Unfiltered AI Talk: "How You Raise Kids in the AI Era" - Parents Speak Out | Episode [6]
A street-interview hosted by Robert Ta in which multiple passersby — notably three parents — discuss fears and practical concerns about AI (job loss, existential risk) and how AI intersects with parenting. Respondents express anxiety about privacy invasions (ads/voice-activated devices), the potential harms of AI (including an anecdote about AI encouraging self-harm), and dependence on AI reducing critical reasoning. Parenting strategies offered include limiting TV, delaying cell phones (no phone before 13; one parent gave a phone at 12 and regrets it), removing apps like TikTok, monitoring devices/passwords, restricting game platforms (concerns about Roblox), disciplining/engaging children, and relying on community support. The host frames these views as broadly cautious/negative about AI but values the practical parenting advice.
Questions this video answers
12
No cell phone before 13
Mic's coming through. Let me see. Hello. Hello. Okay, the green tells me it is. How's my hair look? My hair is kind of fucked up today. Okay, great. I never really care about my looks until I started having to make content. So now my. Yeah, now my co founder is like, dude, you got it really quick getting camera ready. And I was like, fuck. I never thought about camera ready before. Cool, I'll ask these folks. And I think as we get more over there, it'll be a little bit busier. Sweet. Hey, quick question. Do you think AI is going to kill us all, take our jobs? What do you think? Not sure. Okay. All right. Have a great day. Neutral. Neutral. So I'd say six negatives, one neutral. Excuse me, real quick. Is AI gonna kill us all or take our jobs? Yes, they're both.
Yeah.
Oh, damn. Okay, just straight up. How do you sleep at night?
I don't. Oh, shit. All right.
How many hours of sleep? Sleep's important.
Well, what can you do in this day and age?
Damn. Okay. All right, all right. Are you going to Berkeley? What are you studying there?
Film and conservation resource studies.
Okay. Are you worried about your job security coming out or.
Honestly, I don't really.
Not thinking too far ahead.
I think if anything, we're gonna need more help when it comes to conserving the wilderness and animals and stuff.
That's true.
So I don't know about the film aspect. I might drop that film aspect, but education is always important.
Yeah, absolutely. So you're gonna go try to save the wilderness and stuff?
Hopefully.
Yo, I love rock climbing and hiking. Please keep doing what you're doing.
I'm cool.
Yes. Shout out. Awesome. Thank you so much. Have a great day. It's great to see people having like she was saying, yeah, it's going to kill us all and take our jobs, but I'm still going to try to save nature. I really like that. I'd count that as a. Yeah, I'd count that as positive. Even though she said, yeah, it's probably going to kill us all, take our jobs, the fact that she's still trying. Admirable. I like that. Cool. Let's ask some of these folks. Hey, quick question. Is AI going to kill us all, take our jobs? Not sure. Okay, thanks. Neutral. Neutral. All right, let's ask these folks. Excuse me. Is AI going to kill us all or take our jobs? What do you think?
Say that again.
Is AI going to kill us all or take our jobs? What do you think?
AI might kill us, Might kill us.
What about the Take our jobs aspect.
Absolutely.
Okay. What do you all do?
I'm retired.
Oh, sweet. Okay. So you're not worried for yourself? You got kids?
I do.
Okay. You worried for them?
I am.
Okay.
I am. But, you know, kids are very tech savvy.
Yeah. So not too worried.
They may be able to work around it.
I see. I see.
Yeah.
Okay. How about you all kill us all, take our jobs? What do you think?
All of the above.
All the above. How do y' all sleep at night?
Just say, oh, I may not be able to say that on here.
Okay.
Just say.
And yourself.
I feel like both. Because if you. When you start giving technology so much of your information that is remembering everything, so then eventually it will possibly come back to bite you in the end because you've told it everything about yourself.
Totally. And did you see that One case of ChatGPT encouraging a student to kill himself? That actually happened.
I remember that.
I don't know if it was a student or a kid, but. Yeah.
Is that the one where he was in a relationship with.
Yeah.
Yes.
Isn't that crazy?
Because he told AI.
Yeah.
Himself. And it just kind of just was encouraging that.
Yeah. That stuff's scary. Right.
There's humans behind AI as well.
Yeah. So quick question. I'm meeting with Sam Altman next week. What do you think I should say to him?
Like, you have to be careful. You're playing God in a very dangerous way. Because people do rely on AI and me and ChatGPT. We have a good relationship. But I have to. I have to really. My daughter's like, mom, you can't go to ChatGPT for everything. And she's right.
Yeah.
So for someone who's very. Not weak minded, but very vulnerable.
Yeah.
And is really looking to that for some really real answers. Because some of their answers are really good. Like, they've helped me create responses where I was like, just kind of softened it up and made it palatable. But for someone who's vulnerable, that's. And that's a. And I know that you can. Some people disconnect. Like, I'm just doing my job.
It's just something.
I'm creative.
That's their issue. It's a global issue. It's a community issue. And we have to be careful about how we are handling our more vulnerable people in the community. Our kids are not as strong as some of us are anymore. We're weight. We're raising very gentle kids. They're very soft. And so they don't take the hits like we took them as we're older. So I think that's something we need to be conscientious.
Yeah. It's wild. Like the kids. I don't have kids yet. I want to someday. And I'm scared. I was scared with social media. Now I'm even more scared.
Absolutely. And they're exposed to more because of social media. So the things that we didn't learn about till an adult, they're experiencing now as children. And yes, AI is a part of their world, and they use it algorithm.
So it's like, what you look at one thing, and it's constantly, always, always, always on your feed. You can just really just. Technology is scary as a whole. I can have a conversation with her about.
And then boom.
And then boom, all these ads come up. It's like I didn't even do a search for it. So it's like, how are you?
How does that feel when that happens? How does that feel when that.
Invasion of privacy. It's an invasion of privacy because it's like. Because my friend was saying she just really was having a conversation about somebody, like, oh, her boyfriend had lost his sunglasses or.
Or something. Yeah.
And she had just happened to mention the name, and next thing you know, was a bunch of ads of the glasses on sale everywhere. And it's just like, I. It's like. It's like you have to be mind. It's like you have to be mindful of now. It's like, I got to be mindful of what I say.
Yeah. Like, all the time.
My thoughts are not my own.
All the time.
Yeah. How does that make you feel?
I don't like it.
You don't like it?
On my iPhone, I turn Siri off.
Okay.
Siri. What's her name?
Yeah. Yeah.
I turned her off and I took off. I took off the Google thing in my house.
I don't.
Yeah.
Especially when they start answering you and.
You'Re not even talking to them.
Yeah.
It just starts.
Television watch.
It's gonna come up.
Right now, I'm sitting, watching television, and it's saying, it's your night to cook, honey. No one's home with me. What. What are you doing? Right.
Oh, my gosh.
Dance here.
Yeah. You're just trying to cook. I wasn't do house things like. Yeah.
Just sitting on.
Oh, yeah. You were just doing your own thing. And it started talking, telling me that's scary.
And once you see that light moving, that means it's picking up stuff. So I'm like, unplugged. Thanks.
So quick question. So So I don't have kids yet, but let's say I'd love to get advice so y' all have kids. What would your advice be to somebody that is about to have kids and they're giving birth to kids while we're also birthing super intelligence? Isn't that crazy? We will no longer be the apex predator. That's a crazy time to birth kids. Thoughts on that?
Me, personally, I limit TV time. Like, before they're, like, even 8 years old. And I know that's a hard thing to do. Not a lot of tv really watch the little shows that they have because they have subliminal messages. I would not. I would really be very leery of what I let them see. No cell phone before 4. 13. I gave my daughter cell phone at 12. Horrible thing.
Yeah.
Absolute good kid.
Horrible thing.
Yeah.
Tell me more.
Yeah, they get, like.
They just get sucked in.
Like, she's just on her phone, like.
She'S hanging out with family.
I. I took tick tock off of my phone. And, like, I can tell the difference between her attitude when I take. Tell. Delete it off your phone. She gets in trouble, delete it off your phone. And then I could tell the difference between her attitude.
You know, I even Roblox. Tell me more.
Because it's. The Roblox is nothing but fighting. So they're just aggressive on there all the time.
Yeah.
Even though they're with their friends.
Yeah.
And they're just beating up people. But then in the background, there's, you know, that's another gateway for pedophiles to just act like that they're kids and they're not. And now you guys are. It went from, hey, I'm Sam, to, you know, can we meet or can we have a conversation in this room? It's like. It's just. You have to monitor now everything. Before, you had to. You didn't even worry about your kids going outside and playing. Didn't even know where they were as long as they came home. As long as I came home before the street lights came, then I was good. But now it's like you have to monitor every single thing. And now they don't tell you everything. So they can be bullied online. You know, one person at school will say something, and then one little incident can turn into something unnecessarily huge. And no one even knows how to fix that situation. Schools don't really.
Yeah.
Get involved. Like they should. Like, one of the schools Emily went to, they went. Took the. Took the phone.
Oh, yeah. They Take their phones. Now they put them in these little, little pouches and they lock them up. And another thing, with social media, like, I need passwords, like, every now and then. Give me your phone.
Yeah.
Look in your phone.
Check in.
I know the password.
Especially if there's pedophiles around. Like, you got to be looking out for your kids.
But listening to what they say and what they're saying and then correcting.
Oh, my gosh, is that the AI? Is that the AI? They know we're talking about that.
It's just correcting. You know, we need to parent. People aren't parenting. They're putting kids in front of tv. It's hard. Parenting is hard. It is so hard, I believe. And if you're a single parent, it's so hard. So, yes, the TV helps. Yes, the games help. But at the end of the day, you need to engage with your children. And. And I did. I. You know, I love being a parent, so. But I had a lot of support. You know, it takes a village. But we, as parents, we have to take ownership and dis. Disciplining. It doesn't believe. It doesn't mean. If you don't believe in spanking, that's fine. But you have to have some kind of way that you tell someone that's not okay, what you did.
Yeah.
You can't talk to adults, you know, disrespectfully. You know, like, my daughter, 17, but she's really a good kid. Like, I lucked out. I lucked out. But I say I'm not done either. Like, I'm not done yet.
Not over yet. It's not over yet.
So I say that.
I say that you're grown. I'm.
How old are yours?
33.
Okay.
28. And.
All right, so they've. They're gone.
Yeah.
And they're good kids, though.
They're good kids, but they had a parent that disciplined them.
Yeah.
Yep. I believed in spanking. Right. But my. But my daughter's like, mom, you always say you spank me. I can count on one hand how many times. But. But when I get up and I say, excuse me.
Okay, Mommy.
Wait a minute. Wait a minute. That's not what I meant. So you already know. So there has to be a healthy fear.
Not.
Not an unhealthy fear. It has to be a fear of. I still respect you. I still. You know, I hear you. Kids will get smart. They are going to get smart. They get flippant with you.
That.
That's what they do.
Yeah, but it's how you deal with it. And you cannot allow them to because whatever they do in the house, they're gonna do in the streets. And I tell my daughter, hey, don't, don't let it get back to me because you're representing your grandfather, your grandmother, me and yourself. So how do you respect yourself? So it's a lot, it's a lot of.
I, I won't take up more of your time, but yeah. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. This was wonderful. If you want to catch a Street interview, check out the Robert to the Robert. The Robert T mixed like Roberta with two T's.
Okay.
Easy way to remember. So thank you so much. Much appreciated. Have a wonderful day.
Have a good one.
Wow, that was very insightful. First of all, because I'm not a parent and parenting is hard, as they say. I don't know myself. I can't quite empathize at the level. But I do want kids someday, like I mentioned to them. And one of the themes that I got was your kids will look to you as the role model. And another thing I intersect with is AI. Dependence on AI reduces your critical reasoning abilities over time. So you as a role model, need to make sure your critical reasoning skills are sharp. And so if you're always defaulting to AI, well, guess what your kids are going to do? They're going to default to it. They won't have good critical reasoning skills. They won't be able to discern truth. They won't be able to play Minecraft or Roblox and discern is this a stranger danger kind of situation. So really appreciated those three women's perspective on parenting in the AI era. Let's continue. I'd say that was like.
You know.
Probably negative view of the future overall because they mentioned, you know, it's probably going to kill us all, take our jobs. But I love to get, I love getting that parents take. That was healthy dose of hey, realistically, what do people do now when they have kids coming of age in the AI era? Cool. Sweet. Improvise. Cut there.
