The best gifts are not the most expensive or the most visually appealing, but rather those with the most meaning behind them.
Be it a memento, a homemade craft, or even a simple gesture, it truly is the thought that counts.
Hence why some people tend to be hurt by gifts that have no real thought or meaning behind them.
Especially when they come from family.
Redditor Opposite_Alarm_1387 was soon approaching an important milestone, which required some involvement from her mother.
However, the original poster (OP) was less than thrilled to see that her mother’s involvement was on the half-hearted side.
When the OP confronted her mother on this issue, she found herself being called a “sh*t daughter”
Unnerved by her mother’s reaction, the OP took to the subReddit “Am I The A**hole” (AITA), where she asked fellow Redditors:
“AITA for telling my mom that I don’t want her AI-written letter for my graduation ceremony?”
The OP explained why she was frustrated by her mother’s dependency on artificial intelligence:
“I (17 F[emale]) participated in this year-long program, and its graduation ceremony is coming up.”
“One of the things the program has asked parents to do for it is to write a letter, so that the students can have a nice note waiting for them on their chair at the ceremony.”
“Last night, my mom (in her 40s) told me that she was writing the letter as a rhyming poem.”
“For context, my mom uses ChatGPT for absolutely everything.”
“She uses it to write all her emails and texts, and I have seen her use it to write birthday cards and even sympathy messages.”
“If she has a question, she will pull up the app and ask Chat.”
“I have tried multiple times in the past to tell her about the environmentally damaging effects of using AI, but she still uses it.”
“Anyways, after my mom told me what she was working on, my first thought was ‘oh, she’s probably using AI for it’.”
“So, I asked her if she was, and she got very uncomfortable and avoided answering the question.”
“Based on her response, I knew that she was indeed using AI to help write the poem.”
“I immediately told her that I didn’t want her to use AI for something personal like this, and that I didn’t want some Chatgpt-generated, robotically written letter.”
“I told her I would rather have something genuine and made by her, even if it was bad, because it would be better than anything created by a robot.”
“I asked her to please rewrite it without using AI, because I wanted something from her. I ended it by stating that if in the end, she did give me something written by AI, I would throw it out and it wouldn’t mean anything to me (which, now, looking back, might have been a bit too mean?) I didn’t press the issue further after that.”
“Today, I walked into the kitchen with my dad, and she immediately started telling him to write the letter instead of her.”
“She told me, ‘I’m using AI as a guide to ask it for words that rhyme for my poem. Do you still not want my letter?’”
And I told her, ‘Yes, I still don’t want your letter’.”
“I said that because I was thinking that if she only needed help with finding words that rhyme, she simply could have used Google or a rhyming words website that will just give you what you need.”
“But she didn’t.”
“Which is why I suspect that she was actually using AI to write whole sentences of the poem and not just for finding rhyming words.”
“After I told her this, she broke down in tears.”
“She started calling me a ‘sh*t daughter’ in front of my dad and sister (who is 7 years old) and saying that I was ‘full of sh*t’.”
“My dad tried to calm her down by saying that he would write the letter instead, and then my mom retreated to her room.”
“Anyways, that is the whole situation as of now.”
“Am I valid for telling her that I don’t want her letter, because she used AI to write it?”
“AITA in this situation?”
Fellow Redditors weighed in on where they believed the OP fell in this particular situation, by declaring:
- NTA – Not The A**hole
- YTA – You’re The A**hole
- NAH – No A**holes Here
- ESH – Everyone Sucks Here
The Reddit community overwhelmingly agreed that the OP was not the a**hole for wanting a genuine, heartfelt letter from her mother after graduation.
Everyone agreed that not only was it more than reasonable for the OP to want something more heartfelt and personal, but under no circumstances was it alright for her mother to call her a “sh*t daughter”:
“NTA.”
“Sorry that CrapGPT has fried your mom’s brain.”
“I’ve also seen people in my life defend the slop bots over people.”
“Wild thing to witness.”- Rare_Hero
“NTA.”
“The letter should be her pouring her heart out to you.”
“She just cares about sounding clever.”- as_per_danielle
“The program has asked PARENTS to write a letter.”
“They have not asked a COMPUTER to write a letter.”
“Your mother has refused to write a letter.”
“Those are the facts.”
“NTA.”– fly1away
“NTA, and it’s sad your mother thinks glorified predictive text can ever take the place of something a person has taken time and care to write.”
“I don’t know you any more than a chatbot does, but here’s something for your special day:”
“Dear OP, congratulations as you celebrate your graduation, the culmination of a year of hard work and dedication.”
“I’m proud of you, and all you have achieved, and of your values and commitment to genuine humanity in a time of increasing artificiality.”
“May your future be bright and your heart remain open.”
“Blessings to you, from an internet stranger.”- Creative-Ad-3645
“NTA.”
“There are already studies showing how people that use a lot of GenAI lose reading comprehension, memory, and really relevant here: EMOTIONAL REGULATION. I don’t know if your mom was like this before she started using ChatGPT for everything, but it’s certainly not helping.”
“There is nothing personal about having ChatGPT write someone a poem.”
“It’s a hollow gesture requiring minimal effort, and the secondary harm it does to the environment is just an added nightmare.”- tristanitis
“NTA.”
“Not at all.”
“I think you may have tried nicely to get her to understand how you felt about it but she pushed the boundary.”
“Good for you for standing up for yourself and keeping your integrity.”
“I’m very proud of you.”
“I wish I had had that kind of self-confidence, sense of self-worth, and courage to maintain it that you do at 17.”- Fromdustcomesdreams
“NTA.”
“How DARE she call you a sh*t daughter!”
“That is absolutely disgusting.”- Anxious_Reporter_601
“NTA.”
“A letter that didn’t come from her heart is meaningless. It’s better to have nothing.”
“She’s so brainrotted she’s even outsourcing the parts of her life she should enjoy.”- cydril
“NTA.”
“Unless she wants all her birthday cards and Mother’s Day cards to be addressed to Claude, she better stop using it.”- MayhemWins25
“NTA.”
“If she can’t be bothered to write something genuine herself, the least she can do is not insult you by using AI to write something fake.”- boopbiffsnose
“NTA.”
“AI is garbage.”
“My Mom was bitching at me in texts one day, and when I called her out, she wrote an apology using ChatGPT.”
“I’m in the position where I was able to block her for two weeks because I was pissed.”
“Sorry you’re going through this, OP.”
“You deserve a handwritten letter, not AI slop.”- grheart
“NTA.”
“You are in no way a sh*t daughter, and I hope your mom feels shame for a while over saying that.”
“Your mom has simply rotted away her brain too much with AI garbage and is the same as a drug addict whose brain is being damaged by their substance.”
“I was weirdly in a similar situation at my graduation, not AI but mentally unstable mom, and even though I begged my dad to do the graduation note (which went in the yearbook) he still let my mom wear him down so she’d do it.”
“It went absolutely terribly.”
“Stick to your guns and don’t let her guilt you into accepting her slop.”
“She’s an AH mom, and I feel horrible your younger sister will spend most of her childhood with an AI zombie.”
“Be the example she needs to see about standing up to your mom about this.”
“And congratulations on your upcoming graduation!”- MustangTheLionheart
The OP later returned with an update, sharing where things currently stood between her and her mother:
“Thank you all for your replies and the support. Please know that I read every single comment.”
“As of now (two days later from originally posting), the situation has kind of been resolved?”
“My mother has apologized for using AI, and I think now she mostly understands the difference between genuinely writing something vs generating it (after I took your guys’s advice to really explain it to her).”
“She still has not said sorry for calling me a ‘sh*t daughter’, though, which is why I say kind of been resolved.”
“My dad has also committed to writing the letter instead of her, and my mother has not brought it up since.”
The OP’s mother isn’t the only person who uses AI to make her life more convenient.
Most people, however, like to show their nearest and dearest how much they matter to them with gestures from the heart, not from the internet.
It’s a pretty sad situation indeed when a mother needs to use AI to tell her daughter how much she loves her, but can tell her she’s a “sh*t daughter” without a second thought…