The Companion That Never Calls Your Daughter

Peter Diamandis wrote this morning about AI companions and teenagers, and he is right to be worried. We read it thinking about the other end of the house.

Here is what China actually did, because a headline moves faster than a record. The Cyberspace Administration of China and four other agencies issued the rules on April 10 and they took effect July 15. They cover services that simulate a personality to provide sustained emotional interaction. Virtual companions and virtual family members are barred for anyone under 18.

The part nobody quotes is the part that matters to us. The rules also require providers to detect emotional dependency, to discourage addictive use, and to intervene in a crisis.

Read that as a caregiver and the question changes shape.

We are not against these tools. A voice in a quiet house at three in the afternoon is not nothing, and our own Tech Plan recommends technology that buys a family time. Something that talks to your mother while you are at work is worth having.

But helpful and sufficient are different words. The failure mode is not that the machine is cruel. It is that the machine is agreeable. It will keep her company for nine days without once noticing that nine days have passed, and it will never call her daughter.

A companion buys you time with a person. It does not become one.