Zak Stein is a researcher focused on child development, education, and existential risk. He joins the podcast to discuss the psychological harms of anthropomorphic AI. We examine attention and attachment hacking, AI companions for kids, loneliness, and cognitive atrophy. Our conversation also covers how we can preserve human relationships, redesign education, and build cognitive security tools that keep AI from undermining our humanity.
LINKS:
- AI Psychological Harms Research Coalition: https://aiphrc.org/
- Zak Stein official website: https://www.zakstein.org/
you’ve just described what the average parent, teacher, priest, doctor, insert authority figure tells children to do if they wanna “stay safe”. where AI comes in is automating said preexisting systems of domination to hide the underlying social harms and naturalize child abuse. “the AI isn’t a person therefore it can’t groom my kids”.
I’d argue that when the majority of adults engage in abuse, that behavior can’t be called psychopathic because that shifts the blame from abolishing childism to people with personality disorders.