An attempt at tech humor by a Silicon Valley engineer has sparked widespread online backlash, after a software engineer joked about training an artificial intelligence (AI) voice model to read bedtime stories to his newborn child instead of doing it himself. Alvin Sng, a software engineer at the San Francisco-based AI research lab Factory, shared an exchange between himself and his wife on X (formerly Twitter) that quickly went viral for all the wrong reasons.According to Sng’s post (first reported by The New York Post), his wife asked him: “Can you read our baby a book?” When Sng suggested playing a standard audiobook instead, his wife pushed back, explaining that a pre-recorded tape would not be in his voice.“Me: I can train a voice model. Parenting hits different when you work in AI,” Sng recounted writing.
Quick backlash across social media
The attempt to make light of automating infant care drew immediate criticism across the platform, with commentators labeling the attitude cold and disconnected. Direct replies criticised the premise bluntly, with one user stating, “Me: You are a horrible father.”Finance professional Andrew Lynch responded to the post calling it “absolute insanity,” adding, “These people’s brains are broken.”Aaron Fritschner, deputy chief of staff for Virginia Representative Don Beyer, characterized the exchange as “extremely bleak.”The exchange also tapped into broader cultural frustration regarding the direction of modern AI. Rather than taking over unpleasant physical labor, critics noted, automated systems are increasingly being directed at creative work and human bonding.“Truly can’t get over the fact that this technology came in and instead of using it to replace fixing toilets or folding clothes, people are using it to make movies and read to their kids,” one user remarked, adding, “This is maybe the saddest thing I’ve read on this site.”Other commentators argued that replacing personal parental presence with algorithmic clones could damage early child development. Influencer Michael Burns warned that relying on such methods risks raising children who are “unable to feel human love.”
Engineer pulls post, agrees to drop the topic
Following the mounting wave of criticism, Sng deleted the original post and issued a short follow-up note acknowledging the reaction:“Ok, enough jokes for a while. I’ll go back to reading bedtime stories for now,” he wrote on X the following day.