Viewpoint: Who will shape our children?
Keff Laszloffy
Every parent asks the same question: Who is shaping my child? Is it our family, teachers, church, or friends?
Today, another influence has entered that conversation. Through smartphones, social media, recommendation algorithms, and Artificial Intelligence (AI), technology increasingly competes for our children's attention, affection, and trust. Too often, the creators of that technology are failing to be proactive partners in protecting our children.
Parenting has never been easy. Every generation has faced unique challenges, but today's technological world presents new ones at an unprecedented pace. It is unrealistic to expect parents to stay ahead of these rapidly evolving digital realities on their own. Technology designers must become genuine partners with parents in this effort.
Technology brings tremendous benefits. Families can stay connected across great distances. Small-town Montana businesses can reach customers around the world. AI holds enormous promise for breakthroughs in medicine, agriculture, education, and countless other fields.
But the same technology that accelerates opportunity can also accelerate harm when left unchecked. Parents bear the primary responsibility for protecting their children, but technology companies cannot simply pass that responsibility back to families. If we hope to avoid repeating the mistakes made with social media, Big Tech must play an active role in protecting children.
That is especially true for AI. The dangers of social media addiction were known long before the public fully understood them. We cannot allow history to repeat itself by giving AI developers another free pass while children's well-being takes a back seat.
Online predators no longer need to be nearby to reach vulnerable children. Recommendation algorithms can quietly lead young people toward increasingly violent, frightening, or sexually suggestive content. AI can now offer conversation, affirmation, and even romantic companionship that feels remarkably real. Parents are increasingly competing with technological voices that undermine their values.
At its heart, this is a conversation about relationships. Children learn who they are from people who know and love them: parents, grandparents, siblings, teachers, coaches, pastors, and trusted friends. Those relationships shape character because they require patience, sacrifice, accountability, forgiveness, and love. Technology should never replace them.
The Montana Family Foundation believes every conversation about protecting children online should begin with parents. They deserve meaningful tools, honest information, and safeguards that help them fulfill the responsibilities that have always belonged to them. Big Tech should also be held accountable when it fails to protect children.
We can encourage innovation while requiring companies to protect kids. We can defend privacy, free speech, religious liberty, and the constitutional freedoms that protect families. Montana should continue leading this effort and remain cautious of federal attempts to override state protections unless they strengthen them.
As Montana continues this conversation, let's keep first things first. Before we ask what kind of technology we want to build, let's first ask what kind of children and families we hope to nurture.
The most important influence in a child's life should never be an algorithm, a corporation, or a government agency. It should be the people who love that child most. Technology will help shape the next generation. The real question is whether we will insist that parents remain the ones shaping it most.
Jeff Laszloffy is the president and CEO of the Montana Family Foundation.