Special Edition: Kids & AI Companions – Friend or Faux?
The NewsWorthy
Erica Mandy
4.7 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 16 August 2025
⏱️ 23 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
AI is making its way into classrooms and even into kids' social lives through AI "companions." This episode explores what that means for learning, social skills, and academic integrity. We cover the risks of over-reliance, who's responsible for oversight, and how educators can help students use AI without letting it do the thinking for them.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Today is Saturday, August 16th. We're talking about a new trend among kids and teens, |
| 0:04.6 | AI companions that chat with you 24-7, remember personal details, and even simulate empathy or love. |
| 0:11.8 | So what does that mean for real-life friendships, mental health, and growing up in a digital world? |
| 0:17.0 | Brinley Murphy-Royter from the Digital Wellness Lab at Boston Children's Hospital is back to |
| 0:21.4 | explain how kids are using these tools, what the research says so far, and what parents, |
| 0:26.3 | teachers, and tech companies can do about it. |
| 0:30.3 | Welcome, welcome to The Newsworthy Special Edition Saturday, when we sit down with a different |
| 0:34.7 | expert or celebrity every Saturday to talk about something in the news. Don't forget to tune in every Monday through Friday for our regular episodes when we sit down with a different expert or celebrity every Saturday to talk about something in the news. |
| 0:38.0 | Don't forget to tune in every Monday through Friday for our regular episodes when we provide all the day's news in just 10 minutes. |
| 0:44.0 | It's fast, fair, fun, and on the go. |
| 0:46.6 | I'm Erica Mandy. It's time for today's special edition Saturday. |
| 0:50.0 | You ready? Let's do this. |
| 0:55.0 | Brinley Murphy, Reuter, thank you for coming back on The Newsworthy. |
| 0:58.7 | Oh, I'm so excited to be here again. |
| 1:00.5 | So we touched on it a little bit in our last conversation, but now I want to dig a little |
| 1:05.0 | deeper into AI companions, specifically when it comes to kids and teens. |
| 1:10.6 | So first, let's start with the basics. |
| 1:12.2 | What exactly do you mean when we're talking about AI companions? An AI companion is mostly right now in a |
| 1:20.3 | chat bot form, perhaps an avatar that's designed specifically to provide companionship, emotional support, and even sometimes |
| 1:30.4 | stimulated intimacy to human users. Beyond like a simple chatbot, like one of the main |
| 1:37.5 | ones that you would use, like chat sheet, and T, Claude, Gemini, these demonstrate much more personalized and engaging interaction. |
| 1:47.6 | They will often remember past conversation, remember the names and personalities, the people |
... |
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