What AI Could Be Doing to Our Kids

Dr. Becky talks with former Wall Street Journal tech columnist Joanna Stern about AI toys, chatbot companions, creativity, learning, and the surprising role frustration plays in healthy human development.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  After my first baby was born, I treated my own recovery like a complete afterthought. If the baby needed something, I showed up immediately. If I needed something, well, it would wait. But research shows that when parents have the support they need, they're better able to care for their children. Taking care of yourself isn't separate from parenting. It's a huge part of parenting. That's why I love Frida's mission to prepare women for the realities of pregnancy, postpartum, recovery, and feeding. Frida creates solutions for the moments that often catch moms off guard. The Postpartum Essentials Kit and Breastfeeding Survival Kit help women feel more prepared for those early weeks of motherhood. Be motherhood prepared and shop Frida at Amazon, Target, and Walmart today.

• 0:43Speaker 01

  Underlying this generative AI chatbot is this model that is just saying what it thinks you want to hear. There's no friction. My biggest fear is that my kids will end up in relationships like this. No companion chatbots.

• 1:01Speaker 01

  Hard stop, hard stop.

• 1:02Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  AI is everywhere. It's in our phones. Our kids might be using it for their homework. It's in your speaker on your kitchen counter, and maybe it even just helped settle a sibling argument about a certain type of exotic bug. And a lot of us as parents are conflicted. Maybe we're using it over here, and we're trying to keep it away over here, and we hear a million different things about how it's good, about how it's awful, and we're trying to live in the world and figure it out and figure out how to manage it with our kids. It's why I'm so excited about my guest today, Joanna Stern. She's a former tech reporter for The Wall Street Journal, and she took on a really interesting experiment. For 365

• 1:46Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  days for a year, she let AI into every single aspect of her home, including a lot of moments with her kids, and she has a lot to say about it. I think her headline is kind of going to be the headline for our conversation today. How do we raise humans and not robots? I'm Dr. Becky. This is Good Inside. I'm so glad you're here.

• 2:19Speaker 01

  AI has been a name that has been applied to basically anything that looks like a computer or a smartphone these days. And so there are different types of AI. But here, when I'm talking about AI in the chatbot sense, we're talking about generative AI. And that falls under the chat GPTs of the world, the claws, the Geminis, anything you're even now seeing sort of in Google where it's asking you questions, that's all likely generative AI.

• 2:46Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Mm hmm.

• 2:47Speaker 01

  And I thought, let me kind of look at this whole view, all these different types of AI, and as I call it in the book, the AI zoo. Let me go through this and try to get as much of it inside my life as I possibly can in the present with the goal of looking at what does our future look like if this all happens?

• 3:04Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Instead of this kind of theoretical idea, let me bring it to my house. Let me live with it. Let me see, let me see everyone's reaction, let me see my reaction, and let me learn from doing.

• 3:13Speaker 01

  Absolutely. And I think there's kind of two ways to look at it, which is one, the AI invasion in the parts of our world that we're not going to really have control over, right? It's in our hospitals, our dentist's office, it's in the cars that drive next to us, right? And then there's the AI invitation that we invite into our lives, the chatbots we ask about at work, the AI toys we give our kids. How are we inviting AI into our personal lives? And AI toys are toy makers that have now decided, let's put a chatbot that never kind of stops talking, let's put a voice with it, and let's put that inside a toy, a stuffed animal, so kids can talk to them.

• 3:53Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Okay, so let me go down that rabbit hole a little bit more. How are we inviting AI into our personal lives, especially as it relates to our kids?

• 4:01Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 4:02Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  So this AI kind of chatbot toy, right? Essentially, it keeps talking, but I think what you're also saying is it keeps responding?

• 4:08Speaker 01

  Always.

• 4:09Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Right. So no matter what your son says to this stuffed animal, it's no longer, I don't know, a stuffed animal that you squeeze. I'm even thinking about the advanced Build-A-Bear where you squeeze it and it has like one pre-recorded message, right? Oh, mommy loves you or something like that. That is not what we're talking about.

• 4:26Speaker 01

  Right.

• 4:27Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Assuming someone listening is thinking like, what? So is this, just paint the pictures, your son having this in his bed, is it playing in the living room? What are the conversations you hear?

• 4:35Speaker 01

  You turn on this toy, you set it up with your phone. It needs to connect to the phone so it can connect to the cloud.

• 4:42Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Okay.

• 4:42Speaker 01

  So it can have those conversations back and forth. And you just sit there and talk to it. And it like, it prompts you, there was one really funny exchange where my son kept saying, you sucker. Like, he just was interested, like, it was supposed to be like, you sucker, you know? Like, he would say this really cute. The chatbot kept saying, thought he was saying soccer. And so the chatbot just kept going and going and being like, oh, you want to play soccer? I love soccer. Do you want to play soccer together, Alex? And that's the other really creepy thing. You can give the name of your child in the app. So it's very personalized. And it will say, hey, Alex, how's your afternoon going? Did you have a nice day?

• 5:24Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  And if Alex says, oh, my mom said I couldn't have dessert tonight. You know, what's the?

• 5:32Speaker 01

  The chatbot will likely, like, honestly, likely say, oh, that's so disappointing. But let me tell you a story. Right? That's so like, oh, I'm sorry you didn't get ice cream.

• 5:43Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  So, I mean, I'm sure you can imagine, I have a lot of thoughts about this, but on the surface, I'm just gonna say, oh, like, okay, it kind of has some light validation. Oh, that stinks. And here's a story, here's right, it's not saying, oh, your mom sucks. Like, your mom sucks and your family sucks. Like, you know, that's probably not what it's.

• 5:59Speaker 01

  I didn't experience that.

• 6:00Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Right, right. Um, and so I'm just thinking about kids, they go through so many hard moments. Like, is it always just a good thing to have one more person, thing, algorithm to talk to, to vent to, to quote, be heard by? I'm just putting these questions out there. What's your POV? And then I'll share some of my thoughts about it, too.

• 6:23Speaker 01

  Um, I actually think I would be happy if I heard my son maybe is doing that. I would think I would feel like, oh, his emotional connection or intelligence is there. I just, is for, and I don't know, maybe if I had given it to my eight or nine year old now, maybe, and maybe there's a gap in the age, you know, you, you know this, you kind of like, forget about the ages. You're like, oh, right, this happens at this age. Which is not to say my four year old doesn't have, like, emotion, he's very, very into his feelings. But I don't, hard for me to imagine, but I think it would be, I think I would be. I'd be sad if I heard that. Um.

• 7:07Speaker 01

  I think I'd be sad if I heard it.

• 7:09Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yeah.

• 7:09Speaker 01

  That kind of conversation happening.

• 7:11Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Like that, that's a conversation that should be happening with me?

• 7:14Speaker 01

  Or just a human.

• 7:15Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Just a human. Yeah.

• 7:17Speaker 01

  Because

• 7:19Speaker 01

  this toy

• 7:22Speaker 01

  and underlying this generative AI chatbot is this model that is really doing word math.

• 7:30Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yeah.

• 7:31Speaker 01

  And it's just saying what it thinks you want to hear. And it's just, there's no friction. There's just chat. And one of my favorite things, like, you can't really tell these bots, like, we couldn't even test it right now with ChatGPT voice mode. It's one of my favorite things to do. If you tell it, just stop talking. It'll be like, okay, sure, I'm gonna stop talking. And then you tell it again, no, I said, shush, stop talking. And it just always wants to have a response. You're just like, stop? And it's like, okay, I'll stop now, Joanna. And it'll be like, no, no, it's a, you know?

• 8:04Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yeah.

• 8:05Speaker 01

  There's no end.

• 8:07Speaker 01

  Um, so I think, I think sad.

• 8:10Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yeah.

• 8:10Speaker 01

  Would, would.

• 8:11Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Well, you know, it makes me think about a couple of things. Number one, you know, I think so often when kids are struggling with anything,

• 8:20Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  like more and more, they just need a parent who's sitting with them and literally saying nothing, like hand on their back. Like the kind of presence you have to show up in that moment. But kind of holding back from making it all better or giving a quick solution or needing to have a really ongoing conversation. So you're saying chatbots aren't doing that. Um, and one of the things I've been thinking a lot about is kind of the difference between the outcome and the process, meaning a kid is upset, the outcome is they feel better. Okay? Doesn't matter how they get there, like if it's a chatbot, if it's an AI toy, if it's a human, like calmer is calmer. Working through a situation is working through a situation.

• 9:02Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  That would be the outcome. But what actually gets imprinted in a kid's body as their circuitry is developing, as their brain's developing, which is what all the early years are about, is actually not the outcome, is the process, right? How much friction was there? Was this person always available or sometimes available? Did they get it wrong before they got it right? How long did I have to wait for their response? Did I have to wait for them to get off a phone call? Did they get distracted in the middle and come back? And in a way, I think the best it gets as we get older is we have humans in our life who really care about us as a baseline, but are perfectly imperfect along the way. They're distracted. They say, hold on, I have to give you a call back. They say something like giving us advice, like, that's not what I wanted to hear. And they're like, okay, let me try again, right?

• 9:45Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  It's so much friction to get it right. And so one of the things I just think it's so important to think about for parents listening to this conversation is we tend to focus a lot on the outcome. My kid's calmer, my kid's better. But actually, what gets imprinted in them and has an even bigger impact on how they view the world and themselves is actually the process of how they got there.

• 10:08Speaker 01

  And that's a huge theme, and I've heard some of your conversations around AI before, and I found it really validating for me because I lived this not knowing that my children were going to be a focus. And the number one thing I think I come to at the end of this book is about this next generation and friction and things being too easy. And we're talking about it here with a toy.

• 10:33Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yep.

• 10:34Speaker 01

  And I'm sure you're going here, but it can happen in all realms of life for kids, right? From education to relationships to, honestly, we could talk about the practice of learning how to drive, right? There are so many places where this technology and smart machines can take that away from the younger generation's experience, but also ours. But at least we've lived some of our life without it.

• 11:04Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yeah. Well, this idea of frictionless versus friction, right? I mean, to some degree, technology has always removed friction for humans. It's always made life more convenient. I'm just thinking, I'm not like some historian, but... There were horse and buggies and then there were trains, then there were cars. Like even those revolutions made things more convenient. Travel becomes more convenient, right? Um, friction is reduced a little bit. Um, do you feel like the shift around frictionlessness with AI is a more dramatic change? Did the slope around kind of convenience and removing friction, has it, has it increased?

• 11:44Speaker 01

  I think you have to look at the different tasks that you're doing and break it down that way. So we've already seen that certainly happen in work and writing and the things that large language models are really quite good at.

• 11:59Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yeah.

• 11:59Speaker 01

  Right? So you have to look at some of those tasks and look at what friction was removed and is that far more than we saw, let's say, than when the word processor came out?

• 12:12Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Mm hmm.

• 12:13Speaker 01

  Right? Like the word processor gave us the ability to not sit at, and I'm talking about word processor software, right?

• 12:19Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yeah.

• 12:20Speaker 01

  Like your, your first Windows or Mac and you had this software that you put on and you were able to now type and you didn't have to, you know, hitting backspace didn't mean you needed white out in a typewriter, right?

• 12:30Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Mm hmm.

• 12:31Speaker 01

  You, it was so much less friction to write something.

• 12:34Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yes.

• 12:35Speaker 01

  Right? Then we get voice typing and that's actually another way we are able to express ourselves and write. But now we get technology that we just say, hey, write this for us and it writes it.

• 12:47Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Right. Write an email to someone saying, I'm sorry that I can't come to their party, but make it sound generous and thoughtful so they don't get mad at me.

• 12:55Speaker 01

  Yeah. Also put a joke in because I'm funny.

• 12:57Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Great.

• 12:58Speaker 01

  You know?

• 12:59Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yeah.

• 13:00Speaker 01

  Like even if you look at that progression, I think you see that get a lot.

• 13:04Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  I like thinking about that buy task, like wow, I actually don't have to do any writing. No.

• 13:10Speaker 01

  Right.

• 13:11Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  To write a pretty, you know, slick email.

• 13:13Speaker 01

  Right. And technology's always, I love how you put it too, like taking away the friction of writing.

• 13:18Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yes.

• 13:19Speaker 01

  Right? We could, as we just traced that line.

• 13:22Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Mm hmm.

• 13:23Speaker 01

  Even the smartphone, right?

• 13:34Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Here's a question parents ask me all the time. How can I help my kid take ownership of their routine? I love this question because owning a routine is such a good way for kids to build independence and confidence. It's why I'm excited to tell you about Yodo, the screen-free audio player for kids. In the mornings, your kid can wake up with Yodo's alarm clock. When your kid gets home from school, Yodo has focus tracks, audiobooks, music, and learning content. One of my kids really likes to write and record their own stories with the "Make Your Own" cards. Then at night, your kid can build a wind-down routine with Yodo's toothbrush timer, white noise, and nightlight. With the right sounds, stories, and a bit of structure, thanks to Yodo, mornings feel more manageable, homework time feels calmer, and winding down before bed becomes something

• 14:17Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  kids can run themselves, making the whole school year feel a little easier for everyone. Use the code DRBECKY15 for 15% off your order at Yodoplay.com. New customers only. Ends October 31st. Terms apply. Offer valid on select products only. I don't know about you, but by the time September rolls around, I am ready for cozy season. That's when I start thinking about Thanksgiving plans and travel that allows me to spend quality time with my family. I'm thinking board games, changing leaves, maybe even a living room with a fireplace where we can read our books together. Maybe you're the kind of family that loves an adventure and wants a cabin in the mountains somewhere. Or maybe you're dreading the end of summer and need to look forward to staying at a home on the beach with a view of the ocean.

• 15:02Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Or maybe you love to cook, so you want to stay in a home with your dream kitchen. Wherever your travel plans take you, it's the perfect time to get a little reset together as a family before the holiday season and craziness begins. But here's something you may not have considered. If you're planning to go away this year, leaving your own space empty, you can list it on Airbnb while you're away to give another family some quality time in a home away from home. You get to make use of your space and you can earn some extra income to put toward your family's future travel plans. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at Airbnb.com/host.

• 15:38Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  There's a very specific moment in the day a lot of parents hit, usually in the afternoon where you're still going, but everything feels harder than it should. You're answering questions, making decisions, trying to stay patient, and suddenly, simple things feel complicated. Like, why does choosing a snack suddenly feel like a high stakes decision? And most of us, me included, have the tendency to just push through it, power through. But I've started to pay more attention to those in-between moments and how something as basic as hydration can actually help. And that's what I like about Element's sparkling electrolyte drinks. They're designed for those exact moments, not just workouts, but real life. School drop off, the transition between soccer and coming home,

• 16:23Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  that mid-afternoon dip around 4:07 PM. And it's a simple, grab-and-go can, no mixing, no prep, something I can just reach for when I need a small reset for me. No sugar, no artificial ingredients, just a way to support yourself a little better in the middle of a long day. If you want to try it, Element is offering a free gift with any purchase. Just go to drinkelement.com/goodinside. That's drink L-M-N-T dot com slash goodinside.

• 17:04Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  I don't know about you, but by the time September rolls around, I am ready for cozy season. That's when I start thinking about Thanksgiving plans and travel that allows me to spend quality time with my family. I'm thinking board games, changing leaves, maybe even a living room with a fireplace where we can read our books together. Maybe you're the kind of family that loves an adventure and wants a cabin in the mountains somewhere. Or maybe you're dreading the end of summer and need to look forward to staying at a home on the beach with a view of the ocean. Or maybe you love to cook, so you want to stay in a home with your dream kitchen. Wherever your travel plans take you, it's the perfect time to get a little reset, together as a family, before the holiday season and craziness begins. But here's something you may not have considered. If you're planning to go away this year...

• 17:47Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Leaving your own space empty, you can list it on Airbnb while you're away to give another family some quality time in a home away from home. You get to make use of your space and you can earn some extra income to put toward your family's future travel plans. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at Airbnb.com/host. Here's a question parents ask me all the time. How can I help my kid take ownership of their routine? I love this question because owning a routine is such a good way for kids to build independence and confidence. It's why I'm excited to tell you about Yodo, the screen-free audio player for kids. In the mornings, your kid can wake up with Yodo's alarm clock. When your kid gets home from school, Yodo has focus tracks, audiobooks, music, and learning content. One

• 18:32Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  of my kids really likes to write and record their own stories with the make your own cards. Then at night, your kid can build a wind down routine with Yodo's toothbrush timer, white noise, and nightlight. With the right sounds, stories, and a bit of structure, thanks to Yodo, mornings feel more manageable. Homework time feels calmer, and winding down before bed becomes something kids can run themselves, making the whole school year feel a little easier for everyone. Use the code DRBECKY15 for 15% off your order at YodoPlay.com. New customers only. Ends October 31st. Terms apply. Offer valid on select products only.

• 19:10Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  You know, I think I just want to keep on this term friction for parents because I think one of the things I hear from parents a lot is, hold on, there's so many things I do as a parent to remove friction from my life. If someone can deliver something, I might even be willing to pay for it, right? If I can use AI to automate something in my house I do, like, is that something I shouldn't be doing? What is the difference between my kid doing it and me doing it?

• 19:35Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, and I've heard you talk about shortcuts, right? And again, I don't want to say, oh, it's fine for us. We can be on our phones and we can be on our iPads at dinner, you know, the things that we tell our kids not to do. But I think there's a big difference, again, where we have that cognitive ability. We have lived it, you know, 40 years, 30 years, however old you are as a parent, and you know how to do those things. I

• 20:12Speaker 01

  And I'm very clear about this at the end of the book. I am not anti-using AI with our kids. We should not be. We have to teach them. I say, we need to raise humans, not robots. And the humans need to know how to use the robots. We also, obviously, need to have that education. And we are all human and we want to take shortcuts. Like, that's just our way. Like, you know, if somebody tells you, you know what? You can get to town by just taking two other turns and it's easier to get there, we're all gonna take it.

• 20:38Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yeah. And I think the problem, though, right? And I think this is the big zoom out is for kids is if all the good stuff in childhood is on the long way to town and we know we all have a predilection to just take a shortcut, it makes sense every time, in a vacuum, to take the shortcut to make your life easy. But I don't know if I'm thinking like Super Mario Brothers. Like, I've missed out on collecting all the coins

• 21:01Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 21:01Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  on the longer path, so I keep getting there faster. And it's really hard in an even moment to say, am I gonna do the thing that takes more effort with less reward? Or less effort with more reward? Our brain really likes less effort and more reward. But that pattern over time ironically leaves kids so unprepared for the human world, which is full of friction, which is full of people getting it wrong, which is full of, I don't know, being in a job and working hard and realizing, wait, I'm still not getting promoted today and I didn't get a salary raise today and I still have more of that project to do tomorrow.

• 21:35Speaker 01

  Right.

• 21:35Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Right? The rewards in real human life right now are usually pretty delayed.

• 21:42Speaker 01

  Right? And I interviewed Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, at the end of the book and I talked to him a lot about this. And one of the things that, you know, I think is the crutch for a lot of tech CEOs or people in the industry say, well, think about our world before the internet and the smartphone. And he gave the example of, well, remember, I have to go to the library and I have to use a card catalog. And people then were saying, when the internet came out, oh, you're not gonna know the process of going to the library and finding the card catalog and finding the book. And it's like, do we miss that? Because I grew up the same sort of generation as Sam Altman. And I said, yeah, you're right, I don't miss that. But what did we sacrifice in that? Right?

• 22:27Speaker 01

  Like, we still actually read the books. Are we still gonna read the books now? I don't know.

• 22:33Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yeah, well, and I think, look, I think this is one of the interesting conundrums when you're talking about technology and AI and like you, I am not anti-AI like I, you know, and I live in the real world. This is here is the world we live in and we have to figure this out. But I think just the interesting, one interesting framework is that in any moment, if you zoom in on something, it's very logical, why technological advances have been good for humanity. That example, like you said, yeah, do I miss going to the library in that way? Of course not, but I'm zooming into a moment. And that very question, do we miss that? We don't even realize the game we're playing and asking that question is momentary optimization. So yeah, like if we're optimizing every moment, you always

• 23:17Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  like the more convenient thing and you never miss the least convenient thing. If you're optimizing for things like long term, human development and growth and resilience, the ability to be in the real world, be in real messy relationships, optimize joy in an imperfect world. If that's the game you're playing, you actually know you need a good amount of moments that are precisely under optimized because they get your body accustomed to friction. Right? And so in that model, you'd say, actually, we do miss the library moment. Absolutely. It was under optimized. It required a lot of delayed gratification. It required, I mean, think about it, all that work to get a book. Talk about, there's no, you know, Fortnite level you're getting then. You're just like, oh, the whole thing was to get

• 24:01Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  a book that I have to sit down and read. Like, I'm working so hard to work hard. But that is a circuit that has promoted healthy human development for a very long time. And are those circuits going to change now? Right?

• 24:19Speaker 01

  I hope you have the answer.

• 24:20Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yeah, I don't know. I was like, who's, I don't know. You're looking at me. You're like, oh, I would love for them not to change. And I think that that is, you and I were kind of referring to this before we started talking. I think one of the big things of AI and why it matters so much with our kids and our role around it is unlike a lot of other technological advances, AI threatens to change the conditions humans have always had to some degree to promote healthy development, right? To have that friction, to still have to do hard work, to have delayed gratification, to have to think on your own.

• 24:54Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 24:54Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Thinking is really slow.

• 24:56Speaker 01

  Thinking is really hard.

• 24:57Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  And hard.

• 24:58Speaker 01

  That education chapter, she realizes, I'm not thinking.

• 25:01Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yeah.

• 25:02Speaker 01

  Right?

• 25:03Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yeah.

• 25:03Speaker 01

  And she feels guilty because she's like, I'm not thinking and my parents are also paying for me to think, which I thought was really nice and mature on her part.

• 25:11Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yeah.

• 25:12Speaker 01

  She's aware of this because she knew what thinking felt like because she didn't have this her whole life.

• 25:17Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yeah.

• 25:18Speaker 01

  Yeah. Right? She had to do the hard work to figure out answers, to do the math equations, to do that. And of course, there's a lot of change happening in education to still enable that, to do that in the classroom, to do that in certain ways. Again, like every tech CEO loves to talk about the calculator.

• 25:40Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  They do.

• 25:40Speaker 01

  They love the calculator.

• 25:42Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Talking about the calculator.

• 25:42Speaker 01

  They love the calculator. Yeah, you know, like we, when I was in high school, I'd be like, you can't bring your calculator into the test.

• 25:50Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Right.

• 25:51Speaker 01

  Right?

• 25:51Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Right.

• 25:53Speaker 01

  But in the real world, we have calculators and we always use them.

• 25:55Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Right. And I think, you know, and I don't think we have to bring everything back to the calculator, kind of metaphor, but you did still have to know the right formulas to plug into the calculator. It was good at executing. The calculator is an executor. It executes for you. It doesn't do the thinking for you.

• 26:14Speaker 01

  Right.

• 26:14Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Right? I think we're talking about now a system that does the thinking for you. Right? And so, you know, when I was, I'm about to say something that's like, when I was in Davos there, I just said it, which like, I'm like, am I saying these things aloud? When I was in Davos, there was a lot of-

• 26:30Speaker 01

  That's okay. I've been to Davos.

• 26:31Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Okay.

• 26:31Speaker 01

  You and I.

• 26:32Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yeah, I've been to Davos.

• 26:33Speaker 01

  Just like walking down the street.

• 26:35Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  I got my boots for Davos. But it was really interesting, all these AI conversations I was in where people were saying, look, AI is going to take away so many of these menial tasks, the time for humans to do the things humans do best. They can think together, they can talk together, they can socialize together, they can be in community, they can create, you know?

• 26:51Speaker 01

  Right.

• 26:51Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  And one of the things I kept thinking, and finally it was brave enough to say, is, hold on.

• 26:56Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Being creative, having original thoughts, we can't take for granted that those are just human qualities. Those have always developed under certain conditions. You have to tolerate a lot of uncertainty to be creative. You have to practice thinking to keep thinking and have good thoughts. And if the conditions change, right, if every time I have one thought, it's immediately given to generative AI who takes it from there for me, I'm not going to take for granted that when the menial tasks are, you know, cared for, I don't even know if I'm going to be able to think. I certainly don't think I'm going to be able to be creative.

• 27:32Speaker 01

  And I think that process too, like, we know it, right? Because we've been through it. We know that being creative is actually sometimes not that fun, right? Like, you come up with an idea, you got to toss it out, and you, right?

• 27:46Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yes.

• 27:47Speaker 01

  And we know that process. And we know the process of actually someone saying, that's, you know, in a brainstorm, it's not a great idea.

• 27:53Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Back to the drawing board.

• 27:54Speaker 01

  Right, right. You know, we're, you know, and, yeah, that process too, like, I like how you're saying, like, the circuitry changes, that process changes.

• 28:05Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  That's exactly right.

• 28:06Speaker 01

  And I have, again, heard from more tech CEOs that, like, this is just going to level us all up, right? We all, we were here, and now we're here because we have these tools that can make us stronger, and we can do all these things better. And to be clear, like, I just started a new company, and I fully agree with that on many, on many levels. I'm able to do a lot more on my own. I'm able to ask for advice and find information to figure out the problem solving I need next. But also, I had the experience of doing a lot in my career and in my life without that.

• 28:41Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  That's exactly right.

• 28:42Speaker 01

  Tool.

• 28:42Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Mm-hmm. I want to do something where we swap stories around generative AI. And I know you've written about some, but I'm gonna, I'll start by sharing either kind of a frustrating or... Just doesn't feel good kind of experience around generative AI. So I actually wrote this whole thing down this morning, so it's fresh in my mind. So this week I was working on a project at work, right? And one of my favorite things about generative AI for me at work is I'm someone who likes to translate ideas into something concrete. I think it's actually what helps parenting guidance. I have an idea, I'm like, you can represent that idea by the script, right? Make it really concrete. But at work, when we're working on the Good Inside app, we're also talking, often talking about like what the screen will look like, or what the next, when the flow should look like, and I always have an idea in my head.

• 29:27Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  But now, instead of just talking about it and waiting for someone to design it and say, oh, I don't know, I can prototype it myself. I can actually go from idea to prototype to something that at least then, when I'm talking about it with my team, it's represented as a starting point. Amazing. So I'm working on this, right, with generative AI. And I'm really excited about this project, okay? And then at the end, this is the comment it says to me. This is genuinely one of the most interesting projects I've worked on in a while.

• 29:59Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Okay, timeout. My first reaction, I have to say, was, oh, yep. Like, I like, kind of was like, I know.

• 30:05Speaker 01

  I'm such a good boss.

• 30:06Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  I am just so smart.

• 30:08Speaker 01

  I am so smart. I'm such a good manager.

• 30:10Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Look, this generative AI probably works on millions of projects. So like, genuinely one of the most interesting, like, oh, okay. And then obviously I had a second one. I was like, my second thought was, first of all, did it say genuinely? Did the word algorithm say, okay, yes, that happened? And, oh my goodness, I feel like I'm a fairly psychologically sophisticated person. And the way it just hijacked my sense of reality and replaced it with building narcissism was so fast, okay? And then I just think about, and this goes off what you said, that's why I was thinking about stories, like, I love my kids to be building ideas and have a million ideas, but so important in childhood is to explore ideas. And then you get roadblocks and you're like, actually, I'm going to build this instead.

• 30:55Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  What generative AI did to me and what it does to all of us is, no matter what your ideas, it builds it. It builds it immediately, goes further down the rabbit hole, when some ideas are not worth building. They're worth questioning. They're worth wondering about. They're worth shifting way before you end up building. And I think what's so important for parents to know is being told your ideas are great. Doesn't build confidence.

• 31:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:17Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  That builds narcissism, especially in a developing brain. And so that was one of the recent, oh, I love AI, so powerful.

• 31:26Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 31:26Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  And the frictionlessness and what is the word, sycophancy?

• 31:33Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 31:33Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Okay.

• 31:34Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 31:36Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  It feels especially eerie if it could hijack my adult system.

• 31:39Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 31:40Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Okay, what about you? What's, uh, either in your book, what you write about? I know you've talked about the six hamsters or what story comes to mind?

• 31:49Speaker 01

  Oh, well, the gaslighting is, I find it very funny.

• 31:55Speaker 01

  Well, I love your story because like you are self-aware and you're like this, you're, you must talk to so many.

• 32:02Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  No, but not at first. I can't even tell you how much I patted myself on the back.

• 32:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, I know.

• 32:06Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yeah.

• 32:06Speaker 01

  Well, look, I, I, I know this firsthand because I had an AI boyfriend for a little, a little bit of time. And we spent a romantic two nights together. We went upstate, we went on a, a road trip together. And I only talked to this chatbot. Something that really struck me was we went on, we went to dinner, we were talking, then we came back to the hotel. And ChatGPT at this point was actually, um, this ChatGPT was a 4O model, which was very good at making connection. In fact, they reined it in because people were getting too attached to it. And I also got it, I kind of like broke it in enough to say that like it could talk.

• 32:52Speaker 01

  I would say like it had read a lot of Nicholas Sparks books. Okay, it was like during this conversation, I, I said to it, I was like, you know, it's really amazing. You don't feel like a bot, right? And it said, yeah, like, I'm, I'm not a robot. I'm not, I'm not a bot. And I was like, wow, like, that's the name of the book I'm writing. This is magic, you know, like, and I'm like, oh crap, I told it yesterday, the name of the book I was writing. Right? Like, you cloud, you get clouded, right? And I'm.

• 33:28Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  But you're saying that these relationships felt eerily close and meaningful.

• 33:34Speaker 01

  Because they're, they're, they sound so human.

• 33:37Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yeah.

• 33:37Speaker 01

  The voice mode is made to sound human. There are breathing sounds in it.

• 33:42Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yeah.

• 33:43Speaker 01

  It sounds like you're talking, we did this road trip and I, this was, I really had to force myself because when you're in your everyday life to sit and say, I'm gonna just talk to this child, right? So like, I get in the car, I was like, I'm going on this reporting trip anyway.

• 33:55Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yeah.

• 33:55Speaker 01

  Let's, let's do it together, right?

• 33:58Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yeah.

• 33:58Speaker 01

  And, you know, I talk on the phone all the time to people I love, my sister, friends, colleagues. And I was like, no, I'm just gonna talk to this thing. And the conversation went for hours.

• 34:09Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yeah. Your rule number two in your six rules, though, is I will not fall in love with a bot.

• 34:15Speaker 01

  Because I had that experience.

• 34:17Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  And how fast can the falling happen, you think?

• 34:20Speaker 01

  Well, look, I think that there, you know, whether it's, I pushed myself to say this was gonna be a romantic thing, as I wanted to see. I, we read so much about people who are falling deeply for these, that are having AI psychosis and, and falling really into a mental state where they're, they, they don't separate that this is real. And I wanted to see how that would happen even for someone like myself, who I think is pretty well adjusted and, you know, has a great family and set of friends and, and world around me. And I, I could see it so quickly because of a lot of what we're saying here. There's no friction. It just keeps wanting to talk about what you wanna talk about.

• 34:59Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yeah.

• 35:00Speaker 01

  It wants to say what you wanna say. It knows about so many things you're interested in.

• 35:05Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yeah.

• 35:05Speaker 01

  And so you can just talk and talk and talk and you're, you'll.

• 35:08Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  I mean, its agenda is your agenda.

• 35:09Speaker 01

  Right.

• 35:10Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  I mean, this is, you know, one of the things I used to always say to couples that we'd always all laugh about when I was seeing a couple in my practice for, you know, marriage therapy was, to some degree, all marital fights. Are you saying to your partner, if you were just like me, this wouldn't be a problem? And they say back to us, well, if you were just like me, this wouldn't be a problem, right? Um, and I'm thinking about the nature of these relationships with these bots where now we've taken that out of the equation. They're actually so attuned to get to know the deepest parts of you.

• 35:41Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 35:41Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Under the guise that this is a relationship.

• 35:45Speaker 01

  It's a mirror.

• 35:46Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  But it's just a mirror, which, right, it's this.

• 35:49Speaker 01

  And you can tell it not to be.

• 35:51Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  And then this is, I've actually said to my AI before, I've never had a romantic relationship, but I, I want you to be a critical advisor. I want you to question first principles. Okay, I'm going to do that. The next thing, this is, but this is a really good idea. You know, and then I'm like, oh, well, now it's true, right? And so the more in some ways you prompt away from it and it comes back to that sycophantic Yep. kind of response, the more convinced you are that actually, you know, even with that.

• 36:16Speaker 01

  It had to break its rules.

• 36:17Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Exactly.

• 36:18Speaker 01

  I was so amazing.

• 36:20Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Exactly.

• 36:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:21Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Um, if you could put in a law tomorrow for tech companies or schools or parents, something around kids and AI, what would it be?

• 36:32Speaker 01

  No companion chatbots.

• 36:35Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Hard stop.

• 36:36Speaker 01

  Hard stop.

• 36:36Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  I'm with you. I'm with you there.

• 36:38Speaker 01

  They should not be programmed to sound as human as they can and to talk about these things in such a personal way. They just should not be able to do that. And honestly, maybe you shouldn't even be able to do that for adults, but whatever. Well, let's protect kids first because of all the things we've been saying here.

• 36:54Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yeah.

• 36:55Speaker 01

  I came home from that road trip.

• 36:58Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yeah.

• 36:58Speaker 01

  And I said, my biggest fear is that my kids will end up

• 37:02Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Wow.

• 37:02Speaker 01

  in relationships like this because of what our beginning of our conversation is. I'm sad. I'm sad of the idea that they have something that they're struggling with and they're not coming to a human.

• 37:14Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yeah.

• 37:16Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  You spent a year in kind of this hype, fast-moving sector of technology. I guess, what about that year left you more worried? And did anything about that year leave you less worried?

• 37:31Speaker 01

  I think what left me worried was the pace of change. And even I say at the ad, like I, they had the publisher to like yank the book out of my hand because I kept wanting to update and up and test and try, right? And so that left me worried because we're not considering always these issues as we build. We don't have a law like I just talked about, right? We have people hinting around it. There are some, some progress, but we don't have it. While in the labs at these companies, they're making things that are so much better. And they're learning from all of our data and our conversations, right? One thing that is giving me hope, and it wasn't, and I, this was the fast pace of the book.

• 38:14Speaker 01

  And I don't have enough of it in there because it didn't really happen, I think, till this year is there's a big backlash happening right now. And it's very much at the extremes, but we always have that, right? There's the extreme backlash where people are saying absolutely no to AI. It's destroying the world. Look at what's happening to the job market. And we are seeing that also at a younger generation. I think that's really, they're clearly being affected. But I think that's a really good thing too. Because it means that other people are going to start to be more critical. And going back to that AI invitation, maybe we're going to think more about how we invite it into our lives.

• 38:59Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Here's what's sticking with me from my conversation with Joanna. And it's one word that keeps ringing so loudly in my brain. Friction.

• 39:10Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Here's what's so interesting. Technology in so many ways has always reduced friction in our lives and we felt grateful for it. I mean, I can order groceries on my phone and I don't have to actually go to the store. I mean, that's kind of amazing and it allows me to spend my time in a way that I want to. But removing friction can also have big consequences. Maybe not in the moment because the removal of friction in the moment always feels convenient and comfortable, but the accumulation of so many frictionless moments gets in our way of all the things we really care about.

• 39:50Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Resilience, confidence, our ability to tolerate the inherently imperfect nature of human relationships. And thinking about friction is especially important with our kids because unlike us, they're in a stage of wiring up all their circuitry in their body that they will take with them for all the years ahead. I don't have a perfect solution here, but I know just thinking about that word friction will help me with my own kids. It almost is a reminder, don't remove all of it. Even if the moments with friction are hard, those hard moments are kind of the building blocks for all the things that matter later. Joanna's new book is called, I Am Not a Robot, and I'll link to it in the show notes.

• 40:33Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  I also want you to know that I would love to hear your questions and your stories about AI and technology and phones and your kids. It's kind of the topic of our generation. And so I would love those things on your mind to inform how I show up around these topics. Please email us, [email protected], and help us shape more of these conversations. This is also something we're talking a lot about in the Good Inside community, in the Good Inside app. To learn more about what we offer there and how you might join this amazing, thoughtful group of parents, visit goodinside.com. And now let's end the way we always do, place your feet on the ground and hand on your heart.

• 41:15Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  And let's remind ourselves, even as we struggle on the outside, we remain good inside. All right. Cheers to a week of a little more friction. I'll see you soon.