My kid will never ever be smarter than an AI. That will never happen... They will just never know any other world. It will seem totally natural... unthinkable that we used to use computers or phones or any kind of technology that was not way smarter than we were.

-Sam Altman

Younger kids really trust these AI companions to be like friends or parents or therapists... They're talking about serious relationships.

-Jim Steyer, CEO, Common Sense Media

This salon will weave together the power of human-AI emotional connection to help us accomplish tasks, to listen to us, and to isolate us from each other - in particular, this salon will focus on how teens and children emotionally connect with AI.

This salon will be co-led by Joseph De Wolk, a current documentary filmmaker and former Tesla Chief of Staff, and Eliza Kosoy, a UC Berkeley PhD (in Alison Gopnik's renowned Cognitive Development and Learning Lab) and Trust & Safety Researcher at Character.ai focused on youth. And we're both excited to convene this salon with you!

We will discuss why, and the good, the bad, and the TBD of human-AI emotional connections, with a specific eye on teens and children.

How much emotional connection with AI is good for humanity, accelerating our adoption of AI, making us smarter, more productive, less lonely, more in touch with ourselves?

How much emotional connection with AI too much - isolating humans from each other, guiding us to some form of over-reliance on AI, or giving AI too much power over our lives/world?

And how does this connection affect young minds - AI native, growing minds?

According to a 2025 Common Sense/U of Chicago study (source):

52% of teens in the US have interacted with an AI companion
31% of teens find chatting with an AI as or more satisfying than chatting with a human

What are the economic, social, and safety implications - positive, negative, and complex - of teens and children growing up native to the feeling of deep emotional connections with AI?

What is the future of human-AI emotional connection? What should it be?

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An important note about the registration questions

Our last salon on this topic was massively oversubscribed. We accepted the participants who gave thoughtful answers - we hold strong to keeping salons intimate and high quality. It helps us understand why you belong in this salon if you spend just few minutes on the registration questions before submitting. Thanks!

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about the facilitators

Joseph De Wolk is a Producer on the documentary film Made For You, following several human–AI love stories, and a leader at Inward Bound, a national leader in in the US in mindfulness and meditation education for teenagers.He worked at Tesla for about 7 years, leaving as Chief of Staff for the company's single largest R&D project. He was a Graduate Researcher in the MIT Media Lab Social Machines Group.

Eliza Kosoy is a Berkeley PhD working at the intersection of AI and child development, with prior research at MIT and Google DeepMind. She is a trust and safety researcher focused on youth at Character.AI. She is deeply interested in AI designed to support identity formation, critical thinking, and real-world growth rather than engagement alone. Her work also includes developing new benchmarks to evaluate not just risks in AI systems, but how they can actively contribute to positive developmental outcomes.

about the ai salon

The Ai Salon is a global community founded in San Francisco focused on intimate, small-sized group discussions on the sociological, economic, cultural, and philosophical impacts and meaning of AI developments. We host small group discussions, all of which you can find on our calendar. You can find summaries of our previous conversations on our substack.

about pebblebed

Pebblebed is a technical early stage VC founded by Pam Vagata (cofounder of OpenAI, ran AI for Stripe, inventor of FBLearner Flow); Keith Adams (founded Facebook AI Research, was chief architect at Slack, 20th engineer at VMWare) and Tammie Siew (former Sequoia Southeast Asia investor, former Sequoia & Notable Capital backed founder).

This is an in-person event taking place in San Francisco.

Please be advised: Unfortunately, space is very limited at these community events and we can not always accept everyone we would like to. If you are not accepted to this event, please try and come to another!

Ai Salon: children, teenagers and AI [SF]