A Chatbot-Free Childhood Will Be a Status Symbol

August 11, 2026

a child's hands typing on a laptop

(The Atlantic) – AI is like ultra-processed food for developing brains.

As a pediatric surgeon, researcher, and technologist who has spent decades studying how children’s brains develop, I am concerned about these technologies rolling out and being used by children in the home and at school before we have a full sense of their safety and what they do to young minds. And I am compelled to point out what we do know about human development: that human connection, in all of its imperfection, is foundational to brain development. It can’t be engineered or recovered later. (Read More)