I’m a tech expert who parented my toddler using AI. It could revolutionize parenting

Can artificial intelligence help raise children? Senior executives in the toy market think so.

Allan Wong, CEO of toymaker VTech Holdings, has said teddy bears could read personalized AI stories to children in just five years, while humanoid nannies could be just a few decades away.

Many companies are now offering AI-enabled toys, apps, and games for kids — with a new robot, Moxie, said to improve the social skills of 71 percent of kids.

I put the current advanced artificial intelligence programs to the test by asking leading bots like ChatGPT and Google Bard to help me raise my 18 month old son William and keep him entertained for a full day (easier said than done for only mortals).

I served him meals created by AI and participated in activities it suggested, before relaxing with some television script written and produced by AI and reading a children’s book written by the technology.

Richard Conway, CEO and founder of UK-based online platform Childcare, told DailyMail.com: “There is no doubt that AI can provide some assistance in all aspects of parenting and family life, but we must remember that AI still very much in development. early stages.

Just as we should be careful when using Google for medical advice, using AI for parenting advice should be treated in a similar way.

“We should all remember that there is no substitute for real, human professional, qualified experts, no matter how great our technology is.”

The results were mixed, with William surprisingly excited about AI entertainment but less confident about some of his other picks.

Artificial intelligence story time: William was captivated, despite the nonsense of the story

To see if AI can entertain children, I used ChatGPT to write a short children’s story. The prompt asked for a story about a friendly wolf.

It begins: ‘Once upon a time, in a beautiful forest full of tall, green trees and colorful flowers, there lived a friendly wolf named Wally.

“Wally wasn’t like the other wolves. He had soft, fluffy fur, clear, sparkling eyes, and the kindest smile that could brighten anyone’s day. Instead of howling to the moon, Wally liked to hum happy tunes.’

Then I took the text to Midjourney, an application that uses artificial intelligence to produce graphics based on text prompts.

I asked it to do a children’s book illustration that read, “Wally wasn’t like other wolves.”

To me, the “book” looks pretty convincing, even if the story itself is a bit bland – like most AI-generated content.

Midjourney also didn’t keep a consistent art style and for some reason it introduced a small child in the second image that never appears in the story.

Although I was not impressed, to my surprise William was captivated from the start and seemed to love the illustrations.

How did an AI recipe go down? Those tears are definitely not artificial!

After the stories it was time for breakfast.

Thankfully, both Google’s Bard and ChatGPT are happy to come up with meal and snack suggestions for toddlers, along with recipes.

I asked ChatGPT to design a “healthy snack for an 18-month-old toddler.”

It came with a ‘Fruit and Yogurt Parfait’, made with Greek yogurt, blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, honey and granola.

I had the bot and bard design other meals as well, but many of these seemed more complicated than something I would normally cook for William, who is normally happy with a few slices of toast or waffles.

They also used a lot of expensive ingredients.

ChatGPT also pointed out possible dangers of certain ingredients.

For example, it warns not to give honey to babies under a year old, and to check the granola for larger lumps that a child could choke on.

Despite this, William was not a fan.

He immediately wrinkled his nose at the snack, refused to eat and quickly burst into tears.

We laughed off breakfast with some TV — written, directed, and produced by a bot

Can artificial intelligence take on one of the most important tasks in parenting: keeping children quiet?

Using the story ChatGPT had previously written, I turned to leading animation-producing AI app Pictory to auto-generate a video, with the text acting as a script.

Pictory is one of the many AI video creation tools in the market, mainly aimed at a business market.

However, it has a way with children. Within ten minutes, Pictory had turned Wally the Wolf’s story into a video, with text on screen, combined with stock videos of wolves, rabbits and carrots.

It turned out to be a big hit, with William pointing excitedly at my phone’s screen and saying “Bunny” when a bunny appeared.

Artificial intelligence activities

Both Google Bard and ChatGPT can come up with an extensive list of activities for kids that I can see are really helpful on a rainy day.

Bard suggested fun ways to boost William’s language skills. He is currently saying a few words like “bird” and “come.”

I took Bard’s tip to extend his normal words and said, “A bird is flying away.”

He looked a little unsure, but that’s normal for William.

Bard also suggested making a “sensory bin” full of toys and pasta – and after an early hiccup where William tried to eat the pasta – that proved successful.