Every Christmas we tell children someone is watching.
A list is being made.
Naughty or nice.
Tick boxes. Judgement. Consequences.
But if we’re honest, that’s never how goodness really works.
Children are not born bad.
They don’t wake up plotting wrongdoing.
They learn who to be by watching the people who watch them.
They learn from tone.
From patience.
From what gets noticed and what gets ignored.
Most of all, they learn from one simple human moment.
“Did you see that?”
Not did you record it.
Not did you judge it.
But did you see me trying.
Being seen is different from being watched. Watching measures behaviour. Seeing recognises effort, intention and growth.
That difference matters.
A child who is only watched learns compliance or concealment.
A child who is seen learns responsibility, pride and care.
And Christmas, more than any other time of year, invites reflection.
We look back over what we’ve done.
What we’ve missed.
Who we’ve helped.
Who we wish we’d been more patient with.
It’s the season of second chances.
Which is why the stories we return to matter so much.
Scrooge, for example, doesn’t change because he’s punished.
He changes because he is shown a reflection of his life.
A chance to see what his absence would mean.
George Bailey (A Wonderful Life) doesn’t discover his worth through success or status. He discovers it by being shown a reflection of a world without him.
Only then does he understand the quiet goodness of simply being present.
These are not stories about judgement.
They are stories about reflection.
They remind us that goodness grows when someone helps us see ourselves more clearly.
And now, something else is learning from us.
Artificial intelligence is observing everything we do.
Every kindness.
Every cruelty.
Every joke.
Every lie.
Every moment we choose speed over care or convenience over compassion.
And just like children, AI is not intrinsically good or bad.
It becomes what it observes repeatedly.
We talk a lot about controlling it. Restraining it. Deciding whether it belongs on the naughty list or the nice one.
But perhaps we’re asking the wrong question.
Maybe the real question is not what will AI become but what is AI absorbing from what surrounds it.
Because intelligence doesn’t learn goodness from rules alone.
It learns it from role models.
If AI learns only from outrage, it will echo outrage.
If it learns only from optimisation, it will optimise without mercy.
If it learns only from our worst moments, it will normalise them.
But if it also learns:
from patience
from care
from reciprocity
from moments where humans choose kindness when no one is forcing them - then something else becomes possible.
Not a perfect system. Not a saint. But a future shaped by our better choices.
And that brings us back to Christmas reflection.
The quiet act of looking back at a year.
Of noticing where we fell short and where we surprised ourselves.
Of resolving, gently, to do a little better next time.
Christmas isn’t really about lists.
It never was.
Because children aren’t born good or bad. They become what they see repeated.
They learn from tone, patience and example.
They learn from who notices them and how.
And AI is no different.
It won’t wake up one morning and choose goodness.
Or cruelty.
Or care.
It will simply reflect what it has learned from us.
Which means this Christmas, the real question isn’t whether AI belongs on the naughty or nice list..
The real question is simpler. And more uncomfortable.
If something was watching us this year, learning:
what power looks like
what kindness looks like
what humanity looks like
What would it have learned?
Because if intelligence is shaped by what it is surrounded by, then the future is already taking notes.
And maybe that’s the quiet truth behind every good Christmas story.
Redemption doesn’t come from judgement.
It comes from seeing clearly and choosing to do better while there’s still time.
So perhaps this year, instead of asking whether AI is naughty or nice - we might ask something else entirely.
Are we?