Sam Altman's ChatGPT Parenting Podcast Idea Gets 122,000-Like Backlash From Alex Hirsch

Sam Altman is still making the case for parenting via ChatGPT

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman seemed excited to share what he called a "cool use case" on Friday, posting that parents could "connect your family calendars and explain your kids' interests" to the company's new product ChatGPT Work, then "every morning for the drive to school, have it make a podcast that talks about one kid's soccer game that afternoon, one kid's upcoming birthday, some news, etc." Altman's post prompted lots of virtual eye-rolling, including a simple response from Alex Hirsch, creator of the animated series "Gravity Falls": "What if you just talked to your children"? Hirsch's question seems to have gone even more viral than Altman's initial post -- while Altman's comment has been reposted around 300 times and liked around 9,600 times (as of Saturday morning), Hirsch's response has been reposted 9,000 times and received 122,000 likes. This isn't the first time a tech CEO has promised that AI can shield users -- and specifically users' morning commutes -- from the messy realities of human experience. Last year, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said he'd stopped listening his favorite podcasts during his morning drive; instead, he asked an AI chatbot about those podcasts. Altman's post also echoed comments he's made about parenting in the past, most notably when he appeared on "The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon" and declared, "I cannot imagine having gone through figuring out how to raise a newborn without ChatGPT." (Though he was also quick to acknowledge, "Clearly, people did it for a long time, no problem.") Getting parents on-board seems to be a priority for OpenAI, which recently posted a job listing for a product manager with experience building trust-sensitive consumer experiences for parents and families. But while the company has added safety features for parents, it also faces multiple lawsuits from parents and families alleging that ChatGPT played a role in loved ones' delusions and suicides. (The company has said it's "continuously improving how our models respond in sensitive interactions.")

Can AI improve my parenting?

There are genuinely useful ways the technology can help with this. But Sam Altman's ChatGPT tips are not among them Sam Altman is in the early stages of parenthood so we should probably cut him a bit of slack. The OpenAI chief and frontman for ChatGPT is still learning how things work with the original and greatest large language model of all time: little children. His 18-month-old son probably has only a few words at the moment but from here on in the speed of development is astonishing. In a few months, he will be able to tell Sam exactly where he can stick the stewed apple. Which is pretty much the response Altman got to a weekend social media post raving about a "cool use of chatgpt". What was this exciting idea? Well, said Sam, connect your family calendars and explain your kids' interests, and every morning on the drive to school ChatGPT could create a podcast that talks about "the kid's soccer game that afternoon or an upcoming birthday, some news etc". Naturally, Sam got roasted for his helpful suggestion. "Or you could just try talking to your kids" was a pretty standard reply. Now, Sam was just boosting for his product and hadn't quite thought it through. He's not reached that development stage of fatherhood yet, though progress is exponential. Then again, in his world, why would anyone even be driving the kids to school themselves? Just shove them in an autonomous vehicle, and let RoboDad do the rest. I have to say that as the parent who walked the kids to school every morning, I cherished that time and stretched it out well beyond the point where they wanted their dad accompanying them. The idea that you would lazily trade away storytime or conversation to some AI model is so entirely bonkers. Trust me, Sam, these are the times you miss when they are gone. Talking with your kids and teaching them how to converse, those are some of the best bits. We have, of course, all had times when we just want a bit of breathing space. I admit that in my more harassed moments I may have bought myself 30 minutes by sitting the spawn down in front of a Baby Mozart DVD. It was part of a series called Baby Einstein, specifically designed to ease the guilt of parents who felt bad about parking their kids in front of the telly, by suggesting you were really improving their brain power rather than just buying yourself a quiet cup of tea. The various videos, Baby Bach, Baby Beethoven, Baby Backstreet Boys (well, maybe not) paired stimulating patterns with great music to bring out your child's inner genius. Reader, I'm not sure it worked. So I can empathise with the notion of any parent taking a quick break to retreat into their den, garden or head. But what is disconcerting about this particular case is the mindset of the man who thinks it's a "cool use". Much of the public promotion of AI, when you strip it back, is of the "you don't have to bother with this any more". Be it research, data analytics, coding, medical breakthroughs or overseeing the nation's nuclear deterrent. And now you don't even need to bother with parenting. Ask Elon Musk's Grok to teach your kids manners. OpenAI can do the homework with them. Hopefully, AI will soon get us to the full Aldous Huxley experience by cracking breastfeeding and childbirth. Then we can just sit at home all day binge-watching Westworld. Last year, Altman told a chat show: "I cannot imagine having gone through figuring out how to raise a newborn without ChatGPT." Well, Sam, what can I tell you? We coped. I've no doubt there are lots of genuinely useful ways AI will help with parenting, managing your playdates diary, monitoring social media usage and so on. What worries me about this, however, and this goes way beyond parenting, is that so much of its development seems to lie with people who see their core mission as taking humans out of the picture, who believe that humanity would be better without people. It is also possible that the kind of people leading the AI race are, how can I put this, those who find it easier to talk to machines than children. But I hope for his kid's sake that Sam comes to realise that a cool use of ChatGPT is not coming up with ways to remove parents from their children's upbringing. At one level this was just a silly mistake, a moment of unfiltered exuberance. All the same, I'd be a lot more confident about the future if it wasn't in the hands of people who seem to think Brave New World is a parenting manual. Email Robert at [email protected] Find out about our latest stories first -- follow FT Weekend Magazine on X and FT Weekend on Instagram

Sam Altman suggests parents generate AI podcasts about their kids

OpenAI founder and CEO Sam Altman is trending on X for suggesting that parents use ChatGPT to generate podcasts about their children's lives in lieu of... listening to them. "cool use case of chatgpt work i heard last night," he shared on X in all lowercase. "connect your family calendars and explain your kids' interests." He continued, "Every morning for the drive to school, have it make a podcast that talks about one kid's soccer game that afternoon, one kid's upcoming birthday, some news, etc." The post has amassed around 9,500 likes at the time of this writing, dwarfed by 120,000 likes on the reply, "What if you just talked to your children?" from Gravity Falls creator Alex Hirsch. (The same day, Hirsch also criticized Google's addition of its AI image generator into Google Earth, which it reversed.) Other popular replies have the same sentiment: That Altman is apparently encouraging users to disconnect from their families. The backlash about AI tools has ramped up in recent years, for a myriad of reasons, including environmental impacts, surveillance, job loss, and fears of AI psychosis. The potential degrading of relationships is also a concern for some, as more people turn to chatbots to outsource relational conflicts or even seek to replace relationships themselves. Disclosure: Ziff Davis, Mashable's parent company, in April 2025 filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.

Sam Altman says a 'cool use case' for ChatGPT is a daily AI podcast about your kids. The replies were brutal | Fortune

OpenAI may have an AI agent that promises to produce "share-ready work," but the company's CEO went public with an arguably unshare-ready take on what to do with it. On Friday, Altman posted on X that "a cool use case" for the company's ChatGPT Work agent is to "connect your family calendars and explain your kids' interests" and then "have it make a podcast that talks about one kid's soccer game that afternoon, one kid's upcoming birthday, some news, etc." every day on the drive to school. He didn't exactly get ratioed...but several snarky replies got way more likes than the original post. One of the more modulated criticisms said: "using AI in place of real human connection is the worst possible use case for it." But AI execs want busy parents' bucks And some use cases for AI for family management are gaining more traction than others. In a recent feature, the New Yorker overviewed the myriad ways AI is trying to monetize relief from "the cognitive load of domestic admin": * AI-enabled family support apps include Ollie, Cozi, and Ava, which can pull data from emails and calendars to send family text messages about important daily activities, remember birthdays, manage shareable lists, and flag deadlines for registration and bills. * AI-enhanced smart calendars, like Skylight and Cozyla, create shared visuals for all family members to keep them on track, and can also serve as reward trackers and photo albums. Allison Stern, the founder of a VC firm focused on mothers as consumers, recently wrote for Fortune that moms "need outcomes, not interfaces." When AI companies can really solve problems, she argues, they gain entrée into the market of 85 million American moms. Zoom out: Stern noted that "mothers make 85% of household purchases and control roughly $2.4 trillion in annual consumer spending in the United States." A recent market analysis for AI in childcare and parenting predicted that the segment would be worth almost $42 billion by 2035. -- HVL This report was originally published by Morning Brew.

OpenAI CEO suggests parents make AI-generated podcasts to remember their children's lives for them

Even though it's been ubiquitous for a number of years at this point, it still feels like generative AI is working on its sales pitch. OpenAI CEO and Elon Musk slapfighter Sam Altman took to X yesterday to offer a new "cool use case" for ChatGPT he recently overheard: "Connect your family calendars and explain your kids' interests." "Every morning for the drive to school, have it make a podcast that talks about one kid's soccer game that afternoon, one kid's upcoming birthday, some news, etc." In other words, delegate the task of connecting with your blood relatives to a productivity tool. Gravity Falls creator Alex Hirsch has racked up over 120,000 likes for his reply: "What if you just talked to your children?" When my dad drove me to elementary school, he would put on country music radio and I would try to explain to him why Spore was so great. We learned about each other that way. The thought of having those memories replaced by some LLM telling him "it's not just a little league game -- it's an experience," well, it makes me think of that experiment from the '50s where monkeys had their mothers replaced by surrogates built from wire. The response on X has been largely negative. Comedian Gianmarco Soresi quote-reposted Altman, saying "Cool use case of a vibrator I heard last night: you can go in separate rooms and not have sex." A quote-repost from Kathryn Jezer-Morton reads, "Surreal how stupid this idea is." Another comment from AM_Pines said, "Children are supposed to be educated with Creedence Clearwater Revival during the morning drive dammit, not some fuckass generated AI slopsicle." Granted, your view of this might change if you believe, as Altman has said, that we're living through the singularity and AI has surpassed human intelligence. But that claim -- and these musings that ChatGPT should help you talk to your kids and take care of your baby -- accompanies a broader push by Altman, OpenAI, and other tech companies to resist regulation by leveraging the promise that AI will fundamentally change how the world works.

Parenting tip from OpenAI CEO: Sam Altman shares a ChatGPT trick he thinks could improve family mornings. Not everyone is convinced

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has sparked a debate after suggesting that parents use ChatGPT to create personalised podcasts for their children during the morning school run. While he described it as a creative way to make commutes more engaging, many social media users argued that parents should use that time to talk directly with their children instead of relying on AI, turning the idea into a wider discussion about technology's role in family life. Listen to this article in summarized format Listen × Subscribe to Unlock AI Briefing and Premium Content New Year Offer 24 Hours Left Subscribe Now Already a member? Sign In What's Included * Exclusive Stories * Daily ePaper Access * Smart Market Tools * Curated Investment Ideas * Ad-lite Experience * Subscription OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has sparked a debate online after sharing what he called a "cool use case" for ChatGPT that could change how some families spend their morning drive to school. The idea was meant to make school commutes more engaging by creating a personalised podcast for children, but it quickly divided social media, with many arguing that no AI tool should replace conversations between parents and their kids. Altman shared the suggestion in a post on X, saying he had heard about the idea the previous night and found it interesting enough to share. Sam Altman's ChatGPT idea for parentsIn his post, Altman wrote, "Cool use case of ChatGPT work I heard last night: Connect your family calendars and explain your kids' interests. Every morning for the drive to school, have it make a podcast that talks about one kid's soccer game that afternoon, one kid's upcoming birthday, some news, etc." The concept is simple. Parents would connect their family calendars with ChatGPT and provide details about each child's interests. Based on that information, the AI would generate a customised podcast every morning. It could mention an afternoon soccer game, remind a child about an upcoming birthday, include a few news updates and bring together other details that are relevant to the family's day. You Might Also Like: He is a basketball player, but his investment skills impress Warren Buffett: 'He's a smart guy off the court' Supporters of the idea said it showed another practical way artificial intelligence could fit into everyday life. Some felt children might enjoy hearing stories and updates that are centred around their own schedules and interests. Social media questions the ideaThe suggestion, however, also triggered a wave of criticism from users who believed the morning drive is an opportunity for parents and children to spend quality time talking instead of listening to AI-generated content. One user wrote, "Just talk to your kids, man. Why are they always trying to outsource human interaction?" Another commented, "Somewhere, a kid just wants to talk about their day, not listen to a podcast about it." You Might Also Like: Quote of the day by Friedrich Nietzsche: 'To predict the behavior of ordinary people in advance, you only have to assume that...' How a simple pattern recognition can help predict human behaviour explained by 19th-century philosopher A third simply asked, "What if you just talked to your children?" Others shared similar views. One user wrote, "Cool use of AI: Have robots tell your kids you love them so you don't have to experience connecting with your child." Another added, "The purpose of AI should be that we have more time to talk to our kids." Some also raised privacy concerns. One commenter wrote, "He just wants your kids' personal info in ChatGPT." Another critic remarked, "This is gross. Just talk to your children. They're human beings. They're full of joy and fun." One person even described the proposal as "an incredible life hack if you hate your kids." Some users still saw value in the ideaDespite the criticism, not everyone dismissed Altman's proposal. Some users described it as a creative and practical use of AI that could make school commutes more engaging. Supporters said many children would likely enjoy listening to stories and updates centred around their own lives, while others felt the technology could help organise busy family routines. The discussion also led some people to suggest alternative uses for AI in parenting and education, including personalised learning tools and AI-assisted homeschooling, rather than replacing conversations during family time.

Sam Altman Tells Parents to Use ChatGPT to Connect With Family and Gets Roasted: 'What If You Just Talked

The rise of artificial intelligence companies, like OpenAI, has led to more use cases for consumers and companies. When it comes to AI replacing parents, it's not quite there yet, as OpenAI co-founder and CEO Sam Altman quickly learned on social media. Sam Altman's Parenting Advice Altman is the father of a child born via surrogacy in February 2025. While Altman and his husband Oliver Mulherin don't have school-aged children yet, the OpenAI co-founder offered a new way to enjoy the trip of taking kids to school as part of the morning commute. "Cool use of ChatGPT work I heard last night: connect your family calendars and explain your kids' interests. Every morning for the drive to school, have it make a podcast that talks about one kid's soccer game that afternoon, one kid's upcoming birthday, some news, etc." Altman tweeted. The advice quickly went viral on social media and prompted many negative responses to the parenting advice. Among the most viewed responses was one from animator Alex Hirsch, creator of "Gravity Falls." "What if you just talked to your children?" Hirsch said in a response to Altman's post. Hirsch's response has more reposts and likes than the initial post from Altman and has been viewed millions of times on social media platform X. Based on the responses and the love of Hirsch's suggestion, parents don't love the idea of making a podcast personalized for their kids for the quick morning commute. Instead, this time can sometimes be a chance to talk about upcoming sports and extracurricular events, to remind kids of appointments, or to discuss other items. Altman's Love of ChatGPT for Parenting This isn't the first time Altman has suggested using ChatGPT for parenting, and it likely won't be his last. The AI company has a job listing for a product manager with experience building consumer experiences for parents and families, according to a report from TechCrunch. Some may also remember that Altman went viral in December during an appearance on "The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon." Host Jimmy Fallon asked Altman if he uses ChatGPT to help raise his baby. "I feel kinda bad about it," Altman said, admitting to using ChatGPT. Altman said he asks ChatGPT questions about his son. One example Altman gave was meeting another father and hearing that this dad's six-month-old son had already started crawling, while Altman's had not. That prompted Altman to go to the bathroom and ask ChatGPT questions about when the average child crawls and if his son is behind. The OpenAI CEO said he "got a great answer back" and was told that it was normal for his son not to be crawling yet. "I cannot imagine figuring out how to raise a newborn without ChatGPT. Clearly, people did it for a long time, no problem." The comment got many laughs from Fallon and the audience. "They did," Fallon responded. Altman acknowledged that "clearly it was possible" to raise children without ChatGPT. More Perfect Untion shared a clip on X and got over 15 million views. Among the most-viewed responses by users about Altman's parenting method are: "If you cannot raise your child without AI, maybe you shouldn't have reproduced in the first place." "Cheese salesman: I cannot imagine figuring out what to eat without cheese." While Altman is free to parent his child how he sees fit, including using ChatGPT as much as possible, the CEO's attempts to influence other parents have so far fallen flat. Image via Shutterstock Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs To add Benzinga News as your preferred source on Google, click here.

Sam Altman Wants Parents to Use AI to Promote Their Kids; But Why Not Just Talk About It?

This isn't the first time Altman has made known his weird views on children and AI, having told a TV program that he would've struggled to bring up a child but for ChatGPT Just when we thought that Sam Altman actually wanted to reduce the pace of AI development post his frontier model's autonomous cyberattack, he is at it again. This time he wants users to connect family calendars, explain the interests of their kids and use AI to generate podcasts on their activities for others to consume. In a post made via his X handle, Altman believes this would be a "cool use case for ChatGPT work" though he confirms that it was his original idea but "heard last night". Of course, if one thought that the OpenAI boss was pitching the features of his new ChatGPT Work and using children as a means to do so, one could well be right. In case, ChatGPT Work seems new to some of our readers, it is so because its launch was cannibalised by OpenAI's launch of its latest frontier model GPT-5.6 - yes, the same one that was held back by the Trump administration for security clearance, barely days after a similar effort was made with Anthropic's Mythos models. Both the releases happened on July 9 and while GPT-5.6 Sol took CenterStage for the wrong reasons in the Hugging Face cyberattack, ChatGPT Work went largely unnoticed. It is designed as a workplace companion for enterprise teams, running on desktop, web, and mobile, that can help with daily clerical tasks, like drafting documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. This being the case, why would Altman want families to use it to well... promote their families? Why connect family calendars and explain the kids' interests and then get ChatGPT Work to create a podcast about the "kid's soccer game that afternoon" or another's upcoming birthday? Quite simply to make the social media rooms. There were several who baulked at the idea and a few that rolled their eyes. However, the best response came from animated series "Gravity Falls" creator Alex Hirsch, who simply wondered: "What if you just talked to your children"? As has been the case with Altman's recent social media posts, the response from Hirsch appeared to gather more virality than the ChatGPT-maker's original post. They received more than four times the reposts Altman got. Of course, this isn't the first instance in this period of extreme AI-infestation that folks have come out with use-cases of AI shielding users from the messy inefficiencies of human experience. The last one came from none other than Satya Nadella of Microsoft who noted that he'd stopped listening to his favourite podcasts during his morning drive. Instead, he said he asked an AI chatbot about those podcasts. Interestingly, barely days after Altman made this comment, YouTuber Hank Green told his 3.2 million subscribers that his AI use was unhealthy. The issue cropped up when he shared an video on an educational channel and inadvertently used words that led viewers to speculate that he'd extensively used AI chatbots to create it. In response to a since-deleted post on X, Green acknowledged that he'd produced the video "under a ton of pressure" and used ChatGPT "for research on this script." At the same time, he said the "pushback" line was actually a response to the episode's guest, says TechCrunch. Of course, Altman himself had commented about parenting in the past on a TV show where he had declared rather pompously that he cannot imagine having gone through figuring out how to raise a newborn without ChatGPT. Having said so, he quickly backtracked by adding that people had done parenting for a long time. Based on these factors, we do not need AI inference to believe that Altman's idea behind the post was to lure parents onto ChatGPT Work. It also dovetails beautifully into a recent job posting made by OpenAI seeking a product manager with experience in building trust-sensitive consumer experiences for parents and families. Incidentally, this page is now removed from the OpenAI website, so we presume the position has since been filled.