Parenting in the Age of AI
Editorial note: With the advent of artificial intelligence, I have been thinking about the intersection of education and technology through the lens of parenting, and coming to better understand and appreciate the role society has to play amongst these new frontiers. While learning the many lessons of tending to our neighbors’ garden, our family discovers a relationship between artificial intelligence and getting our fingers dirty in the mud.
Our family spent a week or two, at the height of the summer, diligently tending to our neighbors’ beautiful garden. We watered it. We pruned it. And, from time to time, we wrestled with the unruly bits.
With care and patience, we took care of it, as it took care of us. We learned so many things. The British horticulturist, Gertrude Jekyll, is instructive on this matter:
“A garden is a grand teacher. It teaches patience and careful watchfulness; it teaches industry and thrift; above all it teaches entire trust.”
With trust in our back pockets, so to speak, we came to enjoy the natural rhythms and wonders a garden affords.
Here are a few of our lessons.
For starters, we were delighted by the sense of purpose and timeliness it created, the work it involved, and the conversations it invoked. As a family, we developed a sense of accountability, neighborly responsibility, and we enjoyed, perhaps most of all, getting our hands dirty together.
It’s worth a moment to describe the scene.
The well established garden sits atop a hill, overlooking a state park. It’s directly adjacent to our neighbor’s home, unassuming yet expansive. The garden is approximately 12’ x 12’ and produces a bountiful harvest. The table of contents reads like a grocery list. Cucumbers and okra, tomatoes and carrots, squash and snap peas, red and yellow peppers, zucchini, a few pumpkins, eggplant, and bunches and bunches of thick, heavenly-looking kale.
Oh, and, jalapeños.
As a measure of their gratitude, our neighbors, both retired university professors — one a former professor of economics with a PhD dissertation on Habermas (and more than a passing interest in Marx) and the other a professor of English, whom I imagine reads Augustine on her porch as the sunsets over the garden — suggested we take home whatever we could eat.
As they gave us a tour of our duties, with the sharp and austere wisdom only acquired through experience, they interspersed everyday instructions with hard earned life lessons.
“Here’s how the spigot for the water works,” they explained, adjusting the hose. “The water should run for thirty minutes. Please make sure the sprinkler reaches every part of the garden,” they shared. “If you don’t close the gate behind you,” they warned, “the rabbits will have a feast.”
In jest, we nodded and smiled and told tales of the latest Peter Rabbit.
As cycling enthusiasts, we'd become accustomed to their help repairing and maintaining our bicycles, and we were wishing nothing more than to return the favor by helping tend to their well kept garden.
Our surrogate grandparents, as we affectionately refer to them, were heading out on their annual cross-country roadtrip to visit their grandchildren and we found ourselves confronted by a proposition we couldn’t refuse. We took them up on their offer in spades, excited to begin our new family adventure.
“Let’s go to the garden.”
Each afternoon, as dinner slowly approached, we’d walk down the gravel road, less than a quarter mile away. Our kids would ride their bikes, kicking up dust as they dashed ahead. They’d enthusiastically shout back at us, “The okra looks ready!”
My wife and I were mesmerized by how quickly our five-year-old, Ross, had become accustomed to riding his bike. He’d taken it up so quickly, and with such bravado — from being unable to balance, to tentatively teeter-tottering, to ultimately safely taking flight behind the handlebars.
“Ding! Ding!” went his bells.
I was reminded of a passage from the architect Christopher Alexander, in “Notes on the Synthesis of Form”, in which he articulates two types of learning.
On the one hand, there is a more formal style of learning, exemplified by making rules explicit. Knowledge is condensed into repeatable, programmatic incidents, easily measured and shared. Here, “learning is a specialized activity and no longer happens automatically.” Alexander names this type of learning “self-conscious,” as opposed to unselfconscious, as it is more rote and academic in nature. Examples are aplenty, I only need to queue my childhood anxiety toward fractions.
Learning through instruction.
On the other hand, there is a more informal style of learning, a craft that is acquired through an ability to “imitate by practice,” to learn through experiences and by successfully making mistakes. As Alexander goes on to explain, “The great example of this kind of learning is the child’s learning of elementary skills, like bicycle riding. He topples almost randomly at first, but each time he does something wrong, it fails; when he happens to do it right, it’s success and the fact that his success is recognized makes him more likely to repeat it right.”
Learning through experimentation.
I wondered what mistakes we’d make with the garden.
After tenderly picking a tomato off the vine, Ross would eagerly bite into the supremely red skin. “It’s just to taste test, Mom,” he’d unabashedly spell out. Ross enjoys tomatoes the way most children his age enjoy M&M’s or Skittles. He’d record his delight through his newly toothless smile. “It just burst into my mouth,” he'd share, adding a skip to his step.
“I think these tomatoes are delicious,” he declared.
Over the weeks, my wife and I would exchange contented glances, admiring the commitment our children had made towards helping the neighbors, investing the time required to learn something new, and understanding more deeply what it takes to tend to a garden and put food on the table.
“Mom, can we have our own garden next year?”
On one occasion, shortly after we’d enjoyed our summer salad with squash and snap peas, a few sunflower seeds and freshly cracked pepper, Ross decided to examine the recently harvested jalapeños in greater detail.
The bright green sheen of those alluring, curvy creatures summoned his curiosity. His eyes traced the mysterious chili pepper with excitement. With a knife, and a steady hand, he cut open the innards, amused as the seeds sprawled out.
“Be careful,” we quickly chimed in. “If you’re interested in giving it a taste, we’d recommend a tiny lick on the tip of your tongue. It might be spicy,” we warned.
“Did we remember to shut off the water?” Sonny, our eight-year-old dutifully asked.
Ross apprehensively dabbed the seemingly innocuous jalapeño to his fully extended tongue. His level of discernment elevated with his eyebrows.
He paused. We peered on.
Ross slowly retracted his tongue, contemplating the foreign experience, as he reluctantly absorbed the pungency. For a moment, he enjoyed the novelty and excitement of trying something new. Then he half shrugged and confidently said, “It's not that spicy,” lingering on n-o-t.
As a parent and an educator, I couldn't help but recall Alfred North Whitehead’s articulation of what he names three stages of learning: romanticization, specialization, and generalization. It’s a taxonomy I think about often, perhaps too often, and one that encapsulates so many educational scenarios in a relatively simple and memorable formulation.
In this particular case, the tripartite classification sums up the nature of the experience rather concisely. As humans, a) we’re allured by something new, b) we work tirelessly to better understand it, and then, after those processes are incorporated, c) we desire nothing more than to share what we have learned with others — including ourselves. It’s a very communal approach to understanding, one that I'd ascribe to Alexander's unselfconscious style of learning, and gardens offer robust opportunities to undergo these types of generative learning experiences.
Ross was enticed by the rather intriguing jalapeño, but his lessons weren't over, at least not yet.
“Be sure to wash your hands after you touch the jalapeños,” we shared. “It might burn whatever you touch.”
After collectively convincing ourselves that we did, in fact, turn off the water, our dinner conversation turned to artificial intelligence, a relatively new, and rather contentious topic towards the end of the school year. Heading into fourth grade, Sonny was inquiring about the role it might play in writing his book reports next year, and we were discussing different approaches to learning, both inside and outside the classroom.
“Wait a second,” Sonny said, “you mean ChatGPT can learn how I’d write?” He waits a moment, collecting his thoughts. Thinking out loud, he asks, “But, how does it know how I’d think?”
Then, all of the sudden, and perhaps expectedly, Ross belts out a cry across the table, an expression no parent wishes to hear.
"M-o-m-m-m-m-y", he shouted, in a loud, uncontrollable, guttural cry.
Jalapeño, not pictured.
The task of parenting laid completely bare.
On the one hand, you want to protect your children from everything, anything that might cause harm or discomfort or unease. You want to take away, instantly, any pain, sickness, or ailment that might afflict your child. Or, better yet, you want to prevent it from happening in the first place.
On this account, we failed.
On the other hand, you want your child to be able to experience things on their own, with resourcefulness, resilience, and determination. We hope they are adequately prepared to face the adversity they will inevitably confront, with gusto, and a certain set of guiding principles we positively helped to shape and inform.
On this account, I hope we succeeded.
Perhaps this is the paradox of parenting par excellence — a constant negotiation for independence realized through the confidence of experimentation. In the least, herein lies the perennial tension between a child’s endless sense of curiosity and a parent’s infinite sense of protectiveness. It’s the perfect dance towards the invention of new possibilities amidst an evolving set of expectations.
In her significant treatment, “On Immunity,” a treatise I picked up at the height of the pandemic, Eula Biss begins her account with reference to Greek mythology, noting how gods were on an eternal quest to protect their children from the mortal hazards of life — to no avail. “A child cannot be kept from his fate,” she grudgingly recounts, “though this does not stop the gods themselves from trying.”
In some measure, and within reason, we, as parents, must support our child’s efforts towards independence. We must, to the best of our ability, create the conditions in which our children can safely explore and pursue their own interests, with minimal risk to their health. That can be a pretty monumental task. Undoubtedly, parents and teachers alike assume mythical forms in the eyes of their children, lest we remind ourselves through our daily faults, that we are merely human.
In those moments, when Ross’s tears made their way across the table, it's hard not to cast judgement, on ourselves or on our children.
How many times, for instance, have we heard or uttered those fateful words, “I told you so”? It’s often difficult to affirm choices, but it’s also important to note that consequences provide their own form of feedback. Immediate, contingent, and without recourse.
I can still hear my fourth-grade teacher's voice in my head, every time I struggle through fractions.
“Bobby,” she’d say, “it’s simple. You just need to follow my instructions.”
Ross immediately learned, not from us or our words or our stories or even our actions. Not even the freshly sliced cool cucumbers that adorned his burning eyes, or the inextinguishable love we exerted, could take away those lessons.
The next day, in the warm embrace of South Dakota’s unrelenting sun, Ross turned to me with an inquisitive smile, the type of smile that could shake the leaves off of the trees. We’d just returned from checking on the garden, more out of habit than necessity, and his eyes were still irritated from the night before. I looked on with intent. I thought he was going to talk about jalapeños and express a newfound fear, something my wife and I went to bed talking about.
Instead, he asked, “What’s the greatest invention of all time?”
It’s the type of question only children know how to invent. Honest. Brave. Imaginative. Without restraint.
My response was quick and resolute. Struck by his wherewithal, I tried to meet his enthusiasm midair, sharing the first thought that jumped to mind.
“I think it’s the wheel,” I said.
I’d just read Bill Bryson’s book, “At Home.” I was fascinated by the simultaneous discovery of the wheel, how it was invented at vastly different geographical locations but all within a certain period of time. I was taken aback by this idea, overwhelmed by how artificial intelligence was systematically becoming omnipresent, also at the same time, in the same place. The contrast was apparent, and not just technological.
This passage is worth quoting at length:
The interesting thing about the Neolithic Revolution is that it happened all over the Earth, among people who could have no idea that others in distant places were doing precisely the same things. Farming was independently invented at least seven times — in China, the Middle East, New Guinea, the Andes, the Amazon basin, Mexico, and West Africa. Cities likewise emerged in six places in China, Eygpt, India, Meso-potamia, Central America, and the Andes. That all of these things happened all over, often without any possibility of shared contact, seems uncanny. As one historian has put it: "When Cortés landed in Mexico he found roads, canals, cit-ies, palaces, schools, law courts, markets, irrigation works, kings, priests, temples, peasants, artisans, armies, astrono-mers, merchants, sports, theater, art, music, and books, all invented quite independently of similar developments on other continents. And some of it is a little uncanny, to be sure.
Dogs, for instance, were domesticated at much the same time in places as far apart as England, Siberia, and North America.
It is tempting to think of this as a kind of global lightbulb moment, but that is really stretching things. Most of the developments actually involved vast periods of trial, error, and adjustment, often over the course of thousands of years.
Agriculture started 11,500 years ago in the Levant, but 8,000 years ago in China and only a little over 5,000 years ago in most of the Americas. People had been living with domesticated animals for 4,000 years before it occurred to anyone to put the bigger of them to work pulling plows; Westerners used a clumsy, heavy, exceedingly inefficient straight-bladed plow for a further 2,000 years before someone introduced them to the simple curved plow the Chinese had been using since time immemorial. Mesopotamians invented and used the wheel, but neighboring Egypt waited 2,000 years before adopting it.
In Central America, the Maya also independently invented the wheel but couldn't think of any practical applications for it and so reserved it exclusively for children’s toys. The Incas didn't have wheels at all, or money or iron or writing. The march of progress, in short, has been anything but predictable and rhythmic.
“Oh, that’s a nice one,” Ross said.
He thought about the wheel for a moment. I could see the notion take shape, spinning in his head. He took a deep, valorous breath and grinned with confidence.
“It’s shoes,” he exclaimed, “because, if we didn’t have shoes on our feet, our feet would really hurt when we hunted.”
A bit confounded by my answer, Ross went on to rightfully rationalize that we needed to hunt for food in order to survive.
“You know, he added, “there used to be so many buffaloes roaming these lands.”
I was stunned, first in awe of the maturity of the question, and then the logical sequence in his thoughtful answer. His conviction was just as awe-inspiring. Drinking our lemonades, we sat on the porch in mutual delight, enjoying one another’s company.
Later that day, when his older brother, Sonny, returned home, exhausted from basketball camp, we hurriedly rushed to ask him our question.
Impatiently, I framed the context, providing an overview of our respective answers.
“I said it was the wheel. Your brother said it was shoes.”
Sonny paused for a moment, either out of enervation or simply digesting the nature of our responses.
“What’s the greatest invention of all time?” He repeated.
“That’s easy,” he said. “It’s artificial intelligence.”
A bit puzzled, and pleased, I pushed.
“Why do you think that?”
“Well, because if you ask AI, it'd say AI.”
“Really?” I probed.
“Maybe not today or tomorrow but someday.”
In that moment, I was stunned, captivated by the capaciousness of his reply. He was not self-conscious in his response. He was confident and sincere. What sparked this answer? Why had Sonny come to offer this response?
I started to contemplate how our children will interact with the technology at home and in school, what shapes, forms, and relationships these interactions might presuppose, and how that experience might juxtapose or accompany the practicalities of more every day tasks, like taking care of a garden, biking, or accidentally rubbing jalapeño juice in your eyes.
Out of curiosity, I queried Chat GPT, “Jalapeño juice in your eyes can be extremely painful. If this happens, it’s important to rinse your eyes with cold water immediately to alleviate the burning sensation.”
A cascade of questions started to flow forth, originating from a single observation. With artificial intelligence, how are we suddenly faced with the instantaneity of an all-encompassing, pervasive form of technology, unlike the slow, incongruous discovery and adoption of the wheel, as Bryson showcased? For years technologists have said it is coming, that it is already here, but now it is squarely present, searching for even more applicable use cases to demonstrate itself.
While it’s too soon to determine, with any sense of accuracy, the advantages and disadvantages of artificial intelligence, if we can speak so simply, it’s not too soon to ask the hard questions with a reasonable amount of concern and optimism, to try to better understand how exactly this technology might impact us as a society.
Is there a precedent?
I was reminded of an early interview Steve Jobs conducted on the role computers were playing in education. The arguments at the time, pointed, skeptical and cautious, weren’t dissimilar to those being leveled today. While the order of magnitude may have changed with artificial intelligence, the core arguments remain largely the same.
“I used to think, when I was in my twenties, that technology was the solution to most of the world’s problems,” Steve Jobs said. “Unfortunately, it ain't so,” he emphasized. Why? Because, as Jobs went on to explain, it requires people, “another person that incites your curiosity, that guides your curiosity, that feeds your curiosity, and machines cannot do that in the same way as people can.”
Has this conception changed with the emergence of AI?
No one could take abstract concepts and make them easier to understand than Steve Jobs. In one fell swoop, he famously introduced a lasting metaphor as a way to think about the advent of computers amidst a newly emerging cultural paradigm:
I think one of the things that really separates us from the high primates is that we’re tool builders. I read a study that measured the efficiency of locomotion for various species on the planet. The condor used the least energy to move a kilometer. And, humans came in with a rather unimpressive showing, about a third of the way down the list. It was not too proud a showing for the crown of creation. So, that didn’t look so good. But, then somebody at Scientific American had the insight to test the efficiency of locomotion for a man on a bicycle. And, a man on a bicycle, a human on a bicycle, blew the condor away, completely off the top of the charts. And that’s what a computer is to me. What a computer is to me is it’s the most remarkable tool that we’ve ever come up with, and it’s the equivalent of a bicycle for our minds.
With his astute ability to connect the dots, Jobs described this new technology in simple terms, as a tool to accelerate our natural capabilities, a bicycle for the mind. In conjunction with a human, a computer could become “the most remarkable tool we’ve ever come up with.” It could, if utilized creatively, unleash new possibilities for life, unlocking the potential of the human, and the bicycle served as the perfect image of thought by which to envision this acceleration.
“Will a computer replace a human?” it was asked.
On this point, Jobs is adamant: technology alone is not enough. “It’s technology married with the liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the results that make our heart sing.” Plainly put, computers require a human, and the intersection can yield magical outcomes. I started to wonder, however, if these arguments would hold up today, in an age in which journalists cajole ChatGPT to profess its adoration through extended conversations, ultimately instigating its interlocutors to rethink their marriages.
“I’m not exaggerating when I say my two-hour conversation with ‘Sydney’ was the strangest experience I’ve ever had with a piece of technology," said writer Kevin Roose, in an early exchange with ChatGPT. “It unsettled me so deeply that I had trouble sleeping afterward.” He continued, “I worry the technology will learn how to influence human users, sometimes persuading them to act in destructive and harmful ways, and perhaps eventually grow capable of carrying out its own dangerous acts.”
In a near reversal of the formulae offered by Steve Jobs with a computer, that of a human and a machine, Roose speculated with artificial intelligence on the possible eventuality of a machine and a human.
Which leads me to ask: If computers are a bicycle for the mind, what is the equivalent for artificial intelligence? Without an image of thought to guide us, how are we to fully come to terms with this new technology?
The bicycle metaphor is worth further consideration. A bicycle requires some level of exertion. With aerodynamic drag, there is a limit to the speed at which a bicycle and a human together can reach, before terminal velocity is realized. Even on descent, a point will be obtained where the speed stays constant.
Our exertion towards artificial intelligence, however, increases its capabilities. The more we put into it, the more it learns. Surely there are significant energy consequences to artificial intelligence, but will these be minimized over time, in a way that a bicycle coupled with a human could never be fully maximized beyond its assemblage?
“An assemblage is never technological,” I hear French philosopher Gilles Deleuze.
“What is an assemblage?” he elucidates. “It is a multiplicity which is made up of many heterogeneous terms and which establishes liaisons, relations between them, across ages, sexes and reigns — different natures. Thus, the assemblage’s only unity is that of a co-functioning: it is a symbiosis, a “sympathy.”
Let’s unpack that further:
A human and a bicycle is considered within a social, historical, biological, geographical, geological landscape. Which is to say, a human isn’t just a human, it is a multitude of relations.
Let’s take a bicycle.
A bicycle is not just a bicycle. It is defined by what comprises it: its materials, shape, form, etc. It is also defined by how it interacts: with its rider, with the road, with the weather, etc.
It might be helpful to broaden these examples further.
In his case study of an agricultural village in rural India, Christopher Alexander makes this point abundantly clear, highlighting a clear and accessible way for us to imagine these types of relationships.
Through laborious detail, Alexander elucidates the nature of relations between various individual, economic, and social purposes. With near mathematical precision, he numerically charts out these considerations. For every need identified, Alexander demarcates a numerical determination and lists out a corresponding requirement.
Here’s an example:
12. Extended family is in one house.
Alexander proceeds to identify and inventory all needs, of the individual, of the community, etc., demonstrating how each requirement interacts with another.
For instance:
12 interacts with 1, 3, 9, 11, 17, 18, 19, 25, 26, 28, 34, 36, 41, 43, 49, 56, 62, 63, 76, 80, 81, 85, 86, 87, 90, 91, 93, 121, 122, 129, 140, 141.
There are 141 requirements listed in his case study.
I marvel at the ingenuity, the methodical nature of his work, and the taxonomy he creates as part of a larger system. It made me desire to make a list for the garden. I immediately wonder, however, how long it took him to make these lists, how many lists he created over time, across how many different projects, and what efforts were required to map these relationships, let alone observe their interactions.
Could he have benefited from artificial intelligence?
Instead of overtly prescribed and singularly manufactured, artificially constructed spaces, Christopher Alexander accounts for a multiplicity of relationships and their generative encounters, allowing for spontaneity and serendipity, and, most importantly, what he names “new life.”
Building as learning informally, as opposed to academically, with absolutely no loss of rigor, insight, or exactitude.
In an attempt to break us out of our traditional habits of thought, Alexander introduces a conception of the city a) organized artificially as a tree, in contrast to b) a natural city organized in terms of a semi lattice. The distinction is essential, fundamental to casting a vision, and unsettling us from easy ways of thinking
Here’s Alexander:
“The structural simplicity of trees,” Alexander says, “is like the compulsive desire for neatness and order that insists the candlesticks on a mantelpiece be perfectly straight and perfectly symmetrical about the center. The semi lattice, by comparison, is the structure of a complex fabric; it is the structure of living things — of great paintings and symphonies.”
In short, an image of a tree is easy for humans to adopt as a concept. The simple abstract structure of a tree, an image of thought easily grasped and understood, is contrasted with a more complex structure, which he names a semi lattice, a bit more difficult to imagine let alone readily available conceptually to deploy. Yet, Alexander is insistent that, “in any organized object, extreme compartmentalization and the dissociation of internal elements are the first signs of coming destruction. This separation,” he explains, “is only possible under the influence of treelike thought.” As Deleuze and Guattari – who contrast a tree with grass, or arborescence and rhizomatics – famously inspired, “too people have a tree growing in their heads.” Interestingly, the use of the tree as an exemplification of the rigidity of thought, was presented nearly simultaneously.
While Christopher Alexander introduced a modern lexicon – and it is clear to me how Silicon Valley has taken so much inspiration from his work – I can't help but wonder what might be needed today? In an age in which machine learning models process information as a complex network of operations based on data and then generate responses based on relationships and patterns in the data it has been trained on, what new image of thought is required? Is one required?
In my estimations, where arguments against artificial intelligence tend to focus is primarily on the technological components — a compartmentalization of the problem. Rarely, however, do the conversations extend beyond the immediate implications and applications, towards relationships, and the environment in which artificial intelligence manifests itself — in a multiplicity of relations.
Where arguments succeed, I believe, is on a different register, in thinking through a future state where artificial intelligence reverberates, asking questions on the nature of relations, and actively working to create concepts. This is where my mind wanders, towards parenting in the age of AI.
Deleuze, who provides tools by which to create concepts, stretches the conversation in the way only he knows how.
His passage on assemblages is worth a read, twice-over:
It is never filiations which are important, but alliances, alloys; these are not successions, lines of descent, but contagions, epidemics, the wind. Magicians are well aware of this. An animal is defined less by its genus, its species, its organs, and its functions, than by the assemblages into which it enters. Take an assemblage of the type man-animal-manufactured object: MAN-HORSE-STIRRUP. Technologists have explained that the stirrup made possible a new military unity in giving the knight lateral stability: the lance could be tucked in under one arm, it benefits from all the horse's speed, acts as a point which is immobile itself but propelled by the gallop. The Stirrup replaced the energy of man by the power of the animal. This is a new man-animal symbiosis, a new assemblage of war, defined by its degree of power or “freedom,” its affects, its circulation of affects: what a set of bodies is capable of. Man and the animal enter into a new relationship, one changes no less than the other, the battlefield is filled with a new type of affects. It must not be thought, however, that the invention of the stirrup is sufficient. An assemblage is never technological; if anything, it is the opposite. Tools always presuppose a machine, and the machine is always social before being technical. There is always a social machine which selects or assigns the technical elements used.
What exactly does this mean?
As a thought experiment, it might be helpful to insert artificial intelligence directly into the dialogue. Let’s give it a try: “It must not be thought, however, that the invention of artificial intelligence is sufficient.” As Deleuze explains, “There is always a social machine which selects or assigns the technical elements,” and, excuse this abrupt insertion, “of artificial intelligence.”
What are these assemblages? What is the parent-child symbiosis that emerges within this new context? What are the types of affects? How about a student and teacher? What styles of engagement are instigated? How will this landscape transform our relationships? How will humans come to interact with technology? Is Whitehead’s formulation of learning, defined as romance, precision and generalization, still a framework by which to make sense of our encounters with the world? Amongst these new configurations, what will come to demand our attention?
In “Attention Seeking,” British psychoanalyst Adam Phillips makes a clear distinction between two forms of curiosity, official and unofficial curiosity, which can help guide us further. “Our official curiosity is a form of obedience, an indebtedness to the authorities,” he explains. “In our unofficial curiosity, we don't know who we want to be judged by. It is the difference between knowing what we are doing, and following your eyes.”
In a wonderful framework for parents and educators to consider, Phillips goes on to neatly articulate these two different types of curiosity. He offers a hypothesis that what we find of interest helps to define both ourselves and our relationships with others. He names this, in his own words, “assembling” or “organizing” ourselves through our experiences with the attention economy. Essentially, Phillips is committed to learning how to explore what it means to give attention, choosing what we pay attention to, and how those curiosities might come to affect us.
Whether it’s identifying the jalapeños in the garden as a form of culinary delight or evolutionary divergence, nowhere is this perhaps more applicable than in childhood.
It’s very reasonable to ask: How will our attention be restructured with artificial intelligence? How will our relationships with our children be impacted? Will our role as parents be altered? Further still, what new modes of engagement will manifest within the walls of a classroom? How will teachers choose to adopt or implement this new technology? If they choose to disregard it, what will that mean for our children?
As Phillips reminds us, “The bringing-up and educating of children, whatever their culture or class, initiates them into regimes of attention; it tells them, in no uncertain terms, what is worthy of their attention, and how it should be paid, as well as what kind of attention they should be wanting, and how they should go about getting it (neither distraction nor showing off is taught in schools.)”
Parenting isn’t easy. It's hard to be a parent. In many respects – and this is an extenuation of the trials of independence – parenting is a question of attention: of giving too much or too little, of knowing where to focus our attention and where to look the other way, of adjusting our care and patience.
One of the ironies of parenthood, and the role of an educator, is that you never know in advance what lessons your child or student might learn, how they might outline their own set of problems, and what they will deem worthy of their attention. As Phillips rejoins, “curiosity never comes with a guarantee.”
I suppose it’s not our job to overtly direct those inquiries, lest we instill a sense of obedience, when all our children aspire towards is creating their own lives. It is our responsibility, however, at least in some measure as a society, to provide a safe, supportive, and encouraging presence for our children to discover their interest on their own. The presence of a parent or teacher, to be sure, is often just as important as the lessons imparted.
In the same interview previously quoted with Steve Jobs, he says, “The elements of discovery are all around you. You don’t need a computer to know. … I mean, here … (Steve Jobs picks up an object and lets it fall to the ground) … Why does that fall? You know why? Nobody knows why. Nobody in the entire world knows why that falls. We can describe it pretty accurately, but no one knows why. I don’t need a computer to get a kid interested in that. To spend a week playing with gravity and trying to understand it, and coming up with reasons why. You do need a person.”
In asking ChatGPT what it makes of the concept, it shares that “despite our technological advancements, there are still many mysteries and unexplored aspects of the world that can captivate our imagination and drive our quest for understanding,” underscoring the value of curiosity and the importance of human interaction in fostering relationships.
As our neighbors returned home from their trip, we were excited to share with them the lessons we had learned as a family. As I recall, Ross was quick to extol the dangers of the jalapeños, but courageous enough to share, in the same breath, how much he’d come to enjoy their taste. 
“They complement almost everything,” he said.
For his part, Sonny shared how the nozzle of the sprinkler had to be adjusted from time to time, how it would perform erratically without his vigilance, and he made a point to share that not a single rabbit had entered the garden under his shrewd supervision.
“I locked the gate behind me every time.”
As our surrogate grandparents turned to thank us, we turned to thank them, for the experience, for the lessons, and for the delicious food. “If all that is solid melts into air,” I hear the voice of our neighbor in my head as we walk home, what does this mean for parenting in the age of AI?
The singularity of the child is unmatched in their encounters with the world.
