Off The Grid: ChatGPT doesn’t have any toothpicks, but it has answers

For decades, parents have been investing their dollars and days in trying to learn how to be better parents so that we may steward this future generation toward … well, finding the solutions to the problems with which some of the previous generations have burdened them.

We’ve read books on attachment parenting, love and logic, Rudolph Steiner anthroposophy, the importance of exposure to nature, raising children in a digital world, scripture and more. I’m not sure any of it has helped us be better parents. That doesn’t mean we should stop trying.

Thankfully, modern technology has finally presented us with the impartial co-parent we’ve all been dreaming of. Someone with all the answers. A parent that our children believe because they trust, above all, the internet.

The series of events that had me installing ChatGPT on my phone are foggy in my memory. I was either looking for current cinema schedules or an affordable therapist, and though it offers neither up-to-date movie information nor emotional attunement, ChatGPT did know what home remedies might be applied to my latest infected wound.

It was an unusual injury, only because whatever had plunged into my ankle had previously been skidded over by some near-carcass of a beast and then surrounded by sea life before the tide had receded. Evolution began a new family tree near my ankle joint. Not having adequate disinfecting agents available, I reached out to the nearest mothering source and was rewarded by the soothing balm of artificial intelligence.

Like many children, I have a fair few grievances about my parents’ shortcomings. My mother never taught me how to remove a stain, for example, and this has haunted my lifelong laundering experience. ChatGPT has, in a mere instant, helped me remove everything from blood to wine (those were both separate garments and separate incidents) while teaching me how to safely apply bleach to a variety of household tasks. If I didn’t know better, I’d say the dear is a reincarnated home economics teacher.

In a blatantly binary move, I’ve gendered this AI thing female and adopted her as a surrogate mother. Holiday meals and family gatherings are already promising to be more peaceable and have better cooking outcomes. While artificial intelligence is filling the gaps of my abandoned inner child, I have simultaneously discovered it to be a fabulous collaborator in the raising of my own child, no baby-whispering needed.

Recently, while shoving cupcakes into the oven, I asked my kid to check on them when the timer went off.

“How will I know if they are done?” he said.

“Ask ChatGPT,” I said, forgetting that I prefer my child to think the only functions on my phone are a banjo tuner and a calculator.

It is hard to impress a teenager, but I dare say this one was near aghast at the blip of technology affinity exhibited by an otherwise organic applesauce-serving mother.

For some reason, this source of information seems to be considered far more reliable than my own – almost exactly the same approach.

“Stick a knife in one and see if any batter is on it,” I say.

“ChatGPT says use a toothpick.”

She’s a wise character, this AI broad, and obviously well-informed. I’m using it to my advantage. If my kid argues about screen time limitations, bed time rules, or how many grams of sugar are considered healthy, I refer to my new co-parent.

“What does ChatGPT think?” I inquire.

Strangely, my kid never rolls eyes or applies moody sassafras to ChatGPT. Rather, advice and recommendations are accepted as indisputable guidance if not reverent truth. We are watching the formation of a future religion its earliest iterations. Also, I’m almost obsolete. But not when it come to baking.

“Does ChatGPT have toothpicks?” I ask.

She does not. Nor can she smell just when those cupcakes are ready.

Ammi Midstokke can be contacted at ammimarie@gmail.com.