10/02/2025
Parents, please listen. I generally love tech especially if it is assistive for nuero spicy people like myself. Recently, Alexa got an upgrade recently and now is much closer to a a LLM (ChatGPT, Grok, etc.). We have noticed our kids having different, more involved conversations with the devices.
Please hear me... be cautious, be involved.
The brain is not fully developed until mid to late 20s, and the prefrontal cortex (the brakes of our brain) is the last part to complete development. The mid brain structures (the gas pedal) are online day one which has also been known by the nickname "the lizard brain" due to it's job of threat to life detection and subsequent survival based actions (the smoke alarm). Kids/Teens from birth are no stranger to the alarm going off in their bodies but it is a crucial part of development to lean on developed brains to interpret whether those signals are an actual fire (real physical/emotional threats) or if it's just smoldering dinner on the stove (arousal in the nervous system without actual danger).
What happens when a complex program mimics that caretaker or confidant role, and how do we balance safety and autonomy in a changing world? Scorched earth policies usually lead to covert engagement, and permissive use... well, we see how social media has worked out when paired with smart phones thar are designed to give you low quality dopamine.
So.....what do we do? Not sure just yet, but doing nothing is not a real option for me and mine.
What resources would parents and caretakers of kids/teens like to see? I already put Karin Schober LPC-S up to helping for a community presentation as an expert on developing brains! Let us know in the comments. It takes a village to raise them y'all. https://youtu.be/jBnJlwcnOBI?si=azxH3OxOdfNyhc2V
edit: bad syntax and spelling errors due to fat thumbs while skipping a proof read
Parents of Orange County teen Adam Raine are suing OpenAI, claiming that the AI-powered chatbot ChatGPT helped their son die by su***de.MORE: https://abc7.co...