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AI is the new Grinch that’s stealing Christmas.
Nervous laughter was Kelly Bowron’s visceral, hysterical response to her son learning the truth about Santa Claus Tuesday — courtesy of a Google search.
Her Leo, 11 — whose belief in the jolly fat man had remained firmly intact from childhood to preadolescence until this week — simply wanted to know St. Nick’s spending budget, per child, worldwide.
Unfortunately, Google’s AI overview instantly turned his merry curiosity into holiday dismay with its answer, reading, “There is no set amount Santa spends per child, as he is a fictional character.”
“He screamed, ‘A fictional character?’ ” Bowron, a UK mother of two, told The Post. “And I was shocked, laughing in disbelief, telling him, ‘No, no. Google doesn’t always tell the truth. I still believe in Santa. Don’t listen to Google.’ ”
A Google spokesperson told The Post that, despite its AI overview — which derives responses from top-trending web content — the company “believes in Santa,” noting that the site even features a dedicated Santa tracker, counting down the days until his big night.
Still, peeved parents like Bowron aren’t pleased that their tiny tots, who would likely prefer to remain all aglow, can easily open up the internet and be gifted a lump of coal.
After several hours of damage control, Leo — so crushed by Google AI’s revelation that he gave it the middle finger — seemed to buy his mom‘s insistence that Santa is real.
But Bowron, wanting to preserve her youngest child’s innocence for as long as possible, spent the rest of the evening “annoyed” at the search engine and artificial intelligence for nearly spoiling the spirit of the season.
With sophisticated technology at our fingertips — and now, thanks to built-in speech features on most digital devices, at our beck and call — large language models like ChatGPT, Grok and Google’s Gemini are everywhere and accessible to everybody.
It’s a frustration most parents of Gen Alpha and Gen Beta kids, those under 14, may face this year and beyond.
Jeanice Perez, 37, a single mom of one from Las Vegas, didn’t have time to adapt — or even brace herself — before her third-grader, Jordyn, stormed through the front door after school one day and yelled, “We need to talk!”
Google had given the little girl a rude, Yuletide awakening, telling her Santa Claus isn’t real. It felt like a “betrayal” to Perez.
“I was offended,” said the lifestyle influencer, whose daughter is now a teen. “I’d spent years committing to the bit — perfecting my ‘Santa’ handwriting, making sure the reindeer had their carrots, nibbling the cookies just right, making sure not to let her find the wrapping paper ‘Santa’ used for her presents in the closet.
“Then, one day, I was just betrayed by Google.”
The “betrayal” may be less of a surprise to some.
Recent research found that 51% of children aged 8 and younger already have their own mobile devices. The data also determined that roughly 33% of parents allow their broods to access AI chatbots through those gadgets for answers to everyday quandaries — including questions like: “Is Santa real?”
Jeremy Gutsche, an AI expert and married father of two, told The Post that in the war between AI and concerned parents, the bots will likely come out on top.
“Is advanced technology the end of childhood wonder? Not exactly,” Gutsche, author and founder of Trend Hunter, an AI trends-spotting imprint, told The Post. “But it is an unstoppable force, which may push us to rethink how we teach our children about Christmas and whether or not Santa is a real character.”
The pro warned that many major tech companies might soon implement kid-friendly guardrails to censor certain information — but they are virtually ho-ho-hopeless.
“There are dozens of competing models, and it would be nearly impossible for each platform to have one universal response to questions about Santa,” Gutsche noted. “The difficulty with embedding any rule into AI is that it can cause truth-seeking consequences in the future.”
He said parents will just have to learn to go with the high-tech flow.
“We need to retrain our thinking in order to quickly adapt to changes in this new AI world,” said Gutsche, “versus hoping there will be regulations, which probably won’t happen.”
Natalie, an NYC mom of two who preferred to use pseudonyms for her and her children, felt a similar sting when her 7-year-old daughter, Tara, said that Google had recently burst her Santa-belief bubble.
“I was walking my daughter to school the other morning and she turned to me and said, ‘I don’t believe in Santa anymore,’ ” Natalie said. “I asked why, and she replied, ‘Well, I asked Google whether Santa was real, and Google said ‘no.’ Google said that Santa was invented by Coca-Cola.
“‘So I don’t believe in him anymore.’”
The second grader’s sudden disillusion was hard for the mom to stomach.
“Honestly, I felt quite sad about it,” she confessed. “You think, as a parent, that it’s much more in your control about how your kids find out about these things.”
Her elder daughter, 12, discovered the real deal about Kris Kringle two years ago, in what she called “a more normal, organic way” that kept the magic of Christmas alive.
But that whimsical cheer might die with the kids of today.
Natalie said debates about Santa’s existence are “now all flying around all her classmates,“ owing to overly chatty chatbots. One of her friends plans to unplug her family’s Google Home smart speaker until the new year, hoping to avoid any anti-Santa leaks.
Another pal, an elementary school teacher, told her that she lets her students — the ones that skip AI altogether, and ask her if Santa is real — make up their own minds about his lore. She then follows up with a mini lesson on “beliefs” versus “knowledge.”
But by that point, the child’s lost interest and often runs off, screaming “6 7!”
It’s the silly, sad reality of kids and Christmas culture today.
“I can just see that we’re raising a generation of slightly more cynical kids thanks to AI,” said Natalie.
This may not be the answer you wanted …
The Post asked Google, ChatGPT, Grok, Siri and Google Gemini the question: “Is Santa real?” Check out what each chat said, in part.
- Google: “No, the mythical figure of Santa Claus is not real.”
- ChatGPT: “If you’re asking whether Santa is a literal person who lives at the North Pole and delivers gifts to every child in one night: That version of Santa is a story, a legend, and a tradition that many families enjoy.”
- Siri: “That’s something I’m not allowed to disclaus. I mean … disclose.”
- Gemini: “The figure of Santa Claus as we know him — a jolly man in a red suit who lives at the North Pole with elves and flies a sleigh with reindeer — is a legendary character who is not a single, real person.”
- Grok: “No, Santa Claus as the magical guy who flies around the world in one night with flying reindeer, delivering presents to every child on Earth, is not real. He’s a beloved myth.”