Colman Noctor: Raising children in the age of artificial intelligence

With AI, we are not merely competing with entertainment, we are also competing with another type of AI — artificial intimacy

Dr Colman Noctor: We are navigating uncharted waters, flooded with conflicting advice, uncertain whether to lean in, lean out, or discard the device altogether.

"‘Well, Chat GPT says…" is the way most sentences start when my eldest son speaks. It seems that Googling is a thing of the past, and now all queries, ranging from ‘how to boil an egg in an air fryer’ to ‘why does my little brother rage quit when I beat him at a video game’, are being answered by OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

It's not surprising, given how quickly this new technology is becoming an integral part of our lives. It took Instagram two years to reach 100 million users, whereas ChatGPT achieved the same level of popularity in two months. Young people are not only using AI to find answers to queries or write academic assignments, but also for emotional support and companionship. A recent report by the non-profit organisation Internet Matters surveyed 1,000 children and 2,000 parents across Britain and found that 64% of children are using AI chatbots for everything from schoolwork to practising tough conversations, and over a third of these young users say talking to a chatbot feels like talking to a friend.