Will robots raise your kids?

Step aside helicopter parents, it’s time to welcome the hologram parents. Tech is an appendage of our everyday lives and it has an increasingly complicated relationship with parents. Parents are flooded with a wide range of devices, tools and apps to cover their every need. Every parent you meet has a different approach to screen time, cell phones, and family technology rules. It was only a matter of time before robots started taking over.

No, there are not robot parents yet - and Alexa can’t take over the first weeks of caring for a newborn- but is it so far away? Each device that enters the home and the family raises new questions. What is the best etiquette for nanny cams? When can technology help our kids and when is it harmful? We all use our smartphones too much, and some parents are now using coaches to help break the habit when with their kids. So just how far will tech and robots enter parenting? John Haves asks exactly that and goes a step further: “The big question shouldn’t be whether AIs or robotic caregivers could be better than human parents—they inevitably will be, at least in some ways. It’s whether parents should have a legal right to raise their own children instead of the machines.” While we’re not likely to have robots taking over parenting anytime soon, the thought of it does make one think about what technology we bring into the home, how we use it and what the long-term implications may be.