In the world of #chatGPT, what can parents really teach their children?
Every (other) day, as I sit down with my daughter to review and help her with her academics, I ask myself the same question.
As I teach her about decimals and earthquakes, about diseases and agriculture, about chemicals and experimentation.
All of this can now be learned in great depth, whenever any child or adult is willing to learn.
And that's when it struck me, all I can really try to inculcate in her is the willingness to learn from whats around her as well as learn to identify right from wrong (Something I have started to struggle with as my world view expands)
These are the on my radar -
Social Navigation and Connections
So that as an adult, she can establish meaningful relationships in work and personal life.
It's no surprise that our "connected" lives are causing more and more folks to become super disconnected in real lives. Human range of emotion hasn't necessarily gone away, but is modified to lose sight of social dynamics, power structures and social equity.
From finding meaning in random acts of kindness to navigating egos, there is a lot to be learned to apply in the future.
Critical Thinking
So that she can make sense of vast amounts of information and decide what's meaningful and whats not.
In the next few years, there will be so many insights and angles available to aid solve problems and even direct solutions to problems will be laid out too. But, I suspect as this #machinelearning data size increases, it will become difficult to separate fact from fiction and even if, it is a collection of real data, the insights would be mediocre at best.
Machine Learning and AI will continue to take references from popular culture, stories shared by the winners, and a narrative controlled by some vested interest behind the scenes.
This is really important to know and acknowledge.
So, critical thinking that's needed to identify the right problems and solving for them beyond the expected way is absolutely necessary for our children to learn.
Character
So that she can live a life that she is proud of. Building grit, perseverance as an outcome of each challenge that life throws at her.
This is a learned behavior/trait that children imbibe in their early years, not by reading or listening to theory or philosophy, but by observing how other humans behave in different situations. This behavior is reflective of values that get nurtured in childhood.
My values are inspired heavily by my grandmother who was an epitome of "Simple living, High Thinking" and "This too shall pass"
Adults of tomorrow will need to identify and rediscover their own human values at some point in their lives without being able to rely on google or AI to solve this for them — to be able to do what all humans aspire to do — To follow one's heart without losing their head.
Because no matter how much data and insights we have…. sometimes, we have to look internally to find the answers that help us move forward.
Wishful thinking? Maybe.
Maybe I should check ChatGPT about the validity of these thoughts.
