Is it that you don't trust them to keep them safe?

I've been making a machine to "look after" my 8 year old daughter, in a sense. Currently all it does is quiz her on her multiplication tables, and allow her to watch episodes of her favorite show for 10 minutes after she's solved a few with sufficient speed and accuracy. It will gradually do more (especially going beyond multiplication tables), but that's what it does now.

I'm not saying I'm leaving her home alone. But it is doing some of the things I'd be doing, freeing me up to do other things. It actually does this task better, by making the reward -- time to watch her show -- so directly tied to her progress, so I don't have to be the bad guy all the time.

If it was also making meals, doing the laundry, cleaning up after her, etc.... in exactly the way a parent or baby sitter might, all the better.

Obviously, I am not trusting a machine to keep her safe. I don't trust a AI powered robot with a camera to alert me or even call 911 if it detects something unusual. Not because I wouldn't trust one, but because such devices don't exist today, or they are too expensive or not well tested enough. But they will exist.

Remember, we're going to have self driving cars in a few years. If you don't think so, you haven't paid attention to the massive advances in AI just in the last few years (with the release of ChatGPT being the big one). We will be putting our lives in their hands.

Notice parents today don't watch their kids 24/7, especially if the kids are older than toddlers. They let them play in the basement or backyard while they are making dinner or what have you. If the kid is choking or having another medical situation that they are unable to tell you about, or being molested, or taking drugs, or exploring parts of the internet that they shouldn't, or trying to commit suicide, or any number other bad things, the parent might not know until it is too late. A robot baby sitter can indeed keep them safer than they'd be without it, even if you are right there in the house.

Do you trust a baby monitor? Like, a camera pointed at a baby, that you can monitor with your own eyes, to see that the baby seems to be ok without going to a different room? This is really just an extension of that concept, that adds a bit more automation to it.

But again, the things I described don't exist yet. They will soon, as anyone who understands just how fast AI is getting better, and has an imagination, must realize.

Of course, if the parents don't need to go to work, and all housework is handled by robots, they can spend time with the kids doing enjoyable activities, so there isn't such an immediate need for child caretakers. But still.