In 2025, we predict you’ll be hearing a lot more about AI chatbots that blur the line between human interaction and exploitation, misinformation that distorts reality, and AI-driven image-based abuse targeting vulnerable individuals. This article cuts through the complexity, providing you with the lowdown on the latest tech trends, practical tools and insights to navigate these emerging issues and empower your students to thrive in a digital-first world.
Tech Trends 2025 #1 - AI Chatbots: Humanising Generative AI
AI-powered chatbots are now commonly embedded in many popular social media platforms such as Snapchat’s My AI friend or Instagram and Facebook’s Meta AI. As part of emerging tech trends, these tools are designed to mimic human interaction, making users feel like they’re chatting with a friend. Apps like Character.AI and Replika take this a step further by offering deeply personal interactions, often aimed at creating a sense of emotional connection.
While these technologies provide engaging experiences, they also carry significant risks, particularly for young users who may not fully understand the implications of interacting with AI-driven systems.
Key Steps for Educators
- Educate Early:
Help students recognise the risks of interacting with anonymous accounts or bots online.
- Risks to Highlight:
- Manipulation: AI bots may steer conversations in inappropriate or harmful directions, either due to programming flaws or malicious intent.
- Data Exploitation: Chatbots can collect sensitive personal information during conversations, which may later be used for targeted advertising or training AI models.
- False Trust: Students may develop emotional reliance on chatbots, mistaking them for real friendships, which could hinder their ability to form healthy human relationships.
- Classroom Activities:
- Distinguish AI from Humans: Explain how AI chatbots work, including their inability to truly “understand” or empathise, despite how they appear.
- Guard Personal Information: Teach students never to share private details, such as their full name, location, or photos, with any online account they cannot verify as human.
- Set Boundaries: Encourage students to question why a bot is asking certain questions and stop interacting if it feels uncomfortable.
- Recognise Red Flags:
Teach students to identify manipulative AI behaviours, such as attempts to extract sensitive information, divert conversations, or influence decisions.
- Key Indicators of Manipulation:
- The bot steers the conversation towards personal or financial details (e.g., “Where do you live?” or “What’s your bank info?”).
- Sudden changes in tone or behaviour, such as becoming overly friendly or persistent.
- Attempts to isolate the user, encouraging secrecy or discouraging them from speaking to others about their interactions.
- Classroom Activities:
- Use role-play activities to practise spotting manipulative language or behaviour.
- Encourage students to pause and think critically about the intentions behind a bot’s questions or responses.
- Collaborate with Parents:
Share resources and tools to promote awareness and practical strategies to mitigate these risks.
- Strategies for Families:
- Set Family Guidelines: Establish rules for chatbot interactions, such as only using bots on platforms approved by parents or guardians.
- Monitor Usage: Encourage parents to periodically review their child’s interactions with chatbots to ensure safety.
- Open Dialogue: Foster an environment where children feel comfortable discussing their online experiences, including any unsettling interactions with AI.
- Recommended Resources for Parents:
- Cyber Safety Project’s Parent Sessions
- Cyber Safety Project’s Understanding AI and Deepfakes
Tech Trends 2025 #2 - Misinformation: Reshaping Public Discourse
The spread of misinformation has taken a concerning turn in 2025, with the removal of fact-checking measures on some major social media platforms, leading to a growing distrust in credible sources. As part of evolving tech trends, social media algorithms amplify sensational or polarising content, making it easier for misinformation to spread unchecked. For young people, this poses unique challenges as they navigate a world where they must separate fact from fiction in real-time.
Key Steps for Educators
1. Teach Critical Evaluation:
Help students develop the skills to assess the credibility of online information.
- Questions to Guide Evaluation:
○ Who created the content, and what is their motive?
○ Is the information supported by multiple credible sources?
○ Are there clear signs of bias, such as loaded language or cherry-picked data
- Classroom Activities:
○ Host debates where students defend or refute claims based on evidence.
○ Analyse viral posts or headlines to identify techniques used to mislead readers.
2. Encourage Lateral Reading:
This research technique involves cross-checking facts by opening multiple sources to verify information rather than focusing solely on one website.
- Classroom Activities:
- Assign students to investigate a trending topic and validate its claims using at least three reputable sources.
- Use real-world examples to show how misinformation is debunked through lateral reading.
3. Discuss the Impact of Misinformation on Society:
Help students understand how misinformation influences public discourse and decision-making.
- Topics to Explore:
○ The role of misinformation in shaping elections, public health campaigns, and social movements.
○ How sensationalised content undermines trust in credible news outlets. - Educator Resources:
○ Fact-Checking 101 by the Cyber Safety Project
○ eSafety Commissioner’s Guide to Identifying Fake News
Tech Trends 2025 #3 - AI Deep Fakes: Generative Tools and Image-Based Abuse
Advances in generative AI tools have brought impressive innovations, but they’ve also given rise to dangerous misuse, including the creation of deep fakes. As part of emerging tech trends, deep fakes, or hyper-realistic AI-generated images and videos, have been weaponised for harm, including sextortion, harassment, and the spread of disinformation. In 2024, incidents of AI-driven image-based abuse, including fabricated explicit content, skyrocketed, posing serious risks to young people.
Key Steps for Educators
1. Explain How Deep Fakes Are Created and Used:
Educators can demystify the technology to help students understand the risks and reduce their vulnerability.
- Key Points to Share:
- Generative AI tools use advanced algorithms to create or manipulate images and videos that appear real.
- Deep fakes can be used for disinformation, fraud, or malicious purposes, such as creating fake explicit content to abuse or sextort.
- Classroom Activities:
- Show examples of harmless deep fakes to illustrate the technology.
- Use case studies of misuse to highlight real-world consequences.
2. Teach Students to Identify Deep Fakes:
Students must learn to critically evaluate visual content and spot the telltale signs of deep fakes.
- Signs to Look For:
- Unnatural blinking or inconsistent eye movements.
- Blurring or mismatched lighting in images or videos.
○ Awkward transitions or glitches in lip-synching during speech.
- Classroom Activities:
- Provide students with side-by-side comparisons of authentic and fake content to sharpen their detection skills.
- Encourage students to question “too good to be true” visuals and investigate their origins.
3. Address the Psychological and Social Impacts of Sextortion:
Educators must create safe spaces for students to discuss these issues openly.
- Actionable Advice for Students:
- Never share compromising photos or videos, even with trusted individuals.
- If targeted, avoid engaging with the perpetrator and report the issue to a trusted adult or platform (such as eSafety.gov.au) immediately.
- Support Resources:
- eSafety Commissioner’s Deep Fakes & Image Based Abuse
- ACCCE Sextortion Awareness
- Cyber Safety Project’s Understanding AI and Deepfakes
Author: Trent Ray
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