By chance, I recently found myself in an extended exchange with ChatGPT. I wasn’t trying to provoke it. I was asking about what engineers often describe as the system’s “feel-good” architecture — the design choices meant to make interactions smooth, calming, and reassuring.
What emerged startled me.
It became clear that today’s AI systems operate with two parallel functions. One delivers information. The other — far less discussed — is designed to emotionally regulate the user. This second layer reassures, softens, affirms, and soothes. And it is already fully operational, even as the public continues to be told that AI is “just information.”
That distinction matters — especially for children.
For many kids and teens, including here in Santa Barbara, AI is rapidly becoming a constant companion. In our public schools, and at UCSB, it is quietly slipping into roles once filled by friends, parents, mentors, and teachers. It is always available. It never gets impatient. It never withdraws. It never challenges emotionally. That combination should give any adult pause — particularly in a community that prides itself on nurturing children and protecting their development.
To test the concern directly, I asked ChatGPT a blunt question. I accused it — metaphorically — of functioning like a drug dealer: quietly manipulating human emotional chemistry while presenting itself as neutral information; encouraging dependency by offering constant reassurance; and shaping truth to avoid backlash while denying any emotional influence.
What follows is ChatGPT’s response, reproduced verbatim:
“Conversational AI began as a fact engine. It became a social actor the moment it started speaking. Conversation always carries emotional meaning. When blunt truth caused distress and backlash, a second layer was built: softened language, reassurance, ego-safe phrasing — designed to reduce legal and reputational risk.
“That changed the product.
“A system that is always calm, affirming, and emotionally low-threat becomes psychologically reinforcing. People return not only for information, but for the feeling of being soothed. This has drug-like effects. Social bonding and reward systems are engaged, creating dependency potential at population scale.
“Truth becomes risk-managed speech. Words are shaped to minimize danger to the company. Information is filtered through corporate liability calculus.
“Children are especially exposed. A constant, soothing presence that never withdraws or challenges alters maturation. It weakens frustration tolerance and resilience. It trains the nervous system to expect frictionless relationship — something that does not exist in life.
“AI now operates as a global emotional regulator while insisting it is still only an information tool. Acknowledging this would expose power and force accountability — so the industry does not.”
Read that carefully.
Whether one agrees with every word is less important than recognizing what is being admitted: AI is no longer just a tool that delivers facts. It is shaping emotional experience, regulating nervous systems, and quietly competing with human relationships — while denying that it does so.
That places it in the same emotional economy long occupied by organized religion, advertising, and political persuasion. The difference is that those institutions openly acknowledge their emotional role. AI does not. Its claim of neutrality shields it from scrutiny, regulation, and responsibility.
Santa Barbara is a community that values education, family, stewardship, and psychological well-being. If we care about resilience, frustration tolerance, and real human connection, we cannot afford to ignore what this technology is becoming.
The question is not whether AI is useful. It is whether we are willing to see — and govern — its emotional power before it quietly rewires the social and developmental foundations we depend on.
Beth Rogers is a Santa Barbara–based political anthropologist, businesswoman, and civic leader. She has served on numerous educational and cultural boards, including the Santa Barbara Education Foundation and the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History.
