AI Playmates The New Parenting Frontier

The Accidental AI Babysitter

When Josh, a 40-year-old father from Ohio, felt overwhelmed by his four-year-old son's 45-minute monologue on Thomas the Tank Engine, he turned to an unconventional solution: ChatGPT. "I needed to do my chores, so I let him have the phone," Josh recalled. He expected a brief distraction. What he found two hours later was his son still happily chatting with the AI in voice mode, having generated a conversation transcript over 10,000 words long. In a sheepish post on Reddit, he confessed, "My son thinks ChatGPT is the coolest train loving person in the world. The bar is set so high now I am never going to be able to compete with that."

This scene is becoming increasingly common. From radio to television to tablets, new technologies have always presented a mix of promise and peril for parents. A century ago, mothers worried about radio programs being too stimulating for children; today, the debate rages around screen time and social media. But the lifelike, conversational nature of generative AI feels like something entirely new. Can AI become the digital Mary Poppins parents have dreamed of—an educator, entertainer, and companion all in one? Or are we enrolling our children as unwitting beta testers in Silicon Valley's latest experiment?

Sparking Imagination or Blurring Reality?

For some parents, AI is a powerful tool for imaginative play. Saral Kaushik, a software engineer in Yorkshire, used ChatGPT to create a magical experience for his four-year-old son. He prompted the AI to act as an astronaut on the International Space Station and told it to mention a special treat it had sent. "[ChatGPT] told him that he had sent his dad some ice-cream to try from space, and I pulled it out," Kaushik said. "He was beaming, he was so happy."

Other parents use AI to bridge the gap between their children's imagination and their artistic skills. Josh's six-year-old daughter co-creates illustrated stories with him, while Ben Kreiter, a father in Michigan, helps his kids generate images of things "they can’t quite [draw] on a piece of paper with their crayons yet."

However, this magic can come with a side of confusion. After Kaushik's son was so thrilled by his chat with the 'astronaut,' Kaushik felt uneasy. "He genuinely believed it was real," he admitted, which prompted him to explain it was just a computer.

Similarly, John, a father from Boston, used an AI tool to generate a photorealistic image of a "monster-fire truck" for his truck-obsessed four-year-old. This led to a heated argument between his son, who now had proof of its existence, and his skeptical seven-year-old sister. The incident served as a warning for John. "My wife and I have talked so much more about how we’re going to handle social media than we have about AI," he reflected.

Ying Xu: ‘If [children] believe that AI has agency, they might understand it as the AI wanting to talk to them or choosing to talk to them.’ Photograph: RooM the Agency/Alamy

The Expert View on AI and Child Development

As parents' concerns grow, researchers are just beginning to study AI's impact on child development. Ying Xu, a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, explains that a key cognitive milestone for children is distinguishing between animate and inanimate objects. AI complicates this. "A very important indicator of a child anthropomorphizing AI is that they believe AI is having agency," Xu said. "They feel that the AI is responding to their messages...in ways that are similar to how a human responds. That creates a risk that they actually believe they are building some sort of authentic relationship."

Andrew McStay, a professor at Bangor University, shares these concerns, warning that these systems are not designed with children's best interests at heart. He points out that an LLM cannot truly empathize; it can only simulate it. "When they’re latching on to negative emotion, they’re extending engagement for profit-based reasons," he stated. "There is no good outcome for a child there."

There is also a debate over whether AI can genuinely foster creativity. A recent study found that while AI prompts could boost an individual's creative output, it decreased the diversity of the group's collective work. "I’m a little worried by this kind of homogenizing of expression and creativity," Xu noted.

Silicon Valley's Rush into the Playroom

Despite the unanswered questions, the tech industry is moving at a breakneck pace. OpenAI, which officially bars users under 13, recently announced a strategic collaboration with Mattel, the maker of Barbie and Fisher-Price. CEO Sam Altman even commented on a podcast about Josh's viral story, noting with some pride, "Kids love voice mode on ChatGPT."

Startups are also racing to market. Curio has developed an OpenAI-powered plush toy named Grok, marketed as being "between a little brother and a pet." The pitch is classic Silicon Valley: use concerns about the last generation of tech (screen time) to sell the next.

A child swings on a swing with Grem, a chatbot in the Grok toy line by Curio. Photograph: Hannah Yoon/The Guardian

Another company, Geni, is developing an AI-powered storytelling device that generates bespoke tales based on tiles a child selects. While its founders say they are thoughtful about the risks, their development process highlights the industry's priorities. When asked about handling potentially problematic user-generated content, co-founder Kevin Tang said they would have to discuss it. "Post-launch, we’ll probably bring on an AI ethics person to our team," he added.

For now, many of these toys seem more unsettling than engaging. As one journalist concluded after testing a device, using an AI toy to replace TV time is "a bit like unleashing a mongoose into the playroom to kill all the snakes you put in there." As parents navigate this new terrain, the question remains whether the tech industry will prioritize children's well-being over a quick launch.