My children are not AI – #1 They will just have to live with it.

When ChatGPT launched in November 2022, I was 7 months pregnant, leading a busy data privacy team at a global Bank, planning and implementing my maternity cover, preparing for Christmas, and of course building a little human being. I have developed a real interest in AI over these past months, taking courses, reading articles and connecting with experts. Yet, I completely missed the ChatGPT buzz, as my attention was entirely focused on my family … that is until the EU parliament passed the AI act in June 2023, the first stage before it is fully enacted. I started reading widely and realized how much had happened in this field while I was in my little maternity bubble. As I was catching up on the latest news, I realized that my time off has also been a real opportunity to take a step back and consider how human intelligence is developing right in front of me, with my new baby and my then 4-years-old boy.

I can’t really take credit for building my own “natural intelligence”, however, when raising my children, I influence their first experiences, I explain how things work and what I believe, try instill moral in the decisions they are taking, basically, I take responsibility for my part in shaping the world of tomorrow. To a certain extent, AI developers are doing the same, and carry similar responsibilities: They select and cleanse input data, they test and adjust code, and are responsible for the output and consequences. Some days, a trivial behavior or comment from one of my boys just clicks. It makes me stop and consider how AI could be improved, how to better raise my children, or how to best prepare them for the world of tomorrow.

The world we live in today is changing at an incredible pace and, as a parent, it is very difficult to know how to best prepare our children for the world of tomorrow. No one really knows what the world will look like in 10 or 20 years from now with climate change, geopolitical instability, development of the metaverse, etc. Some scenarios are too scary to even dare think about. What is for sure, is that the rapid development of AI will radically change the way we work, the way we interact with society, the way we live and how we enjoy our lives.

As an example, experts forecasts that by 2030, 90% of the internet content will have been generated by AI. Whether we believe it is a good thing or not does not really matter. Our children will be exposed to it from an early age and will have access to generative AI before they can even write a 500-word essay. How to sort all this information, how to distinguish what’s true or false, what’s right or wrong, how to develop critical thinking, how to keep thinking as a human when everything around us is algorithms and probabilities? Our children will have to adapt to this world and develop their own skills, to take their place in society and thrive as human beings.

Long story short, this is how I came up with the idea of this series of articles. I wanted to share my thoughts, reconciling these 2 topics I’m most excited about, and preoccupies most of my time and thoughts lately: parenthood and AI ethics. I don’t pretend to be an AI technical expert, nor a neuroscientist; so my insights will be based on very biased and partial empirical observations, looking to refer to expert articles and opinions. I will do my best to humbly contribute to the great reflection of the century about AI and humanity.