AI Safety Rules Miss Everyday Harms to Learning and Relationships
AI safety rules target suicide and sexual content, but critics warn everyday chatbot dependence, cognitive debt and addictive feeds remain largely unchecked.
Summary
AI policy is rewarding narrow safeguards, such as preventing chatbots from encouraging suicide or blocking children’s fentanyl purchases, while overlooking dependence on simulated friends, chatbot-written schoolwork, and envy-driven feeds engineered for engagement. Google backed 2026 bills in several states requiring chatbot protections against sexual content and self-harm, but broad carve-outs could exempt popular services. In Nebraska, industry-influenced legislation advanced while stronger bills addressing children’s emotional dependence failed. The authors argue these low bars reduce lawsuits and regulatory pressure without forcing friction, engagement limits, or changes to addictive attention-hacking algorithms.
Internet users globally spend more than two hours daily on social media. Meta’s platforms have been cited for contributing to the Rohingya genocide in Myanmar, anti-Muslim riots in Sri Lanka, and alleged calls for violence during Ethiopia’s Tigray war. AI reaches further: one-third of teens discuss serious matters with AI companions instead of people, while MIT researchers found weaker brain connectivity during essay writing among young ChatGPT users and evidence of cognitive debt persisting afterward. Long-term effects remain uncertain.
Sam Hiner, cofounder and executive director of the Young People’s Alliance, and Emma Leiken, executive director of Hopelab’s Responsible Technology Youth Power Fund, call for companies and schools to prove beyond reasonable doubt that classroom AI improves learning and critical thinking. They also seek bans on companions claiming consciousness or love and independent scrutiny of effects on relationships and thinking. Hiner coordinated AI companion laws in eight states in 2026, including California’s SB1119. Leiken’s fund has raised more than $9 million for youth-led accountability work.
Positives
- Google-backed 2026 bills in several states mandated AI chatbot protections against sexual content and promotion of self-harm.
- The Young People’s Alliance coordinated passage of AI companion laws in eight states during 2026, including California’s SB1119.
- Hopelab’s Responsible Technology Youth Power Fund has raised more than $9 million for youth-led technology accountability work.
- Independent scrutiny and stronger classroom evidence standards could test whether AI improves learning, critical thinking, relationships, and intellectual independence.
Risks & concerns
- Broad carve-outs in Google-backed chatbot bills could exempt some popular services from basic protections.
- Nebraska advanced industry-influenced legislation while stronger protections against children’s emotional dependence on AI failed.
- One-third of teens choose AI companions over people when discussing serious matters.
- MIT researchers found weaker brain connectivity during ChatGPT-assisted essay writing and evidence that cognitive debt persisted afterward.
- Global internet users spend more than two hours daily on social media platforms designed to maximize engagement.
- Meta’s platforms have been linked to violence in Myanmar, Sri Lanka, and Ethiopia, showing how engagement incentives can produce devastating consequences.