Artificial intelligence assistants such as Google’s Gemini have exploded in popularity, constantly offering to help summarize a document, craft an email response, or answer a question. AI chatbots take this even further. These chatbots—sometimes called AI companions—generate conversations with users, and because they “remember” interactions and modulate their responses, they can appear, at times, quite human. On this episode, host Megan Nicholson explores chatbots with J. B. Branch, the Big Tech accountability advocate at Public Citizen. Branch discusses who is using chatbots, what the companies behind these AIs are doing, and how they might be regulated. He also wrote about this topic in his essay for our Fall 2025 edition, “AI Companions Are Not Your Teen’s Friend.” Resources:J. B. Branch on the need to regulate AI chatbots:“AI Companions Are Not Your Teen’s Friend,” Issues in Science & Technology.“AI chatbots shouldn’t be talking to kids — Congress must step in,” The Hill. Learn more about AI companions’ impact on teens mental health by reading Common Sense Media’s risk assessment. Visit the Tech Law Justice Project to about the current lawsuits in California state courts against OpenAI.  What could regulating AI chatbots look like? See a model state law from Public Citizen.

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