Note: This post references sexual assault. It does not include graphic descriptions or details. My adolescent sons had already heard about the “Cornell 7” before I checked in with them about it. It had already popped up in their YouTube feeds and filtered into conversations at school. The details of this alleged case of sexual… Read More →
“I have barely figured out how to talk to my kids about viewing online porn,” a parent shared with me recently. “It’s so overwhelming to think about them or their friends creating sexual content. The AI stuff is just so overwhelming. Can I just opt out of this altogether? I want to opt out!” she… Read More →
“Get closer!” my son said. I was standing in front of a giant piece of art that spanned half the wall. The image was completely captivating and I was reluctant to lose the perspective I had from across the room. My kid, on the other hand, was nearly climbing into the artwork. His insistence, and… Read More →
We’ve all seen the chilling public service announcements. A girl is messaging someone online and the conversation appears to be taking place between friends. The person asks for a photo and promises support and care in return. Then the screen splits, revealing that it’s actually an older man on the other end. These dramatic “reveals”… Read More →
“Your phone is blowing up!” a friend noticed during a walk together. “Everything okay?” I laughed and showed her the avalanche of cow, sunglass-smiley-face, and poop emojis pouring down my phone screen. “Ah. New smartwatch?” she asked. “Yup,” I responded. A persistent string of nonsensical emojis is typical for a pre-teen exploring what’s possible on… Read More →
When I’m leading workshops with parents about adolescence, I often invite them to travel back to their own teenage years. I’m not asking for a perfectly accurate replay of events. Instead, I ask for memories of what it felt like to be on that rocky, turbulent, exhilarating road from childhood to adulthood. Together, we fill… Read More →
There’s a small print hanging on the wall just outside our kitchen that says simply, “It’s okay to cry here.” I don’t necessarily need the reminder. I come from a family of cryers. If you’ve been lucky enough to see my dad speak, you know he can rarely get through a keynote or workshop without… Read More →
In my latest book, I describe my early interactions with a rudimentary 1990s AI program called Dr. Sbaitso. This was back in the days of dial-up internet, so this “doctor” was far from a fluid and sophisticated conversation partner. The voice was robotic, it took forever to generate answers, and the program rarely delivered the… Read More →
“That’s probably just AI,” my youngest said, pointing at an image that looked a little too perfect to be real. “How can you tell?” I responded. “It just seems like it,” he shrugged. On one hand, this skepticism is an asset in a digital world where the line between human- and AI-generated content continues to… Read More →
I remember watching the 2013 movie Her, where a man named Theo develops a relationship with an artificial intelligence operating system, and feeling two contradictory things at once: incredulous (“This could never really happen”) and uneasy (“This seems like it really could happen”). Fast forward twelve years, and my second impulse was right. We’re closer than ever… Read More →
