Are we still human if robots help raise our babies? | Sarah Blaffer Hrdy (Kelly Corrigan takeover)

Summary

Podcast Summary: TED Talks Daily – Are We Still Human If Robots Help Raise Our Babies? | Sarah Blaffer Hrdy

Episode Information

• Title: Are We Still Human If Robots Help Raise Our Babies?
• Host/Author: TED (Guest Host: Kelly Corrigan)
• Release Date: May 6, 2025
• Description: In this thought-provoking episode, evolutionary anthropologist Sarah Blaffer Hrdy explores the profound implications of integrating artificial intelligence (AI) into child-rearing practices. Joined by guest host Kelly Corrigan, Hrdy delves into the evolutionary underpinnings of human parenting and examines whether AI can fulfill the deeply ingrained human need for caregiving and mutual understanding.

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Introduction: Setting the Stage for the Conversation ([02:02] - [07:20])

Kelly Corrigan begins the episode by introducing Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, highlighting her extensive background in anthropology and primatology. Corrigan emphasizes Hrdy's expertise in evolutionary psychology and her groundbreaking work on the roles of mothers and alloparents in human evolution.

Kelly Corrigan ([02:02]):
"Sarah is such a delight. She's almost 80 years old. She takes no guff from nobody and she is a true expert in her field."

Corrigan outlines the central question of the episode: What is a parent for in an AI-driven world? She reflects on the necessity of Hrdy's broad evolutionary perspective to address this question comprehensively.

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Understanding Human Parenting Through Evolution ([07:20] - [15:35])

Sarah Blaffer Hrdy delivers a concise yet comprehensive overview of human evolution, focusing on the development of caregiving roles. She traces back six million years to highlight how the survival of human infants—who are exceptionally needy and slow to mature—required the support of multiple caregivers beyond the biological mother.

Sarah Hrdy ([07:20]):
"Babies back then would have to be held in skin to skin contact, never out of touch, not for a minute of the day or night, for months after birth, nursed for years."

Hrdy explains the concept of alloparents—individuals other than the biological parents who contribute to child-rearing. This collective caregiving was essential for the survival and continued evolution of Homo sapiens, fostering mutual understanding and cooperation among early humans.

Sarah Hrdy ([09:45]):
"Neural circuits, crucial for mutual understanding, co-evolved right along with shared care."

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The Modern Dilemma: AI in Child-Rearing ([15:35] - [23:20])

Hrdy transitions to the contemporary challenges posed by the integration of AI into parenting. She questions whether robots can genuinely fulfill the emotional and social needs of human children, given that human caregiving is deeply rooted in mutual responsiveness and emotional connectivity.

Sarah Hrdy ([22:19]):
"Because if we set up a bunch of AI robots that give a baby and a toddler everything he or she wants along the way, we will for sure be changing the species."

The discussion touches upon the potential for AI to take over caregiving roles, such as monitoring, feeding, and educating children. However, Hrdy raises concerns about whether AI can replicate the nuanced human interactions that foster empathy, trust, and social understanding in children.

Elise Hu ([05:19]):
"What's a human for? What did we evolve for? Caretaking. And I don't think you have to be a genetic parent."

Sarah Hrdy ([22:19]):
"We are an other-regarding species that is like this definitional thing about us. So if that's true, could we count on it to save us from this?"

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The Essence of Human Connection ([23:20] - [26:26])

The conversation delves deeper into the intrinsic human qualities that AI may struggle to emulate. Hrdy emphasizes that being "other-regarding"—caring about others' thoughts and emotions—is a defining feature of humanity that is essential for societal cohesion and personal relationships.

Elise Hu ([19:53]):
"Empathy is an excellent tool if we're able to see things from someone else's point of view, which you were asking me to do all the time in communicating with this audience."

Hrdy and Hu discuss the potential loss of these human-centric traits if AI becomes a primary caregiver, posing existential questions about the future of human nature and social structures.

Sarah Hrdy ([22:19]):
"Because if we set up a bunch of AI robots that give a baby and a toddler everything he or she wants along the way, we will for sure be changing the species."

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Concluding Insights and Reflections ([26:26] - End)

As the episode wraps up, Hrdy reflects on the importance of preserving human caregiving roles and the inherent challenges posed by technological advancements. She underscores the necessity of maintaining human connections to ensure the continued development of empathy and mutual understanding in future generations.

Sarah Hrdy ([21:20]):
"This is where we could lose. I would hope that a message would be society has a responsibility for shared care and group care."

The episode concludes with a preview of the next conversation, promising further exploration into the intersection of AI and family life.

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Key Takeaways

1. Evolutionary Basis of Caregiving: Human infants' extended dependency periods necessitated the involvement of multiple caregivers, leading to the evolution of alloparenting and cooperative societies.

2. AI's Potential and Limitations: While AI can assist in various caregiving tasks, it may lack the essential qualities of responsiveness and emotional connectivity that foster human empathy and social development.

3. Defining Humanity: The episode highlights the critical role of being "other-regarding" in maintaining human nature, suggesting that over-reliance on AI in parenting could fundamentally alter these traits.

4. Societal Responsibility: There's an emphasized need for society to uphold shared and group care practices to ensure the preservation of essential human qualities amidst technological advancements.

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Notable Quotes

• Sarah Hrdy ([07:20]):
  "Babies back then would have to be held in skin to skin contact, never out of touch, not for a minute of the day or night, for months after birth, nursed for years."

• Elise Hu ([19:53]):
  "Empathy is an excellent tool if we're able to see things from someone else's point of view."

• Sarah Hrdy ([22:19]):
  "If we set up a bunch of AI robots that give a baby and a toddler everything he or she wants along the way, we will for sure be changing the species."

• Sarah Hrdy ([21:20]):
  "We have to look at that squarely, accept the fact of it, and operate accordingly."

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Conclusion

This episode of TED Talks Daily presents a compelling exploration of the role AI could play in future parenting, juxtaposed against the rich evolutionary history of human caregiving. Sarah Blaffer Hrdy's insights challenge listeners to consider the profound implications of integrating technology into the most intimate aspects of human life, emphasizing the need to preserve the fundamental qualities that define our humanity.

Transcript

[Kelly Corrigan]

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[Kelly Corrigan]

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[Sarah Hrdy]

You're listening to TED Talks Daily where we bring you new ideas and conversations to spark your curiosity every day. I'm Kelly Corrigan. I'm a writer, I'm a podcaster, I'm a TED Talker and I am taking over for Elise Hu this week for a special series on AI and family life. A guest curated a session about this topic at TED 2025 and I'm here now to share these very special talks with you along with behind the scenes recordings and personal insights that shed light on the process of bringing them to life. Sarah Blaffer Hrdy is such a delight. She's almost 80 years old. She takes no guff from nobody and she is a true expert in her field. She's an American anthropologist and primatologist. She's made huge contributions to evolutionary psychology and sociobiology. She won a Guggenheim, she went to Harvard, blah, blah, blah. But she really, really understands evolution and the way mothers and fathers have over time been understood, misunderstood, and re understood. So when I first started talking about this fundamental question in a modern world, in an AI world, what is a parent for? I knew that we needed somebody who could give us the broadest possible view. You know, like the 6 million year look at us as a species and our evolution and the way that we have typically raised children. And there's something about Sarah, really. She has such a twinkle in her eyes. She's such a happy academic. Like this is what she was born to do, was take on really big weird questions like this. Okay, but so let me, let me ask this. Like my head is exploding. This is such a fun project if you were to convince the audience that a baby's number one slot is up for grabs.

[Elise Hu]

Oh, that's a lovely way to put it.

[Sarah Hrdy]

She's probably most famous for surfacing this idea of alloparents, which means other parents. So there was this sort of resting belief that infants were completely attached to their mother in a singular way. And the idea that she introduced is, can't possibly be true. They'd never have survived. They're very needy, they're very expensive little creatures. It takes them forever to stand up on their own and move into the world. And because of that, there's no way that there weren't other mothers involved in the rearing of these children. Which means that children can attach to people who are not their mother. Sarah's so fun to work with because she wasn't thinking about AI at all when we first called her. I think she thought, I'm going to talk about the things I typically talk about. I mean, she goes around the world giving talks. The super theme of TED this year is humanity reimagined.

[Elise Hu]

Yes.

[Sarah Hrdy]

And it's, you know, what's a human for? In an AI world, what's a human for? And so our block is kind of what's a mother for?

[Elise Hu]

Well, if you ask me what I have multiple choice and I can only give one answer. What is a human for? What did we evolve for? Caretaking. And I don't think you have to be a genetic parent. I don't like the term biological mother. I think there is a tremendous alloparental potential for care that hasn't been recognized yet. And I think it needs to be recognized.

[Sarah Hrdy]

And I put this idea in front of her. Like, can you imagine a reality Where AI is involved intimately in the rearing of children, could they attach to an AI? We wondered if you might be interested in teaching the audience something about mothers and allomothers and why this is the ultimate job for humans that can never be replaced in any meaningful way by any other type of intelligence.

[Ted Talks Daily Host]

Never.

[Sarah Hrdy]

That's a good scientist. Not never, I guess. Not never. She had this huge smile in the call and she said interesting. And then off she went. And within it felt like minutes, she had delivered back a draft of a talk. So before we go too much further into the near future, maybe the move is to go all the way back. And frankly, after spending time with Sarah Hrdy, I think all serious inquiries about what's right for humanity should include a world class anthropologist. So here is Sarah HRDY Giving us 6 million years of human evolution in nine minutes. Have fun.

[Ted Talks Daily Host]

Thank you. I guess you've already figured out, like it or not, artificial intelligence is going to change the nature of human work. But will it change human nature? That's going to depend on what we do with it. Right away the mother and the grandmother in me wants to know, oh hey, can we program robots to help us care for our sleep, depriving, time consuming babies? That's before the evolutionary anthropologist in me cautions. Whoa. Shouldn't we first ask why such costly, costly, slow maturing babies evolved in the first place? For that we need to go back, oh, 6 million years to when humans last shared a common ancestor with other apes. Babies back then would have to be held in skin to skin contact, never out of touch, not for a minute of the day or night, for months after birth, nursed for years. It just seemed natural to assume that among the bipedal apes in the line leading to the genus Homo, babies could similarly expect single mindedly dedicated maternal care. Until, that is, anthropologists figured out how hard it would have been for bipedal apes with only stone age tools to survive and escape extinction in the face of climate change and other Pleistocene perils to stay fed and manage to still rear their helpless, helpless, slow maturing babies, mothers needed help. Unless male and female group members other than the mother allo mothers had helped to care for and provision babies, there is no way we humans could have evolved. Fortunately for us, as brains were getting bigger and distinctively human prefrontal cortices were taking shape, our ancestors were increasingly sharing food and sharing care of children. Neural circuits, crucial for mutual understanding, co evolved right along with shared care. Fast forward to the ever faster changing modern world. Mothers still labor to help Support their families as mothers always have. But many no longer live in mutually supportive communities with kin far away. And even with dads helping more aloe mothers were in short supply. Good day care, even if available. Unaffordable. No wonder parents everywhere use devices to keep their babies monitored and entertained. Already 40% of us two year olds have their own tablets. Soon robots will be programmed to provide a wider range of services, ranging from bottle feeding to keeping babies safe, warm, cleaned and even educated. But given the role of engagement with others in the emergence of mutual understanding, is this a good idea? Think back to our hunter gatherer ancestors still living and rearing children. Babies then, to stay safe, still needed to be held by somebody. But that somebody did not have to be their mother. Right after birth, others might reach for the baby allows others to gather round. She's passed her baby to her own mother to massage its scalp. If one of these aloe mothers happens to be nursing, the baby's first sweet taste of milk will come from her. Soon babies will be monitoring nearby others, deciding who responds, figuring out how best to engage and appeal to them. By six months, the sharp little milk teeth are peeking through their gums. Their appeals might be rewarded with kiss fed treats, maybe honey sweetened saliva or premasticated meat. And babies soon are learning to reciprocate, starting to share. Babies everywheres will just spontaneously offer food to somebody else. Anybody really active agents in their own survival, babies are flexible about who or what they attach or consider as family. Something to keep in mind if robots are programmed to respond even more rapidly and reliably than preoccupied parents do. And as they get older, they will spontaneously point to things or hold something out as if saying what do you think of this? What should I think of this? Eager to engage with other minds and learn what they're thinking. They care. They care very much. Who notices them? Do something nice, like a toddler rushing to pick up something someone has dropped and hand it back. They care not just with what others think, but with what others think about them. Their reputations as developmental psychologists were learning just how other regarding human babies are. Neuroscientists using new baby friendly technologies made a surprising discovery. With a soft wired cap slipped on the baby's head, neural activity was detected in the medial prefrontal cortex long before most neuroscientists even assumed it was active. Yet as babies process eye gaze actions, deciding who to trust, emulate and love, little humans process their physical world in much the same way other apes do. Nothing much different there. It's in these Social realms where they really differ. Inner subjective sensibilities starting to emerge early in life, right along with targeted social smiles. Brain circuitry that evolved to help babies elicit care and survive prepared our ancestors to mature into adults, able to communicate and cooperate in new ways, whether constructing shelters or processing and sharing food or. Or eventually one day collaborating with widely dispersed others in order to send robots to Mars tens of thousands of years from now, assuming Homo sapiens aiiensis is still around, whether on this planet or some other, I have no doubt that they will be bipedal symbol generating apes, technologically proficient in ways we can't even dream of yet. But will they still be human in the way we think of humans today, interested in the thoughts and emotions of others, eligible for mutual understanding? That's going to depend on how, by whom, or what they are reared. Thank you.

[Sarah Hrdy]

Don't go anywhere. We'll be right back after a short break. So I learned that when you're working with a scientist, a serious scientist, they are very conscientious about exactly how they phrase things. And so my efforts to make her talk more ready for a generalist audience rather than an audience full of academics, had to accommodate her very high bar for specificity. And there couldn't be a single overstatement. And so, you know, you have that situation where you're trying to marry something fairly detailed with a very general audience, especially the online audience, who are bouncing around in the middle of their ordinary day. And then they might fall into this talk. You don't want to lose them at the top by going into excruciating detail about the history of Homo sapiens. The work with Sarah was really about what is the basic scaffolding that we can offer at the top, such that we can get into this bigger, weirder question of what defines our species in terms of how we interact and develop, and then how might that change and create, like, a new species? So for all of you who weren't there, I want you to know that the audience gasped when she showed this slide of a little baby making eye contact with a mombot. Because right before that, she had set up this very basic truth, which is babies will respond to whomever responds to them, whether that person or that thing is man or machine.

[Elise Hu]

You know, the mother infant bond is so basic. And the most powerful emotion in all of nature, I think, is an infant's desire to be close to the caretaker. And of course, that is most often the mother, because she's right there and she's nursing and so forth. But it turns out that babies can come to love anyone if they are responsive. And right there, right from birth, they. They attach to whoever is responsive and caretaking, and those people come to love them. So is that a family tie? It. It has to do with the context in which the emotions are elicited.

[Sarah Hrdy]

Couldn't it be that three speakers later the AI guy would say, right, and if it's up for grabs, if it's not written in the code of our beings, then the number one slot could be taken by Mombot?

[Elise Hu]

It easily could be. But would we want that because.

[Sarah Hrdy]

Because the Mombot has no perspective?

[Elise Hu]

Yes. Or you could. You could instill one in it, but I find that very scary.

[Sarah Hrdy]

But you were saying, if a nerdy tech bro is going to create, what.

[Elise Hu]

Does he know about love and human emotions?

[Sarah Hrdy]

What if you were to create the Mombot, someone who does know about love and human emotion?

[Elise Hu]

You couldn't pay me enough to do it.

[Sarah Hrdy]

What if someone just like you would be. It would be amenable to the job. The other huge takeaway I had from Sarah is that, of course, once you settle into her talk, you're thinking, we are always changing. We're always moving into a slightly different version of our species. And so it helps to know what is the defining feature. And in Sarah's telling, it's being other regarding. It's the only way that we could ever survive. But to my ear, other regarding sounded kind of beautiful and special and something that we should be preserving. When I listen to you, the thing I feel lifted by is that this other regardingness is, to me, deeply encouraging.

[Elise Hu]

It is, but it's not what everybody wants in a different society. They want a society full of shameless warriors who are not burdened by having to care about somebody else who are just out there doing it. And they are social contexts where that would be advantageous. You know, when I started writing Father Time and was thinking of more male care, I was so much more optimistic about where we were headed than I am today.

[Sarah Hrdy]

Sitting here today, do you have a sense of what would be lost?

[Elise Hu]

I think babies are constantly probing. I think it's about who's going to help me. How do I ingratiate myself with this other human. This is laying the neural groundworks for being a cooperative person later on to understand the intentions of others, coming to trust others and learning that you can trust others or not. So this is where this comes from. And empathy is an excellent tool if we're able to see things from someone else's point of view, which you were asking me to do all the time in communicating with this audience, you're saying, well, try to see it from, from their perspective. That's what we could lose. I would hope that a message would be society has a responsibility for shared care and group care.

[Sarah Hrdy]

I mean, this is a talk to linger on, that it's as simple as responsiveness, that that's what the connection the attachment is based on is who is responding to this baby. That is really a stop and stare moment for me. Like we have to look at that squarely, accept the fact of it, and operate accordingly.

[Elise Hu]

To say that I'm worried about it is true, but, you know, I'm 80 years old, I'm a dinosaur. I. I'm not adapted to this world. It's changing. So in the beginning of Mother Nature, I said, you know, here I. This mammal with the ovaries of an ape and the brain of a Homo sapiens trying to adapt to a world that's changing fast. Well, guess what? Quarter of a century later, it's changing even faster. And every day is a source of new frustration for me. And I feel less. I feel dehumanized.

[Sarah Hrdy]

Because if we set up a bunch of AI robots that give a baby and a toddler everything he or she wants along the way, we will for sure be changing the species. And that is a big deal.

[Ted Talks Daily Host]

I'm worried because the products of AI are so addictive and we may lose something and not even realize what we're missing enough to. To rebel. That's the scary part. But there were some high tech guys who really seemed to think that more technology was the answer, right? And I wonder if they realize the power of what they're dealing with.

[Sarah Hrdy]

The thing you taught me is that we are an other regarding species that is like this definitional thing about us. So if that's true, could we count on it to save us from this?

[Ted Talks Daily Host]

Like, no, because it's not an answer.

[Sarah Hrdy]

Damn it, Sarah, that's not the answer I was looking for. I want to end this on a positive. So over the course of this whole project, my little cohort of speakers, these six people really fell in love with each other. You were so lazy, though, the entire.

[Ted Talks Daily Host]

Way, shepherding it through and everything.

[Sarah Hrdy]

It was just so great. I mean, there was so much support and love backstage for one another. And Sarah was like the leader, you know, she was like the emotional moral center of Team Corrigan. We need to make sure we need merch. We need, like, inner fish, inner mother. Like, there's so many lines that have come up. That would make, like, the best bumper stickers and T shirts. And she was so gracious about saying how much she learned from the rest of us. And I think that is really humanity at its best. Sarah, you mischievous. You're like 18 at heart. Don't you feel that way?

[Ted Talks Daily Host]

Until I looked at that lady. But yeah.

[Sarah Hrdy]

So thank you for bringing so much credibility and background and history and research into our team.

[Ted Talks Daily Host]

And thank you, Kelly, for your meaningful mentoring and for really creating this community among us, which is kind of an art.

[Sarah Hrdy]

You.

[Ted Talks Daily Host]

You brought out our humanity. You reminded us, oh, you're human.

[Sarah Hrdy]

And that's it for today. Come back tomorrow for a conversation and a talk with a woman who has led two very different lives. Denini Kimisara Sikar, TED Talks Daily is part of the TED Audio Collective. This episode was produced and mixed by Lucy Little, edited by Alejandra Salazar, and fact checked by the TED research team. The TED Talks Daily team includes Martha Estaponos, Oliver Friedman, Brian Greene, and Tansika Sangmar Nivan. Additional support from Emma Taubner and Daniela Valoraizo. I'm Kelly Corrigan, guest host of TED Talks Daily, here for a special week of content around the topic of AI and family life. Thanks for listening and please join me at my podcast, Kelly Corrigan wonders wherever you listen to podcasts. I'll be back tomorrow. Thanks for listening.

[Elise Hu]

We'll do that. That's no problem.

[Sarah Hrdy]

Although, I mean, I should just say, Sarah, we could change your life here with Google Docs. Okay, I'm gonna send you one just in case you love it instantly.

[Elise Hu]

Okay. Okay. But we will send you the word docs to make it your life easier. So you're not adapting to a new format just for us. And then. And we can meet anytime in between in between those drafts.

[Sarah Hrdy]

So.

[Elise Hu]

So the ideal situation would be kind of like three great back and forths on your draft before March. And I will probably end up thinking, why didn't I learn these life skills from Chloe and Kelly soon age 80 before I learn them. But okay.

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[Kelly Corrigan]

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[Sarah Hrdy]

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