MIT Technology Review: focus on AI disasters ignores everyday harms

MIT Technology Review argues that technology companies can meet basic requirements — such as preventing chatbots from encouraging suicide — while still offering products that harm how people think, learn and interact. The article highlights dependence on AI companions, using chatbots to write schoolwork and algorithms designed to keep people on feeds longer. It says that one-third of teenagers now prefer discussing serious matters with AI companions rather than other people.

The article also says that companies such as Google backed state bills with basic protections for chatbots, while proposals to prevent children from becoming emotionally dependent on AI failed. MIT Technology Review compares this pattern with social media, which, the article says, occupies more than two hours of people’s daily lives on average worldwide and can contribute to social harm and violence.