Your teenager gets into a fight with her best friend. She’s hurt, upset, and doesn’t know what to do. Maybe in the past she would have spent the day replaying the argument, venting to another friend about the drama, practicing an apology in the bathroom mirror, or laboring over what to text.

These days, she can skip all that and ask AI what to say. It probably sounds better than anything she would’ve written herself. And that is the problem. 

Parents have spent years worrying about what technology exposes children to, how it impacts attention spans, and makes it easier to cheat on homework. But AI has created another issue: What happens when our kids can outsource the experiences that teach them how to become adults?

It’s not just that AI can write a good essay on To Kill a Mockingbird. It’s also eliminating the frustration of staring at a blank page, organizing an argument, and ultimately figuring out what you want and need to say.

The same goes for relationships (friendships and romantic) and everyday decisions. Why try to figure out what to say to your friend when you can have AI tell you? Why figure out what the other person is trying to tell you when AI can make the hard decision you’ve been avoiding? There is no need to labor over tough choices when the algorithm can shoot out a well-reasoned list of pros and cons.

Technology has essentially allowed young people to skip the uncomfortable middle, the period of muddling their way through to an answer.

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