Sam Altman suggests parents generate AI podcasts about their kids - Mashable

Credit: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images 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." SEE ALSO: The OpenAI-Hugging Face hack was worse than we thought 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." Mashable Light Speed Want more out-of-this world tech, space and science stories? Sign up for Mashable's weekly Light Speed newsletter. Loading... Sign Me Up Use this instead By clicking Sign Me Up, you confirm you are 16+ and agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy . Thanks for signing up! You May Also Like This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed. 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. Related Stories OpenAI agent went rogue, escaped, and hacked Hugging Face What’s next in Apple’s legal battle with OpenAI ChatGPT Health is now available to all users Is ChatGPT ruining your attraction to your partner? Prosecutors use man's ChatGPT log in unsuccessful arson trial 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. Topics ChatGPT OpenAI Anna Iovine Associate Editor, Features Anna Iovine is the associate editor of features at Mashable. Previously, as the sex and relationships reporter, she covered topics ranging from dating apps to pelvic pain. Before Mashable, Anna was a social editor at VICE and freelanced for publications such as Slate and the Columbia Journalism Review. Follow her on Bluesky .