Sam Altman's ChatGPT parenting pitch draws viral pushback

Sam Altman posted on Friday, describing what he considered an appealing use for ChatGPT Work, OpenAI’s newer product: parents could connect their family calendars and explain their kids’ interests to it, then have it generate a morning podcast for the school drive covering one child’s soccer game, another’s upcoming birthday, and some news. The post drew widespread online mockery, including a pointed one-line reply from Alex Hirsch, creator of the animated series “Gravity Falls”: “What if you just talked to your children?”

Hirsch’s reply outpaced Altman’s original post by a wide margin. As of Saturday morning, Altman’s post had been reposted around 300 times and liked around 9,600 times, while Hirsch’s response had been reposted 9,000 times and liked 122,000 times.

This is not the first time a tech CEO has promised that AI can shield users — and specifically their morning commutes — from the messiness and inefficiency of human experience. Last year, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said he had stopped listening to his favorite podcasts on his morning drive, asking an AI chatbot about them instead. Altman has made similar parenting comments before: appearing on “The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon,” he said he could not imagine having gone through figuring out how to raise a newborn without ChatGPT, while acknowledging that people managed parenting long before it existed.

Winning over parents appears to be a priority for OpenAI, which has recently posted a job listing for a product manager with experience building trust-sensitive consumer experiences for parents and families; Meta, separately, is testing an AI-powered app that tells bedtime stories. OpenAI has added safety features for parents, but it also faces multiple lawsuits from parents and families alleging that ChatGPT played a role in loved ones’ delusions and suicides — allegations the company has responded to by saying it is continuously improving how its models respond in sensitive interactions.

Why it matters

OpenAI is pushing ChatGPT deeper into family routines and courting parents as a trust-sensitive customer base at the same time it is fighting lawsuits over the product’s role in the darkest outcomes for some users — a tension this episode put back in public view.