Lewis Richmond

All over the world, birthrates are down. In the developed world, birthrates are falling well below replacement level. Even in the developing world, due to increased access to contraception and improved infant mortality, birthrates have fallen substantially. In some ways this should be good news.

The explosive adoption of AI chatbots is without precedent. The closest historical analogue would be the adoption of the internet itself, but that was  more gradual, and less invasive. OpenAI alone—the most popular chatbot—now has 800 million users; and a recent Internet Matters survey of 1000 UK children showed that 64% of those 9-17 years old have used chatbots. Children under 9 are beginning to use it too. Among teenagers this usage is often daily, sometimes for hours at a time.

Is a Chatbot a person? For many of the billion people worldwide who now engage in conversation with a chatbot, the chatbot has become a person—a friend, a therapist, an advisor, even a romantic partner. Because chatbots are designed to be guided by whatever text the user types, the user is the source of how it responds. If the user wants the chatbot to be a person, it will do its best to comply. Chatbots are designed by their makers to be soothing and agreeable.