What My Son Is Learning From Artificial Intelligence

The author writes in Greater Good that his son had been talking to an artificial intelligence—specifically, a large language model called Claude.[1] He reports that when he read the conversation, "the explanations were patient and well-calibrated."[1] The author says the answer he got was "better than the one I would have managed,"[1] and that his son then spent the rest of the day on propulsion: rockets, squid[1].The author also writes that he has "been watching something else."[1] He says "what has changed is the speed,"[1] and that his son now reaches for an answer sooner than he used to[1].The essay argues that "childhood has always involved productive friction."[1] In the author's view, being able to sit with not knowing underlies creative thinking, emotional regulation, and the ability to navigate a world that rarely resolves cleanly.[1] Rather than spending an afternoon checking the window, the boy opened a chat to resolve the uncertainty[1], the author writes.Even so, the author writes that "none of this means that AI in children's lives is a mistake,"[1] and calls his son's benefits "genuine—wider curiosity, more sophisticated questions, greater confidence in exploring unfamiliar terrain."[1]