine friend, You've talked us through how
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: we could open up and have a dialogue with our child.
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: Are there any other practical things we can do as
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: parents to kind of navigate this.
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but it's kind of the stuff that makes a
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: parents shoulders sag and they.
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: I just noticed yours did literally shag as you said that.
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: Well, you asked the question because it's the stuff like
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: we need to be across what the kids are doing.
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: We've got to be monitoring. There's a Doctor's Desk episode
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: coming up in a few weeks that I can't wait
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: to get to. There's a study that's been done that
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: says it's not about parental knowledge, like your kid's doing, well,
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: it's not about what you know, it's about what they disclose.
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: So you need to do the knowledge stuff. You've got
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: to have the filters. You want to make sure you
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: keep smartphones out of the room at night, and other
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: tablets and devices out of the room at night and
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: out of the bathrooms. You want to have some sort
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: of a really firm family tech agreement with AI companions
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: explicitly named. They're all the things that we hear about
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: all the time, having software filters and hardware stoppages wherever
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: we can. But ultimately, this is not about what we
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: do so much is what the kids are willing to
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: disclose to us, Which brings me back to the question
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: of trust and whether you're establishing a conversation about trust
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: by explicitly stating trust is X like we mentioned before,
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: or you're stepping into it softly like you did by
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: just showing that you are trustworthy. The kids need to
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: feel safe being able to tell you stuff. If they
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: feel like they're going to get in trouble, if they
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: feel like they're going to have something confiscated, that's when
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: things go south. We need to have a relationship where
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: disclosure is the norm, because the kids want to bring
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: us in because they're confused or curious about something you touched.
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: On this before, but I think it's really important to
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: reiterate the idea with our children that a bot is
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: not a who. A bot is a what. And the
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: idea that's.
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: Such a good line. A bot is not a who,
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: it's a what.
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: I use Claude, like I said in my in My
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: Health journey.
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: You talk about Lord like Claude is a who, not
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: a what.
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: Well, he's a he. It's his name, claud.
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: So it is not a he. It has a male name,
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: but it is a bot.
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: But I have to keep reminding myself in my speech.
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: I know that he's not real, but I talk about
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: him as genderd.
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it as gendered. And so the conversation with our
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: kids is these bots, let's get good relationships outside of
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: the home.
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: And if you're feeling lonely, let's let's put a plan together.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, we really hope there's been a helpful conversation. Please, please,
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: please don't make the mistake that so many parents make
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: and think the kids are okay and leave them unsupervised
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: and avoid the conversations. And if I'm coming to your
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: school and doing a talk on tweens, teens and screens,
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: yeah show up, like, don't roll your eysing. I don't
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: know what you do. Need to hurry all right? This week,
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: We've got a whole lot of really cool stuff on
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: the on the pod tomorrow how to manage kids squabbles,
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: but Donna King has a brand new book coming out
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: that you definitely need to know about, and our Doctor's
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: Desk episodes this week are going to blow your mind.
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: Join us all this week for more episodes of the
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: Happy Families podcast. Audio production by Justin rolland from media
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: Admin and other assistance from Mimhammond's and if you'd like
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: more info to make your family happier, Happy families dot
• 16:07
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