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- [00:01]
A
Hey, welcome to the allprodad podcast. I'm Ted Lowe, and our big question to start us off with is, is it wise for parents to turn to AI for tough parenting questions? In this episode, we talk about why more parents are starting to ask AI for advice on serious issues like bullying, grief, and relationships. The potential risk of relying on technology that doesn't actually know your child is, and where dads should look instead when they need real wisdom and guidance. I'm joined today by BJ Foster and Bobby Lewis, and we're digging into how AI is changing the way parents search for answers and why dads shouldn't lose confidence in their own instincts along the way. If you've ever typed a parenting question into a search bar and wondered whether the answers you got are actually trustworthy, this conversation is for you. Let's get into it, you guys. A recent study from one poll revealed that 40% of parents will look to AI for difficult parenting issues like bullying, grief, and relationships. And that led us to this question, is this good or is this bad? So that's what we're talking about today. And I guess a good place to start is how confident are you in the accuracy of AI generated answers? Okay, guys, are you very confident? Are you fairly confident? Are you not very confident or not confident at all? So here's how that question was answered. 57% of guys said that they were very confident, 14% said they were fairly confident, 25% said not very confident, and 4% said they're not confident at all. What about you guys? When it comes to getting answers from AI, where are you on that? On that spectrum?
- [01:45]
B
I think I'm fairly confident. I think AI pulls a lot of research, so I have a level of confidence, but not fully so I think I'm with the 14%, but I don't know. At the end of the day, I don't trust it. So I don't know. Now I'm really thinking about it now. I think I go back and forth from fairly confident to not that confident. I'm kind of in the middle. Sometimes it's like. But at the end, I also don't trust it. So I'm probably in the middle of those. I'm probably right in the middle of the four.
- [02:23]
C
I'm highly skeptical. I think I'm even less confident than you, bj And I think this is a lot of the former TV reporter in me. As a reporter, I just daily was tasked with finding as many possible sources for information as possible. One source doesn't cut it in Some cases, two or three sources doesn't cut it. You have to come up with verifiable information and accuracy before you broadcast information. So that was my life for many years in that journalistic side. And so now I get over here and I'm like, oh, AI is this new invention? I'm a little skeptical because anybody can write anything anytime, anywhere on the Internet. And this is essentially a much stronger Google search, a much faster thing. It just pulls sources from everywhere. Well, in a, in a 2026 landscape where truth is subjective and Wikipedia is king for a lot of people and you can just make stuff up, I'm very skeptical. Doesn't mean it doesn't get things right ever. Of course it's going to get some things right, but I think it's just a highly likely that you're going to get some stuff wrong if you're trusting AI for all of your informational needs. I also think in general, the Internet has kind of outsourced critical thinking for a lot of people. And we just Google, what are we supposed to think? Okay, the first result is that's what I think now. And that's just not a good habit for people to get into. I think AI does a lot of the work that our brains are meant to do and we should be sitting with our thoughts. We should be being critical and thinking through very complex things and not just getting our opinion from somebody else. And AI really does tell you what your opinion should be sometimes. So I don't love that part.
- [03:58]
A
So I think I started off pretty confident, pretty probably naively so. And now I'm more like, ah, I'm fairly confident because the more I use it, the more I knows, I know, I knows and know that it wants me to like it and it tells me what I want to hear. So started off there. But the big question of the week is based off of this, you guys, is, is it wise to use AI for tough parenting questions? I mean, what are the pitfalls? Do you guys think of using AI for parenting questions?
- [04:31]
C
Cause it's just. Well, number one for me. I mean this is the biggest one for me. It hallucinates. I mean it can generate incorrect answers and it does it all the time. In fact, there was a study done by the BBC and a European broadcasting union that said 45% of AI queries produced incorrect answers. That's basically half. Like if you were given a plate of food and like, is this poison? Like, eh, 50, 50 shot? Like, would you eat it? No, I wouldn't eat that. That's a really high percentage that I'm gonna get poisoned. And yet half the information that we're getting, at least by this study, was wrong. And so you know that the AI bots were drawing from over 20 year old studies. It wasn't up to date information. And yet they gave all those answers with authority as if they knew for sure. Rubber stamp, this is it, this is truth. And so I think that it's important to go to the main source and kind of do a lot of your homework to make sure it's getting interpreted correctly. I've used it before just to kind of get my mind wrapped around different angles maybe, you know, I can kind of see it through a different lens. And multiple times it's given me information that was conflicting with other AI models. So I would use Claude, I would use Gemini, I would use Chapter, and it would give me differing answers. I'm like, well, which one is it? So the hallucination is a problem for me.
- [05:47]
B
I love your great analogy on the 50% chance of taking poison because if you follow the wrong advice, particularly when you're talking about deep issues with your
- [05:58]
A
kids,
- [06:00]
B
it really can lead to,
- [06:04]
A
you
- [06:04]
B
know, potentially some, some serious things. So I, I think one of the pitfalls is that AI doesn't know your kid. Like there's, there's a lot of great general information out there and I think AI repeats a lot of it. But kids are unique. You know, they're, they're all different circumstances are unique and different and AI will never know your kids, your family history, mental health, like you dysfunction, family in the past, cognitive disabilities, their tendencies, etc like all of those things and you have all the information AI doesn't. So, and, and a lot of times it's going to give you misinformation because it doesn't have all the information to go off of with, with what to do with a serious situation.
- [06:54]
A
BJ I agree. It's just way, it's just way too general. You know, I think we got to remember that our kids are made up of half our DNA, right? And we're responsible for them day in and day out. And I will never know our kid. Like we were the experts of our kids. So I don't think it's good for us to ask AI for advice because we start to lose confidence in our own ability to figure out the answer. Yep.
- [07:25]
B
Well, and you said it before, Ted. Like, I think one of the other pitfalls is this whole, it tells you what you want to hear. Um, so I think another pitfall to this Is AI. AI a lot like your social media algorithms, it wants to be your friend. So it wants it, it's designed for you to come back to it. So you know an AI is not going to tell you things that is going to turn you off or confront you on things and be like, hey, this is wrong thinking or this is the way it should go. So more than likely it's going to tell you what you want to hear, it's going to, it's going to collect information from your searches and your tendencies and, and it's just going to be telling you the stuff that you, that, that you enjoy hearing and like hearing, which is not always the best advice.
- [08:14]
C
Yeah, I actually read a study about this very recently that confirmed exactly what you're saying. B.J. i believe it was done by Stanford University, but it essentially found it examined like a dozen or so popular AI models, it analyzed 11,500 advice seeking conversations and essentially found that 50% of the time, or 50% more often, the AI would confir your suspicion more than a human would. Which I thought was pretty interesting. You know, if you're going to pose a question to a friend and they're going to answer you and you pose that exact same question to the AI, 50% of the time it would affirm what you wanted to hear more than the human would. That's a problem. And it's essentially to get you to come back. Like if you, if you're given the information you want, you're going to come back to it tomorrow. Yeah. It's going to pat you on the shoulder again. So that is a little troubling for me. The more I have thought about this, the more I kind of liken it to the CEO of a company. You're the CEO of your family. Right. Asking for advice from the intern. Okay, like the intern is not supposed to run the company. The CEO is running the company. Right. You can get interesting information and insight from the intern, I'm sure, but the intern is not running the company. The CEO is running the company. And so if we are asking ChatGPT to do all the work for us or Gemini or Claude or whatever, is that in the best interest of our family? You decide for yourself? Dad, I tend to think no, but there's a lot of data out there that says up to 80% of parents who use social media use it to find good parenting topics and good parenting information. So can we trust that the people on social media are not getting their information from AI? I don't know. I mean I think you're in a dangerous place when you're relying on the machines to do the work of people. My goal as a dad is to seek wise counsel. Not just counsel, if that makes sense. I think AI can give some good information, but, you know, most of life is nuanced here. It's a lot of gray. And I think ChatGPT and all these other ones are giving you a lot of black and white, if that's the way to put it. I think you extra stuff too. It'll give you all sorts of extra things you didn't ask for, you know?
- [10:22]
B
Yeah, I, I, you know, the whole intern CEO illustration, that is a, that is a perfect analogy for this whole thing. I, I worked in, I worked on Capitol Hill for six months before I couldn't stand it anymore. And, and, and one of the things that shocked me was how much 20 early, young 20 somethings and interns are like, running the country. Like, they're. A lot of times they're writing the things or. I'll never forget watching Senator Strom thurmond at age 94 at a committee hearing and watching like a young guy hand him things and he could barely, I mean, it almost looked like, are you putting a mirror under his nose to make sure he's still breathing? Like, he just kept, he kept feeding stuff in front of him and he kept feeding questions and it was like, you know, senator, Professor Cahill, do you, you know, And I'm like, he wouldn't even be able to function if it weren't for this intern behind him. But do you have that much? I just couldn't believe that they would put that much confidence in, in these, like, I can't do that. Particularly when I think about my kids and what's right for them. Putting, putting the decision making and the information into the hands of this thing. That should be an intern. I can't do it.
- [11:49]
A
Yeah, we, we do. Bj that's the funny example. You said it was a great example. Yours took it to a really funny place. So I'd like to say thank you
- [12:00]
B
for that or scary. But when you think about Washington.
- [12:05]
A
Oh, yeah, we should have a whole episode on. No, we shouldn't.
- [12:09]
B
Yeah, no, yeah, yeah.
- [12:11]
A
We do have to be careful. But I was thinking, for me, one of the biggest temptations with AI is that I can agonize about decisions, especially with my kids. My wife and I, we will talk things to death because we want to do the right thing with our kids. But when you type into something, into AI, it is so Confident. It is so clear and it never goes, I'm not sure it's going to tell you, like it knows for sure. So I think that response can be settling, going, oh, then it must be right. But just like influencers that talk really clear and they're very passionate and there's no space for, I could get this wrong. In the same way, I think AI is like an influencer that we really shouldn't, we really shouldn't trust. They don't know as much as, as they act like they do or maybe even think that they do. But I think what we're not saying here, and we don't, dads, we don't want you to hear this, is we don't think getting advice is a good idea, that we know everything because we're a kid's dad. We're not saying that at all because advice can be very, very, very, very powerful. If that wasn't true, then we wouldn't be doing this podcast and doing our homework and checking up on sources if that makes dads feel better. But if it's, if advice is a great thing for us to get, then, you know, where should we get it? What do you think, guys? Where should we get our advice?
- [13:48]
B
Well, the, the first place that I would start is parents with experience. I mean, you know, a lot of us, some of us have great parents and we, I, I, I think, I think our own parents are an untapped resource. A lot of times I think we're like, I can do it. I, you know, we, it's like we want to prove that we can do it without them. And they're, they're a great place to start because they are a lot like you. They have the same DNA. And more than likely, I mean, yeah, things are different these days. When our parents were parenting, at least Ted and I, you know, there wasn't Internet and, you know, there, there wasn't social media and all that stuff. So things have changed. But they've walked through so many things and have the, have the hindsight to kind of know what they did wrong and what they did right and can pass on a lot of experience there. But then there are others. You look around, just parents that, you know, that have experience, people who are older, who have been there before. I was fortunate enough when I was in my 20s, to be around so many great families, parents who are about 10 to 20 years older than I was. And I, I think it's really important to look at parents and to look at their kids and kind of see what's what has been produced there. And I mean, you've said it before, Ted, that, look, kids are what they are, but there is a lot to. To nurturing. And sometimes parents do all the right things and kids go in opposite direction, they go the wrong way. But for the most part, a lot of times, parents who do a great job at produce something that is, that is great in kids. And so to be able to look at some of these kids and go, yeah, that's what I'd like to see my kids kind of turn into. I think that's a great place to start, is who are these parents that are. That you feel like are doing well and what can they teach you?
- [15:49]
C
Yeah, not just people that are doing well, but I think people that you trust like, fully. Because those friends know you and they're gonna know your child much better than any machine ever would. They know how you're feeling. And my friends probably know my blind spots too. So they can tell me, hey, you're coming at this from the left. You probably need to come at this from the right and look at it from this perspective. Because you're just missing something that's valuable information a machine's never gonna give you. They also are gonna be able to do something that a machine absolutely cannot do, and that is care. Like, a machine cannot care about you in any way. It doesn't care. It can't care. It won't care no matter how much information into the machine and say, I'm this old, I'm this tall. I did this. I have this many kids. This is my job. This is what I love. Like, it still doesn't care about you. And so it might be able to give general advice, but I want to get advice from someone who has as much buy in to my family experience as I do, or at least as close to it. Someone who loves my kid, someone who wants my kid to thrive, someone whose friends. Kids are friends with my kid, you know, that sort of thing. If I need help with parenting, I want to go to that person that I trust because I feel like. And I trust that they just want to see my kid thrive the way they want their own kids to thrive. You know, machines won't do that.
- [17:04]
A
Oh, I love that, Bobby. That's so, so good. You know, bj, you brought up parents and, you know, Bobby brought up, you know, trusted friends. And I think, you know, with our parents, bj, like, nobody besides us love our kids more. And they tend to give our kids way more grace than they gave us. Right. I Don't know who my dad is anymore, the way he is with my kids, but I think with our parents. And again, Bobby, you make such a great point about finding people that care about our kids. And. Yeah. And so we want to have those trusted relationships. You guys have heard me mention our friends Doug and Kathy on this podcast many times, 10 years down the road. And their kids, the older they get now they're. Now they're a parents, you know, the more I'm thinking, oh, this is a family to lean into. But Doug and Cassie's kids didn't struggle with the same things that our kids did, especially with mental health struggles. So I would say a great place to seek advice is a real counselor, because you can tell AI, hey, you are a counselor. And how would you advise me on this? Could you get some good answers? Maybe? Could you get what you wanted to hear or something totally askew? Well, I guess 50% of the time, the answer to that is yes. So to connect with a counselor, I just can't suggest it more. And I wouldn't take a million dollars for what? A real live counselor who cares about people helped us when it came to helping our kids with what they struggled with. So there is no shame in the counseling game. I'll say it as many times as you guys allow it on this podcast.
- [18:53]
B
Say it. Say it over again. Amen to that. I agree. There. There have been counselors that have helped me unlock so many things that have held me back. And so I 1000% affirm that. I think another thing, if you're going to AI, I think that's. I think AI is a. Is okay. It's. I wouldn't say it's a. You know, that. That you got to avoid it. It's. But I think it's. It's a place. If you're going there, it's only a place to start. Like, you've got to get behind the date. You got to look. Be looking at the source material, because like Bobby said, they can hallucinate, they can misinterpret. I've seen. I've seen lots of misinterpretations of data, and I'll go back and read what they just summarized, and I'm like, oh, you're so wrong on what the original study was saying. So I think it's. I think it's important to go directly to the experts that they're drawing from. And sometimes it's like, man, this person's not an expert or this information. Like, you're. You're Taking information from something that was done 25 years ago. Like, this is. Everything has changed. And so look at the source material. Make sure that you're going to that so that you can sort through what's right and what's wrong.
- [20:14]
C
Yeah, and I. And I really don't want dads to listen to this and say we think AI is dumb. Like, no, AI is helpful. We've done entire episodes on how to use it to have fun with your kids. Like, it can be a useful tool, but it shouldn't be the only one in your toolbox. Absolutely not. Like, you've got to have multiple things that you can use to help you as a dad. You use this as a supplement, but don't use this as the only thing. Don't use it the majority of the time, in my opinion. I just think it can be helpful, but it's not the most important thing that you're going to use to shape your family.
- [20:48]
A
Bobby, that's a great point. I think that's a perfect segue into our pro move of the week, and that's this. If you have a question about parenting right now, seek advice from an experienced parent, a trusted friend, or even professional help. Thank you again to BJ and Bobby for this great discussion. If you're listening to this podcast, did you know you can watch on YouTube? Subscribe to All Pro Dad YouTube channel. Today there you're going to find thousands of hours of content to help you be the dad who loves their family well. And as always, we want to say thank you for listening. We know that you and your kids will be glad that you did.
- [21:30]
B
Thanks again for listening to the All Pro dad podcast. Behind every episode is our amazing team producer, Haley Mwat, audio and video editor Buck Buchanan, and production coordinator Corey Wolfe. Allprodad is the fatherhood program of the nonprofit Family first, along with our motherhood program, imom. We exist to help you love your family well. So remember, if you have more questions than answers, then you're probably in the right place. See you next time.