Everything is just Rosie!

I always wanted a Rosie like the one the Jetsons had. Because I was an only child, I deeply craved connected relationships. I loved that you could always count on Rosie to be nice, to do the right thing, and to give advice in hard times.

Well, here we are. Robots are on the assembly line. The more connected we become to the internet, the more we seem to draw from the lifeline of human connection. So I ask: what would it look like if artificial intelligence were used as a tool to help navigate social and emotional learning?

We spend a lot of time biting our nails, worrying about the cost of artificial intelligence, the social well-being of our society, and more specifically, how it will affect our children. This mirrors the fear we had when the internet first emerged. Those 1990s internet babies turned out just fine, even while being raised inside what we could call the birthing tub of artificial intelligence.

At the time, we were scrambling to decide if finding answers online was “cheating,” just as we are now asking the same questions about AI. Today, thirty years later, the internet is a vital organ of civilization. Without it, much of the world as we know it would simply collapse (Rainie & Wellman, 2012).

I see a similar thread in our fear of artificial intelligence. It is not just about the scope of its power. It is about the knowledge that we, as a society, will willingly walk into the AI chamber and surrender aspects of our independence in exchange for the time it saves. We know AI can do things better and faster, and we know we will not look back.

This is terrifying in many ways, and it feels like a snowball we cannot stop. So what do we do to harness it? What if machines really do take over the world? What if Rosie from the Jetsons becomes real and is in everyone’s home?

My answer is that this will probably happen. But even the Jetsons had an emotionally intelligent robot who helped the children, and George, navigate their moral compass. Is that a bad thing? Is it wrong that a computer could help teach my child how to be kind and empathetic, alongside my own parenting?

To this I say no. First, because many people today are not equipped with the social and emotional skills needed to teach children appropriately. We are in an empathy drought, caused in part by our constant connection to digital life. I have found myself unsure of where to turn for proper guidance when raising emotionally intelligent children.

The only mistrust I hold for a machine is for the person who built it. Just like everything else, the success of any technology is determined by the way it is used.

So the question becomes: how will we use artificial intelligence to improve the world?

References

Rainie, L., & Wellman, B. (2012). Networked: The new social operating system. MIT Press.