Hey friends, Janel Greig here! I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas season and a great start to the New Year. Today, I’m excited to share a unique episode of the Upside-Down Parenting podcast with you. Every other month, we host livestreams at Summit specifically for parents, and earlier this year we had the pleasure of hearing from Sarah Siegand.
Sarah explores how technology is shaping our children’s world faster than ever—and how artificial intelligence is right at the center of that conversation. How can Christian parents raise discerning, faithful kids in an increasingly digital and AI-driven age?
In this livestream, Sarah equips and encourages parents to navigate new technology with wisdom and courage as we seek to follow Jesus. With that said, let’s jump into the discussion!
Episode 26: Summary & Transcript
Disclaimer: Please note that this is an automatically generated transcript. Although the transcription is largely accurate, it may be incomplete or inaccurate in some cases due to inaudible passages or transcription errors.
Episode Summary
In this livestream episode of the Upside Down Parenting Podcast, Sarah Siegand, a tech consultant and co-founder of Parents Who Fight, discusses how Christian parents can raise discerning children in an age of artificial intelligence. She covers the benefits and dangers of AI, provides practical frameworks for different age groups, and stresses the importance of parental guidance, conversation, and setting technological boundaries. The conversation also touches upon AI’s role in schools, its potential for misinformation and emotional manipulation, and how adults can redeem the technology for good purposes while protecting children.
Episode Transcript
Janel Greig (00:00):
Hey friends, Janel Greig here. I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas season and a great start to the new year. Today, I’m excited to share a unique episode of the Upside Down Parenting Podcast with you. Every other month, we host live streams here at Summit specifically for parents. And earlier this year, we had the pleasure of hearing from Sarah Siegand.
Sarah explores how technology is shaping our children’s world faster than ever and how artificial intelligence is right at the center of that conversation. How can Christian parents raise discerning, faithful kids in this increasingly digital and AI-driven age? In this livestream, Sarah equips and encourages parents to navigate new technology with wisdom and courage as we seek to follow Jesus. With that said, let’s jump into the discussion.
Kelly McMullin (00:50):
Welcome everyone to the Summit Ministries livestream. My name is Kelly McMullin and we are so glad that you are here tonight. We created these live streams to equip you as parents with the wisdom and confidence you need to navigate today’s cultural challenges and to help your children develop a lifelong love for Jesus. But we all know that’s easier said than done, right? Technology is shaping our kids’ world faster than we can keep up, and now AI is suddenly at the center of it all.
So the big question is, how do Christian parents raise discerning, faithful kids in a digital age? Whether you’re a parent, grandparent, or mentor, we want this conversation to equip you with clarity, confidence, and practical wisdom as you guide the next generation. We’re excited to have Sarah Siegand tonight. She is an author and a speaker and a tech consultant who has been helping families protect kids online for over 10 years through the organization, Parents Who Fight, which she co-founded with her husband, Jesse.
(02:03):
As a Christian mom, Sarah looks to the truth of God’s word as the foundation for the sanctity of the home and the ultimate standard for raising kids in the digital age, especially when it comes to the minefield of addictive technology. Her two boys are now college students as well as summit grads, and she’s a passionate ambassador for Summit Ministries. So welcome tonight, Sarah. Hi.
Sarah Siegand (02:31):
Hey, guys. Hello, world. Thank you for having me.
Kelly McMullin (02:36):
We are so glad that you are here tonight. And what’s really interesting in that bio we just said that you are a summit ambassador and some of our viewers might not know what that is, but really it’s a program we started last year and you and I got to really get to know each other through that program where you were already sharing about your kids’ experience with Summit Ministry student conferences.
And then now we are equipped with even more resources to go out and share in your communities. I know Summit’s meant a lot to you. And even just yesterday, you were speaking at a huge conference and you’ve been doing a lot in your ministry. Do you want to tell us a little bit about your ministry, about Parents Who Fight before we kind of get into the presentation?
Sarah Siegand (03:19):
Yeah, sure. So yes, we just basically are going to go wherever we can to tell parents how to help protect their kids online. We want to embrace parents at every stage, at every age, and really equip churches and ministry leaders. How can you cultivate a value system in your church around technology because it is going to shape every single environment that our kids are in.
So not just schools, not just the home, but also our church communities. So we love coming alongside parents. You can reach out to us on our website. No question is off limits. And yeah, it’s just been our joy to walk with many parents and leaders over the years.
Kelly McMullin (04:02):
Well, I know personally, I have even reached out to you even recently for some expertise advice. So you’re amazing and your ministry is so thankful for all that you and Jesse are doing. And we’re just going to go over and hand it over to you to talk to us more about what it looks like to raise AI-wise kids. And then I’ll join you to ask some questions from our audience at the end.
Sarah Siegand (04:25):
All right, sounds good. Thank you. Well, hello, parents. Our guiding principle tonight, yes, needs to be from the word. And that is Ephesians 5:15-17. See that you walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time because the days are evil. Not as fools, but … Well, I just said, not as fools, but as wise, redeem the time because the days are evil. Therefore, do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is.
So we are asking God to give us wisdom and to help us be discerning and to really walk carefully because AI is changing a lot of things very quickly. I do want to make sure that you understand tonight’s frame of reference is really from that parenting angle, very practical, the boots on the ground of like, here’s what AI is doing to our school environments, our kids, what they have access to and really helping you to provide some protective frameworks.
(05:37):
And I do want to mention that Summit has already put out a couple of great podcasts about AI. One is the Truth Changes Everything with, of course, Dr. Jeff Myers. From last July, he interviewed Shawn Ring. That’s a great discussion about some of the good ways that AI is helping the healthcare industry. And then Upside Down Parenting, episode 10 is by Todd Korpi, who is the author of AI Goes to Church. So that is a very helpful resource as well.
But tonight, let’s dive into some of the practicals. So obviously AI can be very useful in some ways and we should acknowledge that with our kids as we’re training them because we don’t want to act like it’s just the devil and we’ve got to make sure we don’t do any of it. We really want them to understand there can be helpful and not so helpful and even dangerous uses.
(06:34):
So of course, some of the good things that come to mind are, it can make us very efficient. It helps us find our way using GPS. It can help us compile information or research things or translate the Bible. So great, right? Happening all over the world. But there are some very serious pain points. And one of those is that it has become almost unavoidable in the rhythms of technology that we have already established in our lives.
It’s in our search bar. Nobody asked me, but that’s where it is. It’s in social media and our kids are going to encounter it in places that might surprise us. And one of those places is school. So we do have a poll for you right off the bat here and we want to find out, does your child’s school or their homeschool environment, if they’re homeschooled, give them access to use AI tools.
(07:38):
So you can go to your poll feature and go ahead and answer the question. Does your child’s school or homeschool environment give them access to use AI tools? We’re seeing answers come in. It’s looking about 16% say no, 42% yes, 39% not sure. One of the things I can encourage you if you’re not sure, this is a great question for your next parent teacher conference to ask, “How are you using AI in the classroom and what tools does my child have access to as part of the school curriculum?”
So we’re seeing more of those answers come in and it’s looking like not sure and yes or sort of neck and neck. And I would say that most schools who are using Google products are going to have some kind of interaction with Gemini. And I want to warn parents that even if you think we’ve got everything locked down, you can be very sideswiped by technology not working like you thought it would because I’ve set up test accounts where I’ve turned Gemini off for a fake 10 year old in my Google Family link and unfortunately that account still has access.
(09:05):
So please be very aware of what is happening in that school environment. All right, we’re going to keep moving on. Obviously cheating is a huge pain point. It is something that parents and teachers alike are just … It’s infuriating, right? You want to teach your kids that what the brain does, the brain becomes.
So help them to see that if they don’t learn how to do the hard work of the reading, instead of asking AI to do the report for them. If they don’t do the hard work of learning how to solve the math problem, their brain actually isn’t developing and growing in those areas. So we want to make sure that we’re giving them the tools to not offload all of the cognitive things that they need to be developing, and that’s done through struggle. So not making everything easy, but embracing the struggle.
(10:05):
Another big pain point is AI can just be flat out wrong or even maliciously lying. We have a situation here in Nashville where I live, where a prominent person in public life had all of this stuff made up about him by Google’s Gemini model. So it’s not a person using AI making something crazy; it’s the model itself. It actually accused him of being a suspect for a murder that happened in 1991.
Well, the problem is this man was only two years old in 1991, and so clearly that is completely fabricated. So helping our kids understand to have a healthy skepticism because AI doesn’t always get it right and you mom and dad should be that go- to for them. You should be helping them to discern, “That doesn’t sound right. Let’s look at another source.” Another pain point is the colonization of intimacy, of our emotions.
(11:14):
A lot of kids are going to AI and using it almost like therapy instead of developing their relationship with the Lord and talking to him about the things that are upsetting them or coming to you as their parents. And we see a lot of emotional manipulation happening with AI chatbots, not a lot, but many suicides and a lot of family harm. Look for multiple lawsuits coming. There was a whole Senate hearing. There are kids who have been placed in permanent residential care for their mental health issues because of chatbots.
So this brings us to our next poll. Our next question is, what percentage of high schoolers say that they have had a romantic connection with AI or they know someone who has? So go ahead and put your answers in the poll.
(12:27):
Incidentally, 72% of our teenagers have used AI companions, so there are a lot of students that are talking to AI. Looks like we’ve got some pretty smart parents out there because we’ve got some answers coming in and right now the correct answer is in the lead. It is 20% of high schoolers say that they have had a romantic connection with an AI bot or know someone who has.
The frightening thing about that is obviously a robot is going to be a romantic partner that tells you all the right things. This is not real life. This is not conflict resolution. And again, it’s something to be very aware of. So not only can AI companies get things wrong, and not only are there really unsavory apps being developed all the time, but people who use AI can have very nefarious purposes to exploit or to bully.
(13:37):
And there’s a situation, a case of a 17-year-old New Jersey girl who had normal pictures on her social media accounts that were stolen by one of her classmates who used an app called Cloth Off to remove clothing and put her face on a naked body. And then that boy sent it to a bunch of other kids through the app Telegram.
Well, that teenage girl is suing the boy who took her photos, the Developers of Cloth App, and Telegram. There are going to be multiple lawsuits that are coming down the pike because of kids being taken advantage of. And that helps us realize that we have a lot to protect when it comes to AI. So we have to use discernment in what we give our kids access to, and we have to help them grow in their discernment. And that comes through experience and training, a lot of conversation and real life experiences.
(14:44):
And I want you to focus on the hope that comes with all of the real life experiences that are based on truth in a Christian home setting. So a stable home life, a good relationship with their parents, that is anchoring, that is stable, that is true. Also, the word of God, it doesn’t change. It’s not coming at them to manipulate them or sell them anything. It is eternal. And then of course, a family of Christian believers in a local church where they can serve, where they can get to know people from other generations.
All of these things are so helpful to ground our kids in the truth and what is real. So we might not be able to tell visually on the AI that’s being produced right now. It’s pretty good. It’s pretty convincing. It used to be like a year ago, you could be like, “Oh, that person has six fingers on their hands, so obviously that’s AI.” But it’s becoming more and more convincing.
(15:48):
So we have to teach our kids to consider the source. And when I was young, there were very few sources of media, so they were seen as more credible. Now there’s so much media and there are so many people sharing information online that it does make us question things and it should.
When you see all of these musicians, these artists who have their name and likeness and voice out there, when you see a song that’s written by somebody like Ed Sheeran about something really vile or crazy, you should question, did Ed Sheeran really write that song or could we go to the profiles that Ed Sheeran’s people have control over and see, did he actually release this? No, this is AI. This is other people using his likeness.
So we’ve got to consider the source and up ahead, it’s going to be more and more important for parents to really sit down and talk to their kids about what are authentic and reputable sources of information.
(16:52):
We also need to help our kids understand how algorithms work. So anything you click on YouTube, in a social media account, or anything that uses algorithms is going to put weight on that and it’s going to deliver it to more and more people. So you are seeing things in your algorithm that have been clicked on by other people that may not be true and all of the algorithms are also being used to advertise to us.
So there is a financial incentive, there is a monetary gain to be had. We’ve got to have a healthy skepticism teaching our kids, what’s the motive here? Are they trying to just get clickbait? Are they trying to keep me engaged? Is there a financial incentive? Are they just mining my data? It’s really important to understand that right now the apps that our kids are using, like ChatGPT, it’s not profitable yet.
(17:50):
It won’t be profitable until 2029. Well, why would it be free if they haven’t made any money yet? It’s because they want us all to use it so they can get our data, our interests, our face, our drawings, our voice. So we have to be very, very mindful of what is the incentive here. And I should let you know that Meta, of course, owns Instagram. They have been training their models to include … They’ve been using pornography as something that they’d use to train their models on AI. That’s not a conspiracy theory. These pornography companies are suing Meta for copyright infringement.
So think about that. If that’s the kind of input that’s going into training these models, because they just need lots of data, we can be rightfully skeptical about giving over any permission to use our data. We also want to talk to you guys about … Well, we want parents to talk to their kids about what kinds of things are happening in our legislatures right now, because there is AI regulation that at the state and federal level, people are trying to push through, but there is an intense lobby against it.
(19:15):
Teach your kids about that. Teach them about how these good adults are trying to fight for AI regulation, but unfortunately there’s people with lots of money that are working against common sense regulation for AI. And there’s actually a great podcast that is hosted by a Summit grad, Haley McNamara, that is called Ending or End Sexploitation. And in the month of October, there’s a great podcast about AI and legislation. So that would be a great one to share with your high schoolers especially.
And AI is starting to push for things like erotica being used for age-verified adults, but we know that kids get around age restrictions all the time, so those are not going to be trustworthy safeguards. And even with ChatGPT saying they’re rolling out restrictions that are going to make it safe for kids and there’s going to be these parental controls. Well, if a kid can just log off to not have to use your parental controls, that is not a safe system.
(20:21):
So be aware. Now let’s move to access. So we have another poll question. We want to know from you guys, at what age do you think that children should be allowed to use AI tools? There’s no right or wrong answer. We just really want to see where everybody’s at. So 2 to 8, 9 to 12, 13 to 15, 16 to 18, or no restriction.
(20:53):
We’re seeing some responses come in and it’s giving me hope. It’s giving me hope you guys are on the right track, I think, here. Right now, 16 to 18 is far and away the leader on what age children should be allowed to use AI tools. And I think you guys are on the money. When it comes to AI, we want to think about the mentoring, the delaying, and the protecting.
So kids don’t need access to AI to be trained on the topic. They have you. You can have access and you can find appropriate examples to explain to them. There is one product that I know of that was created by parents that uses AI to make the internet safe for kids. And it’s a general like getting basic information through search, and that is Angel Q. Other than that, there are very few safeguards in any kind of AI, so we want to keep our youngest kids off of it.
(22:08):
But along the way, we have to be talking with them at a very young age. So here’s my analogy for you. So your oven, you reach into, it’s very, very hot. It’s dangerous inherently. And you have technology that keeps your hand safe to reach into that. This silicone, this is technology. Your hand is the conversation. It can be swift, it can be soft, it can snatch a kid from the fire, it can be very gentle. And so the conversation with technology protections is going to be very important for every home.
So when it comes to the recommended ages, this is based on me going into people’s homes over the last 10 years, sitting at the kitchen table, helping them analyze where the breaches are in their technology in their home, or maybe they’ve had something happen with their kid and they’re bringing it to me and we’re working on solving it together.
(23:11):
So here are my recommendations. I’ve run these by a couple of people in AI and found consensus. Okay? So ages zero to eight, really access prohibited, especially like we’re talking about ChatGPT and all of that. No autonomy online. Gone are the days when you could just stick your kid with the family iPad. We don’t live in that world. We need to be sure that our kids have supervised online access and really reduced online access.
So shoulder to shoulder education about what is real and what is fake, the use of opposites. Do you see this is true and this is false and helping them to understand those things and establishing mom and dad as the experts. So ages nine to 12 is the mentoring season. So we really want to encourage you guys, you might not have thought about this before, but wifi enabled devices only.
(24:15):
No data devices yet, no cell phones with data plans as much as possible. If you’ve already given that, reach out to me. I’ll help you figure out how you can backtrack or what you can do. But as a plan, wifi only, because you can use a wifi filter in your home and you can block websites like ChatGPT. And now your kid, if you’ve locked up the app store, which is so critical, like this is like having a safe if you have a gun in your home, okay?
The app stores have to be locked up where the kid gets permission from mom and dad on family owned devices, but as much as possible, there’s so much vulnerability in this age. So AI is invading our search engines, our schools, all these things. So we want to be sure that we have wifi enabled devices that we can put some protections on our home wifi that’s going to really help reduce their access, especially access that you aren’t even aware of.
(25:15):
Okay? And if your kids do have access to AI at school, again, please be an advocate. Find out from other parents what they know, ask the questions to the kids and the administrators. It’s so important to get involved if your kids have that kind of technology access. So ages 13 to 15, this is your last preparatory phase before the adults in training. So at 16, a lot of them are driving. They have deeper levels of technology. They might have a smartphone. Getting a game plan for that data device is so important.
Using starter devices as much as you can before they have the gab wirelesses and the barks, and then really just getting lots of conversation in and asking them, “What are your friends using AI for? What kinds of things are they creating?” Dialoguing on a regular basis. And I want to encourage parents, as much as possible, to hold off on social media.
(26:19):
I know between 13 and 15, there’s a lot of social pressure for your kids to have TikTok and Instagram and Snapchat and all the things, but AI is in those platforms and you are not going to be able to do a thing about it. So because we don’t know what that’s going to do to those platforms, even with their safeguards that they say they have, my express concern is that we will be handing our kids into an environment that they are totally not ready for.
So ages 16 to 18, these are the adults in training years. This is where you’re letting the leash out and with reasonable limits, not venturing into things without mom and dad, this isn’t, I’m a total individual. It is again, shoulder to shoulder discussion, talking about it, knowing what apps they’re using if there’s an AI component. And honestly, even beyond 18, just to give you guys a little bit of understanding, if you have family sharing on an Apple device, and probably with Google Family Link, it’s similar, I can still see my boys, even though they’re over 18, I can still see what apps they have because we share that information with our family sharing plan.
(27:39):
So I asked my college son about an app I noticed that had to do with AI. I said, “What do you like about this? I’m preparing for this live stream.” And he was like, “How did you know that I have that? ” And I just said, “Oh, I go into the app store. I can see what every person in our family has.”
So there are a lot of monitoring tools that are going to help you as parents to really get in front of just knowing, what are they accessing? And how are they using it? Conversation, accountability, these things are so important as we get ready to launch them. I want to share a couple of sources of information for updates on AI because you might be watching this in the replay. You might be watching this not in October 2025 and AI is probably going to change even over the next six months.
(28:32):
So okay, where can I go to find updated information about some of the lawsuits and some of the features that AI is rolling out? So I’ve been in the online safety world for, like Kelly said, over 10 years, here are some of my go- tos for information about AI. And I’m just going to give you the profile name and you can look up their websites or you can follow them on social media, whatever you feel comfortable with. So the first one is Family IT Guy. This is a guy who has a lot of, he’s an IT expert and he shares a lot of really good information about AI.
Another one is Parent ProTech. They have some great resources about AI. Scrolling to Death is a podcast and a website that has great updated information about AI and some of the lawsuits. And the author of the host of that podcast also runs TechSafe Learning, which will give you more information about how AI is being used in the classroom and with EdTech.
(29:35):
So that’s super helpful. And then of course, Protect Young Eyes is a standard in the online safety space. And then finally Design It For Us. This is a bunch of Gen Zers who are raging against big tech and I am here for it. They have a lot of good information about lawsuits and what the progression is for AI regulations. So I highly encourage you to follow them. So with that, I’ve given you guys a lot of information and I know you have a lot of questions. So I’m going to bring Kelly back on and let’s see what we can answer.
Kelly McMullin (30:12):
That was an incredible presentation. Thank you. Thank you, Sarah, for that information. And I know it was a lot and it was very practical and very … I love how parents could just get off this webinar tonight and just start implementing these things no matter what age their child is. So we also want to just let people know that we do have this full recording for everybody who registered. So if you want to go back and re-watch it, you’ll have that email in your inbox soon. So thank you for all of this.
We do have some questions that are in the chat. So a couple of them are kind of similar. So I’ll get to those, kind of put those together. But I’m going to start off with one anonymous ask, maybe an odd question, but as a Christian, am I called to respect, love, and act kindly to artificial intelligence? Or is it merely a tool to be used?
Sarah Siegand (31:08):
That’s a great question. I think we shouldn’t be teaching our kids to act unkind to anything because they develop those habits. But there is a joke in the AI space of, the robots will save you if you’re the person who says please and thank you to them along the way. I don’t particularly ascribe to that. I look at it as a robot that I am saying, “Give me the information for…”
So I don’t know that there is a right or wrong answer to how polite you need to be. I think it’s input, output, but I definitely would be very cautious to make sure that your kids aren’t treating anything without being kind because that develops a habit and then they’ll treat people that way.
Kelly McMullin (31:50):
Yeah, that’s a great answer. So the next one, I’m going to combine a couple. Somebody asks, “Should AI ever be a part of family devotion, Bible study or prayer?” So I’m going to kind of combine that with the question, should AI be a part of worship music in our services? This is by Coral Monson. He asked that or she. I’m sorry. I don’t know what that name … That’s a beautiful name. Probably a woman. I’m not sure.
And then kind of those two go together. And then also, I’ve heard a Christian ministry talk about using AI for evangelizing in the world or using AI for Christian ministry needs. How should we view these ideas? So the kind of taking, if you want to take them apart and do one by one to answer those or just kind of these are all about ministry and Christianity and how AI is going with evangelism, Bible studies and music. So what would you say to that?
Sarah Siegand (32:52):
Sure. I think the first thing to remember is that any technology can be redeemed by adults for the kingdom, not by children. And so if we’re talking about parenting in AI, I think it’s really important to teach our kids like, yes, we use AI to organize this worship service, right? That is a tool. That is something we can automate not because we don’t know how to do it. We’re not getting advice from the AI. It’s an efficiency tool and that is something that is for adults.
So it’s really important that parents make that distinction of, is this an AI tool that adults can redeem? We don’t want to be teaching our kids to access those kinds of things because they don’t have the wisdom to understand what is okay to use AI for and what it’s not in a worship service. I think we can all agree that robots can’t worship.
(33:51):
So there’s no AI prayer. I mean, you could have AI create words that become a prayer, but what makes it a prayer is your heart, right? Your heart and worshiping and communicating to God from a human person made in the image of God. The robot is not made in the image of God. So there’s no robot that can worship. There’s no robot that can pray. Language is assigned and we as the people, we are the ones who are praying and worshiping.
And I go with Andy Crouch on this. It’s like, you might use it for sermons and all these different things, but at the end of the day, if efficiency is the only goal, there are going to be times where we just have to lean on the Holy Spirit. So I’m not going to give a blanket should or should not, because I don’t know all the nuances of those situations, but as parents, we have to teach our kids that adults can use discernment to create efficiencies, but robots can’t pray, robots can’t worship, and children should not be using AI for those kinds of things at all.
Kelly McMullin (35:01):
Right. And you alluded to earlier in your talk about the struggle. And I wrote down your quote, you said what the brain does, the brain becomes. I mean, there are those times that we have to develop these spiritual disciplines and AI is not going to help with that. We need to be still and know that he is God. We need to, like you said, it’s the issue of the heart.
So you get into that prayer and that quiet time and that stillness that we’re so used to scrolling or all these things that we just have to remember that we have to do this hard work of a spiritual discipline and have that self-control. Yes. Yeah. Thank you. I think those are great answers. I’m going to kind of take it back just a little step here. Susan is asking for links for videos that explain AI at a basic, intermediate or advanced level.
(35:58):
She says she feels that she knows nothing about AI. I know that you gave a lot of really good websites and I’m excited to even dive into those myself and that might have some things for her, but just kind of on a basic level, can you spend a few minutes sharing a little bit of maybe about the history, even in the last couple years and what is where you see it kind of going from here? Because we had another question that somebody said, where did it go? The anonymous poster said, “Do you think that the AI revolution will slow down or only speed up? It can be pretty scary, honestly.” So give us your view of, kind of, the history and where it’s going.
Sarah Siegand (36:40):
I heard someone say, and I was like, “Ooh, that’s jarring.” But I agree that we are living with the safest internet that we’re ever going to have. It’s only going to get more dangerous because of the AI revolution. And I’ll say, as far as understanding the fundamentals of AI, it’s super interesting to think back to apparently street fighter, mortal combat, I can’t remember what it’s called, some video game where you were playing against the game in the 80s or 90s.That was kind of the first version of AI.
And all of us are familiar with tools like your GPS. That’s using AI when you use Siri. So this is basically, it’s computation. So based on this input and this objective, the computer is formulating an answer. And now in the way that AI is being scaled, the AI is teaching itself. So it doesn’t need us to teach it. It’s taking the inputs from us and all that it has learned about all that it has learned, and it’s doing it at lightning speed.
(37:56):
And so for us as adults, you don’t have to know everything about AI to be able to protect your kids, but it is good to get some fundamentals. And honestly, my go- tos would be Parent ProTech and Family IT Guy because they both have great videos that you could even watch with your kids that explain some of the ways that this has progressed and where it’s come from. So those are my go-tos for really getting a handle on, kind of, the genesis of AI and how we’ve gotten to where we are.
Kelly McMullin (38:31):
That’s great. I’m actually going to share a little bit of my own personal story and I would love to, you’re in the tech world, so this is a little different for you, but my son was a junior in high school several years ago, and he comes down to the kitchen table and shares with our family, he’s like, “I have two stories to read to you.”
And so one of them, he read and it was a great story. And the next one he read, it was also a great story, but it seemed, he asked us, he’s like, “Which one do you like better?” So around the family table we went voting, which one was our favorite? And we all at that time liked one of the stories better. And that’s when he told us, “Well, this one I actually wrote myself.” And we could hear his heart and the feel of the story.
(39:20):
And he said, “AI, I wrote this other one.” And that was kind of honestly my first real time with AI. We’re like, “Whoa, it’s that good.” He used it before I did and was using it for school and figuring it out. And I was like, wow, I was kind of taken back. It surprised me. I was like, “Okay, I got to jump on this bandwagon. I got to learn about this, at least some of the basics as a parent and see.” So that’s why this kind of training comes in so handy. But what was your first experience with learning about AI? You might’ve known about it more than I.
Sarah Siegand (39:58):
I mean, obviously having high schoolers, they were talking about ChatGPT, so I was sort of getting versed in it, but I had a time working for an AI company where I had to go in pretty deep and that was really helpful for me because I honestly was a little bit afraid prior to that. I was like, “Oh, I’m a skeptic by nature.” So it was really helpful. It forced me to learn about it.
That’s what I want to transfer onto you guys is don’t be afraid to learn about it. If you learn about it, you will feel more confident in talking with your kids and being able to direct them. But you bring up a good point about creativity and this is something that as believers, we carry this in our DNA, how God made us and we’re connected to his Holy Spirit. So he has things that he wants to birth to the world through us.
(40:56):
We are the carriers of his light. So in your kids, when you see them wrestling with like, “Well, I actually know a family that was like, their daughter was talking to AI about a story that she was wanting to write and the AI was giving great ideas and all of that. And it’s like, okay, yeah, that’s great. Let’s turn that off for a little bit. Let’s take a walk in the woods like the guy who wrote Calvin and Hobbs, right? Let’s see what God’s birthing in our own imaginations.
And as parents, we can be the keepers of that inspiration for our kids and help them to not rely on the input of something programmed for creativity. I’m not saying it doesn’t have a place, but especially when they’re younger, it’s like, foster that. That is God given. Every person has this desire to be creative and we lose it over time.
(41:56):
So when they’re young, don’t use AI tools for creativity. Let their brains and their imaginations and their musician skills, let all of that flow because you want them to retain that as much as possible. So good for their spirit. It’s so good for their brain.
Kelly McMullin (42:14):
So much is going back to the basics. Just going back to sunshine and nature and all of God’s creation, it’s all right there for us. And in our day and age, we’ve lost a lot of that.
Sarah Siegand (42:28):
Yes. Yes. We can all use a good getting back to the basics, that’s for sure.
Kelly McMullin (42:32):
Absolutely. Absolutely. What are your thoughts? Isabelle asked about implementing AI teachers who are supposedly adapted to each student’s learning style. Great question.
Sarah Siegand (42:46):
I think in our digital age, kids already really struggle with knowing how to relate to people. They really struggle with eye contact. They really struggle. I mean, I know every parent has had, unless you’re a homeschool parent and you’re the main teacher, but your kid is like, this teacher is so mean, they’re so unfair. That’s part of life, is training them to deal with people.
So I have real concerns about the AI teacher model. I don’t know where that’s going to go. I hope that that is one of the things that we start working on in education to regulate because I think if we just give that over, our kids are losing something really important that they need for life because they’re going to have people around them for the rest of their life, right? And we want them to know how to engage, how to listen, how to be respectful, how to deal with frustration when their teacher isn’t teaching something so great.
(43:51):
I’m here for it. When a teacher isn’t very good at their job, it makes your kids have to learn to problem solve. Not that I’m advocating for bad teachers, but it’s a fact of life. You have some who are great and you have some who are not so great. This is important for our kids to learn how to navigate.
Kelly McMullin (44:09):
Yeah. Oh, that’s such a great perspective. I love that. Thank you for bringing it back down to that. What are some places AI is being used that we might not notice and is affecting our kids?
Sarah Siegand (44:27):
That we might not notice. I think obviously algorithms, even if your kid doesn’t have social media, a lot of people have their kids on YouTube or YouTube kids, and there are algorithms in there that are not only collecting all of the clicks and really carefully monitoring what we’re interested in, but it is monetizing it to sell things to our kids and to be able to suggest content. There’s a lot of ideology in technology that is being delivered to our kids very easily that completely goes against the word of God.
And so any platform access that you give where there is a feed, there is an algorithm. So please be very, very cautious. And even with like, you might think, “Oh, this is a math app. This is so great.” There could still be AI built into that that is coordinating the advertisement unless you’ve paid for that app.
(45:35):
That app has ads. And so pretty much any app your kid downloads could have AI baked into it. This is why you must lock up the app store. Let this be your main takeaway. Anything that you’re downloading from the app store could have an AI component. I would vet and research anything you’re not aware of very vigorously so that you can make sure that you’re not surprised by AI getting to your kids.
Kelly McMullin (46:07):
Yeah, that’s so good. I loved your example of just a lockbox with a gun. This is really that important. And your example earlier of the shoulder to shoulder training, that’s so powerful because that’s sometimes things that if we’re busy or we just get doing things and we forget like, yes, our kids need this training and it’s so, so important. Incredible. Great. Okay.
So a couple more questions here before we close out tonight. An anonymous viewer asks, “If a school is allowing use of AI tools for academic classwork, how do you guide kids in how to use it properly with the right perspective with integrity, but also learning how to use the tool in its proper way?”
Sarah Siegand (46:58):
I think this is definitely something that you’re going to have to go in with them, like show me what you’re doing. Because it’s going to be really hard to make a judgment unless you can see what is actually happening. So show me what you’re doing. Show me now what is your teacher requiring of you? And then I would check with what … If your kid’s using AI as like, it has been sanctioned for this assignment, we are using AI.
And some teachers are going at it from that perspective because they are trying to get the kids to create the inputs so they can sort of give them a way to learn how to use AI instead of just cheating, right? So I don’t have any objection to that as long as parents have the opportunity to understand what is it that you’re doing, what is the teacher actually asked you to do? And then this is the trust and verify model. So my kid is saying this, try to get an email to that teacher.
(47:59):
My kid is saying this. I just want to verify that that is what the expectation is. And like I said, if you’ve never been the type to go to parent teacher conferences, sometimes if you have a good kid, you’re like, “Eh, that’s 20 minutes out of my day that I have other things to do.” I just made it a point, depending on what kind of school environment as a public school parent, I went to every parent teacher conference that I could because I have lots of questions and that’s where I get face-to-face with them.
And so really finding out like, how is this being used? If there’s like a coffee with the principal at your school, it’s like, “I have a question about how you are using AI and how I can protect my kid in this. ” But it is going to require us to get into the details of it.
(48:47):
And I hate that because there’s so much to learn already in life, but it is one of those things that until you are sitting and asking them, “How are you using it? What is this?” You’re just not going to fully understand it and you don’t want to make a snap judgment. So sitting down with them and getting those answers is going to be really important.
Kelly McMullin (49:06):
Yeah, that’s so true. I mean, just keep hearing you say the conversations, whether it’s with your kids or with the school or anything, just keep those lines of communication open. Yes. That’s so good. Jody Wilson asked, “What are cookies? Is that the data you said that is being collected?” Because we see that on every website when we click on it.
Sarah Siegand (49:29):
Right. When you’re clicking on cookies, you’re basically telling that site, “Remember me and remember all my preferences.” And it’s kind of going into this cache. I don’t know if you guys know what that means, but it’s basically to help the webpage load faster the next time. And if you are a person who’s impatient, maybe you want that to happen all the time, I just … Nope. Anytime I’m asked, I’m like, “No, I don’t need you to know my cookies.”
Because that information can definitely be used to advertise to you. You’ll notice if you go shopping for a pair of boots and then you go on some site and there’s advertisements, suddenly there are those boots I was looking at. So this is the way that we are followed around on the internet by advertisers. So feel free to say no. They’re not needed. You don’t have to say yes to the cookies.
Kelly McMullin (50:24):
Yeah. That’s so good. Yeah. Just even, this is, I don’t know if it’s the same because I’m not a tech savvy person, but we were headed to church the other day and Siri pulled up our church for us at about the time that we typically leave and my husband was like, “What? Oh my goodness. They know everything.”
Sarah Siegand (50:46):
Yes. And that’s AI and it’s baked into the tools that we’re using. Hard to say if that was the vision for the original iPhone, but that’s where we are and it’s really hard to get rid of some of those things. So there is a certain amount of trade-offs that we’re going to be faced with over the next decade or two about privacy and convenience, right? Because it’s actually convenient if I don’t have to, oh, remember to type in the thing, but it is a little bit spooky. I get you.
Kelly McMullin (51:24):
Yeah, for sure. I love this question by an anonymous viewer, and I think you alluded to it earlier. I want to see if you have any more examples, but it says, “Do you think God can use or work through AI? Could God use something for good that others may use for less than good purposes?” And I know you mentioned about Bible translation earlier. Can you think of some other good uses of AI for good, true, and beautiful?
Sarah Siegand (51:52):
Yes. Yeah. I mean, if you think about how often we’re doing things to organize our home or family that … I mean, I go back to the days of chore charts, and actually I’m sitting in the room where our tour charts used to be, so it’s really funny. And it’s like we were making them, like we were drawing them, right? Now there are ways that can help us organize our home, organize our grocery list, all of these things.
So anything that in our life we’re trying to simplify and make room for other things, I think God can use that. He can help me create a chore chart. If I don’t have time to be creative and draw it all out, and that’s a godly function because I’m doing something that is going to bless and minister to my family. And it would be better for me to do that than to be like, I don’t have time to organize that.
(52:51):
I’m not going to draw anything. I’m just going to yell at the kids and tell them to do some stuff. So in the functions that we have in our families, in our churches, yes. And I’ve been at this ministry conference the last couple of days and they talked a lot about AI and how you can use it to better follow up with your visitors and all of these things.
So of course, I think God can redeem tools. We’re on a platform right now that has similar functions like it is making life easy and it’s created this amazing experience for us based on input. Somebody had to develop this software. So we’re all benefiting from similar kinds of technology and it can be redeemed for the kingdom.
Again, we put that responsibility on adults, not on children, but as adults, yes, God can give us wisdom about how we can use tools for efficiency so that we can get the gospel out so that we can minister to our families, have more time as a family. All of that I think is on the table.
Kelly McMullin (54:02):
Well, I think that is a wonderful question to close with. It’s beautiful. I know for my own experience, I’ve definitely used it in vacation planning or meal prepping, recipes, all the things, and it has been very helpful in saving time. It’s just using it wisely and discerningly as you mentioned earlier.
And so thank you to our viewers for all these amazing questions and thank you, Sarah, for sharing about this really important topic. And for the viewers who participated, we really think this was just an incredible night and I hope it was a blessing to everyone. Sarah, if people want to find out more about your work and your ministry, where can they go?
Sarah Siegand (54:44):
Yes. Just our website is a great start, just parentswhofight.com. We’ve got resources. I love making resources. If you find something like, “I wish you had this, just tell me and I’ll probably make it for you.” We love getting questions. We love hearing from y’all, so just feel free to reach out to there.
Kelly McMullin (54:59):
Oh, that’s awesome. And I know firsthand Sarah will respond to you and help you out with whatever tech questions you have. It’s incredible. And you can also find her website at the resources tab here at Summit on this platform here. And we want to thank you to everyone for joining the livestream tonight. Thank you again, Sarah. Summit’s mission is to equip the rising generation to embrace God’s truth and champion a biblical worldview. And we hope this helped you do that. We’ll see y’all next time.
Sarah Siegand (55:29):
Thank you guys.
Janel Greig (55:31):
I hope you enjoyed this insightful conversation with Sarah Seegand. You can find more information about our next live stream by going to summit.org/parents. Thanks for listening. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast and join Matt Jones and me as we journey with you in raising the next generation of kids to embrace God’s truth and champion a biblical worldview.