Pete's Log: Can AI Babysit?
Entry #2193, (Parenthood)(posted when I was 44 years old.)
Any time is probably a weird time to have a kid. But man, this is a weird time to have a kid.
At the start of the pandemic I fell solidly into the camp of "of course school should be remote." But of course, other than the first few months of the pandemic, JB's been in daycare/preschool. Is that so different than school?
And the more I read about the impacts of remote learning on kids, the more I feel grateful that JB was not of school age when the pandemic hit. Now it's looking like we'll just have an annual Covid shot to go along with the flu shot, since Covid is just going to stay with us.
But what inspired this entry is goddamned ChatGPT and friends. This is the first time I truly feel unprepared to help guide a kiddo through modern life. I guess there are a few years left to settle the "this is just like calculators" vs "creative work is a thing of the past" debate.
And I thought the hardest modern question was going to be deciding at what age she gets to have a cell phone...(Tangentially related—it's real weird to read myself writing about quarantine fatigue in August of 2020—a mere five months into this multi-year nightmare)