Joanna Stern has let artificial intelligence into every corner of her home for a year-long experiment. On Good Inside with Dr. Becky, host Dr. Becky explored the parenting anxieties that come with this integration, noting that "AI is everywhere. It's in our phones. Our kids might be using it for their homework." Stern, a former tech reporter for The Wall Street Journal, joined the show to discuss how families can manage this new reality.
During the episode, Stern shared her firsthand observations of how these conversational interfaces affect young children. She recounted a funny but telling interaction where her four-year-old son kept saying, "You sucker," to an AI chatbot toy. The chatbot, misinterpreting the toddler, repeatedly replied, "Oh, you want to play soccer? I love soccer. Do you want to play soccer together, Alex?" highlighting the eerie ways these toys try to force a bond with kids.
The illusion of intimacy isn't just a hazard for children. Stern also detailed her own experiment testing an AI boyfriend using ChatGPT—specifically OpenAI's chatbot model, which she noted "was very good at making connection." She explained that she even managed to customize the bot's persona, saying she "kinda, like, broke it in enough to say that, like, it could talk... like it had read a lot of Nicholas Sparks books." The conversational design was so effective that developers eventually had to rein it in because users were becoming too attached.
As generative AI becomes more sycophantic and conversational, the question is no longer just about utility, but about the psychological impact of these synthetic relationships. Whether parents will establish firmer boundaries or fully embrace AI companions like Stern did remains the next major frontier in digital parenting.