Is Snapchat’s My AI a safe space or a slippery slope for teens?

Snapchat’s AI chatbot, My AI, is raising concerns among teens and parents — with questions about how it's used, what it says, and whether the platform is doing enough to keep young users safe. While there are parental controls available through Snapchat’s Family Centre, many parents may not know they can restrict access to the bot altogether. So, is this feature really as risky as it sounds?

Also, major automakers are cancelling their upcoming electric vehicle launches in the US - what does this mean for us here in Australia? And unlike Elon Musk’s brain-computer interface, Synchron’s doesn't require open-skull surgery, and it has an OpenAI chatbot baked in. Is this a win for disability tech? Or the first step towards a Terminator-like revolution?  

Plus, how do you stop an AI model turning Nazi? What does the Grok drama reveal about how we train our large language models? And is there a better way to be doing it? 

 GUESTS:

• Tobias Venus, technology and travel journalist 
• Jennifer Dudley-Nicholson, Future Economies reporter for the Australian Associated Press 

This episode of Download This Show was made on Gadigal land and in Meanjin.

Technical production by Ann-Marie Debettencour and Allyse Symons.