I don’t wish for that anymore.
We are social creatures. We chat and complain, debate and tell stories. We embrace, bump fists, communicate nuanced emotions wordlessly—an eye roll, a smile, a shrug. We call out to each other in stadium crowds, console crying babies on airplanes. This is what we do. And these lively, sometimes irritating, often messy, but always essential noises are the product of our species connecting and caring for one another.
AI has also moved into our lives in subtler ways. When you scroll social media or look for your next watch on Netflix, intelligent algorithms select or suggest the content for you. These AI‑powered recommendation engines are designed to predict what will hold your attention and keep you glued to the screen. If your little ones are watching YouTube, they too are under the sway of the technology as it works silently in the background to hold them close and shape their experience. The very content they consume might have been created by AI, including a flood of supposedly educational AI‑generated videos. These low‑quality, error‑filled abominations known as AI slop don’t just fail to teach. They actively misinform. They embed misspellings, peddle nonsense, and model unsafe behaviors for children too young to know the difference. And the companies developing these technologies are racing ahead of the rules as they’re being written.
I believe that the relationship between child development and artificial intelligence is one of the most critical and overlooked challenges of our time, one that has the potential to transform childhood, family structures, and ultimately nothing less than our future as a species. And it’s up to us as parents and caregivers to decide how these intelligent tools will shape our children’s lives. Not companies. Not governments. We are the ones who will take the lead on deciding what these technologies replace, what they enhance, and what they should never touch. And we are uniquely equipped to do so, as we possess something critical that machines are missing.
He suggested we embed maternal instincts in these systems.
I have spent years studying the evolutionary origins of these parental instincts and their profound importance in building children’s brains. Human babies are born powerless, weak, and extremely needy. Yet these tiny, vulnerable creatures somehow commandeer the lives of adults many times their size and strength. I call this the helpless infant paradox. There is no other example I can think of in nature of such complete power held by such powerless entities. Yet this is the very source of our success as a species. The instinct to nurture is wired so deeply into parents that it feels less like a choice than a biological imperative.
The missing instinct
The biggest missing piece in all of artificial intelligence, roboticist Matthias Scheutz told me, is that “none of our machines care.”
When I posed these questions to Scheutz, a philosopher turned roboticist who has spent decades thinking about human and machine minds, his answer cut to the heart of what separates us from even the most sophisticated AI. He pointed me to a philosophical concept: original intentionality. Our thoughts, he explained, don’t just process information—they reach toward what matters to us. Our cognition isn’t mere information processing. It’s grounded in something deeper. A scientist who devotes their life to understanding children’s brain development is driven by passion and concern.
You have the quality the machines are missing. The love no code can copy.
But AI does not care.
True caring—our capacity to have heartfelt thoughts about another being, rooted in concern for their flourishing, irrational in their intensity—is what makes us unique. It is the irreducible human core.
Excerpted from HUMAN RAISED: Nurturing Connection, Curiosity, & Lifelong Learning in the Age of AI with permission from Dutton, an imprint of Penguin Random House.
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