Panic, despair, outrage. Do any of these feelings popup whenever you think of AI? I think that as parents we’ve all grappled with these feelings to some degree as we’ve watched technology develop at breakneck speed recently. The real world effects are startling. Jobs are being wiped out on mass. There is widespread academic cheating. We’re always left wondering if a video or image is real or not. We can’t bury our heads in the sand and pretend this AI takeover isn’t happening. We need to meet the challenge. I want to share how we’ve been approaching the topic of AI in our family, and encourage parents to help their kids develop a healthy mindset towards the future.
Giving Hope
As a Christian parent, the number one thing I want my kids to hold on to is that God made them uniquely in his image, as creative beings. This is something that AI will never have. AI will never be truly human. Despite what AI can do, God is still giving people their own special gifts and talents.
I am encouraging our kids to pursue those gifts and talents, regardless of whether or not AI ends up dominating every sphere of human endeavour. Our kids need to keep developing their skills in order to use them for God’s glory and to bless others in the future.
They also need to know that God is not surprised by this technological expansion. He was there overseeing the rise of the printing press and the industrial revolution. He, in his sovereignty, is allowing all of this. As his children, we can trust him to lead us through the massive changes that are going to take place.
We don’t want our kids to have feelings of hopelessness, as if the future is just dark, black, and bleak. There’s no doubt that we may be coming into a difficult time where our children will have to face things that we never had to. Still, there’s no need to overdo things in the doom and gloom department. Whatever happens, God is with us!
What Should Parents Teach Kids About AI?
So, we want our kids to have hope, and to know that whatever happens their skills and talents still need to be developed. But what do we do about using AI in our homes? What do we teach our kids about the benefits, pitfalls and dangers of AI? Let’s dive into the nitty-gritty!
There is no escaping the fact that AI is having a gigantic effect on education and the workplace. Our kids may struggle to be employed without a good grasp on how to use generative AI programs like chatGTP. As many as nine in ten companies want employees with chatGPT skills!
We need to teach our kids how to use these tools in a sensible, safe and ethical way. But what should the rules be?
In our home, our eldest child is not yet a teen. Therefore, they have zero access to chatGPT or any other generative AI programs. They are still using good old fashioned pen and paper while they learn to write all different text types. As a homeschooling family, this is fairly easy to enforce.
Safety and AI
After our children become skilful writers, they will then have the opportunity to discover what AI can do. First, though, is safety training.
Our children must, and I repeat MUST, know that AI is not sentient and is not their friend. I’m sure you were equally shocked to read in the news recently how some kids have become “friends” with chatGPT, costing some of them their lives.
Other disturbing trends concerning young people and chatbots are emerging as well. Our kids need to be aware that chatbots are not for personal conversations or personal advice. They need to turn to God, the Bible, their parents, and their friends for such conversations.
Ethical Use of AI
Ethics. Integrity. Let’s teach them that despite what everybody else might be doing, it is not right to use chatbot prompting to write entire essays for them. We need to sit down with our kids and decide what uses ChatGPT might have for them in their academic pursuits.
Collating sources? Summarizing sources so we don’t waste time with texts not related to our research? Providing rhyming word lists for creative writing? Prompting a starter sentence we might be really stuck on? AI has some amazing time saving elements that we can make excellent use of, and be thankful for. Using it to make entire assignments that you then pass off as your own research and creativity? Not one of them.
Students also need to realise that it is possible to check if content has been AI generated so their cheating might be discovered. We want our kids to have integrity in their studies. We also want to protect their brains!
The Brain and AI
Our kids need to be informed that they are risking the health of their brains if they turn over all of their thinking and creativity to AI. This is a very serious matter, and we need to teach our kids to be sensible about how much brain power they give up. This is an interesting, and alarming article about the effect of chatGPT use on students. Our brains need to be used to stay fully functioning and switched on. Use it or lose it!
Lastly, something that really needs to be considered is the future collapse of AI. Even though AI seems to be taking over now, there are many who predict a phenomenon called ‘model collapse.’ As the internet floods with AI generated content, this could continually diminish the quality of AI output. It is very risky indeed to let our traditional literacy skills crumble for a brand new technology that might not end up being very reliable at all!
The Break Down
1 – Give your kids hope, despite the breakneck speed of change happening all around us.
2 – Encourage kids to develop their skills and talents, regardless of what might happen in the future.
3 – Safety, safety, safety. Chatbots are not sentient beings. They are not friends. No personal conversations.
4 – No AI before writing is mastered.
5 – Openly discuss ethical and time saving ways to use AI. Integrity still matters, especially for Christians!
6 – Teach kids to look after their brains. Use it or lose it!
As parents, let’s meet the AI challenge together, giving our kids the tools they need to use AI successfully.
Thank you fo reading!