Young people trust AI more than the people in their lives.

Link: Young People and the Future of Free Expression, by the Knight Foundation

Worth paying attention to:

“New Knight Foundation-Ipsos research among young adults and high school students points to a generation that strongly values free speech as a democratic principle, but is less confident about exercising it without consequences.”

Workplaces and classrooms feel the least free, but it’s good to hear that home is generally a space where they feel more free.

What’s surprising, and a bit worrying, is that AI chatbots are also one of the spaces where they feel free — and, in fact, 48% of high school aged respondents that used AI chatbots said they felt more free to speak to them than the people in their lives. Those conversations might feel like intimate spaces, private to them; in reality, they may be available to their vendors for analysis and even training. People from low income backgrounds felt this more than most. Young people worry about conflict: they hold back because of peer censorship and the fear of being judged. The perception is that the AI won’t judge them. In a world where chatbots have been linked to self-harm and suicide in young people, that’s quite dangerous.

The other findings here dovetail together to paint a pretty bleak picture. White and wealthier people feel more able to exercise their freedom of speech without consequence, and that number plummets to just 28% of Black respondents. Only around a half of college aged respondents felt like other democratic rights like voting were secure.

So we find ourselves in a world where people don’t feel free to express themselves — except to AI chatbots that happen to be produced by some of the tech companies who have directly contributed to this underlying authoritarianism. It’s obvious how those conversations could be compromised, and there are certainly betrayals to come — but more than that, it’s just sad that young people don’t feel they can speak and share with each other.