AI Image Thumbnail Made Using Grok AI
AI is here and it's advancing pretty quickly. If you asked me in 2010 whether we would see Chatgpt, Grok, Deep seek, Claude and Gemini the way it looks today, I would say forget it, that's some 2050 type shit.
But here we are in 2025 and most people rely on one AI tool or the other to get some work done.
A few years back, if I wanted to create the thumbnail I used for this article, I would have had to pay someone to design it. I actually got it for free generating the image with Grok AI in a matter of seconds, well minutes if you considered the time taken to write out the prompt.
Now that I think about our growing dependency on AI, have we considered the children's dependency too?
Smart phones, tablets, computers and gaming consoles are getting closer to children than their very own parents. The closer and more reliable or more dependable something is to you, the more trust is built in you for that particular thing. Most of this technology has artificial intelligence programmed into it.
So that means in theory or perhaps practically, kids these days are trusting Artificial Intelligence more and more. If this goes on, there may come a time where kids trust AI more than they trust their parents.
AI is not going to slow doing in its evolution, it's going to become increasingly present in the toys kids play with, the apps they go through on their gaming consoles or smart phones and all their learning tools.
Eventually, most children will treat the AI bots as friends and form very strong bonds with them, bonds stronger than the ones they have with their own parents.
So I ask you this, what happens when a child starts seeking advice or asking chatbots personal questions before going to their dad and mom?
I'll confess, nowadays I ask Chatgpt for almost all forms of clarifications. Whether a response is right to give to a loved one, what food is right for me based on my blood group and cultural background, how to approach a certain girl I like, what workout routine should I add and how many reps to do.
I end up chatting with Chatgpt more than the time spent on WhatsApp. These are questions I could have asked another human being, but it's getting directed towards an AI.
This is only going to grow better or worse depending on your views about human-ai interaction.
I think the age of humanoid robots will greatly worsen the case. Humanoid robots like Tesla's Optimus or Figure 02 bot are going to be more reliable and most especially, non judgemental about you. People will seek more from the bots than from their own family. The companies responsible for manufacturing the tech are going to be so rich.
Kids will respond better to these bots than they would respond to their teachers and parents. If they grow like that, the bond between them and the bots will be next to unbreakable. Just like how almost everyone is glued to their phones, they'll be connected to their bots in the exact way.
There are good sides and bad sides to this. If the bot is designed to not be judgmental and only do what the owner prefers or would be happy with, then there's a biased response. There's also a chance of misinformation.
The growing dependency of kids to AI says a lot about parenting today. Of course, parents are people and they also need to have time to handle their own life and business. It's getting harder with inflation too. Everyone's chasing the bag. So there's little to no time to check your kids, be with them, communicate and take good care of them.
Most parents that are too busy might see AI bots as a solution, a nanny or a hired parent to make their job easier without considering that, a bond or link will be formed between the bot and the kid which could go against the parent's relationship with the kids.
The only question I have is who's going to be responsible for the kid's values at that time, you or the robot?
In the case of a divorce, I think the robot would end up getting the child support money.