\u201cI\u2019m not wearing that,\u201d my daughter said as she cringed at the T-shirt design for her softball team.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt looks so AI,\u201d she clarified.<\/p>\n
I suppose we were in luck the T-shirt wasn\u2019t mandatory, but because it looked AI?<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat does that even mean?\u201d I asked her, examining the photo sent on the team\u2019s communication portal. It was a simple pink shirt with a cartoonlike pair of cleats, a softball and two crisscrossed bats all adorned with a big bow on top. It was cute. She was nuts.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt just looks \u2026 so AI,\u201d she said, doubling down on her stance that she was not interested in purchasing this shirt.<\/p>\n
Needless to say, we didn\u2019t fork out the $20-some bucks for the shirt, but it did get me thinking.<\/p>\n
AI? Is this what she thinks AI is? And better yet, she was turning her nose up to it? What does that say about how this generation views the emerging technology that society fears could take over the world one day?<\/p>\n
OK, so that was a little deep. It was just a T-shirt.<\/p>\n
But when I asked her what AI was, she told me it was things that looked fake. Things that aren\u2019t real. She already at age 10 could spot that this wasn\u2019t real art. It was computer-generated, and she wasn\u2019t impressed.<\/p>\n
I mean, as a writer, her attitude was after my own heart. AI could single-handedly destroy my field. Who needs columnists, authors or even journalists when ChatGPT can do what we do and more in a matter of minutes?<\/p>\n
But still, I was struck by it. AI isn\u2019t something we\u2019ve really discussed. We\u2019ve had Amazon Alexa devices around the house since she was a baby, and that\u2019s practically ingrained in our family dynamic.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlexa play Peppa Pig songs\u201d is probably one of her core memories.<\/p>\n
But she didn\u2019t associate AI with Alexa, or even other helpful tools like that. She viewed it as fake. Illegitimate. Less than.<\/p>\n
Little does she know that the world will expect her to embrace it in the coming years, whether she likes it or not. And it is so so much more than an uninspired T-shirt design.<\/p>\n
Sure, it\u2019s the Amazon Alexas we have all over the house and it\u2019s the ChatGPT she uses on my phone to turn pictures of her dad into that of a, and I quote, \u201cbig back.\u201d That just means she added about 100 pounds to him.<\/p>\n
But perhaps more profoundly, it\u2019s the technology some of her teachers have used to generate tests. Yes, that actually happened when she was in third grade. Heck, it could upend education as we know it. But it\u2019s also technology that could take away the need for critical thinking, art or ingenuity. Why create something new when AI can do it better by default? These kids may be pressed with that question. I know I already am.<\/p>\n
It seems depressing. It is depressing. It\u2019s scary. Why are we allowing this again?<\/p>\n
I once saw a saying somewhere on social media that said something to the effect of, \u201cWe wanted AI to do the dishes and the laundry so we\u2019d have more time to create music and art. Not for AI to create music and art so we would have more time to do the dishes and the laundry.\u201d<\/p>\n
But for our kids, that\u2019s a real existential crisis. Is pioneering AI something they even want? Has anyone even asked?<\/p>\n
I did some research on social media myself asking what kids, specifically Generation Alpha, thought of AI. Many of the responses I got back from parents asking their kids showed that they were leery. Many viewed it as a way of cheating, or something that \u201ccould take over the world.\u201d They also liked it and thought it was cool they could ask it questions and get answers. My 8-year-old daughter particularly enjoys \u201cItalian Brain Rot,\u201d which is just a bunch of goofy AI cartoon pictures with made-up Italian names that make no sense. Google it sometime. You\u2019ll lose brain cells.<\/p>\n
One child, age 15, said he liked it and used it as an assistant of sorts but thought it needed to be controlled. \u201cThere probably needs to be laws,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He, too, thought AI-created content was tacky.<\/p>\n
So while we push these things forward into the twilight zone, are we even really doing what\u2019s best for our kids? Are we creating a crutch they will one day be too reliant on?<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not so sure, and neither are they. But we would be remiss to not include them in the conversation.<\/p>\n
But authenticity matters, and our kids know that. Let\u2019s just hope they keep that sentiment. It could \u2014 and will \u2014 change the world.<\/p>\n
In the meantime, it\u2019s just \u201ccringe.\u201d I think I\u2019m OK with that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cI\u2019m not wearing that,\u201d my daughter said as she cringed at the T-shirt design for her softball team.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":57664,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[182,181,507,74],"class_list":["post-57663","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57663","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57663"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57663\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57664"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57663"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}