Is artificial intelligence about to become the biggest parenting challenge of this generation? One respected pediatric expert certainly thinks families need to pay attention before it’s too late!
Dr. Dana Suskind, a cochlear implant surgeon, professor of surgery and pediatrics at the University of Chicago, and director of the TMW Center for Early Learning + Public Health, is sounding the alarm about the rapid rise of AI and the unexpected ways it could affect babies and young children.
And according to her brand-new conversation about it with People, the warning signs started showing up somewhere you might never expect: her own waiting room.
Related: Jack Antonoff Reportedly BEGGED Margaret Qualley Not To Divorce Him! Details!
For years, Dr. Suskind says her medical practice was exactly what you’d imagine when little kids were around: noisy, energetic, and wonderfully chaotic. But something changed in recent years. Instead of hearing babies crying, toddlers chatting, and families interacting, she noticed something much more unsettling.
As she told People:
“My clinics used to be these loud, wonderful, chaotic places in the best of ways. Suddenly in the last few years, it’s this eerie quiet. Everybody from the 10-month-old baby all the way on to the parents and grandparents, everybody’s on their screen, completely engaged.”
Yikes…
That unsettling silence got her thinking about how technology has slowly become part of nearly every moment of family life. While smartphones were already changing how people communicate, Dr. Suskind believes AI represents something even bigger because it has the ability to imitate actual human interaction.
She warned the mag:
“We’re at the beginning of this huge social science experiment that we didn’t sign up for.”
That’s a chilling way to describe what so many families are already living through every single day.
The doctor explores these concerns in her new book, Human Raised: Nurturing Connection, Curiosity & Lifelong Learning in the Age of AI, where she argues that AI has enormous promise but also enormous risks if society isn’t thoughtful about how it’s used around young children.
As she explained:
“An incredible technology that can mimic human interaction, which is core to building 85% of a child’s brain in the first three years of life. We want technology that bolsters human relationships. We want technology to lift invisible burdens from parents. We don’t want technology replacing the roles that we have in each other’s lives.”
According to Dr. Suskind, what makes AI fundamentally different from previous technologies is that very young children are biologically wired to learn through social interaction.
She explained:
“It could change how we interact. Little kids in the first years of life, they learn from human interaction because of something known as the social gate. It’s like a biologic filter. Babies don’t learn words from television — that’s why Baby Einstein didn’t work. But this new technology mimics that human interaction and opens up the child’s social gate. And what comes through the social gate is going to wire that child’s brain. They’re going to learn from it. And that’s why it’s fundamentally different.”
That distinction is exactly why she believes parents shouldn’t assume AI is simply another version of television or tablets. In her view, this technology reaches children in a completely different way.
Related: Tori Spelling & Carmen Electra Once Used Spy Tech To Catch Their Boyfriends Cheating!
She also stressed that the imperfect moments between parents and children aren’t flaws that should be replaced with smoother digital interactions. They’re actually part of healthy development.
As she put it:
“The friction-filled, messy human interaction that happens between a parent and child, or a child and other peers, is not just a bug in the system. It’s actually part of how children learn to navigate human relationships. I’ve always said, ‘Good enough parenting is good enough for children to learn.’ But really, ‘good enough’ parenting — the parent that misunderstands, missteps, ruptures and then repairs the relationship — is actually the way a child learns to connect to humans who have their own thoughts and feelings.”
Importantly, Dr. Suskind isn’t arguing that parents should ban AI altogether. Instead, she believes families should be thoughtful about how they use it.
She explained to People:
“I’m not at against all AI. I believe in technology. I just want technology that supports human connection. It is not a monolith. It’s like processed food, where on the one hand you have whole wheat bread or canned beans which are good things. But then you have the artificial substitutes, and like ultra-processed foods, those are the things I’m worried about, things like AI companions that tap into this primitive drive to connect and what will that do to us. If we’re not careful, it can disconnect us even more from each other.”
For parents wondering what they should do right now, her answer may actually come as a relief.
She noted:
“The most important thing is parents don’t need to actually do anything. The most powerful technology that parents have are themselves. All the skills that children are going to need in the age of AI are built with a human-raised, low-tech childhood.”
She also pointed to the fact that even some leaders in the AI industry have publicly expressed caution about exposing their own children to the technology too early, arguing:
“If the people building the bridges refuse to go over that bridge, you might consider whether or not you want to go over that bridge. Jonas Salk created the polio vaccine, and the first people he tested it on were his kids. He did that because he wanted to signal, ‘I believe in this. I trust it enough that I’m going to allow my children to be exposed to it.’ But look at many of these technologists, everybody from Steve Jobs to [Bill] Gates to even Sam Altman saying, ‘Look, I’m going to delay it as long as I can.’”
Despite all the concerns, Dr. Suskind isn’t giving up hope. In fact, she believes society may already be recognizing the need to reconnect with one another.
She tried to conclude her interview on a high note:
“I think that we may be at a turning point. I think people are realizing that things haven’t been the way they should be for these last few years and people want to be connected. I don’t think we’re going to sleepwalk into next tech revolution. We don’t want technology replacing the roles that we have in each other’s lives.”
It’s certainly a conversation more families are likely to have as AI becomes an even bigger part of everyday life.
Related: The Most High Tech VR Experience In Las Vegas! SCARY Fun!
Whether you agree with every warning or not, Dr. Suskind’s message is clear: technology can be an incredible tool, but nothing should replace real human connection during a child’s earliest years.
Thoughts, y’all?? Share ’em (below)…
[Image via WENN]
