The Problem of AI and Social Media

There are three unique struggles on social media thanks to the advent of AI:

1. Bots and the Dead Internet
2. So much p*rn
3. Problems with Reality Retention

There are three steps we can take today:

Step 1: Get internet out of the bedroom.

Step 2: Get your family hedges setup — start talking about this!

• Ask your child: Have they seen AI generated content? How can they tell what is real and what is fake?
• For younger children: Let’s play a game called “real” v. “story”. .Elsa and Frozen, Vacation we went on as a family

Step 3: Get off the internet. If you’re under the age of 16 you don’t need SM. If you’re under 15, you don’t need a smartphone.

SHOW NOTES

Sam Altman’s dream for AI: “a gigantic skyscraper full of computers and we all text it like we text a coworker or a friends…and it can answer it.”

• 26:40 into HiBT, https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-i-built-this-with-guy-raz/id1150510297?i=1000598703078

Superintelligence, by Nick Bostrom: https://a.co/d/0hxlURe

The Dead Internet: https://www.forbes.com/sites/danidiplacido/2025/09/05/sam-altman-is-starting-to-see-the-dead-internet-theory/

AI Created Content: https://www.404media.co/ai-generated-boring-history-videos-are-flooding-youtube-and-drowning-out-real-history/

• 3/4 of teens have seen pornography.
• 58% of those saw it accidentally.
• 15% were age 10 or younger.
  (common sense media, 2023) https://www.commonsensemedia.org/research/teens-and-pornography

There are something like 30-million 10-17 year olds in the US (https://www.statista.com/statistics/241488/population-of-the-us-by-sex-and-age/)

95% of teens have regular access to a smartphone: either their own or someone they know. https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2024/12/12/teens-social-media-and-technology-2024/.

Instagram Child accounts aren’t safe: https://accountabletech.org/wp-content/uploads/Scary-Feeds_The-Reality-of-Teen-Accounts.pdf

Other resources on this study:

• https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/05/18/instagram-teen-accounts-test/
• https://designitforus.org/press/new-report-instagram-teen-accounts-fail-to-deliver-promised-safety-features-exposing-teens-to-harmful-and-distressing-content/

On Deep Fake Nudes:

• 1/6 teens reported that they had sent nudes.
• 1/3 reported being asked to share nudes online while a minor
• 1/8 teens reported personally knowing someone who had been the target of deepfake nudes
  https://www.thorn.org/research/library/deepfake-nudes-and-young-people/

Tragic Outcomes

• 14 year old: https://apnews.com/article/chatbot-ai-lawsuit-suicide-teen-artificial-intelligence-9d48adc572100822fdbc3c90d1456bd0
• 16 year old: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/26/technology/chatgpt-openai-suicide.html

AI induced delusion:

• Man Believed He Discovered new type of math, https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/05/tech/ai-sparked-delusion-chatgpt
• Man believes He Met God in the Form of an AI: https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/02/tech/chatgpt-ai-spirituality
• Man with history of mental illness escalates while using AI: https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/chatgpt-ai-stein-erik-soelberg-murder-suicide-6b67dbfb

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