Technology
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Over on Twitter/X, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has caused a bit of a stir by suggesting a new way of using his company's AI product ChatGPT. While possibly meant as a throwaway suggestion, the Internet has very much taken against the idea. And for good reason, because it's the bleakest vision of the future we've heard uttered in a good long while.
Altman is obviously more invested than most in finding uses for chatbots. Along with automating tasks humans don't enjoy so much (let's say making spreadsheets, though I can think of at least five people I know who do enjoy that nonsense), he and others in the AI set have made a fairly hard push for AI to take over tasks humans are known to have fun tackling, like making actual movies.
While generally grim for a lot of folk, the latest real-world use highlighted by Altman is particularly bleak; replacing conversations with your children.
"Cool use case of chatgpt work i heard last night: connect your family calendars and explain your kids' interests," Altman wrote as a suggestion on X, rather than as a clunkier-than-usual piece of exposition in a Black Mirror episode.
"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."
People were not too keen on the idea of this area of life becoming automated or taken over by AI. Because, fundamentally, the task he is suggesting replacing is talking to the people you love about subjects they are interested in.
Why engage in one of life's simplest pleasures when you can prompt an AI to shut your kids up, freeing more time for you to think about corporate expenditures and other such more important things?
"Can’t stop thinking about this," stand-up comedian Gianmarco Soresi added. "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."
In terms of receiving backlash for suggesting parents use ChatGPT, this isn't Altman's first rodeo. The CEO appeared on Jimmy Fallon late last year and casually told the host that he used the chatbot in parenting his child, born February 2025.
"I feel kind of bad about it because we have this genius level at everything intelligence sitting there and waiting to unravel the mysteries of humanity, and I'm like,' Why does my kid keep dropping his pizza on the floor and laughing?'," Altman told Fallon.
"I cannot imagine figuring out how to raise a newborn without ChatGPT. Clearly, people did it for a long time with no problem, so clearly it's possible, but I have relied on it so much," he added.
People have often criticized AI for being a solution in search of a problem, and as Altman said, we have raised children for a very long time just fine.
As the people of the Internet have made clear, we will continue to do so without it telling us why kids laugh when they drop their pizza (because pizza went splat, I should imagine) or getting it to slop out podcasts about Chase, the police officer in Paw Patrol my child tells me about regularly on the drive to school.
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