Sam Altman says parenting without AI is impossible. This technology writer was prompted to disagree

From the lens of a parent, nothing beats the human touch. Ditto for any human-to-human relationship; it's in the word.

For nearly two decades, I've been apart from my only child because that made the most practical sense for my family. Save for my vacations and their visits, I've missed some of my son's formative years and milestones, but never in his 19 years have I deviated from my responsibility to him, even from 7,000km away.

Technology has been and will always be an enabler. The ways of communication played a huge part throughout those years. Beyond the digital keypads and screens that served as our pens and windows to each other, though, we were there.

So when I heard Sam Altman say parenting is now “impossible” without artificial intelligence, I winced. Selfish, I thought.

The OpenAI boss is, in Larry Ellison's words, one of the “smartest engineers”. And while Altman is not formally an engineer, I agree with that sentiment, in the context of how he has engineered the generative artificial intelligence mania.

To myself, AI is today what fire was when it began burning in the Old Stone Age; a hot new thing that can be controlled, but good luck trying to contain it when it goes out of hand.

I have no idea if Altman's answer to Jimmy Fallon was bravado for being on late-night TV for the first time, or a calculated, rehearsed response to prop up his $500 billion business. Or, it could be an exaggeration, which is always a good way to generate buzz. Any PR is still PR.

Alvin R Cabral with his son Rafa, 18. Alvin R Cabral / The National

There are certain tasks we can automate altogether, to varying degrees of agreement. Cleaning bots at home instead of sweeping?