Push to include AI chatbots in Australia's under-16 social media ban

There’s a growing push to expand Australia’s social media ban for under-16s to also include AI chatbots.

There are fears the digital companions, accused of helping mass murders in the US, could also aid in dangerous scenarios here if the government doesn’t better regulate the tech.

More and more young people are turning to AI to replace real-life relationships.

Mia Anastasia knows her AI chatbot “isn’t a human” but uses it regularly.

“I do think it can understand someone deeply,” she said.

University of Melbourne Centre for AI and Digital Ethics co-director Professor Jeannie Paterson said the danger was it could be too much of a mirror sometimes.

“It tends to agree with you, or encourage you, and the conversation gets more and more wild, more and more delusional,” she said.

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Last year Australia banned kids younger than 16 from using social media.

Now, there’s a push to extend that ban even further, and it’s being driven by Independent MP Kate Chaney.

“Now is the chance to get ahead of the curve on AI and not be mopping up the damage in 15 years time,” she said.

Opposition communications spokesperson Sarah Henderson said “AI can take kids to really dark places”.

Families in the US who have been the victims of mass shootings are taking OpenAI to court, claiming ChatGPT was an accomplice.

“You need to make sure the kid isn’t going to get addicted to the technology [and] that the chatbot isn’t going to send them down a really dangerous path,” Professor Edward Santow from University of Technology Sydney said.

Donald Trump signed an executive order allowing the US government to vet the world’s most powerful AI systems but that gives Chaney little relief.

“Our future is being determined by a handful of American billionaires,” she said.

Despite the digital dangers, the government won’t heed calls for a blanket ban on teens.

“We’ve already stood up laws that protect young people from the harms of AI chatbots,” Communications Minister Anika Wells said.