5 'Obedient Habits' Are Ruining Your Child: Building Unbeatable Competitiveness in the AI Era【Book Excerpt】

Central News Agency website. In the wave of AI, what kind of talent is competitive? Are you unknowingly raising your child to be an 'obedient, standardized part' that is easily replaced by AI? Traditional education rewards children for being obedient and pursuing standard answers, filling their schedules and making them fear mistakes. Children 'tamed' in this way become the group most easily replaced in the AI era. Parenting writers believe that the 'human touch' and warmth of craftsmanship, tempered by allowing failure and independent thinking, are the key irreplaceable qualities of humans. For $20 a month, AI can answer faster, more accurately, and more completely than your child. Teaching children only to chase 'correct answers' is the biggest risk in the AI era. Facing this educational revolution, how should we guide our children? YouTuber Kang Hai-rui, a former airline pilot who attracted millions of followers as an 'Eagle Family,' brings the golden three principles of the cockpit—'stabilize, navigate, communicate'—into the family. He believes the true role of parents is to accompany children in learning to fly in the wind during turbulence, establishing a reliable foundation through 'human touch and uniqueness' that programs cannot replicate. If you want to 'successfully' raise a child who is most easily replaced by AI, the method is not difficult. It is even frighteningly simple. You just need to follow these 5 steps: Step 1: Make the child obedient (killing the intent layer). The first trait of a cow is obedience. It doesn't ask why, doesn't challenge your orders, and doesn't doubt whether the path can be changed. It only accepts, executes, and repeats. So if you want to raise your child into a cow: when the child asks 'why,' tell them, 'Don't ask, just do it.' When the child expresses a different opinion, remind them, 'That's too much trouble, it's better to be obedient.' The faster you kill their curiosity, the more they resemble a cow. Because a cow doesn't need to understand, it only needs to obey. In this step, you have successfully killed the first layer of their thermal computing power: intent. They will always wait for instructions, which is exactly the role AI excels at. Step 2: Fill the child's time (killing consciousness). A cow doesn't need to choose, it only needs to be arranged. If you want your child to become a cow faster, give them a full schedule, full tutoring, and full extracurriculars. Don't let them have blank space, don't let them be bored, and don't let them think about 'what I want to do.' In the blank space, children think; in boredom, children create; in choices, children know who they are. But a cow doesn't need these. A cow only needs a predetermined path. In this step, you have successfully paralyzed the consciousness in their value triangle. They have no time to feel meaning, only to keep rushing. Step 3: Make the child fear mistakes (killing the cost layer). A cow's motivation is not curiosity, but 'fear of being hit.' So as long as you treat mistakes as shame, attempts as risks, and failure as a reason to be scolded, the child will quickly learn: 'Don't move, it's best not to take any risks.' When a child gets used to protecting themselves by avoiding mistakes and gets used to putting safety before challenges, they lose their core ability—solving problems on their own. Of course, in the AI era, such children are the easiest to replace. In this step, you have successfully destroyed the second layer of their thermal computing power: cost and resilience. They will lose the ability to take risks and will only be able to walk on paved tracks. Step 4: Make the child believe there is only a 'standard answer' in the world (killing evolutionary ability). Standard actions, standard quality control, standard processes. Everyone does exactly the same thing to improve efficiency. So if you want your child to be a cow, tell them: 'Don't ask why, it's faster to memorize,' 'Do as the teacher says, and your grades will be good,' 'Don't think too much, just write the right answer.' Once a child treats 'imitation' as an ability, 'getting it right' as success, and 'process' as security, they become a perfectly replaceable part, which is a real cow. In this step, you have locked them into the cold computing power (optimization) track. And on this track, AI is the eternal champion. Step 5: Blindly stick to tradition (killing creativity). If you want your child to be the easiest to replace, let them insist: 'Do it the way it was done before,' 'This method was passed down by predecessors, don't change it,' 'New technology is dangerous, don't touch it.' But be careful, what you want them to insist on is only the 'form,' not the 'essence.' Because true tradition (like craftsmanship, apprenticeship) has a soul, which AI cannot replace. But a cow doesn't need a soul, it only needs stubbornness. Have you noticed anything? Back to the essence of the problem: why use the metaphor of a 'cow'? Because the 5 steps of raising a cow are actually the process of 'maximizing cold computing power and zeroing out thermal computing power.' In the Industrial Revolution, the cow was once the core of productivity on the land, until mechanization appeared. Why was the education system born at that time? Not to cultivate creators, nor to cultivate people who can understand systems, but to raise a batch of 'standardized, replaceable, instruction-following workers.' In the industrial age, schools were originally mass-producing cows. The problem is that today is no longer the industrial age, and AI is not the next generation of factory tools, but a super tool. Tools have evolved, but the logic of education has not kept up. The result is that we are rapidly pushing children into the group that is easiest to replace: cows. Industrialized things always have cheaper, more massive, and faster substitutes. But you will find an intriguing thing: in this era where everything can be mass-produced, only 'handmade' things are becoming more and more expensive. Because handmade things do not pursue the efficiency and yield of 'skill' in cold computing power, but the 'art' of thermal computing power—human touch. Human touch is an irreplaceable difference. The works of true successful craftsmen, woodworkers, and traditional dyers are not flawless and highly consistent; some even count as flawed. Their value does not come from perfection, but from 'human.' Handmade things never pursue consistency, but the traces of consciousness. This is the 'warmth of touch' that AI cannot replace. AI generation is based on the 'average' of big data, pursuing the 'perfection' with the highest probability. But human creation is often based on the 'outliers' of perception; those imperfections and emotional fluctuations are where the soul lies. The value of a child does not lie in being flawless like an exam paper, but in the parts of them that 'belong only to them and cannot be generated by AI': their perspective on observing the world; the things they create that predecessors never thought of; the hesitation they show when facing the unknown. These are all the warmth of touch, human touch, things you cannot replicate with processes or generate with models. AI cannot replicate the 'soul' because the soul needs friction, struggle, tears, mistakes, setbacks, and the subtle feelings that only humans understand. What we need to teach children is not how to make answers more standard, but how to make their lives more unique. If a child is trained into a cow, they will move toward a life of steel-mold replication. But if the child retains a 'unique touch,' they will be like that precious handmade product: increasingly scarce, increasingly expensive, and increasingly irreplaceable. Because 'touch' is not innate, it comes from every allowed failure, every listened-to doubt, every respected choice. It comes from the child finding their own rhythm in play; exploring their own methods in setbacks; seeing their own shadow in creation; and shaping their own cognition in the process of understanding the world. AI can memorize faster, calculate more accurately, write better, and see more data than anyone else. But there is one thing AI can never do: human touch. Because only humans think of a story when seeing a cloud, think of a brand-new path when seeing a problem, and are still willing to help when seeing chaos. Handmade products are precious not because they are perfect, but because 'they carry the traces of the consciousness of the person who made them.' Children are the same. If your child eventually becomes a person with a touch, then no matter how fast AI is, how strong the tools are, or how difficult the world is, they will never be the cow that is easiest to replace. Believe me, raising a cow is not difficult. What is truly difficult is the courage to choose not to do so. If you read this and find, 'Oh my god, I am already a cow,' don't panic. A cow can turn back into a farmer, it just takes some time and restarting your thermal computing power. You can: 1. Stop 'just taking instructions' and start 'asking questions.' 2. Stop 'only doing your job' and start 'creating extra value.' 3. Stop 'fearing mistakes' and start 'managing risks.' 4. Stop 'pursuing standard answers' and start 'establishing your own judgment.' 5. Stop 'blindly insisting' and start 'choosing consciously.' 6. Stop 'fearing AI' and start 'learning AI.' From today, you can re-parent yourself: from cow to human; from tool to farmer. (Excerpt authorized by Fong-Zhi, excerpted by Central News Agency; Editor: Zheng Yi-jun)