Artificial intelligence has made life significantly easier for many — performing laborious tasks within seconds and often eliminating the need for users to think. Platforms such as ChatGPT have also gained popularity with children as they ‘outsource’ homework and delegate critical analysis in day to day life. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman however insisted that this only held true for a small fraction of society.

The tech leader was asked during the Indian Express Adda on Friday whether AI was making kids ‘dumb’.

“True for some kids. When I hear kids talk about AI…there are definitely some kids who are like: ‘This is great. I cheated my way through all of high school. I never did any homework. Thank you’. And I’m like — ‘What’s your plan for like the rest of your life?’ And they’re like: ‘Well, I assume I can still use ChatGPT to do my job’. This is very bad,” Altman told the Indian Express.

‘When Google came out…’

The OpenAI founder stressed the need for parents to teach the new generation “to learn and think and be creative” alongside their use of such tools. Altman also noted that “most kids” still remained independent thinkers while using AI tools to “build incredible new workflows”.

“Most kids say…’I can’t believe what I can accomplish now. Look at this thing that I’ve just made. I’ve built these incredible new workflows’. Like I may use ChatGPT the way you used Google when you were in high school to help with your homework. I think we will need to find new ways to teach and evaluate in school to make sure every kid is brought along. But the potential of this technology, the ability to learn more, do more…I have no doubt about that,” he added.

Altman likened these developments to the advent of the internet and Google during his own school days — a concept that will likely resonate with most millennials.

Google had just come out when I was in school and my middle school teacher said it was ‘the worst thing ever’. You know… there’s no point to teaching anymore…why do you have to memorise the date that someone in history was born if you could just look it up on Google? And my answer was: ‘I think it’s a complete waste of time to memorise what year someone was born. I will just go look that up on Google if I ever need to know it again, which you usually don’t often’. And then I watched teachers come to peace with this over the next few years…the education system evolved,” he recalled.