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Digital Butlers

Nice MIT Review article on what it may mean for kids to grow up having robot servants to do their bidding. 

 The big part of parenting a young child is through feedback on their demands and requests. It helps them learn rules and boundaries within which to successfully operate in society. With the likes of Siri and Alexa at the receiving end of such orders, the feedback cycle is effectively eliminated. Even worse, we trust the AI of some business optimizing for their own benefit to decide how our kids will be parented. 

 The author takes a positive and optimistic view of what the future holds

 For young kids like Hannah who can’t yet read, write, or type but can talk a mile a minute, voice-operated assistants could help build social skills and push boundaries—two things that are key to a child’s development. If nuances in the user’s tone can affect how the digital servants respond—which is not that unlikely in the near future—it’s possible that kids who use them will become more adept at communicating with others (be the others humans or robots).

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