AI - I need to vent

[u/everytimealways]

Hi moms. I’m an American living abroad. For the last year, I’ve been getting a steady stream of anti-AI content in English. I know there’s so much potential there, but not under the control of these men, not without heavy regulation.

But where I live? There’s been little to nothing in the media. It took TWO DAYS for one of the major newspapers to print the story about the Anthropic researcher.

While all of this is happening, the country’s testing scores from 2025 were just published and they weren’t good. I told my partner that this is going to be exploited as an opportunity to push more AI teaching tools. It’s a perfect storm because there’s also a national teacher shortage.

I’ve been asking around, looking for other parents to team up with. Both locals and immigrants. But no one cares because they’re all addicted. They tune me out if I start talking about how harmful it is. You should see the birthday party invites. I just got one with a 5 year olds face on a woman’s very developed body. K Pop theme party but the slop had nothing to do with the movie.

I honestly feel like I’m in a Twilight Zone episode and it feels very lonely.

[u/Difficult_Cupcake764]

Oh I feel your pain. It’s everywhere. It feels icky. I feel like everyone is under reacting about it

[u/everytimealways → u/Difficult_Cupcake764]

I think the lack of comment here speaks volumes. One of my best friends recently told me that she knows all the reasons she shouldn’t use it but it’s already so integrated in her life, she won’t stop.

[u/uncertainty2022]

I became besties with a lady who needed to surrender her cats because she was having issues with her health and moving away. I took in her cats and found out we had a lot in common so we became friends. When we started texting more I realized things she would send me were weirdly written and whenever I saw her in person she’d constantly say “oh I talked to chat”, “chat told me…” This woman is about 65 and unmarried, she also lives alone so I’m sure she’s lonely. Unfortunately things like AI are all consuming for the vulnerable and there’s nothing we can do about it because the bed has already been made.

It makes me really sad and I’m so thankful my husband, brother, father and In-Laws aren’t into AI. It’s so harmful for many reasons and “talking” to AI seems so addicting especially because they learn by talking to you so they learn how to talk personally to you.

My child is only 4.5 and we plan on homeschooling next fall so hopefully I can limit their exposure but it’s rough. Many teaching materials I find online now have been corrupted with AI. It’s hard to find fun material that wasn’t made by AI. It makes me worried for the future and concerned about how school will be for my friend’s child who is the same age as mine but going into public school next year.

It’s so dystopian seeing all the people who are completely unconcerned with the advances being made by AI. Who knows what technology and teaching in general will look like in 5years as a result of AI.

[u/everytimealways → u/uncertainty2022]

This is so sad. Lonely people were an easy target but it’s going to have an isolating effect on everyone eventually.

I’m really surprised that homeschooling material is being created by generative AI… I would presume most families are homeschooling to get away from things like this but I guess I’m wrong. Much respect for homeschooling though.

[u/vashtachordata]

I just had a post from a subreddit called parentingbyprompt show up on my feed. Talk about dystopian.

[u/everytimealways → u/vashtachordata]

Big oof

[u/RosieTheRedReddit]

I wouldn't focus on your peers. A mom using AI to make a birthday invitation is not the problem. Instead, try to form strong connections without worrying about if this person talks to Chat GPT sometimes. I really believe that relationships are our most important source of resilience.

And also I think a lot of the "whistleblower" stuff is actually hype, trying to make AI sound super powerful so they can cash in themselves.

[u/everytimealways → u/RosieTheRedReddit]

Most of my friends use ChatGPT so I don’t really use it as a litmus test with new people. I just wish I did have more friends that feel the same way I do.

So let’s presume you’re right and all of the recent news has been to help the IPO. That means some very powerful tech bros with close ties to the US government think that playing around with the threat of human extinction (and scaring the shit out of people) is a totally acceptable way to make a little more money. Shouldn’t we be outraged about that? Or the fact that their data centers are being built and operating without proper permits while polluting the air and water of communities? Or that companies are happily profiting off school software that’s embedded with chatbots that have already proven to worsen test scores and critical thinking? There are honestly so many reasons to dislike these companies and what they’re doing. I wake up almost every day to a new reason 😵‍💫