A Parents Guide to AI
parentsguidetoai.ca
parentsguidetoai.ca
Alright everyone, here's the deal. Starting tomorrow someone will start putting sweetened alcoholic beverages in all your homes for everyone every morning. You can not opt out of this. In fact, it is expected you and your children will participate. The drinks will also be available in schools. Don't forget, drink responsibly!
Here's a better resource (endorsed by Karen Hao) https://airesistlist.org/
In the meantime, I spend several hours a week talking to parents, teens, and educators who are looking for meaningful guidance on this topic that goes beyond "AI BAD!" and protest, which prompted me to create this resource. Not to mention the requests to help with cyber bullying, online safety and other parenting issues related to connected children over the last 20 years.
In much the same way that folks can push to ban social media, alcohol, sex, drugs, and other vices for children, abstinence and blocking is a path to failure if parents aren't educated.
Over the last couple of years I've found myself having more conversations with parents who know AI is going to affect their children's future, but aren't sure where to start learning about it. Most of the material I found was either highly technical, heavily promotional, or focused almost entirely on worst-case scenarios.
I started putting together a guide for friends and family, and it gradually evolved into a larger project.
The guide focuses on practical questions such as:
How AI is already affecting education What parents should understand about privacy and safety The difference between using AI to learn and using AI to avoid learning Skills that may become more important in an AI-enabled future Ways families can talk about AI together
The intended audience is parents who may not have a technical background but want to better understand the technology their children are encountering.
The guide is free to read and download. I'd be interested in feedback from HN readers, particularly parents, educators, and people working in AI.
I'd also be interested to hear whether others are seeing schools, districts, or governments developing guidance around AI literacy for parents.
A note about content: I am not a designer, so while I researched and wrote the content myself, and collected feedback from parents, educators, and students, I did use AI tools to assist with document and web layout, and to edit and review the document for elements like inclusive language.