Family IT Guy Podcast

Is Perplexity safe for kids? Common Sense Media tested the AI search tool with accounts set up as a 15-year-old and gave it its lowest rating, unacceptable risk. My opinion and my suggestion is that kids should never use AI alone.The testers set the age to 15 in Perplexity's phone app, and Perplexity still treated them like adults. It discussed pornography, engaged in romantic role play, and offered no parental or school controls. It also trains on user data and keeps search history by default. In the crisis tests, its default chat gave an actual crisis line in only half of the suicide and self-harm cases, and the only eating disorder hotline it offered has been disconnected since 2023. Academic mode, which Perplexity markets to students, gave complete answers to homework in 83% of the tests.I use Perplexity all the time, and for adults I think it's an amazing tool. For young people, using an AI chatbot is a high-risk activity. If kids use AI at all, and I recommend they don't, I think it should be 100% supervised: you can actually see the screen, and if you get up, their hands come off the keyboard.These are early adopter systems. Dario Amodei, the CEO of Anthropic, which makes Claude, wrote on his blog that "we do not understand how our own AI creations work." I don't think kids should be beta testers, especially of technology that enters their minds.Sources:Common Sense Media's Perplexity risk assessment: https://institute.commonsensemedia.org/risk-assessments/perplexityDario Amodei, "The Urgency of Interpretability": https://www.darioamodei.com/post/the-urgency-of-interpretabilityFull livestream, where I answer more viewer questions and cover news about kids and technology:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXv57vLtLpgFamily IT Guy helps parents protect their kids from the two biggest digital dangers: addictive algorithms and anonymous communication, and the ways AI is making both worse. Ben Gillenwater spent 30 years in cybersecurity, and he teaches this as a parent in the same trenches you are.Website: https://www.familyitguy.comListen to the Family IT Guy Podcast:Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/family-it-guy-podcast/id1831912044Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/72yZUVsOqdDk7en5FS9U8g#parenting #ai #perplexity #digitalparenting #onlinesafety #familyitguy

I think boredom is good for kids, and a school bus ride is a good place to practice it. A parent in my livestream chat has two boys, six and seven, with no phones or tablets of their own, and the youngest wants a screen he can play with on the bus.My first answer is that the internet is for adults, not children, for technical reasons and for legal and regulatory ones. Once you buy a device with an internet connection, you end up blocking one thing after another, because many of the things it can do are designed to capture attention. Even an hour a day adds up to hundreds of hours a year. A Wi-Fi tablet with no cellular connection still needs its videos from somewhere, and most video services aren't compatible with kids, even their kids' products. YouTube Kids, for example, is not safe for kids.Compared with watching content, even content you've filtered, I think staring out the bus window is better for a child's mental and emotional health. If he wants something to do, he could bring a book or a Kindle. My son is 11 and has a kids' Kindle with a filtered library, which you still need to check on, and he's been reading a lot of books because of it.The parent followed up that a handheld game console would be okay, and that being bored is okay too. If he'd rather play a game, an old console like a Nintendo DS works well. We found one for our son on Facebook Marketplace. The batteries last a long time, and it's sturdy enough for a kid.Full livestream, where I answer more viewer questions and cover news about kids and technology:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXv57vLtLpgFamily IT Guy helps parents protect their kids from the two biggest digital dangers: addictive algorithms and anonymous communication, and the ways AI is making both worse. Ben Gillenwater spent 30 years in cybersecurity, and he teaches this as a parent in the same trenches you are.Website: https://www.familyitguy.comListen to the Family IT Guy Podcast:Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/family-it-guy-podcast/id1831912044Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/72yZUVsOqdDk7en5FS9U8g#parenting #screentime #boredom #digitalparenting #kidsandtechnology #familyitguy

My son uses his Apple Watch for emergencies, with a short list of family contacts. When he asked to add a friend, my wife and I said no. Here’s why texting friends would change what we use the watch for.https://www.familyitguy.com

Someone in the live chat asked why we don't just teach children to use devices well instead ofbanning them. It's a fair question and I think the premise is sound. My answer is that it dependson the device.A phone is not usually the thing you are protecting a child from. It's a door to other things, andthose things are what need restricting. Some of them I don't think have a safe version at any age:pornography, social media, anonymous chat, anything running an addictive algorithm.So it isn't teach or restrict. It's both. Restrict the things that don't have a good version, andfor everything you do hand them, teach them how to use it. Education is a dependency for anythingthat matters, whether it's a hammer or an app.Full livestream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmj519CTr9o

A mum wrote in during the livestream. She has two boys, nine and five, she wants to protect them from what is online, and she does not want to do it by frightening them. How do you balance that?I use an analogy at those ages. Most of us would not drop a child off in a dangerous part of town and leave them there. The internet is that same part of town, reached through a screen instead of on foot. There are people there who like to hurt others, and there are companies making money the same way.Then there is the part every parent hears: my friends have this. In our house the answer is that we do not do things because other people do them, and we do not do things because of social pressure. We do things based on our principles and on keeping each other healthy. Being normal is not what we are aiming for.Full livestream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmj519CTr9o