Parenting In 2024 & Beyond

 A thought just occurred to me.  With each passing decade and generation, parenting has become a much more complicated thing than it ever previously was.  Imagine being a parent of young children nowadays, and having to make decisions about your child’s use of the internet, social media gaming, virtual reality, augmented reality and etc., and also having to figure out how to regulate their use of these technologies and balance this with other activities and responsibilities of life.  Now on top of this, they will also have to make decisions about whether or not to allow their children to directly communicate with artificial intelligence via its chat capabilities. Artificial intelligence can now be used by them not only as a source of information, but also as an empathetic listener and source of guidance and advice. Wow!  This is a totally new and altered landscape of parenting.  In a nutshell, if chat AI is used by children, parents will have to monitor and understand how artificial intelligence is guiding and influencing the development of their young minds.  Wow again!  I can only imagine the differences and new challenges that will be involved in parenting as technology continues to advance.  I would imagine that there will be quite a lot of uncertainty on the part of parents as to how to navigate it all, as if parenting wasn’t already difficult enough, especially given the propensity for children to strongly lobby and be persuasive in attempting to gain what they want from parents.