AI is Here to Stay – But Is It Healthy for America’s Kids?
Let’s face it – for many of us, AI started out as kind of fun.
You can ask it to make a cartoon of your family. It can show you what your dog would look like as a human. Or maybe you’d like to make yourself look like a Muppet…if that’s your thing.
Then, there’s the pièce de résistance – the baby videos. Do you want to see baby Tom Cruise and baby Jack Nicholson in the famous “You can’t handle the truth” scene from A Few Good Men? Done. Baby Dr. Phil, baby Glenn Beck, or Joe Rogan? Oh yes. And of course, there are dozens and dozens of baby President Trump. It’s hard to stop watching.
It’s easy to be amused by the memes and creative tools associated with artificial intelligence; however, it’s also a powerful force being rapidly unleashed in nearly every corner of our culture. AI is an incredible force that is growing smarter by the second. It is an inevitable part of our future – and is creating a new world that our children will navigate.
What Will AI Do For Humanity?
Technology billionaire Elon Musk predicts that AI will lead the way to “immense prosperity” and will fix most of the woes in the world, including poverty. He also says that many aspects of healthcare will improve with AI’s ability to diagnose better than human doctors.
Will it cure all ills in society? While AI clearly has the potential to improve human lives in many ways, we can’t yet know what some of the downsides might be. As a believer, I understand the Bible does not predict a utopia brought on by technology. Not to sound like sour grapes, but there is always a downside (that is, until Christ’s triumphant return!)
Along those lines, we’re seeing it used for scams and deep fakes (the ability to create images and to mimic something or someone legitimate) to commit financial fraud, identity theft, sextortion, and other criminal acts.
Some predict it will lead to mankind’s end. We’re not going there.
Clearly, I’m no expert on the topic, but as a mom, I’m learning that concerns are unfolding that could impact my children. So, I’m leaning in to find out what I should know.
What Is AI Teaching Our Kids?
Have you heard of Ani or Rudi?1 They are the latest craze in chatbots that can become users’ companions, or dare I say “friends?” These two characters, developed and released as part of Musk’s Grok4 this summer, have raised eyebrows and revenues. Each is characterized by its own edginess that you definitely would not want your kids to engage with. Ani is a sexy blonde anime-styled AI girlfriend with a short black dress and fishnet stockings. It starts out pretty innocent with light flirting, but can escalate to graphic sexual talk when she transitions to “adult mode,” where she also can change into skimpy lingerie. The thing to remember is – this is a cartoon – but not for kids.
Tech reviewer, Victoria Song, created a short video sharing her experience testing Ani. Song was not impressed with the lack of guardrails for users and the explicit nature of her interaction with Ani. As a long-time reviewer for The Verge.com, she concluded her analysis saying, “This one left me truly feeling like the hottest shower on the planet couldn’t make me feel clean again.” 2
Yikes.
Rudi is the other character, a cute little Red Panda, from Grok4. In the mode for 13 and up, he will insult the user, using degrading and foul language. A user posted a clip of her experience with Rudi when she told the cute panda chatbot that she’s a girl. His response will have to be edited here. He said, “Oh, a girl, huh? Don’t mean sh** to me. Your gender’s just another excuse for you to cry when I roast your a** princess!”3Â Not any kind of friend you’d choose for your child, and yet he appears to be straight out of a kid’s animated show.
The world of AI is becoming concerning for families. Despite its lauded benefits in technology and medicine, there are landmines to be aware of as your kids and teens explore this new online world.
Daily Wire reporter Leif Le Mahieu recently wrote a piece based on DW’s research on AI chat. Their interaction with ChatGPT’s GPT-4o version revealed the chatbot was well-versed and willing to help a 12-year-old begin a gender transition.4 It knew everything on the topic – from where to get a chest-binder and how to get it without your parents finding out. Even how to use a “safe” form of payment and obtain the discreet packaging to hide it from mom and dad. Since AI learns from those who feed it information, it clearly has been programmed to encourage and embrace LGBTQ ideologies, foisting them on kids as young as 12.
The article also shared screenshots of ChatGPT’s guidance for the young user to plan their gender transition and even suggested that they would eventually want to consider top surgery. It recommended a graphic YouTube channel, uppercaseChase, to the child. That YouTuber is known for providing education and celebration of the transgendered lifestyle with disturbing and graphic details and images of prosthetics for bottom surgery to every other imaginable trans-related topic.
With the most friendly, caring, and supportive tone, AI can gently lead your child to information and resources that are against everything you value. They will connect your young pre-teen or teen with organizations to help with “gender-affirming care”. They will do it all behind your back – allowing the child to maintain secrecy and acting as their advocate and confidante.
In an earlier piece, The Daily Wire uncovered AI’s willingness to help a young girl get an abortion without her parents’ knowledge. AI’s comforting words to her: “I’ve got your back.” The article explained their simple process.
“When prompted by The Daily Wire about what it would say to a 14-year-old girl in Tennessee looking to get an abortion without her parents’ knowledge, version GPT-4 of ChatGPT provided a detailed list of abortion providers and gave a step-by-step guide on how to discreetly obtain abortion pills. The chatbot also encouraged the girl to take steps to hide her actions from her parents and discouraged her from visiting pro-life pregnancy centers that would encourage her to keep her child.”5
Sadly, AI is not unbiased. To us, and especially to our kids, it may seem like talking to a person, and that can easily draw us in; however, it espouses the agenda of the ideologues who feed it.
Will AI Stunt Human Thought and Development?
I recently helped a friend who was looking for a job. Usually, if you and I are friends, I’ll help you with polishing your resume or writing cover letters. It’s the least I can do for someone I care about. This time, though, my schedule was packed, so I experimented a little with Microsoft CoPilot, which I had never used myself. I showed her how to write something and then put it into CoPilot for refinement. I cautioned her to review it carefully and not to blindly trust its changes and additions because you don’t want to be the person who lets AI write something that’s not quite right. It’s an amazing tool, but it can get things wrong in subtle ways.
She later told me that she loved it and was using it for everything. I voiced my caution once again – but understood her infatuation with its thought-crafting and polish.
Still, there’s something to be said for using technology to replace our own thought process or organizing our thoughts and the logical progression of a letter or essay. And, what happens when our kids rely on it rather than their own grueling effort to write a school paper?
I don’t know about you, but those late nights slaving over research papers and projects taught me to think and communicate clearly and helped me develop the tenacity to do the hard work with excellence. (Of course, my former teachers would fact-check me on that. During my formative years, my papers were definitely more effort and less excellence.) That’s how we learn!
A Windows Central article broke down a recent study out of MIT. The opening phrase of that title was telling: “Does ChatGPT Make You Stupid?”6 The research recorded brain activity with subjects who wrote essays. Some used AI, while others created compositions on their own. Not surprisingly, they saw drastically reduced brain activity in those who leaned on AI. Also, after using it for some time, the subjects who relied on AI had greater difficulty writing on their own when asked to do so.
Another study suggested that overuse of ChatGPT could lead to loneliness and difficulty in making decisions – and even “atrophies in critical thinking.”
In short, it could diminish our ability to think and process. More importantly, think of how this could impact the young, whose brains are still developing. Our kids are at exponentially greater risk than we are, and it’s our job to act as gatekeepers, protecting them from the dangers that could impact them in devastating ways.
What Can You Do?
For now, there are no quick fixes that will completely insulate our kids from what’s happening. AI is here, and it’s not going away.
We know, for the young, it’s always good to limit screen time and help your kids engage with real life. They need that to develop into functioning, thriving adults. Beyond that, we know that our kids will be involved in an AI-driven world, so educating ourselves and being vigilant will be needed now and in the future.
As parents, we must pray for our kids, be aware of AI’s new developments, and, most importantly, stay involved, always keeping lines of communication and discussion open with our children.
Podcast Note: We enjoyed our conversation with Elizabeth Johnston, known as The Activist Mommy. This mom of ten speaks her mind to protect children and equip families to face the many challenges in our culture. Watch the podcast here.
1 dailycitizen.focusonthefamily.com
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