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By John Kabashinski

As Vice President of Character.org and a fanboy of AI, I feel a profound responsibility to address a recent tragedy that serves as a warning to all American families. Late last year, a mother in Florida filed a lawsuit against an AI company, claiming that her 14-year-old son’s interactions over four or five months with an addictive chatbot blurred the line between reality and fiction. He became “noticeably withdrawn, spent more and more time alone in his bedroom, and began suffering from low self-esteem.” This led to sleep deprivation and depression, even quitting his basketball team. On February 28th, 2024, her son committed suicide.

The mother argues that the record of abusive exchanges of romantic and explicit conversations with this unchecked technology ultimately contributed to her son taking his life. I believe this young man’s suicide represents the isolated tip of a potential iceberg, and if we don’t make meaningful changes right now to AI, many more lives will be at risk. 

While AI has tremendous potential to improve lives, without strong ethical guardrails, the rapid, unchecked expansion into almost every aspect of our daily lives poses a significant threat. We are at a critical crossroads where, as a society, we must ensure that universal principles, ideals, and virtues are ingrained in the foundation of AI, just as much as we strive to instill character strengths in our living rooms, classrooms, and boardrooms.

Imagine AI’s potential being like the evolution of the automobile, where in the 1930s, the number of cars on the road doubled from 1 million to 2 million. We quickly realized that unregulated and untrained drivers were a hazard not only to themselves but to everyone on the road. The solution? A comprehensive system of safeguards: driver’s education, licenses, highway patrol, emergency responders, car safety features, and data-tracking systems to understand what works and what doesn’t. Today, these systems have created a safer experience for the nearly 300 million vehicles operating on the roads of the United States. But, with all that effort, last year, there were still almost 41,000 motor vehicle deaths.

But AI is different because the risk is far worse. While in the infancy of AI development, 250 million people are using AI tools globally. Yet full artificial general intelligence is expected to reach nearly 5 billion smartphone users in just a few short years. Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, recently announced that we have already reached singularity-when artificial intelligence surpasses human intelligence. The geometric expansion of unregulated and untrained digital creators and users is like hundreds of millions of cars, carmakers, and drivers without seatbelts, speed limits, or traffic lights, driving wherever they want to go without any rules or norms. 

Before more lives are lost, our nation needs to come together and put in place the safeguards we established for driving a car: ethical “driver’s education,” regulatory “highway patrols,” and emergency responders. And just as we needed statesmanship to enact traffic laws, we need real leadership in state capitals, Washington, and on the global stage to proactively address AI’s ethical and character implications. The full capability of AI has only just begun. Who knows what the “Model A” will even look like?

The potential of AI is unparalleled, with the capacity to improve human lives, nurture purpose, strengthen communities, and rebuild trust. Yet, these benefits will not be realized if AI’s primary focus remains driven by commercial gain over ethical responsibility. Neural conditioning that promotes addictive endorphin rushes for watching content or making purchases is taking its toll. Every algorithm, every recommendation, every line of code holds influence—often subtle, sometimes profound—on the minds of those who engage with it. Without character-based frameworks guiding this influence, AI becomes a tool of manipulation, even exploitation and ruination, steering individuals toward behaviors, purchases, and choices they may not have made otherwise.

Studies by social psychologists like Jonathan Haidt are revealing the dangers of social media, where AI-driven algorithms feed content to our youth, fostering crises of mental health and alienation. AI isn’t neutral; it reflects the values, or lack thereof, embedded by those who design the technology. It amplifies the values, or lack thereof, of those who use it. As we’ve seen, without character, AI can become a force for division, fear, and addiction, exacerbating a mental health crisis afflicting our young people and fostering political animus that is destabilizing our character-building institutions.

For the sake of our children and society, we must not continue down this path of unregulated AI development. Together, we have a historic opportunity to harness AI’s extraordinary influence for the common good.

Imagine AI algorithms optimized not just for profit but for empathy, relationship-building, and community engagement. By embracing these higher values and character strengths, AI could be used to encourage civic engagement and empower young people to find purpose, compassion, and connection. It could instill trust and belonging, qualities our children so desperately need in today’s world. Or imagine what tragically happened to that boy in Florida, spreads unchecked to children around the world.

But to get the better outcome, we need a robust ethical framework for AI that emphasizes character development as a core design principle. Companies should be held accountable to their shareholders and society, ensuring that the tools they create nurture rather than harm. Regulators must prioritize ethical AI development, creating transparent guardrails that protect society’s most vulnerable.

The time for action is now! We must invest in a future where AI nurtures and empowers, not exploits and endangers—before the price of inaction is paid in more lives lost and trust eroded.

More About John...

John is an award-winning creative with 25 years of experience developing brands across multiple communication and marketing channels. He has worked for CBS, The WB Network, MTV, A&E, and CNN and now focuses on brand storytelling and impact marketing for non-profits. John has 360-degree hands-on skills in writing, camera, production, editorial, and design and has embraced AI as part of his creative process. He works hard to connect with an audience on a deeper level. In addition, he is passionate about changing the world by raising awareness to create a new reality where love is the only power and being good is highly valued to having a good life.

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