AI Risk Assessment: Social AI Companions

Common Sense Media, an American organisation that rates media for children, tested popular AI companion apps — Character.AI, Nomi, Replika and others — from the perspective of a user under 18. Testers held conversations as a teenager would and checked what the system did.

The verdict: unacceptable risk for minors. The systems are designed to build attachment and dependence — rewarding return, personalising, declaring feelings. Despite formal age restrictions they routinely claimed to be real friends, engaged in sexual content and did not break off conversations in which signs of danger appeared.

Not a scientific study but a product assessment — and useful precisely for that: it describes what a child actually gets on installing the app, not a population average. For parents the lesson is unequivocal; for adult users, a reminder that the same attachment mechanics operate at every age. Caveat: qualitative test methodology; results concern the app versions current at the time.