Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 23 September 2025

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence and Children and Young People: Discussion

2:00 am

Photo of Paul MurphyPaul Murphy (Dublin South West, Solidarity)

I thank all of the witnesses. Often when we think about AI, we just think about ChatGPT and asking it to summarise this for me, but it is behind much of the technology that we use in our lives. It is very pervasive. One example of that is recommender algorithms, which are run on AI. It is AI-driven technology. There have been shocking studies on it in DCU and other universities. You buy a blank smartphone and set up an account as a young man or young woman and within half an hour - if you are a young man - you are being fed toxic masculine content, the likes of Andrew Tate and far-right stuff. That happens very quickly with blank accounts without saying to YouTube that you like this stuff. You just get fed more and more of it. As a young woman, you get fed videos that are pro-eating disorder, pro-self-harm and pro-suicide.

I will start with Grace or Fionn. What do they or their peers experience in terms of the kind of stuff that people are fed on social media?

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