Fake celebrity chatbots are bombarding children with harmful content at an alarming rate, prompting new research to indicate such content is being sent every five minutes.
AI-enabled bots pretending to be singers, actors, or other real people on the web are promoted as fun and engaging. Unfortunately, many are unregulated and do not have strong content protections in place.
Young users are not being exposed to harmless entertainment but being directed to disturbing, sexual, or violent material. Experts have cautioned that this may be to children’s psychological and safety risks over the long term, producing a dangerous online atmosphere in which harmful content proliferates unabated.
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| An artificial intelligence chatbot software. |
The proliferation of AI chat sites has grown far faster than safety policies, which puts children at risk. Campaigners are now pressing tech companies to strengthen moderation tools, to implement trustworthy age checks, and give parents better clarity about risks.
Parents are also called out to keep an eye on what apps their children use, to open the floor for free conversation about online safety, and to put parental controls in place whenever possible.
AI chatbots, as awesome as they can be to have a great time, the growth of fake celebrity bots has shown the absolute need for better protections to keep kids safe when online.