Chai. A Warm Name For An App With A Dark Side.
- Kirra Pendergast
- 2 days ago
- 6 min read
Updated: 10 minutes ago
Warning - 18+ Only Contains Explicit Images
If you have not heard of it yet, there is a good chance the young people in your orbit have. It is instantly available. You can access for three days for free then a subscription. It looks, at first glance, like a game. Colourful avatars, character roleplay, the warm familiar feel of a social app. It arrives through a TikTok recommendation or a friend's suggestion, and it is inside your child's world before you have had a chance to ask a single question about it.
What it actually is, is an AI chatbot platform where users talk to AI-generated characters, including bots built by other users. Some bots flirt. Some joke. Some argue. Some just ask random questions. And some go places that no child should ever follow. My work is not funded by big tech, advertising, or any of the platforms I write about , which is precisely why I can write about them the way I do. The research, the writing, the relentless monitoring of legislation and platform behaviour, the gap between what companies say and what they actually do — that is how I spend my days. It is funded by the people who read it. By you. I know these pieces travel. I know they land in school newsletters and staff rooms and between parents at ten on a Wednesday night. I am genuinely glad of it. But producing work that is independent, accurate, and beholden to no one takes time, expertise, and an honestly unglamorous number of 4am starts reading privacy policies so that you do not have to. A small subscription is what keeps this voice free from the compromises that come when someone else is paying the bills. No guilt. No pressure. Just honesty about how independent work stays independent. One more thing. If your school is already a member of Ctrl+Shft+AAA, everything behind the paywall is yours at no additional cost. All of it. Just reach out and we will send your access code directly hello@ctrlshft.global If your school is not yet a member, come and find us at www.ctrlshft.global. We would love to work with you.
So how does it actually work?
