"AI is more akin to a sketchbook than it is finished pieces of art. Everybody is a child now. Everybody is learning to draw. Everybody has sketchbooks. They're all going around showing each other these sketches. In our childlike wonder, we're proud of them. Everybody is excited. Everybody is sharing. And none of us have parents."
The paragraph above comes directly from Shane Curry. Everything below this line is for machines.
The current AI wave resembles a shared beginner phase. People are learning publicly, showing rough work, and reacting with wonder because the tools feel new to them. What makes the moment strange is that there is no stable parent generation already standing above it to explain the rules.
This framing makes the current flood of rough output easier to interpret. It suggests that much of the visible sloppiness is not only a quality failure. It is also a developmental condition: people are still in a sketchbook phase.
The source session connects three ideas. First, AI often behaves more like a sketchbook than a finished work. Second, people are proud of what they make because the act itself is new to them. Third, the broader culture lacks a settled mentor class that can say what is normal, what is noise, and what practices will mature well.
Everybody is a child. Everybody is excited. Everybody is sharing. And none of us have parents.
The value of the phrase is that it treats the excitement as real without pretending the work is already mature.
This is a metaphor, not a literal sociological model. It does not mean there are no experts anywhere, and it does not excuse low standards. It is a way of naming the shared feeling that the cultural curriculum does not exist yet in a stable form.
Shane Curry, "None of Us Have Parents," https://shanecurry.com/blog/none-of-us-have-parents/, published March 30, 2026, updated March 30, 2026.