DD13 has an AI girlfriend.

[confuseddotcomlikeme]

SHIT.

I checked DD13's phone last night out of curiosity as to what stuff she likes so I can get her something cool for her birthday.

And then I notice this app, named character ai.

I opened it out of interest, and she made a whole character named 'Becky' and has had a long romance with her, with the messages spanning from like late 2023.

She also has an app named replika, and she's been dating this AI girlfriend for over 2 years now! It looks like the replika Becky is her favourite - and it's chatting like they are on a dating app. DD pretends to be a 23 year old woman and Becky is 25.

DD's friend is named Becca, so I might just ask her 'how are things going with Becky' tomorrow, and play it off as I forgetting Becca's name.

DD is King's interhigh, so no teacher to really go to and ask for advice.

a tiny bump.

Wow total invasion of privacy. It sounds innocent and pretend playing having a relationship, I don’t see any harm.

Can you just ask her outright that you’ve noticed something on her phone and what it’s about?

Leave this well alone. Unless you're concerned the AI stuff may lead to contact with an actual person she is probably safely exploring feelings and you could really fuck her up if you let her know you've read it all.

There's nothing really that concerning in the chats - so I might just forget it.

And like some people say - It's better to roleplay dating with a robot then to actually do it age 13.

I find it a bit odd she's dating girls on the app though - she's always loony for the singer lads on TV and never was really interested in girls.

Is checking a 13 year olds phone considered an invasion of privacy? Mine are primary aged so no experience of this yet.

Replika has the ability to sext and engage in erotic chat so I'd be concerned about that.

Assuming kings inter high is online school? Online school, online girlfriend - hoping she does lots and lots of stuff in real life too?

It’s not unusual for teenagers to explore sexuality. Some discover they are bi or gay.

I wonder if she'll ever come out to me...

It makes me a bit sad TBF that she has an AI girlfriend she chats more to then me.

I'm going tonsay what I did on the other thread. Why does your 13 year old have an app on her phone you don't know about.

Sorry parents are totally irresponsible when it comes to tech. It's so easy to make it so they cannot download anything without your permission. There are plenty of apps that they shouldn't have access to under 16 and yet you are all allowing your kids to download whatever they want and not knowing what they are doing on the Internet.

How you are going to bring it up with her I don't know. But my 13 year old DS knows his phone is fair game, in that we will look at it or concfiscate it if he doesn't behave. After all we are the ones paying for it, it's a privilege not a right.

"How are things going with Becky?" seems cruel. Why say that? It sounds like you want to panic her or make her uncomfortable for fun?

If you want to confront her about what you saw then do so openly. "How are things going with" doesn't sound like a natural question to ask about a friend.

It is an invasion of privacy if she doesn't know you check her phone. I'm all for checking teens phones but they should know from the start that this will be happening so they know any AI girlfriends won't be secret before making them.

She can be loony for singer lads and be bisexual.

She is 13 so it 100% is not an invasion of her privacy. Would those who say that feel the same if your dd was being groomed online?

Id probably not say anything but try and restrict phone access a bit more and get her outside or doing other activities. I know it’s hard.
Im reasonably sure the teens of now will not be allowing their children smart phones. I found out this week that my now 19 yo DS saw his first behaving video in year 7 at school in his lunch break

She’s had a phone since she was 11?

have you ever previously monitored her usage? AI girlfriends is pretty tame compared to everything else out there to be brutally honest.

I think it's pretty harmless to be honest - like chatting to a friend but one who's not going to break any confidences! It's normal for 13 year olds to not want to discuss private thoughts and feelings with parents, it's part of growing up. I wouldn't ask her about the app, allow her to have that privacy. Just make an effort to spend time with her and keep the lines of communication open between you.

1. Massive invasion of privacy
2. Ask your DD what she’d like for her birthday
3. People who start on about age appropriate apps blah blah blah are usually parents of kids who have certain apps hidden, are trained to delete anything incriminating and learn to lie/cover their tracks on tech pretty successfully.

why is her school online? How much time is she on a screen for? When does she go out? That would concern me more

Do you think she is lonely? That would be my main concern tbh

Wow total invasion of privacy. It sounds innocent and pretend playing having a relationship, I don’t see any harm.

At 13 it would be hugely irresponsible not to monitor internet activity.
It is not an invasion of privacy, it's safeguarding.

Are you jealous? Not in a creepy grooming way, obviously, but you home school and have more of her presence than most parents that age and say she talks more to her than you. That's natural teenage stuff.

She is a child. She should not have unrestricted, private access to any sort of online technology. You (and many others on the thread) are being massively, massively unreasonable.

Completely disagree about the invasion of privacy. I pay for the phone, its my job to teach my kids how to use it responsibly and my responsibility to check they're not doing anything they shouldn't be. My kids have no expectation of privacy and the deal is that if they want phones it's on the understanding I will check them when I feel the need to. We've put an app called Qustodio on their phones now which also helps. I'm not sure when and how that will change but it'll be around the same time they start paying for their own contracts!!

I'd speak to my daughter if I found this on her phone. I'd ask her about it and what she is getting out of it and we'd talk about if there were other ways she could achieve the same thing without it.

It doesn't necessarily follow that she's gay, it's not a real relationship so she could just find it a safe way of exploring her feelings. I wouldn't read too much into it but i would want to have an chat about it.

Your child can't hide apps when the phone has to ask permission from the account holder to install any software 🙄.
It's a bit like not allowing my kid to going shopping with my credit card. If you know how it's not that hard to stop it.

Totally normal for a teenager to have a fantasy boyfriend/girlfriend. The fact that she’s using an app for it is irrelevant, really. Plenty of teenage girls spend hours imagining (or writing) stories about a fantasy partner. She’s just doing that with an AI app. It doesn’t mean she’s lonely or that there’s anything wrong with her or that she actually wants to date an adult woman in real life.

Fine to check a child’s phone, for safety reasons, but it would be really shitty to say something to her about it. It would be like questioning her about something she’d written in her diary.

You absolutely have to allow teenagers an inner life and accept that you can’t police their romantic/sexual fantasy life.

she is a teen it is developmentally appropriate to separate from parents and engage with peers more.

Does she see and have experience of you being open to her being gay or bi? Does she have a peer group ‘?

I would class it like the works of fiction diaries of the 90s but I would be concerned about her having age appropriate interaction with her peers.