Your Kids Will Talk to AI Anyway
The way things are headed, our kids are absolutely going to have personal AIs. Not “ask Google a homework question” AIs - I’m talking about fully personalized companions that know everything about them. Their preferences, their fears, their relationships, their habits.
And those AIs will give them advice. Not because AI is wise, but because it will be convenient. Kids already ask ChatGPT and TikTok things they should probably ask an adult. Fast forward ten years, and imagine how much more persuasive a personal AI will be.
Now ask yourself: Do you want that advice to come from Meta? Or Amazon? Or Google?
Because that’s the alternative. If we don’t fill the gap, Big Tech will happily step in and raise our children’s moral compass for us.
A Family AI Instead of a Family Heirloom
Imagine this instead:
You and your partner sit down and train an AI together. You talk about who you are, what you’ve learned, how you make decisions, what you believe matters in life. You teach it your humor, your logic, your compassion, your quirks.
You give that to your kids.
Not to replace you - you give it while you’re alive. It grows with the family. Maybe one day they add their voices to it. Then their kids add theirs. Suddenly you don’t just have a family tree - you have a family model, an AI quilt stitched together across generations.
It sounds wild now, but so did writing wills in the 1800s. So did photo albums. So did answering machines. Every generation leaves behind a little version of themselves. Maybe ours should leave something that can actually talk back.
Why This Might Actually Matter
Because memories fade. Videos disappear into abandoned cloud drives. Advice gets lost. And anyone who has lost a parent or grandparent knows the sharp ache of wanting to ask them something - one more thing - and realizing you can’t.
An AI version of you won’t be you. But it might help your kids hear what you would have said. Your tone. Your worldview. Your values. The important stuff - the stuff that makes you you.
And honestly, I’d rather my kids ask a digital version of me for advice than ask some bland corporate AI whose personality was shaped by a committee of lawyers. If someone is going to sit on their shoulder and whisper life guidance into their ear, I’d like it to be someone who at least shares some of what I believe in.
Maybe This Is How We Stay Human in the Age of AI
We can’t stop our kids from growing up in an AI-soaked world. But maybe we can guide them through it - even after we’re gone. Maybe the way to keep humanity inside the machine is to put a little bit of our humanity into it.
Maybe the future really will have family heirlooms that talk.
And maybe - just maybe - that’s not as weird as it sounds.
