The BaseEssayMIT Technology Review
The focus on AI safety disasters ignores everyday harms
In an opinion piece, Sam Hiner and Emma Leiken argue that technology policy defines success as preventing the worst outcomes, which suits industry. They say AI companions and chatbots in schools call for stronger rules on dependence, learning and relationships.
Why it matters
The same thing, for different readers.
What it means for you
Hiner and Leiken say a chatbot can meet basic safety rules and still leave young people reliant on AI for friendship or for writing their schoolwork.
For lawmakers
The authors say state chatbot bills backed by Google carried broad carve-outs, while stronger laws on emotional dependence on AI failed.
For researchers
The authors cite MIT researchers who found weaker brain connectivity in young people using ChatGPT to write essays, and say long-term effects are still unknown.
The question it raises
Hiner and Leiken ask whether tools marketed as making people more capable erode the effort and friction through which judgment and relationships develop.
In their own words
Every quotation was found, word for word, in the text we saved from the source. That shows the words are there; it does not make them true, or prove the speaker meant them as quoted.
From the source’s own text.
“We should demand safety as a minimum, yes—and then demand considerably more.”
“Technology companies and school districts should have to show beyond a reasonable doubt that AI improves learning and critical thinking before making it a fixture in classrooms.”
“Companies should be prohibited from designing companions that pretend to be conscious or profess love to users, and they should face independent scrutiny”
The record
- Questions
- How is AI changing childhood, health and daily life? · Are AI companies putting stronger safeguards into practice?
- People
- Sam Hiner (Wrote it, cofounder and executive director, Young People's Alliance) · Emma Leiken (Wrote it, executive director, Responsible Technology Youth Power Fund at Hopelab)
- What we read
- We read the whole source.
- Found by
- The Radar, run of October 27, 2026, via
mit-technology-review-ai(tier 2: a major outlet’s own reporting) - Cite this
- MIT Technology Review, “The focus on AI safety disasters ignores everyday harms”, October 26, 2026. Entry in the Ctrl AI Base, https://ctrlai.com/base/mit-tech-review-2026-10-26-ai-safety-everyday-harms