In the spring of 1890, in West Orange, New Jersey, young women sat in Thomas Edison’s factory reciting nursery rhymes into tiny phonographs, hour after hour. Each rhyme went onto its own wax cylinder, and each cylinder went into the chest of a doll. The doll stood twenty-two inches tall, weighed about four pounds, and cost ten dollars undressed. A child turned a crank in its back and heard “Jack and Jill.”
Within about a month, Edison stopped selling it. Families sent the dolls back.
The doll could talk. It could not listen. A child could hug it, cry to it, or whisper a secret, and it never learned her name.
One hundred thirty-six years later, the dolls listen. They answer back. Some learn a grandchild’s name, remember what she said yesterday, and ask how her day went.
Who Is Generation AI?
They are the first children who will never remember a world without machines that talk back: toddlers through about twelve years old. I borrow the name from the biophysicist Gregory Stock and his book Generation AI and the Transformation of Human Being (Nquire Media, 2025).
But I count the rest of us in too. Generation AI is not decided by the year you were born. It is decided by how you choose to live with these machines. Our grandchildren are the first to grow up alongside artificial intelligence. We are the first to raise children alongside it. Fifteen or seventy-five, you belong.
You Have Done This Before
If you grew up in the 1950s and 1960s, you met your own talking machine. Television went from about one home in ten in 1950 to nearly nine in ten by 1960. Your parents met the radio. Your grandparents met the phonograph and the party line, where a neighbor might be listening.
Every one of those machines sat in the living room, spoke to everyone at once, and could not answer back. Today’s machines live in a pocket, speak to one child at a time, and learn her name. That is the difference, and it is why the people who remember the party line have something to teach.
Four Things Happening Right Now
- A convincing answer can be wrong. Teach the question “Where did this come from? Can we check it somewhere we trust?” A chatbot never gets the final word on a health or safety question.
- A private-feeling chat may not be private. Remember the party line. No name, address, passwords, or family business without a grown-up looking first.
- A friendly machine can blur the line between a tool and a friend. Pope Leo XIV put it plainly: “When words are simulated, they do not build genuine relationships.” (Magnifica Humanitas 100)
- A voice can be copied. In March 2023 the Federal Trade Commission warned that scammers use artificial intelligence to copy family members’ voices.
Before You Buy a Toy That Talks Back
- Does it connect to the internet?
- Does it record my grandchild’s voice?
- Where does that recording go?
- Can a parent turn the talking off?
If the box will not tell you, that is your answer.
This Week: A Family Safe Word
Pick something silly nobody would guess. If a call comes late at night and a voice that sounds exactly like your grandson says he is in trouble and needs money, ask for the word. If the voice cannot give it, hang up and call back on the number you already have.
Explain It Without Magic
“An AI system is a computer program trained on enormous amounts of examples. It finds patterns and uses them to guess, to make things, or to carry out tasks. It can be useful. It can also be wrong.“
Then teach four questions: What is this? What can it do? What can it not do reliably? Who is responsible when something goes wrong? As Pope Leo XIV wrote, “Nothing in the world of AI is immaterial or magical.” (Magnifica Humanitas 173)
Seven Family Promises
- People come before products.
- We use tools that fit the child’s age.
- We protect private information.
- We check what matters.
- We keep learning human.
- We never use technology to hurt another person.
- We keep the door open: if something feels wrong, frightening, or too private, you can tell a grown-up you trust.
A family’s values should not switch off when a screen switches on.
The Thinkers Behind It
Thomas Merton and Marshall McLuhan are my two constants. Merton asks what is happening to the human person. McLuhan asks what we become through the tools we make and use. Ilia Delio and Gregory Stock bring wonder and an honest count of the cost. Max Tegmark asks not “What will happen?” but “What do we want to happen?“
Bring the Keynote to Your Group
What Every Parent and Grandparent Needs to Know About Generation AI. Sixty minutes with discussion, built on Observe-Discern-Act: observe what is actually happening, discern it against something that does not move, and act on Monday. Works as a lunch talk, live or by Zoom, and expands into a half-day family workshop.
For: parishes, retirement clubs, senior centers, libraries, schools, parent groups, and adult formation.
Or Take the Course: From the Family Radio to the Family Robot
Are We Ready for What’s Next? A spring 2027 course for parents and grandparents at the Forever Learning Institute in South Bend, Indiana. You grew up trusting the voice on the transistor radio. Your grandchildren may trust a voice that was never human. Each week brings true stories from history and from today, and a song from that radio, as we explore AI companions, cloned voices, and machines that decide and act for us, and how to talk about them with children and grandchildren. No technical background needed.
Join from home on Zoom: Tuesdays at 1:00 p.m. Eastern, 2 March–11 May 2027, or Thursdays at 7:00 p.m. Eastern, 4 March–13 May 2027. Ten sessions of about sixty minutes each, with no class during the Easter spring break. Register through the Forever Learning Institute.
Edison’s doll could talk. It could not listen. So be the one who listens.
Sources: National Park Service, Thomas Edison National Historical Park; Gregory Stock, Generation AI and the Transformation of Human Being (Nquire Media, 2025); Federal Trade Commission consumer alert, March 2023; Pope Leo XIV, Magnifica Humanitas (15 May 2026), 100 and 173.