My Child, the Algorithm

Summary

A playful and provocative exploration of queer single parenting and love, in conversation with an AI algorithm and a toddler



My Child, the Algorithm describes encounters between a single parent, a curious, verbal toddler, and a language-producing algorithm. Like a male seahorse, Hannah Silva carried a baby made from her partner's egg. But when she gave birth, her partner left, and Hannah found herself navigating life alone with her child, surviving on United Kingdom universal credit, humor, and buckets of imagination.



As she navigates friendship, dating, and life as a queer parent in London, Hannah begins cowriting with an open-source language model, a precursor to ChatGPT, feeding the algorithm language and receiving language in return. Through her interactions with her toddler and the algorithm, expressions of humor, play, and insight begin to emerge. With the help and disruption of these unreliable narrators, Hannah deconstructs her story and constructs a new one, unraveling what she has been taught to want, finding alternative ways of thinking, loving, and parenting today.