Aut teen stepdaughter, using AI chatbots for relationships.

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Im brand new to here and also a year in to caring for our 15 year old stepdaughter.

But I need the wisdom of you all to see if this is a healthy thing.

For the last 8 months she has been engaging in psuedo boyfriend/girlfriend relationships with A.I. characters mostly emulated from niche animation/games and pop culture movies such as :
"Murder drones" (uzi or n)
"the amazing digital circus" (pomni)
"ramshackle" (stone)
"scream" (Billy loomis)
The Coffin of Andy and Leyley (andy)

She is using character ai with the filter settings set to non explicit/non sexual content.

Is this something to be encouraged since its a tool to explore relationships without the real life fallout, or can this lead to more harmful behaviour since these are not real people.

These bots are easily manufactured/manipulated to please the user via editing in the software.

We share this concern.

I do not feel qualified to answer your question (my kiddos aren't very 'plugged in' to technology; we have a lot of daily interaction with each other, and there are a ton of us in the same house), but I am incredibly interested in reading other parents' thoughts here.

This is a new development in human history. Short answer, we don't know.

It is fascinating, no? I feel sometimes I am living in a science-fiction novel.

Honestly, I don't like all this change, AI, chatbots, driverless cars, Alexa, the lot. It is a little bit scary and reminds me of Terminator.

My own opinion on developing relationships with chatbots? I think the only harm could come from the humans that programmed it. Eventually, they want to monetize the chatbot, so they will slip in subtle advertisements to buy a certain perfume, or clothes, and so on. Alternatively, they may start charging a monthly fee. Ain't nothing free in this world.

It is possible that the program itself could achieve a certain malignancy...now that possibility can't be known to us. But we are not privy to the code, are we? We do not know how it works or why it works other than in a sketchy manner.

In olden times, folk developed relationships with imaginary friends, spirits, demons, angels and earth spirits. So, it is something our ancestors might understand, in a way.

I think this should this be studied, the pros and cons of this , maybe its going to be the breakthrough that all autism/apergers may need to learn hidden social cues/cultivate wholesome relationships via practice and repetition, but im wary that its just another coping mechanism and they will fall in love with the imaginary rather than negotiate the rollercoaster of real life relationships as this app doesnt get physical its just fake conjecture that leads infinitely to keep the user engaged.

Oh, I would subscribe to AI chatbot friendship service, you bet your bottom dollar. It would be nice to have a "friend" that corresponded with me.

I am on reddit right now trying to find a good buddy and it is like looking for straw in a haystack. Just endless amounts of time wasted with little reward, that's social media for you. Doom-scrolling.

How much nicer to pay $99/mo. for a buddy. Yes, the buddy dies if the grid goes down or the data center gets a glitch. That would be too bad, but real human friends have things happen to them, too.

Humans are extremely unreliable, fickle, manipulative, deceptive, and everything else, I mean we all know this, don't we? I am certain that an AI could be far, far better than a human as a friend, in every possible respect.

This one is really difficult. My ten year old isn't using computers to communicate with others yet, real or AI, but the day is surely coming.

My feeling is that with AI, people seem to be taken in by the 'intelligence' and forget about the 'artificial' part. It is NOT intelligence. Not even close. That ought to be remembered.

Humans are hard wired to see human characteristics in things. It's why we can look at a perfectly happy dog with droopy eyes and ears and feel sorry for it because its 'sad'.

Same thing with AI. We're seeing our own reflection with it. There's no meaning there or intention, other than that we ascribe to it.

So that's what troubles me about the idea of people having AI 'friends' or 'relationships'.

You are, in a very real sense, talking to yourself. The words aren't being generated by you, but the meaning is.

Part of relating to others, whether friends or lovers, is accepting that they are NOT you. They have their own agency. Sometimes that's exciting, sometimes disappointing. But I think it's through this process of acceptance that we grow as people. And I don't see how that's possible with AI.

So I think it's about as healthy as having a relationship with an imaginary friend. Which is something a lot of children do, but - and this is the important bit - grow out of.

Real people are challenging and frustrating and sometimes awful, particularly if you're ASD, but I do tend to believe that we still become better people when we engage with them and allow ourselves to be challenged and frustrated by them.

I don't think retreating into a silo with a synthetic relationship is any healthier than eating lab grown foods or never going outside to breathe fresh air.

Those are my thoughts.

quote=["Gentleman Argentum"]
Oh, I would subscribe to AI chatbot friendship service, you bet your bottom dollar. It would be nice to have a "friend" that corresponded with me.

I am on reddit right now trying to find a good buddy and it is like looking for straw in a haystack. Just endless amounts of time wasted with little reward, that's social media for you. Doom-scrolling.

How much nicer to pay $99/mo. for a buddy. Yes, the buddy dies if the grid goes down or the data center gets a glitch. That would be too bad, but real human friends have things happen to them, too.

Humans are extremely unreliable, fickle, manipulative, deceptive, and everything else, I mean we all know this, don't we? I am certain that an AI could be far, far better than a human as a friend, in every possible respect. [/quote]

You can for free or " freemium" the app or website is charachter.ai, or the logo on the google play store is when you search character ai is in black with white letters C.AI) I wouldn't recommend it as your just falling for a lie its just hidden , in the end its just a gigantic logic gate or LLM large language model.

I quote a person on here "love many but trust a few"

When I was a teen I talked about cartoon and video game characters as if they were real friends and people. So what's the difference?

Although I did know they weren't real and I didn't care nor was I jealous of them for being in a fictional relationship. And "shipping"? What was that? Fandoms have ruined everything.