Dana Suskind’s latest book Human Raised: Nurturing Connect, Curiosity, & Lifelong Learning in the Age of AI might target parents but offers insights for all of us.
Suskind, who is also a University of Chicago surgery and pediatrics professor, encourages parents to foreground the irreplaceable human connection, own their parenting imperfections, protect their kids’ early years, and limit AI to enhancing adult-child interactions, or HOPE. She also describes ways that AI can support parents and newborns with language learning or sleep habits as well as reduce demands on both busy parents and overburdened teachers.
Suskind’s expertise and experience establish a compelling context for this project, and her voice is immediately noticeable. She integrates research and experience, both professional and personal, with an engaging personality in ways that will appeal to, and engage, her intended audience.
The effect is an established authority that commands attention yet remains accessible and compassionate. As a result, her perspective and approach, which consistently position parents at the center, are compelling and convincing. In these, AI functions as a powerful tool that serves human ends rather than dictates or worse determines these.
Suskind repeatedly encourages parents to retain their instincts, and refuses to relinquish these to not just AI agents but also pediatricians. She also models her perspective in the ways that she owns her own parenting imperfections, which she incorporates into her argument for doing so.
Artificial intelligence Suskind acknowledges encourages users to expect perfection. Parents however should understand that their failures, and what follows, are ways that their children develop crucial life skills, such as individual resilience and relationship repair.
This argument can reassure new parents, who can use it to calibrate their own criteria, and even older ones, including those who have grown children as I do. I’ve suggested to my spouse that we were good enough parents, which was more than enough, but Suskind offers an even more compelling argument for such parenting as even more.
This example suggests the larger appeal of this book. It caught my attention because I have been searching for first, or foundational, AI principles, and wondered if despite its intended audience it would suggest some. From it, I learned a way of thinking about both my parenting and my AI approach, which is even more than I hoped.
AI according to Suskind should never substitute for human connection, imperfection can trump efficacy and efficiency, certain parts of human experience must be protected, and our efforts can be usefully enhanced with smart strategies.
These insights are useful for raising kids, and living, in a world of artificial intelligence.
