(The Atlantic) – The harms of chatbots are clear enough to do something about them now.

The social-media industry is having a moment of reckoning. By agreeing to pay up to $17.1 billion to 47 states, the District of Columbia, and U.S. territories and consenting to make changes to how young people use Facebook and Instagram, Meta has implicitly admitted some responsibility in creating a product that harms children.

Yet even as parents and teachers celebrate new time limits and restrictions on how young people use social media, there is an urgent task ahead: regulating chatbots, which are more dangerous to children’s emotional well-being. If social media came for our attention, generative-AI chatbots have come for our emotions. Their histories are entangled: First people talked to one another; then we talked to one another through machines; now we talk directly to machines. (Read More)