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ACCORDING TO LIZ - What used to be parents’ past nightmares that could be fixed by teaching their children well has now become a hell directly foisted upon today’s children.
Nor are children being given the skills to help their parents, as the world teeters on an abyss where dreams crumble daily and opportunities are more and more limited for every generation now living.
Senator Bernie Sanders rejected First Lady Melania Trump’s vision of a near-future in which artificial intelligence-powered humanoid robots do the work of human schoolteachers, arguing that society should instead double down on using human educators and treating them better.
This was three days after the president’s wife swept into the education summit of the Global First Ladies Alliance accompanied by Figure 03, a black-and-white general purpose humanoid robot.
The first lady gushed about her Sunnyvale-based company’s artificial intelligence-operated companion: “The future of A.I. is personified… in the shape of humans. Very soon artificial intelligence will move from our mobile phones to humanoids that deliver utility.”
“Imagine a humanoid educator named Plato. Access to the classical studies is now instantaneous: literature, science, art, philosophy, mathematics, and history. Humanity’s entire corpus of information is available in the comfort of your home.”
Sanders’ response to her robot-as-educator pitch was pretty definitive: “We should not be replacing teachers in America with robots. We should attract the best and brightest in our country to become teachers and pay them the decent wages that they deserve.”
So... from whom are our children learning now?
Parents, yes. Teachers, yes. Even non-agentic computers.
But the greatest source of information for Americans of all ages comes from the internet. And an increasing amount directly or through an A.I. filter which is just as likely to present a skewed perception of what’s happening as not.
Just living in our social media-linked world American children are growing up seeing the world around them rapidly deteriorating from the deliberate self-serving short-term actions of the older generation.
Understanding that there’s no time left to effectively reverse the damage of climate change in their own lifetime.
Experiencing the pain, suffering, and deaths of their counterparts in Gaza.
Viewing the systematic incarceration, prosecution and punishment of Palestinian children in the Israeli military justice system thrusts our children into the same hell.
The same pit of existential despair.
Seeing Palestinian children arrested in their own homes by heavily armed Israeli soldiers, bound, blindfolded, and often beaten in military vehicles during transport before arriving at an Israeli police station for interrogation can only ramp up their own fears, their own feelings of uncertainty.
Seeing a child ruthlessly interrogated alone without the support of a family member, threatened with physical violence if they don’t confess without the attorney American procedurally promise only ratchets up their own, quite legitimate, panic.
And at a time when families are increasingly unlikely to gather around the dinner table to discuss family members’ activities and comment on both local and international news, at a time when children are less and less likely to confide their concerns in their parents or any adult in authority. A generation adrift.
Turning to the screen which, when structured as television shows, often acted as their babysitters growing up. In locus parentis.
When education focuses less on analyzing ideas and current events and more on training for rote-memory testing, pressuring students to memorize facts instead of developing analytical and critical thinking skills…
When children turn less and less to each other to comprehend the world around them and increasingly rely on the infotainment of social media that is provided by entities intent on their own profits or more nefarious purposes…
Thousands of social media addiction lawsuits are now being filed against Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube, and Discord. Lawsuits alleging the companies intentionally designed their platforms’ algorithms to be addictive to children and teens with the direct intent of developing patterns of behavior to ensure an ongoing captive audience for their products.
Through deliberate tweaking, these services are every bit as addictive as tobacco and alcohol, combining a repetitive physical action with a dopamine-driven sensation reward, and are equally difficult habits to kick.
And probably more dangerous, as the world accelerates into the arms of an unregulated A.I. lacking in appropriate guardrails or even basic warnings against potential mental and physical harm that are already erupting.
A Los Angeles jury did find Meta’ Instagram and Google's YouTube consciously calculated to make their platforms as addictive as possible, contributing to the mental health struggles of a young woman who started using those apps as a child.
In a parallel decision, a New Mexico jury ordered Meta to pay a $375 million for falsely labeling their product as safe and enabling child exploitation. Hundreds and hundreds of additional lawsuits are poised to proceed although the road will be long and complex with billions of dollars and thousands and thousands of jobs at stake.
The office of California Gov. Gavin Newsom also slapped down the idea of robot teachers.
Ordinary people shared concerns on social media, with one X account posting: “They want to replace human beings. Where will we work? How do we make money?”
If Robert Kennedy, Jr. really wanted to make Americans healthy again, he could use the recent rulings to initiate constructive change.
Instead of appointing anti-vaccine advocates and restricting the use of life-saving inoculations, he should be doubling down on demanding better education, a safer internet, and strong, enforceable guardrails on A.I. Before the latter explodes beyond human control.
Studies show increasing numbers of students struggling with basic reading and math are tied to greater consumption of short-form video, resulting in lowered attention spans, and overall poorer understanding and reasoning skills.
Older children have now come to rely on A.I. to do their thinking for them, threatening the education necessary to grow the next generation of skilled American entrepreneurs and workers.
Kids need empathy, the human touch of a teacher, an adult and an authority figure separate from family for reality checks on the world around them. Not chatbots and online avatars spouting an A.I.-aggregated perception of truth that is anything but.
To teach your children well, teachers need more help, greater resources and better pay to succeed at their calling.
To feed the children on their dreams, to rescue them from their hell, parents must become more realistic and encourage what’s best for their child’s education in an increasingly challenging world.
(Liz Amsden is a former Angeleno now living in Vermont and a regular CityWatch contributor. She writes on issues she’s passionate about, including social justice, government accountability, and community empowerment. Liz brings a sharp, activist voice to her commentary and continues to engage with Los Angeles civic affairs from afar. She can be reached at [email protected].)
