Parenting questions, according to reporter Adrianna Rodriguez, are popular among AI users. She lists several common ones: “Is my child hitting their developmental milestones?” “What should I do if my child has a fever?” “How do I handle toddler tantrums?” “Am I good parent?” This trend received more attention when Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, confessed in an interview on The Tonight Show, with Jimmy Fallon, that he could not “imagine having gone through, figuring out how to raise a newborn without ChatGPT.” Altman, like many others, finds solace in the convenience and ease of AI, but depending on machines to mediate parental relationships carries many risks, among them the likelihood that children won’t trust or respect their parents and will go straight to the machines themselves.
Interestingly, AI is presented by both Rodriguez and Altman as a guide for parents with their many questions. This ever-present deity-like assistant never slumbers and can not only pull data down through the ages from all the experts but can also offer those tender words of comfort that parents need in difficult moments. Altman, in his interview with Fallon, described AI as a “general purpose sort of life adviser.” Here, the first threat is already establishing an afront upon the authority of the parent. While it is described merely as an adviser and assistant, it is no mere assistant and certainly not worthy of the title, adviser. Altman, while acknowledging that people can and have parented before AI, stated that he cannot imagine parenting without it. His world, including his very child, is only accessible through the power of a screen. Even though his child is only 8 months old, there is coming a day when the child will be able to process and understand not only his father but his father’s “adviser,” and the dividing line may not be so clear as Altman would believe.
Altman admits that he feels bad for using ChatGPT in his parenting, but this guilt seemed more due to his own questions than the fact that he was using it in the first place. His panic regarding whether his son was on track developmentally sent him not to a fellow human being, family or friend, but to his trusted adviser, ChatGPT. It is rather telling that Altman describes the answer that he got back as “great,” though it’s not clear what basis he had for this judgment. It’s doubtful he asked his own parents or a mentor about the merits of the machine answers.
Parents turning more to AI and less to family and friends are getting a poor substitute to fill our natural need for human connections. A child raised by ChatGPT-asking parents may well seek fewer human interactions than their parents, as they watched their parents building relationships with a machine instead of people. Altman is playing with the same fire as the parents in Ray Bradbury’s “The Veldt.” In Bradbury’s short story the parents experience a loss of connection with their children and lose any authority over them. Slowly, the children are consumed by the virtual reality like machine in their nursery, and in the end the parents are consumed by the machine at the wishes of the children. Technology dependence is not simply a worry for children but for adults as well. A parent’s overuse of technology, especially in parenting, threatens to blur the lines in our most natural relationships. What will happen as the child learns to ask ChatGPT instead of parents?
For Altman, AI might be an “adviser” or a personal assistant, but Altman’s child will perhaps see through the veil and find AI as the source of authority. Just as the parents allow more room for the computer program in “The Veldt,” so does AI continue to encroach upon human relationships and trust. Even in his own examples on the Late Show, Altman evaluates ChatGPT’s answers based on his life experiences and relationships that are not bound to a screen display. While he can apply such wisdom and questioning, it is not clear how future generations that grow up relying on AI for guidance will develop the broader awareness needed to test machine knowledge.
Here lies the danger for the generation raised by parents assisted by AI: where does it end? If the iPad generation has taught us anything it is that technology pushes into areas once reserved for parents and human relationships. Playtime is now for the computer rather than for the parent and child. Learning is now tapping a button rather than searching and wondering alongside other people. Humanity was created for dependence upon each other, but our greatest achievements currently replace opportunities to form relationships. If parenting relies on AI, then parents should not be shocked as their children go to AI rather than to their parents for meaningful answers to their questions.
After all, Altman’s child will eventually learn that his father finds him a very inefficient form of intelligence. As Altman explained to another interviewer who asked about AI’s energy usage, “it also takes a lot of energy to train a human. It takes like 20 years of life and all of the food you eat during that time before you get smart.” Altman’s child might have reason to doubt that someone who thinks like this would love him or care much about helping him develop as a person.
As the Tonight Show interview drew to a close, Fallon turned to any cons or worries that Altman had regarding AI, and his answer was the rate of change. Not change in general, only the current rates of change for AI. He is half right; the rate is worrisome, but the nature of change is just as worrisome. The nature of AI is to replace reality with its measurements and functions, and this is a poor trade. Altman and others have fooled themselves into believing that they have left the cave, but instead they have willingly chained themselves to the wall and gladly swapped the substance for the shadow.
Image Credit: Rembrandt, “The Flight into Egypt” (1627)
