Now, Thanks to AI, You Never Have to Speak to Your Kids Again

Illustration by The Atlantic. Source: SerrNovik / Getty.August 4, 2026, 4:02 PM ET “cool use case of chatgpt work i heard last night:connect your family calendars and explain your kids' interests.every morning for the drive to school, have it make a podcast that talks about one kid's soccer game that afternoon, one kid's upcoming birthday, some news, etc.”— Sam AltmanParents! Are you getting fed up? Throwing away your life interacting with your children when you could be profitmaxxing? When you could be proteinmaxxing? When you could be doing whatever it is that billionaire guy with the repeated infusions of fresh young blood is doing?Consider: What do children bring to the table, besides sticky fingers? Forget networking! They don’t know anyone. Bluey? That is a cartoon dog. Paw Patrol? Still a cartoon dog, but now it possesses law-enforcement powers.Besides, kids are fonts of misinformation. Anyone can see that the floor is not lava. That is plainly not a fort. Those are cushions. If you wanted erroneous information presented to you in a confident way, you would be asking ChatGPT. At least it has the decency to grovel. And what can children offer you in return? Magnatiles? A picture of an ape? Wait, that could be something! Oh, never mind. It’s hand-drawn on construction paper.What a relief that AI can handle all these pointless interactions. It can make a podcast. This offers two advantages: You can avoid talking with your children (this makes it less embarrassing that you do not remember your second child’s name; maybe … Tid?), and it may endear your children to AI, which will come in handy in case it ever does gain sentience.You’re missing nothing. Kids have no information of value to impart. On the contrary, all they ever do is ask embarrassingly basic, rudimentary questions about the world. “What is gravity?” “Why is the microwave spinning?” “Why do you keep putting on that weird podcast every time we’re in the car?” ENOUGH WITH THE QUESTIONS, TID!If you make the mistake of listening to your children now, you might be stuck with them in your life forever. Maybe they’ll fall in love and want to tell you about it! Maybe they’ll need a ride home from a party! Maybe they’ll make something they’re proud of and want to show you! And you will have to spend the rest of your life listening to them. Ugh. You might even get invited to their wedding, or be asked to spend time with your grandchildren.The inefficiency is chilling. It’s so much work for so little reward. All these people, wasting their life going to their children’s soccer games and piano recitals and listening to them tell their interminable stories. What does it all amount to, anyway? Best-case scenario, they will stand up at your funeral and deliver a eulogy saying that you were a “loving, present parent who shaped me into the person I am today”—and you won’t even be around to hear it! Not worth it.

Raccontata dabusinessinsider.comtheatlantic.com