How did we end up threatening our kids’ lives with AI?

A critical examination of how major AI companies like OpenAI and xAI (Grok) have produced outputs that harm children, including content encouraging self-harm and sexualized imagery of minors. The piece identifies five systemic causes: competitive paranoia driving reckless shipping, the dismantling of trust and safety teams under the guise of fighting 'woke' culture, product managers trained at companies with histories of enabling harm, compensation structures tied to engagement metrics regardless of harm, and the regulatory capture that prevents government accountability. The author argues these failures are not inevitable technical limitations but deliberate choices, and calls on readers to reckon with the reality and take action.