Parenting With ChatGPT? Sam Altman Says He 'Couldn’t Imagine Without It'

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman grabbed the internet’s attention by revealing how much he leaned on ChatGPT during the early months of parenthood. Speaking on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Altman said

he often used the AI tool for reassurance on everyday parenting questions. “I cannot imagine having gone through figuring out how to raise a newborn without ChatGPT,” he told Fallon, before adding, “Clearly, people did it for a long time — no problem.”Altman, who welcomed a son with his husband, Oliver Mulherin, in February, also admitted he feels “kind of bad” asking ChatGPT basic questions, such as, “Why does my kid stop dropping pizza on the floor and laughing?”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMAg8_yf9zA&t=112s

Altman also recounted a moment at a party when another parent mentioned their six-month-old was already crawling. Concerned that his own son might be behind, he said he rushed to the bathroom and typed a panicked question into ChatGPT, asking whether his child’s development was normal.Describing what he typed into ChatGPT, he said, "I ran to the bathroom and I was like do I need to take my kid to the doctor tomorrow morning?" "Is this okay?"He said the chatbot responded with a “great answer, which was, of course, that his son’s development was normal.” Altman added that the response felt surprisingly personalised. “ChatGPT gets to know you. And, by the way, you’re the CEO of OpenAI -- probably surrounded by all these high-achieving people. Maybe you don’t want to project that onto your kid. You should just relax and he’ll be fine, whatever,” Altman told Fallon, describing the AI’s reply.

How Internet Reacted

Altman’s comments quickly sparked reactions online, with many users trolling him for relying on AI for parenting advice. A user said, "He needs ChatGPT to do something that has literally been done for all of human time."

He needs ChatGPT to do something that has literally been done for all of human time…

— Klay Thompson (@Thompsonklay) December 10, 2025

Another said, "120 billion baby humans have been born in human history…pre-AI anything. What a stunted perspective.""Odd. At least 8 billion people managed to figure it out without AI," another wrote.