Keeping Us and Our Kids Informed About AI

Photo of a rabbit that the computer has identified as a mollusk

“I have to interrupt – look at this!” my older kid said, shoving my phone in my face. “It thinks Hoppity is a moth!”

“Uh-huh, that is funny,” I replied, trying to summon some enthusiasm through my sickness-addled state.

This was just the latest – but far from only – time the phone’s artificial intelligence (AI) has misidentified our pet rabbit. It has also identified him as a cat, a bulldog, and a guinea pig. This particular quirk of the phone has provided a natural, relatively easy way to talk about this new technology.

While I tried to go back to taking a nap, I overheard my husband explaining that predictive AI (the type of AI that is used in ChatGPT and image-generating software) works by predicting what comes next in text or what is likely to be there in an image. These AI programs don’t have eyes or ears, so they have no idea if they gave a person six fingers or wholesale made up a fact. He used that to explain that’s why you can’t trust these programs to provide accurate information. The generative AI programs have no clear understanding of what makes sense in a final image or text, only if it fits its general pattern.

With AI becoming so much more prominent in our lives, it’s important that we and our kids understand it and its issues. So here are some things to consider talking to your kids about. You may be familiar with some of these points, but I hope others are relatively new to you. This is not saying AI – even generative AI – should never be used. But we should be thoughtful about how we use it.

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Resist Like a Rabbit

Working at my computer, I heard a crash from upstairs. “What the? Hoppity, what did you do now?!” I exclaimed before running upstairs to check on our pet rabbit.

Life with a rabbit is much more chaotic than I had expected. Early on, I realized that all of those stories of rabbits being tricksy were definitely based on some truth. But now that he’s been in our life for four years and both of my kids have a definite tricksy streak as well, I’ve grown to appreciate it as a character trait. In fact, it may be exactly what we need to embrace to get through the next four years.

Rabbits combine cuteness with tricks, hiding their subversive nature behind big eyes and ears. While they are a prey animal, they aren’t shy and scared. In fact, domesticated rabbits are known for their boldness, to the point where there’s a very popular Facebook group called Rabbits Are Arseholes. (I have contributed a few posts myself.) They have the confidence and lack of caring what humans think of cats without the predatory nature to back it up.

Inspired by real life, apparently, tricksy rabbits show up in many folk tales and popular culture. There’s Br’er Rabbit from stories taught by enslaved Black people in the American South and Rabbit from stories in many Native American tribes, including the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois)NarragansettInuit, and Cherokee. There’s even Bugs Bunny and Peter Rabbit!

But the most beloved fictional bunnies in our household are the rabbits of Watership Down. My older son and I read the book together last year and it quickly became his favorite book. In it, rabbits are unquestionably rabbity – not just people in fur – but also have culture and religious beliefs. Their folk hero is El-ahrairah, Prince of a Thousand Enemies. His stories involve bravery, adventure, sacrifice, and always cleverness. Both him and the main characters in the story make their way out of binds by finding a way to bend the rules, confuse those in power, or break the expectations others have.

These skills are particularly valuable when you are powerless and your life is in the hands of those with power. In stories, trickster characters are often prey or middle-of-the-food chain animals for a reason. People with power don’t need to be tricksy. Being tricky is a survival mechanism.  It’s a way to recapture power when you wouldn’t otherwise have any. As my friend and activist Ashia Ray at Raising Luminaries defines it, trickster characters “reveal unspoken rules of their culture and disobey the culture’s power structure.” 

Oppressed people have long used trickster stories to pass on important values and skills. For example, enslaved people told Br’er Rabbit stories to empower others to fight back and even communicate methods of escape. (Speaking in stories meant the enslavers were less likely to notice.) In Indigenous societies, storytellers tell trickster stories (including rabbits) in wintertime, to pass on culture that colonizers worked to strip from them.

In the next few years, these skills are going to be even more of a priority for people in marganilized and vulnerable groups. They can also provide guidance to undermine attempts to further oppress people and remove their rights.

So what can we learn from rabbits, both in real life and literature? (Note: There will be some spoilers for Watership Down. You should read it. It’s an excellent book)

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Cheeseburgers, Manatees, and Holding onto Hope

The head and flippers of a manatee in blue-green water with leaves floating on top

“Mother, mother ocean, I have heard you call

Wanted to sail upon your waters since I was three feet tall

You’ve seen it all, you’ve seen it all…”

The music flowed through the old wooden building, past and around me on the faded navy couch. Across from me was the singer, the leader of the climate hope and grief retreat I was attending. In his jeans and flannel shirt, strumming a dark wood acoustic guitar, the lyrics seemed very apropos for the occasion. “I wonder who this song is by,” I wondered. Such a beautiful song. With the line “I am a pirate,” I thought, “Ah, I bet that’s Jimmy Buffet.” A quick Google confirmed my suspicions.   

I smiled, considering the strange and moving subtle presence Jimmy Buffet has been throughout my life.

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Sitting with our Pain from the Election Results

“No no no no,” I whispered to myself as I sat on the edge of my bed, looking at my phone. It was the 2024 Election results. I stared at the map mostly covered in red. I focused on the line showing who got what electoral votes, with Donald Trump easily crossing it with 277 out of the required 270.

Once we got the kids off to school, my husband put his head down on his hands and started crying. I walked over, put my arms around him, and wept too.

All day, I felt empty and raw. A sense of despair buried itself into me and wouldn’t let go. All of the exhaustion from election stress and all of the other shit going on in my life overwhelmed me. A fog settled over my mind.

This was my thought pattern – variations on a theme: “We did everything we could, but it wasn’t enough. I did everything I could, but it wasn’t enough. So what’s the point? Why bother? Why did I spend all of that time phone banking and having people hang up on me? Writing postcards? Why the hell bother with climate action now anyway? What difference does it make when he’s back in office and wants to destroy it all anyway? What the hell is all of my life’s work for anyway?!”

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How environmental activities can help neurodivergent kids

A children's bicycle with a blue bag on the handlebars and a five-headed stuffed dragon in the bag
My younger son’s bike, complete with a monster companion

Feet pushing confidently on his pedals, riding his bike in loops around the park, I see the stress melt away from my older son. I’ve described it as moving meditation for him. He’s an emotionally intense kid, but other forms of meditation just didn’t meet his needs. They were often too quiet or too still. Biking fulfilled that need to move, his body in sync with his mind and everything else.

I know my kid isn’t the only neurodivergent kid for whom biking helps. (For those not familiar, neurodivergent refers to any person whose brain doesn’t match the “typical” brain. It includes autistic people, people with ADHD, people with depression, anxiety, dyslexia, and more.) In fact, there are many environmentally friendly activities that can help kids (and adults) with some of the challenges that come with being neurodivergent. Even if you and your kids are neurotypical, these activities have many of the same benefits. This is actually what much of my book is about!

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Cute Robot Dogs and Raising Kids Who Ask Questions

A robot dog that has a yellow and black body "standing" on top of a set of uneven stairs with two children and an adult looking through a window on the other side

The dog stretched its legs, sniffed around, and laid down to rest. All totally normal dog things. Except this one was made of metal and settled itself into a charging station. All of the kids watching from outside a window cried “Awww!” They were crying in wonder of not just a dog, but a robot dog! How cool is that, right? Maybe.

Once I pulled the kids away from the window and bought tickets to get in the Boston Museum of Science (where we were), I discovered that the robot dog was part of a larger artificial intelligence (AI) exhibit. I talk a lot about using AI for science in work, so I was intrigued. How was the Museum of Science going to explain AI in a way that was interesting to non-scientists?

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Being Reflected in History

A shiny reflective object with a photo of the People's Climate Movement march with people of various races and ages holding signs in front of the U.S. Capital. A woman taking a photo and a child are reflected in the surface.

I stared at my face being reflected back at me from a shining silver surface. Beyond my reflection, there was a photograph laser-etched in black that felt very familiar. Activists of all ages and races yelled and held signs declaring the “People’s Climate Movement” in front of the U.S. Capital.

“I was at this event! Heck, you were at this event!” I exclaimed to my seven year old. We were at an exhibit called “Look Here” at the National Building Museum (shush, it’s much cooler than it sounds). The piece of art combined giant kaleioscopic sculptures with huge metal versions of childhood fortune tellers. Some of the fortune tellers had surfaces printed with photos of historic events in Washington D.C. Other ones featured the 1964 March on Washington and the AIDS quilt.

But to see this one – a photo my kids and I could have been in – was startling. It put us in the company of other people marching on Washington who made history. We were part of that group. We were part of history.

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Battling Climate Grief and Anxiety as a Parent

A photo of an oak tree with bright red leaves against a bright blue sky

As I tend to tell it, my environmentalism started with grief and anger, at the young age of 10. I visited Homasassa Springs State Park and saw manatees for the first time. Their huge size and gentle nature enchanted me. As I watched them, my parents had to nudge me insistently to get me to leave. The same day, reading the informational signs, I learned that they were terribly endangered. I signed up for the Save the Manatees club that day and told everyone I could get to listen to me about it.

But in reality, my environmentalism started years before that.

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Cultivating Kid-Friendly Neighborhoods and Cities

My older son from a couple of years ago in a blue sweatshirt, crossing the monkey bars as part of a larger playground at our local park

Kids fly down my street on their skateboards and bikes to the nearby community center and I smile and shake my head. “I do wish they’d be safer on their bikes,” I mutter to myself, but am glad that they can do so. I think back to my mom talking about how she’d walk around her town as a kid and take the bus to the movies in the next town over.

Sadly, I know my neighborhood is a relative rarity in American society. 

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