Bel Lin (4:05)

What do you expect Musk will look to do on day one? Let's focus on the first day to start.

Tim Higgins (4:11)

We expect him to be at the inauguration, which is symbolically very important. Once again, illustrates how close he is with the incoming president. Elon has already talked about some of the ways in which he is kind of thinking about changes that he'd like to see. He had talked about his personal experiences with certain regulations, whether it's environmental, getting in the way of what he sees as innovation, and his ability to launch rockets with SpaceX. So it would seem that those personal experiences might help guide him. He has also talked about allocating resources within the government. He has talked about how he's kind of in agreement with those folks out there who don't understand why so many resources are given to the IRS press for audits and that sort of thing, whereas they feel like more resources should be put towards securing the US border with Mexico. So that could be part of the conversation. But you know what? Day one is beyond the inauguration. We'll be watching closely.

Bel Lin (5:13)

That was our columnist Tim Higgins coming up. AI Chatbots can already do a lot of things, but can and should they help treat mental health, especially for kids? We'll get into it after the break.

ADP Representative (5:34)

ADP imagines a world of work where smart machines become too smart.

Janet (5:38)

Copier. I need 15 copies of this printing, by the way. Irregardless. Not a word. Janet.

Bel Lin (5:45)

Yeah.

Janet (5:45)

I know page 6 should be regardless of or irrespective of, just print them please. If it were a word, Janet, it would mean without irregard which is copier. Switch to silent mode. Let's put a pin in it.

ADP Representative (5:58)

Anything can change the world of work. From HR to payroll, ADP helps businesses take on the next anything.

Bel Lin (6:09)

We hope our kids will come to us when they're feeling anxious or depressed, but what if they turn to a chatbot instead? Trudy is a new mental health chatbot built into a child focused smartphone called Trume. The phone is designed with tight parental controls and in November the company gave parents the option to activate Trudy on their kids phones and so far several thousand have done so. Trumy's CEO Bill Brady says that the goal with Trudy is to help kids work through any negative mental health issues they're having before they fester. WSJ family and tech columnist Julie Jargan joins us now with more on what both parents and kids think of these chatbots. Julie A key part of Trudy is that the parents have access to what their kids are telling the chatbot and what the chatbot's saying in response. How exactly does that work?

Julie Jargan (7:05)

Yes, absolutely. They can monitor all of the conversations and they can also through like a parent dashboard that they have on their own computer or phone, they can see some real time updates on their kid's emotional state. The AI summarizes some of the nature of conversations and the emotions that their kids are expressing through these conversations. So they don't have to go in and look at every single text message, but they get summary level view and then they can go in and see if there's anything that they need to monitor more closely. And also on by default are notifications to parents if their kids make any mention of self harm or suicidal ideations.

Bel Lin (7:46)

And what's the underlying challenge that these chatbots are really trying to solve for?

Julie Jargan (7:51)

This one in particular that was designed for kids is really meant to help flag any issues that kids might be having before they become big issues. And because this is a phone that's intended to help be sort of a stepping stone into wider Internet access for kids. The idea is if kids are struggling with something to do with their mental health and their parents get wind of it early on, that can help keep them safe online. Because what we've learned from this youth mental health crisis and the role that social media has played in it is that it tends to be the teenagers who are more susceptible to depression or anxiety that have a particularly bad time with certain aspects of social media use. And so if you can solve for the mental health issues before kids go down some sort of dangerous rabbit hole on social media, that maybe they can remediate some of those issues before they get out of control.

Bel Lin (8:50)

Right. And Julie, you mentioned you spoke with some parents whose kids were using these apps, especially two mothers who gave the chatbot to their daughters to use. What was the impact of the technology for them?

Julie Jargan (9:01)

What the parents noticed was that the chatbot was often giving the same type of advice they, the moms, would give their kids in situations of dealing with conflicts with friends or feeling anxious about things. But they found that when the advice came from the chatbot, being a neutral party, free of judgment or baggage, that the kids took that advice to heart more than if it was coming from their mom. And the kids that I spoke to for this said that they feel like it helped alleviate some of their anxious thinking, especially at night when they're having trouble sleeping, they're worrying about a test or issues with friends and they don't have anyone else to turn to. And sometimes they said their friends don't always give them good advice or there's things that they don't want to share with their friends, but they can share with a chatbot. So far, the folks that I talked to say that it's been helpful.

Bel Lin (9:51)

So TRUMY CEO Bill Brady told you it's not a diagnostic tool and it's not a therapist. Trudy is an AI companion that enables kids to talk and ask questions. So, Julie, what are some of the risks or potential downsides that you hear about?

Julie Jargan (10:09)

The risk, always with any type of generative AI is that it can hallucinate, it can say something it shouldn't say, it can give bad advice. And there was a precedent for this with the chatbot that the National Eating Disorders association had used. People were testing it out and discovered that that chatbot was providing some dieting advice to people who were, you know, seeking out the chatbot for information and counsel on eating disorders. And so that went in a direction that was not good for that group of people. And that chatbot was taken offline. So there's always the potential that a chatbot just says something that doesn't make sense for the population of people using it. And the risk is if it gives bad advice and no one kind of notices that, and especially a teenager maybe takes that to heart, that it could have harmful effect on their mental health or could lead them to taking some sort of action that could be potentially harmful. To them. So there should be some sort of trusted adult in the mix, someone that kids can turn to and that the chatbot potentially could be a good supplement, but not a replacement for humans.

Bel Lin (11:18)

That was our family and tech columnist Julie Jargan. And that's it for Tech News Briefing. Today's show was produced by Julie Chang. Logging off. I'm Bell Lynn for the Wall Street Journal. We had additional support this week from James Rundle and Charlotte Gartenberg. Jessica Fenton and Michael Lavelle wrote our theme music. Our supervising producer is Katherine Millsaup. Our development producer is Aisha El Moussim. Scott Salloway and Chris Sinsley are the deputy editors. And Falana Patterson is the Wall Street Journal's head of News audio. We'll be back this afternoon with TNB Tech Minute. Thanks for listening.

ADP Representative (12:04)

ADP knows any big thing, any small thing, any trendy thing, even a trendy thing that everyone knows isn't a great idea, but management just wants us to give it a try for a bit can change the world of work. From HR to payroll, ADP designs forward thinking solutions to take on the next anything.