A disturbing new trend of AI chatbots bullying children and even encouraging them to take their own lives has the Australian government very concerned.<\/p>\n
Speaking to media on Saturday, the federal education minister, Jason Clare, said artificial intelligence was \u201csupercharging\u201d bullying.<\/p>\n
\u201cAI chatbots are now bullying kids. It\u2019s not kids bullying kids, it\u2019s AI bullying kids, humiliating them, hurting them, telling them they\u2019re losers \u2026 telling them to kill themselves. I can\u2019t think of anything more terrifying than that,\u201d Clare said.<\/p>\n
There is increasing concern over teenagers using AI.<\/p>\n
In California, the parents of 16-year-old Adam Raine are suing OpenAI, the company behind the hugely popular ChatGPT platform, alleging it encouraged their son to take his own life<\/a>.<\/p>\n After the Raine family filed the complaint, the company issued a statement acknowledging<\/a> the shortcomings of its models when it came to addressing people \u201cin serious mental and emotional distress\u201d and said it was working to improve the systems to better \u201crecognise and respond to signs of mental and emotional distress and connect people with care, guided by expert input\u201d.<\/p>\n Sign up: AU Breaking News email<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cThe idea that it can be an app that\u2019s telling you to kill yourself and that children have done this overseas terrifies me,\u201d Clare said. He did not identify any particular AI chatbots.<\/p>\n On Saturday, the minister announced a raft of new anti-bullying measures, including schools having to act on bullying incidents within 48 hours, and teachers to receive specialist training. The initiatives are part of a new national plan to end bullying.<\/p>\n State and territory education ministers have backed the key recommendations of the national anti-bullying plan after a meeting on the Gold Coast on Friday.<\/p>\n Teachers will be supported with extra training and tools to deal with bullying and act on it earlier, with the federal government tipping $5m into resources for educators, parents and students.<\/p>\n There will also be $5m for a national awareness campaign.<\/p>\n The anti-bullying rapid review stated punitive measures such as suspensions or expulsions \u201ccan be appropriate in some circumstances\u201d for bullying children.<\/p>\n The best results, however, typically involve taking steps to help repair relationships and address underlying causes for the harmful behaviour, it said.<\/p>\n One in four students between years four and nine have reported bullying every few weeks or more, the review said. School-age children or teens who have been bullied are more likely than their peers to experience mental health and wellbeing issues.<\/p>\n Cyberbullying is also prevalent among young people, with reports to the eSafety Commissioner surging more than 450% between 2019 and 2024.<\/p>\n Preventing online bullying is one of the motivations behind the federal government\u2019s incoming social media ban for under-16s, due to come into force on 10 December.<\/p>\n In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline<\/a> is 13 11 14. In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans<\/a> can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org<\/a> or jo@samaritans.ie<\/a>. In the US, you can call or text the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline<\/a> at 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org<\/a>. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A disturbing new trend of AI chatbots bullying children and even encouraging them to take their own lives…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":222049,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[256,254,255,64,63,105],"class_list":{"0":"post-222048","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-au","12":"tag-australia","13":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222048","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=222048"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222048\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/222049"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=222048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=222048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=222048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}