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- Marc Andreessen said he taught his 8-year-old how to use ChatGPT after it became popular last year.
- The billionaire said his son was unfazed by the tech and he believes the AI will grow up with him.
- Andreessen described ChatGPT as an "ally" that will make his son as "successful as possible."
Billionaire investor Marc Andreessen said he introduced his 8-year-old son to ChatGPT shortly after the AI chatbot made headlines late last year.
Andreessen, the cofounder of the VC firm Andreessen Horowitz, said during an interview on The Joe Rogan Experience that while he limits his son's screen time, he also wants him to know how to use technology and stay up to date with it
"I set a time aside and I sit him down on the couch and I was like, 'Okay, there's this amazing thing that I'm going to give you.'" the Andreessen Horowitz cofounder told Joe Rogan of the first time he introduced his son to ChatGPT. "This is like the most important thing I've done as a father that I've like brought fire down from the mountains and I'm gonna give you AI and you're gonna have AI your whole life to be with you and teach you things."
Andreessen said he was astonished when his son seemed unfazed by the technology.
"It's a computer. Of course you ask it questions and it gives you answers. What else is it for?" Andreessen said his son told him.
The VC founder said that he believes younger generations will have a completely different view on AI and it will be "completely normal" for them. Andreessen described AI as an "ally" or "basically a partner whose goal in life will be to make them as happy and satisfied and successful as possible."
"The A.I. that my 8-year-old is gonna have by the time he's 20, it's gonna have had 12 years of experience with him," he told Rogan. "And so it will have grown up with him. It will know everything he's ever done. It will know everything he ever did well. It will know everything he did that took real effort. It will know what he's good at. It will know what he's not good at. It'll know how to teach him. It'll know how to correct for whatever limitations he has. It'll know how to maximize his strengths. It'll know what he wants."
During the podcast, the billionaire showed Rogan how ChatGPT can cater its responses to different age groups and even attempt to explain quantum mechanics to a 3-year-old.
Unlike many voices in tech, Andreessen doesn't view artificial intelligence as a threat to humanity. He told Rogan he believes people typically frame new technology around the potential dangers it presents instead of its advantages. And he's expressed a similar sentiment in the past. Last month, the billionaire wrote in a blog post that the technology can "make everything we care about better."
Andreessen and his VC firm have invested in a wide variety of AI ventures, including ChatGPT creator OpenAI. Earlier this year, Andreessen Horowitz led a $150 million funding round for Character.AI, a chatbot startup that is valued at $1 billion.