A young boy sits across from a robot holding a kid – a baby goat. His fascinated gaze meets the blankness of the machine’s obscured face; his eyes are shut, guard lowered, in a gesture of trust. But is that trust earned? Or even well-placed?
Today, the lives of adults and children alike are bound up with machines of all kinds and, increasingly, with artificial intelligence. We depend on them for everything: social connection, learning and, for some, even art. Many believe the dependency has gone a touch too far.
Over the past few years, calls have grown louder for governments to ban social media for those under 16. Australia has already legislated and parts of Europe look set to follow. It is too early to judge how such restrictions will play out, but few dispute that young people need time for offline experience and in-person friendship.
As technology tightens its grip, something quieter is being crowded out. Young people no longer have the space to daydream, to let their imaginations wander without external stimulation. Plugged in through every waking hour, their thoughts have little room to form independently.
A 2023 paper published by the National Centre for Biotechnology Information made the case plainly: boredom can drive people towards novel experiences, new interests and self-directed growth – whether that means picking up a book, learning an instrument, or simply taking a longer walk.
Then there is the question of art. Proponents of AI argue it will enrich the cultural experience – making research easier, encounters more interactive. Salim Alchurbaji, an AI start-up founder, envisions a future in which visitors “should be able to take a photo of a QR code and chat with the artwork and ask in what circumstances it was created and how the artist felt”.
However, for this possibility to materialise, research needs to be conducted, trial runs made and visitor experiences measured. Thus, even when AI is let into the world of art, the role of humanity cannot be diminished, let alone eliminated. Take Middle Eastern art – no algorithm can analyse or interpret what human scholars have not first uncovered from non-digitised archives and personal letters.
Which brings us back to the painting. What kind of relationship will this child have with technology, particularly technology as advanced as what he faces? How do we ensure that people of all ages can harness new tools effectively while managing the risks? And how do we protect nature – embodied here by the goat – in the midst of this technological race?
The International Energy Agency projects that AI energy demand will reach 945 terawatts by 2030, about 3 per cent of total global energy consumption. The environmental consequences of that surge may not yet be imaginable.
The artist behind the painting, Iyad Rahwan, is well-placed to sit with these questions. Raised in Abu Dhabi, Rahwan is also director of the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin – a thinker who moves between the canvas and the research lab.
“Our new generation will grow up in a world with not only nature,” he tells me, “but also AI entities that are equally fascinating. It will be up to them to figure out how to navigate such a world, and how to build it. They will face many ethical questions, and they may have to make trade-offs. At the moment, their imagination should guide them about what world we should create, so that the machines can help us – and nature – thrive.”
For that imagination to flourish, young people need time both with technology and without it. And, unlike the boy in the painting, they would do well to keep their eyes open.
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