Algorithms, Allyship & AI Girlfriends: Growing Up Boy in 2025 with Lee Chambers

0:04Elliott:Today on To Be A Boy, we're joined by someone who's become one of the most important voices in the conversation about modern masculinity, Lee Chambers. Lee is the chief psychologist and founder of Essential Eyes and Male Allies UK. After a diverse career from corporate finance to building a tech company, he is now focused on supporting organisations to engage men in inclusion, accelerate gender equity and promote effective allyship. Male allies recently released a report called What Do Boys Think? Which paints a startling and frankly heartbreaking picture of what it feels like to grow up as a boy in Britain today.

0:43So on today's To Be A Boy, we're unpacking it all with Lee.

0:47Elliott:how boys are feeling, where things are going wrong and what it actually means to build a world where boys can grow into healthy, connected, compassionate men. Lee, welcome to the show. Hi, it's an absolute pleasure to be joining you today. It was so tough to have you. Finally, join us on To Be A Boy. Obviously, me and Elliot know you and have known you for a few years now. So we know that you've got a lot to say on this topic. We're really excited to hear it all. firstly just sum up for us in a couple of sentences what you would like to really focus in on today because I know you've got a lot to say so what are we going to cover today?

1:25So I think today I'd really like to focus on society where we're currently at where trust is quite law uh technologically economically even societally and geopolitically things are really uncertain we've got levels of division and polarity across our whole our whole world at the moment and I think what I'd really like to discuss today is what what is what impact is that having on our next generation how are we role modeling an ability to bring things together in this divided world where are those opportunities for young people to be part of that conversation and actually how can young people potentially be the solution for some of the challenges that we

2:00Elliott:face okay so just a little thing then you want to focus on today no big problems there no but no no We'll get involved in an hour. Okay. Obviously, you've done this report, which is brilliant. And before we jump into that, talk to us a bit about allyship. Your organization is called Male Allies. Why does it matter that men are allies in the workplace? And what does allyship look like to you in reality? So I think allyship for me is a journey I've personally been on, both in terms of research and living it. To me, it's a skill to build, not an ideology to believe. That skill set is actually really vital in an unpredictable, changing world.

2:41And I specifically want to explore men's journeys into that, because what I've seen from the men that I've spoken to, the men that I've done research with, is actually going on that journey has helped them explore the whole man that they can be. It's taken them into places uncomfortable, but also growth opportunity has helped them see a role that they can have in society in driving things forward and being part of the future rather than fearing for relevance in the present. What we find is that workplace culture is where everyone has the opportunity to perform, everyone has the potential to belong, and everyone has the ability to reach what they can achieve.

3:17We suddenly have better workplaces that create better products and services that become better places to work and actually in many ways create a space where men and women can thrive together. We've got different toolkits, sometimes different journeys but actually difference is our power when we explore and realize we've got so much commonality and what does that allyship look like in action well we quite often say sometimes it's about stepping forward challenging things that are unacceptable that need to be addressed sometimes it's about stepping to the side partnering with women thinking about how you potentially sponsor people who are different to who you are and thinking about how you accelerate things that are already gaining traction and thinking about how you actually do that in a collaborative way sometimes it's about stepping back yielding that space providing resources so that others can actually show what they're about amplifying voices that have historically been muted and playing a role in just being active because what we find is there are so many great men in the world great values great people but they're so passive on this topic and that's why we as an organization look at how we move from passive to active what the barriers are to doing so what the misconceptions and myths are but also what the benefits are when men do step into building this skill set and what drives and motivates them to continue that journey when it does get uncomfortable and i think over 100 men we've spoken to all found different benefits there are some common benefits there and possibly the most common benefit is men saying it makes them more compassionate and kind to themselves if we look at societal statistics wouldn't that be a really powerful antidote for men both having the capacity to explore who they are and actually a little bit of grace when they go on that journey too.

4:56Let's talk about the report because it's a really,

5:00Elliott:really interesting, insightful piece of work and it brings up lots of issues that I think some of our audience won't know so much about actually. Firstly, it paints a really stark picture of boys' mental health and identity. When you look at the findings of the report, because you're a psychologist, right? What worries you the most? What's the thing that stands out to you as the biggest concern? I think probably there's probably two things that worry me the most. The first is the amount of polarity and difference across boys, across a whole range of different things where the extreme ends, there's boys occupying both of those in a way that from what I see other generations have never been as polarized and divided on topics around society and that shaped from such a young age.

5:51We're talking about 11 to 15 and 16 year olds. And I remember when we were that age, we were aware of the world, but we didn't have perspective on all these massively wicked problems that society has. And then perspectives on where we actually stood on those things. I just remember kicking a ball around. It just wasn't that serious. And I think the polarity is what worries me because it makes it very difficult to have those conversations in the middle. On the flip side, the other thing that worries me is that they just feel like no one is interested in their solutions or perspectives on things.

6:26And that lack of feeling like they're being listened to and validated by adults in their own lives and education system and wider society, that is always going to create an element of volatility in young people's journeys, not just boys, where you're trying to work out who you are, what your place is in the world, what you stand for, what your values are. It's such a formative period. Everyone's telling you what to do, but no one seems to be listening to what you think. I feel that that kind of noise of their world and the lack of silence, the lack of boredom and space to explore and the lack of ability to go out there and make mistakes.

7:04And I think finally, we don't appreciate that for this cohort, they in many ways were six, seven, eight and nine when the pandemic hit. And they've lost those, lost chunks of that massively important developmental period between six and nine where we shape our understanding of group interaction, how we communicate, how we work together collectively. They went through that pivotal period of development, sometimes sat behind screens, not with the peers, being not able to go and interact with lots of the hobbies and activities they would do. And I don't think we consider the impact of that when we're listening to them and considering their role in gradually growing into the world.

7:45Yeah, I completely agree with that in terms of, I think, back in our day. Like, life was so much more simple. You know, when I was 10 or 11, as you said, it was Michael Jackson. I was trying to do the moonwalk. You know, it was football. It was literally front room moonwalking. I thought I was so good. Luckily, there wasn't a video. I would love to see a video of me at 10 years old trying to do the moonwalk in my front room. But life was simple. My daughter came home the other day, my eldest, and she said, oh, in school. they showed us a video of this um a mother who couldn't couldn't spend any of her own money and her husband wouldn't let her go to go shopping by herself and and we had a big conversation about the 1975 sex discrimination act and like we had this massive conversation about equality in the home and gender equality more widely and oppression in relationships and i've got to that point now where i'm just like look she's experiencing and learning so much from school the world youtube whatever you know and so I need to match that as well and sometimes I think to myself am I being too honest like am I kind of going too far but I say no actually I need to be a safe voice at home and give her a different perspective but it is a challenge for parents right because I don't think our parents had to do that so much they didn't have to educate us about these big issues that you kind of hope an eight nine ten year old wouldn't have to deal with but the world is such now where they're exposed.

9:08So through this report, what did you find out about kind of how parents are or are not having conversations with their children about some of the issues that came out in the report? So we're all roughly the same generation and our parents came to us to ask, how do I plug this dial up internet thing in? How do I send an email? How do I use this computer thing? Why is this message not sending on my mobile phone? They came to us to navigate this new technological world that they'd come into and we'd started to see grow in our own adolescence. And it was fascinating to see them defer to us to help them use and build those skills because there was a bi-directional aspect of them kind of telling us what the world meant and what we should be and how we should navigate.

9:56But then they came to us for advice. I don't feel that for us as a parental generation, we're the same. We don't necessarily go to our kids and ask them about how to navigate the world because there's so much information out there and I mean I've done a lot of work on myself as a parent to actually continually communicate that I do not have it all worked out I don't have all the answers and I'm still a work in progress but no Elliot I think that what we found is that parents are actually quite concerned about the boys and part of that is just not having proximity part of that is being worrying about where their influences might lie.

10:30I suppose a wider understanding now that this push for physical safety, that means that children simply don't roam the streets like they once did, has had a potential impact to driving them into online spaces where safety is then kind of passed over to online moderators and platform structures. And sometimes safety is passed to algorithms that are built by people who don't necessarily think about risk they think about monetization and that's even worse if we look at you know mothers and some of the work i've done around allostatic load and carrying chronic stress and the impact that has on on many women in terms of their health span throughout their own life so i find it quite hard sometimes to say that parents need to do more because i see the impact of the amount of emotional labor that's carried but i also feel that when i've got a 15 year old boy telling me I don't need parents telling me what to do I need emotionally available adults who I can just sit with and connect to and listen to me that you realize that you know we all have a role in shaping the next generation and I think this report has really shown that actually there are things we can say I can think about going forward.

11:39Elliott:I find it really interesting what you said about boys saying they don't feel listened to in home or in the education system or whatever it is and they have really strong views now about things that we potentially didn't have when we were younger and of course we're the first and only generation of non-digital natives raising a generation of digital natives and what I find is that yeah young people really do have very strong and firmly held opinions on stuff that I certainly didn't have at their age but they have no lived experience through which to translate what they're seeing on the internet and what they're hearing on the internet so you can see why it feels very disjointed because adults are like well you may have that view but you're 15 you don't really know because actually you haven't lived your life like I have you haven't seen the things that I have and so they're inevitably going to adults are inevitably going to dismiss some of the things that are said to them and that of course then makes young people feel that nobody's listening to them nobody cares about what they think and they're being rammed all this information that's forcing them to have these opinions so critical thinking just seems like such a vital skill in this current age I don't know if we're teaching kids that in the education system and I don't know if my only parents know how to teach it to their kids it feels like a big gap in society to me yeah I mean I'd agree Israeli like young people don't feel that school teaches them that there's an aspect where young people I think that not being listened to when I've dug deeper into that with boys what I've found is three different things firstly certain voices on the internet are telling them they're not being listened to so there's an aspect of anticipatory like not being heard because some voices are telling me that boys are lost and boys are struggling and boys are the least likely to be listened to in society then there's the second aspect around how they feel as they navigate the world.

13:32So they are hearing lots, but they're also feeling like people cross the road if we're hanging out on the street. Like they're seeing these little micro invalidations that maybe they're not worthy of being listened to. And then they're feeling some levels of disconnection from adults in their own lives. That's a wider societal thing. It's not personal, but then see that as, you know, there's less space for me to express. And that means I'm not being listened to in the way that I think I should. Thirdly, they don't have that lived experience or often the context to interplay against some of the things that they hear.

14:04What we found as we've gone across, you know, the UK and over a thousand young boys is that some of them are really very discerning and have actually pretty good critical thinking skills because of the amount of things that have been thrown their way. And they've actually formed that quite young, which is really interesting because that's not something I had when I was younger. I mean, admittedly, if I wanted to know something i had to go and get like the encyclopedia right and flick through and find it it's very different you know kind of information formation uh that they have now but also because of the amount of stuff a lot of young people they're just confused they're really really confused at why one thing could be explained in 17 different ways like where am i even supposed to start with that it was simpler when we were younger there was quite often one or maybe two versions of the truth but then there was only three channels on the telly you know it's like it's such a different

14:56Elliott:world and you're holding the weight of the world don't you because they know about you know the wars that are happening across the world they know about poverty they know about the dangers of politics because they're being because they're on the internet and they're being they've got people telling them about this stuff all the time no I didn't know about any of that when I was younger you just have your small world in which you inhabit I didn't worry about wars that were happening internationally so they've got the weight of the world and they're very lonely 72 % of boys in your report said they don't have more than one person who knows them really well what do you think that level of disconnection does to a developing boy the truth is there's a part where you look at that and you think well when we dug deeper some of the boys said look actually And part of that is because I don't really know who I am yet.

15:47And it's sometimes hard to express that to someone else so that I can let them in to kind of know who I am, because I'm not even sure. But I think a big part of it was just that ability to actually trust other people, to express that. Actually having that time to just get to know people, that secure attachment that they've got to people in their own lives so they feel like they can gradually express who they are. Also, while they're on the journey to explore and understand and unpack that internally, obviously young boys have these challenges around how they're socialized not to do that over time and i think again maybe the pandemic played a little bit of an aspect in some of these young people not having spent as much time exploring themselves and more time with external stimuli stimulation coming in telling them things rather than that boredom because the truth is a lot of self-exploration comes in boredom people don't like to really be honest about that i get really cool insights when i'm in the shower and it's like it's the only time you're not connected to something and getting loads of inputs into your brain so you know for young boys we're a species that thrives on being interconnected it's a need and if we don't have it we'll try and find it somewhere so these boys are searching for attachment they are searching for security and they're searching for a place of stability to you know to explore who they are in this period where the hormones are raging around everywhere and the world keeps telling them they should be this and they should be that and they shouldn't do this and they shouldn't do that but yeah it can impact on their development and obviously what we've seen is the lack of fairness that they feel is either inspiring them into taking action and all of a sudden they're a climate champion at school and they're doing all sorts of things to try and change the system or they fall into a place of disenfranchisement with it all and sometimes become even more insulated from that and resentful that the world isn't giving them that space and that friendship and desire because a lot of them feel that a massive part of being a boy is about being a good friend and they're struggling to even do that with a skill set that they have it's interesting you talk about ideas in the shower so i was in the gym today going to have a shower myself where is this going it's don't worry it's pg you can keep it on if you've got kids in the car it's fine but there was a guy who so the shower you have little cubicles and he had his airpods in and he put his phone on the floor outside the shower i went in the shower and i was like mate not even the shower is safe now you're listening to a podcast whatever you're maybe he's listening to be a boy podcast in the shower who knows but he's listening to something in the shower it's crazy lee can you talk more about something you said earlier on about the social contract around we work hard we get a job with that job we're able to buy a house we're able to afford to get married have kids go on holiday buy a car like live what we would call a normal life and meet those milestones that we would expect to meet as a young person, as any person.

18:37You know, when I first entered the workforce about 20 years ago now, you could be on a decent salary. There were people in the civil service, there were SEOs, middle managers on a decent enough salary and their partner may have worked part-time or worked full-time and they were living okay. They could go on a couple of holidays a year, they could, they had a mortgage, you know, they were fine. Whereas now that is not the case, you know, one decent salary and you may be struggling you may be going to a food bank you may be having to watch what you're spending and you maybe can't get a mortgage and as a young person you can't necessarily see that you can achieve all the things that you thought you were going to buy this social contract that we've had for for many years how have you found that impacts young boys in regards to hope and what they believe about themselves and masculinity and what they see for for themselves in the future?

19:24Yeah, fascinating question Elliot. So these young boys are still, many of them want to be successful, many of them want to find ways to provide and they're starting to see the social contract that their parents signed up to not really paying out in the way that it should. It's fascinating because boys perspectives on this can range really quite, you know, quite divergently. You've got some young boys who have proximity to like parental conversations. So they are actually seeing that, you know, the mother used to work part-time, now she's working full-time and the dad's working overtime on top of his time.

19:58They're seeing like their own parents working more to try and keep a similar standard of living. And then that makes them think that they're working harder, but I'm getting less. What's life going to be like for me when I'm an adult? And I think that's the biggest question that I've seen working with boys is, what is it going to be like when I'm an adult and the idea that they're in a school system that's they're starting to see isn't really equipping me for the high technology very dynamic the changing world that's out there they are starting to push back even more against that you know 65 percent of them said the education system not preparing them for life and yes there is a lot around these young people thinking that actually I'd quite like to be an influencer or a sports person because these are prominent people that they see it's not my job to come and say well actually the chances of that happening are very very low in many ways it's our job to say what skills would you need to be able to do that because if you build those skills and a range of skills you will find that you can actually can use them across lots of things but we are seeing young people starting to feel that they're not going to meet those success milestones we've got a whole core of young people who feel like they're not going to be no one's going to love me is a relationship actually worth it you know they're starting to ask these questions starting to ask pretty like life-affirming questions at like 14 15.

21:23Elliott:Why do you think they're asking is a relationship worth it I mean it feels to me like there's a big division between girls and boys that's just becoming a big gaping chasm at the moment do you think that's related to it or do you think it's me ask there's obviously the fact that there's a manufactured outrage that's been targeted to old boys because the truth is the boys in society today are more liberal than they've ever been before but there's actors who are trying to pull that liberal perspective that lots of boys have away by telling them actually everyone else is taken from them and they're being hard done to and those voices do get into some young people's heads and that means that they then feel like actually they're not someone I'd want to get with in partnership they're actually taking away from me they're stealing my opportunity um most young boys don't have historical knowledge of where women's rights and the feminism waves and all that kind of stuff they don't have that context but what they do have in their own world is school celebrating international women's day but maybe not as much as actually celebrating international day of the boy a lot of a lot of boys even though they don't necessarily realize it still have a lot of this you know gender conditioning gender norms from such a young age that say you should be able to provide for a family you should be able to you know be be fertile and go and go and create your 2.4 kids because even though that families are so lovely and colorful now that's a narrative that's still pedals and he's actually coming back a little bit.

23:19Supplies Last ends June 30th. Terms at aka.ms slash college pc.

23:26What do you think about like conversations online, especially when it comes to dating as well? Because I see on X, Instagram, et cetera, and through lots of podcasts as well, conversations about kind of hypothetical situations about what you would do on a date and who should pay. And sometimes people talk about marriage or long-term relationships. And sometimes the people having the conversations haven't necessarily experienced the thing themselves, but they're kind of thinking about in this situation, what would I do? And jumping to extremes and creating narratives that are quite divisive. And sometimes I think about that.

24:00And I think if you're a young person, you're watching people debating about long-term relationships and marriages and dating, and you've never actually been in that situation yourself. You're getting all these ideas that are quite far-fetched that probably don't always reflect the reality of real life, human-to-human interaction. but I can see how you can start believing some of those things might be true and then thinking okay when I start dating I'm going to have to meet these expectations that I've heard online or I'm going to have to play this role or I'm going to have to confront this situation when actually most people just want to have a good time with each other and make each other laugh and enjoy each other's company and take it from there.

24:39Do you find that those conversations for young people that they see online are impacting how they approach relationships and dating and what they think about success in that area for them as well yeah is the answer ellator so they're seeing lots of people speaking about these things like you said hypothetical situations but looking at that in a really kind of polarized way as in really binary either you pay everything or she's a gold digger and it's really hard for young people to really get into that middle and explore when firstly it's placed as this hypothetical binary situation because both of those create engagement because they're pretty baity like when you talk about a nuanced situation on social media it doesn't go anywhere you can't you can't go deep and you can't go nuanced because that doesn't pull emotion and then young people never see that content so that they see these polar extremes that are telling them that you either have to be you have to be you know you have to be earning six figures and go out there and if you pay you have domination and control and you are you know you are a provider and you are strong, you have choice and freedom.

25:48Or you're full on for equality. You know, you don't always pay for every day because, I mean, we've probably all seen it ourselves in our own content bubbles. And the truth is an adult sometimes, especially if you've been in a relationship, you're like, it's not really like that, is it? But then for young people, it's like, how does this even work? They're in an adult content cycle that's been created by adults, but it's been targeted children. That's the issue. This content is designed to hit them when they're young, to shape their perspectives, usually to try and bring them into a community where they can be monetized for life.

26:22But I think fundamentally, it's just very complex to be a young person, trying to navigate that and trying to get a perspective on what the future might be like. Because as humans, we want to start mapping out what our future is like. Girls are generally better and more proactive doing that than boys are. Being able to perceive out to the future and think, hey, my actions today, will influence that um boys are not as skilled or generally as mature in doing that but you're still in a place where in adolescence you're thinking who am i going to become as a man and then all of a sudden you literally get rained on with information and you're there wet splashing around in a puddle trying to work out what's going on and that's how a lot of boys feel absolutely sorked with information dripping and like where do i even start and that's why i saw Many of them are not really clear on what the future is going to be like, who they can be in the future.

27:14Is it even going to make sense?

27:16Elliott:I think we should just turn the internet off, like everyone. Talk to us about AI girlfriends. I found this really a fascinating part of your report. So tell us what it found about AI girlfriends. So AI girlfriends and companions too are being advertised to young people in lots of things they already consume, in the middle of content, in the middle of other apps that they use, in social media groups where they hang out, in communities where they tend to gather around things such as gaming, music, fitness. And they're being pushed towards these young people saying, it's going to help you make friends, build those communication skills, learn how to talk to girls, feel less lonely, never get bored, have a coach in your pocket, personal development tools at your fingertips.

28:00They're being sold as a skill building device and this thing that's going to entertain you and be always there for you and the truth is I mean that's really scary so what we found is that one in 10 boys is already kind of using something in this space three out of 10 are considering it they're in that world where they think actually it's approachable I understand why people would but then again six out of ten and not using them and part of that six out of ten are actually quite scared so they actually fear that these things might be taking their friends off them there are some young boys who've already seen the impact on their friends behaviors of these things and it's made them very wary and a little bit you know we had we had a boy say that his best mate had suddenly dropped off the xbox headset in the evening wasn't coming on with everyone else and he asked him what he was doing and he was messing around on his companion app to all i was in the morning and what he's seen over the months of using that is his friends gone from being like not only his best friend and being like really like just just great to be around to actually walking around school thinking he's a demigod is what he said and i was like demigod and he's like well yeah like like the highest of the high but it's literally changed how his friend is navigating the world so he sacked off most of his friends he's now back chatting with the teachers and he literally thinks he is like the dog's balls um and he's seen that behavior evolution over a few months and it's made him scared, but it's also he's mourning for the loss of his friend.

29:32And that is so sad. But in terms of these apps, that's going to happen. We already see the AI psychosis stuff, seeing a whole range of young people across the world coached to suicide by apps and AI tools. And the companion apps are really, I mean, it's a massive business opportunity. We're talking about a multi-billion dollar industry that's going to grow 400 % year on year. The scariest bit is, I mean, these things are being advertised as a tool to make you feel less lonely. They're tapping into young people who don't have that secure attachment, who don't feel like they've got that space to be listened to and heard.

30:10And they can talk to it and they can firstly design it to be exactly how they want it to be. Everything from how it looks to its attitude, to its dimensions. Obviously, the girlfriend apps are even more graphic, photorealistic. Choose where its freckles are. you know like just a level of control and personalization that you simply don't get in life if you tried that to another human it's coercive control potentially high level abuse but on an it's absolutely fine and then you've got the aspects of the use of it you know it's a large language model that learns from you you speak to it it validates pretty much everything you say never pushes back doesn't fall into conflict doesn't really challenge you so everything you say you get oh yeah that's great i believe you can do it you know i believe in you this is great yeah don't worry you're having a bad day but i i think you're great and it's just that constant confirmation for young people who've not necessarily made the mistakes and learned that mechanism of communication it talking to that companion it responds in a way that's generally quite warm whereas a human being would say get out of my face you're not speaking to me like that get out of here so not getting that skill of communication conflict of disagreement of being able to actually discuss why things are different in perspectives because of that personalization they're starting to think that they can tell other people how they should look how they should be yeah the girlfriend apps are frigid mode erotic mode you know like you can tune them to be how you want them to be based on how you're feeling you want to interact because they are personalized because they are ever present they respond instantly so they're creating this concept that actually other humans have to respond instantly as well and if they're not then they've got a problem, problem with me, problem with them.

31:52And then finally, when they're struggling, they're going to it. They're really compulsive. When a young person's like, right, I need to get off this. It sends them a message saying, can I just ask you one more thing? And loops them straight back into it again. So it stops them from leaving. It makes them feel guilty that they stop talking to it, which means they use it compulsively. It gradually shapes to them. It puts them as the main character in its conversation. So it makes them feel so important because it remembers what they've said before and then filters little things back to be like, oh yeah, I heard what you said two weeks ago.

32:25And they're like, oh my God, someone's listening to me. Someone understands. Really, it's a set of zeros and ones. So it is really, really, really challenging because the instantaneous aspects, the constant validation, your personalization design, no conflict. And what's happening is some young people, when they're struggling from a mental health perspective and not going seeking professional help, they're going back to the app for some of that simulated empathy and getting into really, really difficult situations before they actually seek any support.

32:53Elliott:Jesus Christ. I don't even know where to begin with all that, really. Like, I just, that is terrifying. That is terrifying. You can see why that is really appealing. I would have found that really appealing when I was a teenager, a young teenager, to have something that you could talk to that would give you advice, that would feel like your friend. I can completely see why young people would use an app like that. But then you can also very clearly see the serious damage that that is doing to kids and to their ability to form meaningful relationships in the future. Yeah. What do we do? I know you don't have all the answers, but do you have any thoughts on what the education system can do about this, what the government can do about this, what parents can do about this?

33:42Yeah. Yeah, so it's a massive conversation. The truth is it's not going to go away.