I’ve been quite sick this last week, so I have been delegating my parenting responsibilities to Disney . While my kids mainlined Tangled and whatever else the algorithm dictates, I’ve been folded into the corner of the couch, trapped in an internet black hole. The journey started innocently enough. Who voices Tangled’s hero, Flynn Rider? (Answer: Zachary Levi - weird dude). It ended hours later in some Subreddit where people were having pretty spirited discussions about the age gap between Rapunzel (18) and Flynn (27). Through it all, my kids have barely stirred.

My assigning of family duties may be cause for concern, but it is also gloriously modern. Just as algorithms now raise children, robot vacuums roam houses, music is written by machines and people are outsourcing romantic relationships to AI chatbots. This last intrusion into analog life, more than most, has caused an avalanche of hand-wringing and moral panic that, to my mind, is completely unjustified. The AI chatbot partner is an underappreciated........

© The Sydney Morning Herald