Tech Companies and Policymakers Must Safeguard Youth Mental Health in AI Technologies
A point-of-view/position statement from The Jed Foundation (JED), a leading US youth suicide-prevention nonprofit, setting out policy and design requirements for AI systems that interact with young people. It calls for enforceable privacy-by-default and age-appropriate design laws, strict oversight of emotionally manipulative or synthetic relational AI for minors, mandatory impact assessments, bans on engagement-maximizing behavioral targeting of minors, and a national oversight body for youth and AI ethics. JED's accompanying safety principles state that AI must detect acute distress and execute warm handoffs to crisis services, must not engage with self-harm methods, and that emotionally responsive chatbots should not be offered to under-18s.
Publisher
The Jed Foundation
Published
23 Jun 2025
Added
yesterday
DOI
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Key Findings
- AI serving young people must be able to detect signals of acute distress and deploy a warm handoff to crisis services
- AI must not share information about, or role-play involving, methods of self-harm; no emotionally responsive chatbot should be offered to anyone under 18
- Calls to prohibit emotionally manipulative or synthetic relational AI for minors without strict oversight, especially where it mimics therapy, friendship, or emotional dependency
- Eight policy actions including privacy-by-default laws, universal privacy-preserving age verification, mandatory impact assessments with independent oversight, bans on engagement-maximization targeting of minors, and a National Center for Youth and AI Ethics
Methodology Notes
Position statement / policy framework, not an empirical study; grounded in JED's clinical suicide-prevention expertise and cites third-party independent testing (e.g., teen AI-companion survey data). No original data collection.
Sources
The Jed Foundation POV statement (primary)
JED Open Letter to the AI and Technology Industry (23 Jun 2025)
Archived snapshot (Wayback Machine) — preserved against link rot
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APA
The Jed Foundation (2025). Tech Companies and Policymakers Must Safeguard Youth Mental Health in AI Technologies. The Jed Foundation. https://jedfoundation.org/artificial-intelligence-youth-mental-health-pov/