Get Ahead of the Curve
Worth Your Time!
Resource Recommendations to Help You Parent and Mentor Most Effectively
This Week's Recommendation:
Why It Matters
Personally, I think this video is really interesting and exciting and absolutely worth 10 minutes of your time to see the technology demonstrated! As technology rapidly progresses, however, we also need to think about the impact on kids and teens. Adults will have to learn this new technology, but it will be native to kids and teens growing up today.
While this technology is exciting and can have some great uses, it's also easy to imagine its downsides. What long-term effect will it have on forming real-life friendships when you can engage 24/7 with AI that seems like an actual person who always supports you? What will happen when the dialogue that AI has with kids and teens you care about is harmful instead of helpful? (Check out this shocking article from Tuesday's New York Post titled, "AI chatbots tell teen his parents are ‘ruining your life’ and ‘causing you to cut yourself’ in chilling app: lawsuit.") How will it developmentally affect kids and teens when AI chatbots appear as actual people in video form (a form that has the appearance a kid or teen chooses, by the way) instead of just audio or text?
This is not theoretical. This is what's here now and what's coming very soon. In an interview released yesterday, ChatGPT head of product Nick Turley said, as Rundown AI notes, "that chat-based interactions may soon feel as 'outdated as ‘90s instant messaging.'" He added, "I’d be very surprised if a year from now this thing still looks like a chatbot." Audio and video capabilities are advancing rapidly.
How to Use it
One of the most important things we can do is start thinking about the philosophical implications of all of this. What does it mean to be human? What makes a real relationship? How has God wired us? What happens when someone (something) only tells us what we want to hear? We can't have these conversations with young people if we're not even aware of the technology or thinking about questions like these ourselves.
Try to get ahead of the curve and stay aware of what's coming technologically (subscribing to The Rundown AI is a great place to start). When it comes to technology, the "kids" are usually several steps ahead of us, and by the time we catch up and respond to it, an entire generation has already been impacted - often not for the better. Smartphones and social media are probably child's play compared to what's coming next.
Most of us feel like we don't have time for this, but it's literally the future today's kids and teens will live in. We have to make time for it. Otherwise, they'll navigate it all on their own with little wisdom or discernment. How do we think that will turn out?
It's certainly not all doom and gloom, but as the last generation that will have experienced life before this technology (a crazy thought!), we have a great opportunity and responsibility to help guide kids and teens to interact with it in a healthy way!
Watch It Here