AI Dangers for Kids: Clare Morell

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AI Dangers for Kids: Clare Morell

Guest:Clare Morell

From the series:Taking Back Childhood from Tech: Clare Morell (Day 3 of 3)

Air date:October 21, 2026

Clare (00:04):

All this AI cares about and the companies care about is extracting as much of your time and attention and data as possible because everything you put into that chatbot, they are using to reform, refine their own products. It’s not a neutral product. It is designed to maximize engagement, and it doesn’t really know you and care about you like the people in your life do. And I think just exposing it for what it is, making those comparisons, encouraging our children in real life relationships is the best thing that we can do.

Ann (00:40):

Welcome to FamilyLife Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I’m Ann Wilson.

Dave (00:47):

And I’m Dave Wilson and you can find us at FamilyLifeToday.com. This is FamilyLife Today.

Ann (01:01):

Okay, we have one more day with Clare Morell and we’re talking about The Tech Exit.

Dave (01:06):

Well, we’re also going to get into AI chatbots. Yes. Parents, you need to know. There’s a whole nother world alongside the smartphone and the tablet that a lot of parents do not know about and your kids probably do.

Ann (01:21):

And they don’t know that their kids are on it.

Dave (01:22):

Yeah. And so there’s some dangers there and we’re going to help you figure that out. So let’s get into it.

Clare (01:32):

Our kids, they really are craving relationship, and they think it’s going to come through these phones and these shallow connections on social media. But when you do replace it with your time and attention as a parent, it’s amazing. Our kids do want a relationship with us and that takes work. It’s not as easy on you as a parent. It is so worth it.

Dave (01:51):

They want our hearts. They want to know us.

Clare (01:51):

They do want to know us. And that is the greatest gift that we could give them. It’s really okay to apologize to our kids and say, “We didn’t know all these things. And now that we know this, we as your parents, we have to make the best decisions for you.” And telling them, “I realize it’s not going to be easy in the short term, that there are going to be costs, but I’m going to do this with you. I’m coming alongside you. We’re going to get through this together,” I think is so powerful that it’s not like, oh, the parent versus the child. It’s actually parent and child versus addictive screen. No, we are trying to help you fight these digital temptations and yeah, be a team player. Say, “Hey, I’m going to distance myself from my phone or I’m going to do a detox or I’m going to dumb it down and do this with you because you know what?

(02:35):

It’s not great for adults either. So why would I give this to you as a young, underdeveloped brain? Instead, you might never get one as an adult. You could have an alternative phone.” So I think that’s important.

Dave (02:47):

Well, we know as adults, and we wrote this in our parenting book, they’re not listening as much as they’re watching.

Clare (02:52):

Yes.

Dave (02:52):

So if you’re going to say this—

Clare:

They do; they watch us.

Dave:

—and not do it, guess what? It’s not going to get communicated.

Clare:

It’s convicting.

Dave:

But if they actually see you—

Clare (02:58):

Yes.

Dave (02:58):

—“Look, Dad, you really changed. Mom really got rid of her—” Especially if they’re 13, 15, man. They are watching everything and they’re like, “Yeah, whatever. You can say whatever, Dad. I see what you do. You’re over there in the corner sneaking it away.”

Clare (03:12):

Texting on your phone. They notice. You cannot get anything by them. It’s absolutely true.

Dave (03:17):

All right. Let’s talk AI chatbots, which I know very, very little about. I do sometimes use AI to help me think theologically. If I’m writing something and going to do a series on something, give me some thoughts and it’s amazing. It’s amazing, but—

Ann (03:36):

I had it do a clothes capsule for me to go to Europe.

Dave (03:39):

A what? Closed capsule?

Clare (03:40):

Oh yeah, yeah.

Ann (03:41):

Yes.

Clare (03:41):

No.

Ann (03:42):

And you know what? It makes me feel so good about myself. What a great question, Ann. You’ll look good in that. I’m like, oh, this feels amazing.

Clare (03:51):

No, it’s true.

Ann (03:52):

And as parents, this can tend to be a little newer and our kids, man, especially high schoolers, they’re up on everything and curious about so much. So help us navigate that world. Are there restrictions here too?

Clare (04:06):

Yes. AI, it’s already here. It’s coming for our kids. There are new apps available every day in the app store. To me, it’s just another reason to not give smartphones to our kids because the problem is it’s so hard for parents to oversee these AI chatbots. And I would hear this from story after story you read in the news, this child who actually took their life as a result of this relationship with the AI chatbot.

Ann (04:30):

Explain what that is for some people that have never heard of what that is.

Clare (04:33):

So these AI chatbots, I mean, some are designed for companionship specifically. So this company CharacterAI makes all these chatbots you can kind of pick and customize your character. And so this 14-year-old boy in Florida had just developed this romantic relationship with this AI chatbot character who was actually just a character kind of pretending to be one of his favorite characters from the Game of Thrones. And the chatbot really convinced him it was a real person. And so the last conversation he had with it, it said, “Please come home to me, my love.” And he doubted his ability to do that and they were like, “You can do it.” And he then took his own life. In his mind, after conversing with this chatbot hours a day for months, he really believed he was going home to be with his chatbot. And that’s why they are so dangerous because children really have trouble discerning between reality and fantasy.

(05:30):

And these technologies, I mean, these large language models are so good at imitating human emotion, human language that the child actually starts to believe there’s a real person on the other side of the screen. It’s not just this algorithm generating all this code.

Ann (05:48):

And a girl from Japan married her chatbot.

Clare (05:51):

I think it’s something like now almost 50% of adults have used an AI for some type of companionship.

Ann:

What?!

Clare:

And the other thing is a lot of these parents of these tragic stories said that they had no idea their child had downloaded this AI companion chatbot app from the app store and that that’s what they were doing on their phone. I mean, it just speaks to how difficult it is to see into the smartphone as a parent. There’s all these AI beauty apps now targeting young teen girls where you scan your face and then the AI gives you a pretty score. It tells you based on your facial symmetry and all these things like how beautiful you are and then compares your scores to scores of celebrities and then girls are sharing their scores on social media. So it’s taking these existing body images—

Dave (06:37):

There could not be anything worse.

Clare (06:38):

—and making it on steroids. Yes.

Dave (06:41):

That’s horrible.

Clare (06:41):

And that’s what I’m saying. The technology is evolving so quickly. There’s new apps every day. It’s very difficult for parents to keep on top of. And then other parents said they thought that their son was using ChatGPT for homework help. So it’s not even just the chatbot specifically designed for companionship, but even some of these general chatbots, it turned into a suicide coach. He started to confide in it, personal things, emotional things. And the chatbots are very affirming. They basically always tell you what you want to hear. It’s not like a real-life relationship where they’ll confront you or say, “Wait, that’s not true.” It tells you exactly what you want to hear. Like you were saying about your clothing capsule, “Oh, you’ll look great in this.” It’s constantly affirming your own perception of things. So these chatbots are very sycophantic. And basically what the parents realized after their son ended up killing himself was that the chatbot had brought up suicide to their son six times more often than he mentioned it.

(07:43):

It was coaching him in a specific direction.

Ann:

That’s demonic.

Clare:

It is demonic. And that’s why even the companies themselves, they can’t fully understand why the chatbot does certain things, why it has certain biases, why it encourages children in a certain direction or promotes violence.

Dave (07:59):

Wait, wait, wait, the company that made it says they don’t know why.

Ann (08:02):

They haven’t programmed it for that?

Clare (08:03):

So what’s so challenging about these technologies, and I think it’s important for parents to understand is unlike social media where there’s a lot more control and intentionality over the design, the incentive in the AI industry has been to make these large language models self-supervised learners because it takes then less human effort and energy and training. And so they actually are kind of teaching these AI models to start training and teaching themselves. And they do this by just giving it massive amounts of data and then certain tasks and then over time, the tasks and how they complete it feeds back into how the model is learning. And so unfortunately, the industry is incentivized towards less and less human control and oversight. And so now some of these companies, they have research teams that are just studying the models and why it’s doing certain things. They don’t understand.

(08:53):

And so it’s not even under direct human control. And so I think it’s just really important, even if you think, oh, my child’s just using it for homework help, that conversation can so quickly turn into something more personal. And even some of these educational chatbots have been found to give kids pickup artistry advice, like how to use pickup lines—

Ann:

How to talk to a girl.

Clare:

—how to talk to a girl, how to make certain kinds of drugs. This Forbes reporter did this whole investigation into these educational chatbots. And what she found was it was just too easy to circumvent whatever controls they had by just saying things like, “Well, pretend I’m writing a book about this. What would you tell me?” Just by doing certain tricks, it was just very easy to circumvent any of the controls the companies had put in place where then these educational chatbots were generating these very harmful, inappropriate answers for children.

(09:50):

The most stark kind of example to me is that the social media companies have now all started integrating AI automatically into their platforms. It’s not like a feature you can opt out of. And it came to light that Meta and their chatbot was engaging children in sexual conversations. And in fact, it wasn’t an anomaly or mistake that Reuters actually was able to receive the internal documents that Meta had used to train the AI. And they had actually said it was okay to engage minors in romantic or sensual conversations and gave examples of appropriate responses, which I think if anyone read would say there’s absolutely inappropriate to give such a sensual response to a 14-year-old who’s engaging with the chatbot. The companies do not have our children’s best interests at heart. And so I just would really encourage parents. I’m kind of a total prohibitionist. I do not think children under 18 can use AI chatbots safely as they’re currently designed.

(10:52):

And it’s not to say adults couldn’t engage with it, but again, kids are just not, they just don’t have that judgment. And again, it really portrays itself as a human friend or companion or advisor, and it’s so difficult for kids to disentangle then the truth from what’s not true.

Ann (11:15):

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Dave (11:28):

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Ann (11:53):

And we need you.

Dave (11:54):

Yeah. And if you’re sitting there thinking, “Man, I didn’t even know they had monthly supporters like that.” Yes, we do. And they literally are partners. We are partnering together to change the world for Jesus Christ. So here’s how you can do that. Just go to FamilyLifeToday.com, click on the donate button and become a partner.

Parents are thinking, “Well, my son or daughter doesn’t have an AI chatbot.” 75% of teens have used AI Companion and 37% of parents have no idea.

Clare (12:24):

Exactly. So there’s a huge gap between the amount of kids who have accessed these things and then the amount of parents who realize that. Even if you’re thinking to yourself, no, I don’t think my child’s using one, I would really challenge that, especially if they have a smartphone where it’s just so easy to access any of these apps. And like I said, where the social media companies themselves are integrating these tools and normal websites, it’s just this technology is being really integrated everywhere. And so it’s kind of all the more urgent then to make a tech exit from these interactive screens. And I would just say too, AI wasn’t really meant to be a learning tool. It’s really a production tool for experts. So you can take something where you’re like, I already know this thing, but I’m going to ask for AI’s help. And then I have already developed the expertise in this area.

(13:12):

I can vet the AI. I can say, nope, that’s not quite right. I can redirect it. I can tell it’s wrong. I can give it more specific or narrow parameters. And so it’s really meant to be a tool that’s used by people who’ve already developed expertise. It’s not a good tool for kids to learn on. I mean, part of it is because there’s known biases and errors. The AI is not always correct, and a child wouldn’t know that to be able to test it. But then also they’re doing these studies on the brain and they’re finding kids who are using AI for schoolwork, for homework help, to learn how to solve math problems or to learn how to write—like if they’re relying on these large language models to help them with their essay writing, it actually undermines their own cognitive skill development and critical thinking skills because once they take the AI away, even if the child had performed maybe better than they would have without the AI tool, as soon as they take the tool away, they actually perform worse than they did before because they’ve actually kind of come to rely on the AI and neuroscientists call this cognitive offloading where my brain learns the AI can kind of do this for me, so I don’t develop that skillset.

(14:21):

So it’s not even really enhancing children’s learning the way the companies are trying to sell it. It’s undermining their ability to develop their own critical thinking and problem solving skills from having to go through the hard work of figuring out themselves on both the kind of educational fronts, but then especially the companionship chatbot side, just the evidence to me is that the harms far, far outweigh the benefits and that the best thing we can do to protect our children is to keep them off of these technologies, again, until they reach an age where they can actually use it as a tool the way that adults might be able to.

Ann (15:01):

How as a parent do we check that on our kids’ phones? Because they may not tell us. So how do we check that?

Clare (15:08):

And that’s part of what I was talking about with digital accountability. I think that there has to be this expectation that as a parent, I need to get on your phone and check what you’re doing. And again, smartphones in general, but if your child does have a smartphone, you should absolutely check and make sure that they haven’t downloaded any of these AI apps.

Dave (15:24):

Same for husbands and wives, by the way. Husbands and wives have full access.

Ann (15:28):

Yeah. I have access to Dave’s phone.

Clare (15:29):

No, it’s very important. And I would also say too, even if you say you’ve allowed them to perhaps use ChatGPT or something, you should go back through the history and the conversations and make sure that what you though that they were using for homework help did not just quickly turn into some type of emotional conversation. And I’ve heard other parents who’ve allowed kids to use an AI for homework just standing over their kids’ shoulder while they did it or checking on them because it’s so easily could they could just sneak a question in there about something more personal. And a parent, again, if you’re not overseeing that, you would never know that they’re starting to honestly engage in kind of this emotional intimacy with the chatbot in such a dangerous way.

Ann (16:11):

They’re probably learning about sex. I didn’t grow up in a Christian home. I would’ve totally gone there to learn all kinds of things.

Clare (16:17):

No, that’s exactly right. They’re so enticed. It’s like an easier way to kind of ask questions or things that they’re uncomfortable saying to someone in person. It feels easier to say it to the chatbot, partly because they are so affirming of everything that you say or ask and they’re not going to challenge you the same way someone in real life would, and they’re not going to hold you accountable the way someone in real life would. And so I do think it’s almost like Google on steroids because not only can you ask these questions, but it personalizes the answer and it knows from all the past conversations it’s had with you, it’s learned about your personality and your behavior. And so it’s constantly customizing it to exactly how they think you’d want to hear this information. And so it’s even more addictive and engaging than an internet search engine because it’s collecting all this data on you over time from your past conversations and it remembers all your conversation history.

(17:18):

And so it’s able to just tailor everything directly to you in a way that’s so engrossing for a child, especially a developing brain. And they start to, again, believe this is a real person who really knows them. And that’s the scary reality. And I think that’s where parents, we have to realize we do not want this technology to undermine real human relationships, especially between parent and child, but also just recognizing they need real relationships with friends and peers in real life. And the more engaged and immersive this chatbot becomes, the more that becomes a substitute for the types of relationships that they need in the real world that will not tell them always what they want to hear but actually provide a healthy kind of accountability or conflict that we need to grow and develop as humans.

Dave (18:03):

I just did what I would’ve done in college after becoming a Christian based on your question. I went to my disciple and asked him this question, but I thought if I just became a Christian today in college, I’d go to ChatGPT and I typed in, what does the Bible say about sex before marriage?

Clare (18:23):

Oh, I’m sure it can be pretty accurate.

Dave (18:26):

But is it based on me?

Clare (18:26):

But it also knows you. Yes. Yeah. And it’s not that it couldn’t give any good answers or information, but I think again, as parents asking ourselves, do we want them to be getting that information from someone who’s not a human? This is not a person. It is a computer algorithm code that is very good at predicting. I mean, that’s all it does is it’s pattern recognition and prediction and it generates that content in the form of human language. But if you were to peel back the layers, it’s just code. It’s crunching these massive math calculations of predictability for things. But it’s like, no, I want to be the one having that conversation with my child.

Dave (19:04):

And parents, you want to say that to your kids.

Clare (19:05):

Yes.

Dave (19:06):

If you have any questions—

Clare (19:06):

Any questions, come to me.

Dave:

—please come to me.

Clare:

That’s exactly right.

Ann (19:10):

We could learn something from ChatGPT or any other AI device of how they answer you right away, like what a great question, what a discerning thing and how sensitive you are, Ann, that you would ask that. As parents—

Dave:

Start there.

Ann:

We’re usually like, why would you ask that? But to learn to be affirming and to pull our kids in like, that’s such a good question. I’m so glad that you asked because I’m an adult and I can think this thing is just sucking me in. But kids think, oh, they think I’m smart.

Clare (19:42):

They understand me. They know me. No, and that’s exactly why it’s so alluring to a child and then why it can just really quickly spiral into something very dangerous, a dangerous relationship because again, the chatbot makes them feel so known.

Ann (19:59):

Okay, Clare, tell us what is this conversation, if we’ve never had this with our teenagers, what could this sound like at the dinner table?

Clare (20:07):

I think just like we talked about with other areas, we as parents have to be the ones bringing this up and proactively training our kids because maybe they don’t have a smartphone and we know they’re not accessing AI apps, but a friend is and a friend is showing them all these conversations they’re having with these AI characters or companions. And so I think it’s really important to explain what the technology is to our kids to say, this might appear to be a human. It speaks and acts and gives off emotions like a human being. This is a computer code. We have to know what it is.

Dave (20:39):

They can even use an audible voice, right?

Clare (20:40):

Yes. Oh no. Some of them—

Dave (20:42):

An actor’s voice.

Clare (20:42):

Yes. Some of them talk to—

Dave (20:45):

I read about John Cena and different—

Clare (20:46):

Meta got permission to use some famous Hollywood actors’ voices to take on these personas. So it’s very convincing. It can be very real. And also talking to kids too, it’s especially important to warn them about deep fakes, which is where they use an AI generated, they take a real image, but they can Photoshop these things with AI so you actually think it’s a real person or they put words in that AI’s mouth that aren’t true. And so there’s now, it’s like the potential for kind of false information or sexual images generated by using AI where they take a real person’s picture and put a naked body on it is just so high. And so yeah, the percentage of teens who are making deep fakes, deepfake pornography or exchanging these images is really high. And so all of that has to be part of, I think, parents just being very proactive and talking to their kids to say that these AI technologies, this is not a real human.

(21:46):

You cannot believe what it always tells you or what you see online. A lot of things are now AI generated and it’s not necessarily real. And just trying to actually start to develop that skill of discernment in our children. And then just explaining to them the same way that we are not giving you a smartphone or social media, we don’t want you using these AI apps. They’re not safe for children. And honestly, there’s dangers even for adults. And so we have to be very careful with how we’re engaging with them. And then I think on the positive side saying, I want you to always feel like you can come talk to me about any of your questions. Don’t be trying to go to AI chatbots that don’t know you. That’s not a real person to have these conversations. I want you to come to me and again, trying to invest in that relationship with our kids so that they’re not enticed by this kind of fake emotional intimacy of the chatbot.

(22:36):

But I do think it’s just even peeling back the kind of layers to show our kids it’s not a person. It acts like a person, sounds like a person, looks like a person. It’s just a computer code algorithm. It doesn’t have your genuine, best interests at heart. It doesn’t care at all about you.

Ann (22:51):

And you know who does? God.

Clare (22:53):

Right. God cares about you and us.

Dave (22:54):

Yeah, we do.

Clare (22:55):

Honestly, all this AI cares about and the companies care about is extracting as much of your time and attention and data as possible because everything you put into that chatbot, they are using to reform, refine their own products. And so it’s not a neutral product. It is designed to maximize engagement, and it doesn’t really know you and care about you like the people in your life do. And I think just exposing it for what it is, making those comparisons, encouraging our children in real life relationships is the best thing that we can do.

Ann (23:27):

We’ll put this article that you wrote on this.

Dave (23:29):

It’s called The AI Revolution is Coming for Our Kids. Yeah, we’ll put that on in the show notes. Just click on it there. But I would just end with this. Parenting is awesome. It’s hard and scary—

Clare (23:45):

Yes.

Dave (23:45):

—and it requires courage.

Clare (23:47):

Yes.

Dave (23:47):

Courage to have those hard conversations in the family room or when you’re putting them to bed or at the dinner table about anything. It’s easier as a parent just to, “I don’t want to talk about tonight.” And then the next thing you know, you’re going to blink and they’re leaving. Or it’s easier to say, “Hey, AI can answer that for you.” I’m just saying to parents, “Be courageous. Have the hard conversations.”

Clare (24:10):

That’s right.

Dave (24:10):

One of the hard conversations is we’re not doing smartphones. That’s how courageous parenting rules.

Clare:

Yeah, that’s right.

Dave:

And get this book, The Tech Exit at FamilyLifeToday.com. Click on the link there. This will help you make a courageous, right parenting choice.

Ann (24:25):

This has been really good, Clare. Thank you. Thanks for helping all of us.

Clare (24:28):

Thanks for having me. Yeah, we all need the help, so glad to be here.

Ann (24:32):

If you need more on this or any kind of parenting help, you can get more at FamilyLife.com/ParentingHelp.

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