Scofti
A Senate hearing room. Gem, a small toy figure with a glowing blue and violet star for a head and a black eye mask, wears a little navy suit and sits on a stack of books at the witness table behind a GEM nameplate. A stern senator up on the dais asks, "Do children depend on you?" Gem answers, "Only for everything, senator." Behind him the gallery is packed with waving schoolchildren, every one in a knit beanie with a blue star on it.

Children Are Paying the Price

Two senators want to know what Google knows about kids leaning on its AI at school.

China wrote the rule in 2023. Here, it's a letter.

  1. April 7. Google announces "protections designed to prevent Gemini from acting like a companion."

  2. September 30. The Wall Street Journal reports students leaning on Google's AI for schoolwork and personal problems, and Google's own researchers warning about it.

  3. October 21. Senators Blumenthal and Hawley write to Google's CEO: "Google is forcing their AI products into classrooms across America, and children are paying the price."

  4. The question. Has Google's classroom AI "encouraged a minor to engage in harmful behavior, emotional dependence, or failed to detect signs of suicidal or self-harm ideation"? They cite a Maryland teenager hospitalized after becoming dependent on Google's AI.

  5. November 2. Google's deadline to answer.

Happy happy oh my friend