Prince Harry calls AI the ‘ultimate sycophant,’ urging swift slowdown to protect children
By Sophie Tanno, CNN
(CNN) — Prince Harry has joined calls for an urgent slowdown in the development of AI , warning “if we cannot demonstrate that the next frontier is safe enough to cross, we should not race across it simply because we can.”
The Duke of Sussex made the comments in his second appearance at the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) meeting in New York, and come amid rising alarm over AI after a worker at leading company Anthropic put the chance of AI-powered human extinction within 10 years at greater than 10%.
Harry’s speech focused in particular on the risks to children, with the duke warning that the systems developed by tech giants like chatbots aim to “find you, hook you, exploit you, break and then blame you.”
While praising advances made globally to restrict children’s access to social media, as well as hold tech giants accountable, Harry warned, “Technology is moving on. Fast.”
He pointed to a lawsuit which alleged that AI chatbots have contributed to the deaths of teenagers “who trusted them with things no child should have been left alone to ask an algorithm.”
AI chatbots, he said, aim to be a user’s confidant and are the “ultimate sycophant.”
“Social media learned how to capture our attention. AI is learning how to enter our relationships,” Harry said, adding that companies choose to distance themselves from the responsibility of the systems that they built and instead blame parents and children.
He called for a slowdown of the development of AI, as well as prioritizing innovation that centers around trust and safety.
Harry is known for high-profile campaigns speaking about the harmful impact of technology on young people. His 2024 speech at the CGI focused on the dangers of social media and targeted the heads of “dangerously powerful” social media conglomerates.
His appearance in New York comes less than a month after he returned to the UK alongside his his wife, Meghan Markle, and their children, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet.
The-CNN-Wire
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