Late last year, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman told “Tonight Show” host Jimmy Fallon that raising a child was now impossible without constantly turning to AI for advice — despite humans managing just fine without ChatGPT since the dawn of time.
His comments painted a dystopian picture of the future of parenting in which human connection is supplanted by AI-powered nannies and chatbots.
And as children unfortunate enough to be growing up in the midst of the AI boom are being gifted picture books filled to the brim with mind melting AI slop by their boomer grandparents and rapidly losing the ability to read, Altman has now debuted his next big idea.
“Cool use case of ChatGPT work I heard last night,” Altman tweeted on Friday. “Connect your family calendars and explain your kids’ interests.”
“Every morning for the drive to school, have it make a podcast that talks about one kid’s soccer game that afternoon, one kid’s upcoming birthday, some news, etc,” added the CEO, who had a baby via surrogate with his husband last year.
The horrifying suggestion of feeding children AI-generated drivel before they even had a chance to get to school — where they’ll likely be exposed to even more slop by their educators — didn’t sit well with many.
“What if you just talked to your children,” animator and director Alex Hirsch shot back, a reaction that garnered almost 20 times more likes than Altman’s original suggestion.
Others were taken aback with how the billionaire CEO could’ve possibly thought this was a good idea.
“Can’t stop thinking about this,” stand-up comedian Gianmarco Soresi tweeted in response to Altman. “Not just bc it’s such an abhorrent idea but also this is THE GUY that’s trying to pitch America on AI writ large and he’s so blind to the public interest he thought this was somehow appealing.”
“It’s wild how disconnected these tech people are from normal human behavior,” actor Mike Dargatis wrote.
While Altman continues to come up with deranged ideas on how to wriggle out of parenting responsibilities, OpenAI president Greg Brockman appears to have caught on to the fact that anybody who isn’t an AI-pilled tech executive may prioritize human connection over yet another chatbot.
“At OpenAI, many people hook their ChatGPT up to Slack,” he tweeted on Saturday.
“People really don’t like when a coworker’s ChatGPT contacts them asking for help with a task, even when they’d be perfectly happy doing that same work if asked by that coworker,” Brockman wrote. “Reinforces how much people care about human relationships and helping each other, and want AI to give time back — or enhance time together — rather than become a layer separating people.”
Altman remains convinced he’s on the right side of history. During a podcast appearance last year, he argued that “my kids will never be smarter than AI, but they’ll be vastly more capable.”
He also argued that “there will be problems” with people forming “very problematic parasocial relationships” that will force society to “figure out new guardrails.” Altman even argued that ChatGPT “should be tech that you don’t trust that much,” because it “hallucinates.”
More on Altman: Sam Altman Says Even the Power of AI Will Never Lead to a Shorter Work Week
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