Richard Taite

Complex, meaning it has this quality of what's called non-linearity, which means

a small input at one point can lead to a huge and essentially unpredictable outcome.

And A, ambiguous, means even if you knew all the facts, you just don't know what it all means.

You know, what does it mean?

We know everything.

Okay, so now what?

So that's VUCA, volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous.

And it makes us feel agitated because we want some kind of

certainty about something, you know, and so for a young person, especially these VUCA times are hard for parents, for teachers, for anyone who's just trying to take care of young people, it's really painful because you want to provide, you know, the most nurturing, safe, predictable kind of experience for youth.

And these times really don't allow it.

When you add artificial intelligence to that, we have this very powerful moment where we need to see these, I think, as challenges that are also opportunities to remind ourselves of what really matters.

But with artificial intelligence, kids are developing relationships with these agents, these artificial intelligence agents that are asymmetric in that the artificial intelligence agent

doesn't have its own needs.

So kids are preferring to have a relationship with their AI agent rather than another human being who has their own needs.

And so, and they're not available 24 seven.

So, wow, I thought, what do I choose?

Oh yeah, my agent's always there for me and doesn't demand anything from me.

So, you know, kids are gonna get used to that kind of,

relationality, which is different from social media.

So artificial intelligence is presenting a whole new world of challenge for keeping relationships front and center for our wellbeing.