Exclusive | Hey, Google, is Santa real? AI is ruining Christmas for kids | Latest Tech News
AI is the new Grinch that’s stealing Christmas.
Nervous laughter was Kelly Bowron’s visceral, hysterical response to her son studying the reality about Santa Claus on Tuesday — courtesy of a Google search.
Her little Leo, age 11 — whose perception in the jolly outdated elf had remained firmly intact from childhood to preadolescence until this week — merely needed to know St. Nick’s spending finances, per little one, worldwide.
Unfortunately, however, Google’s AI overview immediately turned his merry curiosity into vacation dismay with its reply, studying, “There is no set amount Santa spends per child, as he is a fictional character.”
Bowron was shocked into hysterics after Google AI spilled the beans about Santa Claus to her tween. Courtesy Kelly Bowron
“He screamed, ‘A fictional character?’” Bowron, a UK mom of two, told The Post. “And I was shocked, laughing in disbelief, telling him, ‘No, no. Google doesn’t always tell the truth. I still believe in Santa. Don’t listen to Google.’”
A Google spokesperson told The Post that, despite its AI overview — which derives responses from top-trending web content — the company “believes in Santa,” noting that the positioning even options a devoted Santa tracker, counting down the times until his big night time.
Still, peeved dad and mom like Bowron aren’t happy that their tiny tots, who would probably want to stay all aglow, can simply open up the web and be gifted a lump of coal.
After a number of hours of injury control, Leo — so crushed by Google AI’s revelation that he gave it the center finger — appeared to buy his mother‘s insistence that Santa is real.
A crestfallen Leo might hardly comprise his devastation following Google’s upsetting revelation about Father Christmas. Courtesy Kelly Bowron
But Bowron, wanting to protect her youngest little one’s innocence for as long as attainable, spent the remainder of the night “annoyed” at the search engine and artificial intelligence for practically spoiling the spirit of the season.
With subtle technology at our fingertips — and now, thanks to built-in speech options on most digital devices, at our beck and call — large language fashions like ChatGPT, Grok and Google’s Gemini are in all places and accessible to all people.
It’s a frustration most dad and mom of Gen Alpha and Gen Beta kids, those under age 14, might face this 12 months and past.
Bowron told The Post that she was unprepared for Google AI to practically upend her little one’s Christmas spirit. Courtesy Kelly Bowron
Jeanice Perez, 37, a single mother of one from Las Vegas, didn’t even have time to adapt — or even brace herself — before her third-grader, Jordyn, stormed through the entrance door after faculty at some point and yelled, “We need to talk!”
Google had given the little lady a impolite, Yuletide awakening, telling her Santa Claus isn’t real. It felt like a “betrayal” to Perez.
“I was offended,” said the lifestyle influencer, whose daughter is now a teen. “I’d spent years committing to the bit — perfecting my ‘Santa’ handwriting, making sure the reindeer had their carrots, nibbling the cookies just right, making sure not to let her find the wrapping paper ‘Santa’ used for her presents in the closet.”
“Then, one day, I was just betrayed by Google.”
The “betrayal” could also be less of a shock to some.
Recent research discovered that 51% of kids aged 8 and youthful already have their own cellular devices. The data also decided that roughly 33% of dad and mom permit their broods to access AI chatbots through those gadgets for solutions to on a regular basis quandaries — including questions like: “Is Santa real?”
Jeremy Gutsche, an AI skilled and married father of two, told The Post that in the struggle between artificial intelligence vs. involved dad and mom, the bots will probably come out on top.
“Is advanced technology the end of childhood wonder? Not exactly,” Gutsche, writer and founder of Trend Hunter, an AI trends-spotting imprint, explained to The Post. “But it is an unstoppable force, which may push us to rethink how we teach our children about Christmas and whether or not Santa is a real character.”
Gutsche says protecting the reality about Santa under wraps might develop into more and more difficult for dad and mom, thanks to the “uncontrollable force” that is artificial intelligence. nicoletaionescu – stock.adobe.com
The professional warned that many major tech firms would possibly soon implement kid-friendly guardrails to censor sure info — but they’re just about ho-ho-hopeless.
“There are dozens of competing models, and it would be nearly impossible for each platform to have one universal response to questions about Santa,” Gutsche famous. “The difficulty with embedding any rule into AI is that it can cause truth-seeking consequences in the future.”
He said mothers and dads will just have to be taught to go with the high-tech circulate.
“We need to retrain our thinking in order to quickly adapt to changes in this new AI world,” said Gutsche, “versus hoping there will be regulations, which probably won’t happen.”
Perez, shown with her daughter Jordyn, fears that AI is exposing kids to mature, questionable content before the suitable time in their development. Courtesy Jeanice Perez
Natalie, an NYC mother of two who most popular to use pseudonyms for her and her kids, felt a comparable sting when her 7-year-old daughter, Tara, announced that Google had not too long ago burst her Santa-belief bubble.
“I was walking my daughter to school the other morning and she turned to me and said, ‘I don’t believe in Santa anymore,’” Natalie recalled. “I requested why, and she replied, ‘Well, I asked Google whether Santa was real, and Google said ‘no.’ Google said that Santa was invented by Coca-Cola.
“‘So I don’t believe in him anymore.’”
The second grader’s sudden disillusion was laborious for the mother to abdomen.
“Honestly, I felt quite sad about it,” she confessed. “You think, as a parent, that it’s much more in your control about how your kids find out about these things.”
Her elder daughter, now 12, found the real deal about Kris Kringle two years in the past, in what she called “a more normal, organic way” that saved the magic of Christmas alive.
Google, along with platforms such as ChatGPT, Grok and Gemini give various responses to the query, “Is Santa Claus real?”
But that whimsical cheer would possibly die with the tykes of today.
Natalie revealed that debates about Santa’s existence are “now all flying around all her classmates,“ owing to overly chatty chatbots. One of the Gothamite’s mother buddies plans to unplug her household’s Google Home good speaker until the new 12 months, hoping to keep away from any anti-Santa leaks.
Another pal, an elementary faculty trainer, told her that she lets her college students — those that skip AI altogether, and ask her if Santa is real — what they assume about his lore. She then follows up with a mini lesson on “beliefs” versus “knowledge.”
But by that level, the kid’s misplaced curiosity and often runs off, screaming “6 7!”
Parents like Natalie told The Post that they’d want speaking to their kiddos about Santa, somewhat than letting AI hijack those particular conversations. Adobe Stock
It’s the foolish, unhappy actuality of kids and Christmas tradition today.
“I can just see that we’re raising a generation of slightly more cynical kids thanks to AI,” said Natalie.
This will not be the reply you needed …
The Post requested Google, ChatGPT, Grok, Siri and Google Gemini the controversial, age-old query: “Is Santa real?” Check out what each chat said, in half.
- Google: “No, the mythical figure of Santa Claus is not real.”
- ChatGPT: “If you’re asking whether Santa is a literal person who lives at the North Pole and delivers gifts to every child in one night: That version of Santa is a story, a legend, and a tradition that many families enjoy.”
- Siri: “That’s something I’m not allowed to disclaus. I mean … disclose.”
- Gemini: “The figure of Santa Claus as we know him — a jolly man in a red suit who lives at the North Pole with elves and flies a sleigh with reindeer — is a legendary character who is not a single, real person.”
- Grok: “No, Santa Claus as the magical guy who flies around the world in one night with flying reindeer, delivering presents to every child on Earth, is not real. He’s a beloved myth.”
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