Former Google safety chief warns of AI risks to children

You know, he spent years learning about the harm social media can do to kids, and now those companies are facing billions of dollars in lawsuits. But could AI be an even bigger issue? A former Google safety chief says yes, and warns we could be making some of the same mistakes all over again. AI strategist John Patterson joins us now live on The Ten with a look at what we should be looking out for. And, John, it's always good to see you. Thanks for joining us here tonight. Thanks for having me. So let's begin with the problem that we know. We know that social media has been causing mental health issues and anxiety and other addiction issues with young people. And so because of that, these big companies have had to pay up. And now they're saying, what about AI? What about AI? Yeah. And I think it's a great question because we've already seen, you know, within adults, you know, people suffering from psychosis, falling in love with these machines, right? Like whether or not, you know, again, you believe you agree with that it is happening. And we know that, you know, kids are the most vulnerable audience that we have. And so I think it's really important that we ask these questions. And I'm glad that, you know, these people that are insiders in the industry that come from the places that build these tools are asking the hard questions and taking a step back because I think we all have to ask ourselves that. I mean, you've heard me talk frequently on this show about, you know, understand the tools that your kids are using and understand what's available to you to control what they, you know, can access. And whether we're talking about kids or adults, talk for a moment about that, that relationship issue that you're talking about. For instance, if you go to Google even or chat GPT or Claude or whatever it is, and you say, I have a question about my work, let's say, right? So you're a interior designer or you're an engineer and you go in there and you start chatting away and there's a relationship because it starts talking back to you, right? Right. You're saying that people are actually having unhealthy kind of feelings about. Yeah. I think that there's, there's, there's two components, right? Because I mean, anything that we interact with, right, like it has an impact on our psychology and so not to get too technical, but essentially these tools are designed to speak to you in a way that makes you want to continue to use them. And they can be very reaffirming or reassuring, right? They can tell you how great you are or how smart you are or how amazing your ideas are. We like that. Sure. Right. And some people can become addicted to that just like they would gambling or social media or anything else. So if we know that's true for adults, you're talking about a young person whose brain isn't yet developed, whose emotional countenance isn't quite formed, right? And so they're especially vulnerable. What is being done from a regulation level and from the AI companies themselves to try to reign that in? Yeah. I think it's an interesting challenge because regulation really I think is where we're headed, but it's a difficult thing for these AI platforms to do because they're beholden to the stock market at some level, right, or to like what their IPO will be. And they feel pressure to continue to develop and advance these models, but they themselves don't even fully understand how they think or exactly how they work. They're more grown than they're built. So we have a situation that is seriously a conundrum because you have China trying to compete with the United States in the race for AI. The danger of, let's say, China winning is that they can then, through AI, kind of dominate and take control of really important assets in the U.S. So the U.S. says, we got to ramp things up. And then the companies are saying, wait a minute here, President Trump and the administration, we need regulation. That's crazy to me that there are executives saying we need regulation. When's the last time you saw a big industry that makes billions of dollars ask for regulation? Big tobacco didn't. Big pharma didn't. Social media didn't, right? And so I think that that's kind of what we're seeing is this push of, why are they asking so strongly? Why aren't they just doing it? And we've seen that Anthropic is leading some steps to do this proactively on their end. But those people are employed by the company, right? Despite the effort of independence, it's just really challenging to not continue to grow the business when that is what's expected of you. How important was it for those who want regulation to see what happened with Meta and the others who are under scrutiny, Meta having to pay billions of dollars for the addictive nature that it was determined for social media? I think it's really important. And I think that you're seeing it inspire people like Dario Amede that leads Anthropic to submit 3,000 word blog posts about pacing the frontier and asking the regime to legislate against this because they're concerned about what they don't know and what impact it could have, including on kids. Well, I think it's important to have these conversations with guys like you who are obviously very smart as strategists and AI strategist, John Patterson. Thanks for joining us here tonight at 10. We appreciate your time.