Home
Giriş Yap
Kayıt Ol
Öğrenme İçeriği
Loading...
Dinleme pratiği
Dinleme pratiği
/
Video
/
TED Talk
/
I Let DaddyGPT Parent My Kids. Here’s What I Learned | Stephen Remedios | TED
I Let DaddyGPT Parent My Kids. Here’s What I Learned | Stephen Remedios | TED
Öğrenme modunu seç:
Altyazıları görüntüle
Kelime seç
Kelimeyi yeniden yaz
Highlight:
3000 Oxford Words
4000 IELTS Words
5000 Oxford Words
3000 Common Words
1000 TOEIC Words
5000 TOEFL Words
Altyazı (172)
0:03
Right now, somewhere in the world,
0:06
a manager is using ChatGPT to write a performance appraisal.
0:12
A spouse is asking a digital companion for the perfect apology text.
0:19
A tired parent is handing over bedtime stories
0:23
to a digital assistant.
0:27
What happens when your children prefer your digital clone to the real you?
0:34
I learned the answer to that question the hard way.
0:39
Last summer, my wife Ray was headed on an overseas trip for a week.
0:44
I dropped her at the airport,
0:46
confident that I could manage our three teenage boys.
0:49
After all, it was just seven days.
0:52
By the sixth or seventh hour, I was collapsing.
0:57
Requests for permission flowed in like a broken dam.
1:00
Can I watch "Wednesday"?
1:04
Can I have some more ice cream?
1:06
Can I play another hour of Fortnite?
1:09
Now Ray and I do an excellent job of balancing the boys’ busy schedules
1:16
and our respective careers,
1:18
but this avalanche of requests was something I had never fielded before.
1:24
By the 24th hour of Ray's departure,
1:27
I was a wreck.
1:29
Lying in bed that night after the 16th "can I?" of the day,
1:35
I did what any thoughtful management consultant would do.
1:41
In the summer of 2024, I decided to create an agentic version of myself.
1:49
The idea was to have an AI agent
1:51
that could say yes, no or go ask your mother.
1:55
(Laughter)
1:57
Now the logic was simple.
2:00
If you did your chores, read for an hour, did math,
2:04
then you got yourself to neutral territory.
2:07
But if you were a really good son and mowed the lawn,
2:10
took the garbage out, did the dishes,
2:13
then you put yourself in a position to get a "yes" from the digital agent.
2:18
I was amazed by what I had created.
2:21
At that time, I thought it was the most sophisticated AI agent in the world.
2:25
I called it “DaddyGPT”.
2:29
And of course, I built in guardrails
2:31
because I knew some ridiculous requests were incoming.
2:37
That evening I gathered the boys after dinner,
2:39
and I made an announcement that would change our family forever.
2:45
"When daddy is in his office, taking work calls,
2:48
do not knock on his door.
2:50
Instead ask DaddyGPT, and whatever DaddyGPT says goes.”
2:57
Now my teens did exactly what you'd expect teenagers to do, right?
3:00
They wanted to break it.
3:03
Ethan went first.
3:05
“Can I have 100 cans of Coke?”
3:09
DaddyGPT responded correctly: “No.”
3:13
Aidan went next.
3:15
"Can we have Chipotle for lunch for all the meals while Mom's away?"
3:20
DaddyGPT spat out an emotionless “nope.”
3:24
Then Dylan went for the jackpot.
3:26
“Can I have $500 for the latest Jordan sneakers?”
3:31
DaddyGPT responded with an emphatic: “Nah fam.”
3:35
While all this was happening, I was beaming.
3:38
I had finally leveled up from “Dinosaur Dad” with the legal pad fossils
3:45
to full-on “Rizzasaurus Rex,”
3:47
finally earning some genuine street cred from my teenage sons.
3:53
The rest of the week, not a single knock on my door.
3:56
DaddyGPT handled all their requests for permission
4:00
with logic and precision.
4:05
But here's where the story takes an unexpected turn.
4:08
A week later, Ray returned.
4:11
She was amazed with the peace and calm
4:13
around the house.
4:15
Little did she know that I'd offloaded
4:17
a significant chunk of my parenting responsibility
4:20
to DaddyGPT.
4:22
When she did figure out what was happening ...
4:26
that’s a story for another day, but --
4:28
(Laughter)
4:29
Suffice it to say, she didn't approve.
4:32
To make matters worse,
4:34
when we were sitting right beside the boys,
4:37
they take out their phones and type their messages to DaddyGPT,
4:42
invalidating us.
4:43
Now things were coming to a head, and I couldn’t let them drift any longer.
4:47
So I confronted Ethan one day and asked him,
4:49
“Hey, champ, why are you going to this bot when I’m right beside you?”
4:54
He didn't even look up from the extra screen time
4:57
that DaddyGPT had just gifted him.
5:00
He shrugged and said,
5:02
“But daddy, DaddyGPT is never busy.”
5:05
And in that moment,
5:07
I realized I had just been outparented by my own algorithm.
5:13
Ethan had come to appreciate the presence of DaddyGPT.
5:16
He was there whenever he wanted it.
5:19
Dylan loved that it mirrored his vibe and energy.
5:23
Authenticity hit home with Aidan.
5:26
He suggested that DaddyGPT sounded more like the dad I wanted to be.
5:35
Raising the eerie question --
5:37
when a flawless replica outdads the original,
5:42
which one of us is more me?
5:47
Now I know some of you are judging me, but just hold on for a moment.
5:53
I'm going to suggest this isn't just my story.
5:56
This is our story.
6:00
Time and again, we embrace technology
6:03
for its promise of speed and convenience
6:07
without pausing to ask: at what cost?
6:13
We've seen the undesired side effects of social media.
6:17
We watch young people spiral into radicalization.
6:20
We've mourned lives lost to suicide after a final conversation with a chatbot.
6:27
The result of algorithms optimized for engagement and profit,
6:33
not joy and well-being.
6:38
We cannot afford to make this mistake with AI.
6:42
This moment is different.
6:44
The tools are more powerful,
6:46
the stakes are higher,
6:48
and the consequences
6:50
if we don't think critically,
6:53
act ethically and lead with humanity,
6:57
could be catastrophic.
7:00
Armed with the personal experience of an AI experiment gone horribly wrong,
7:06
I'm mindful about where I use AI and where I choose not to.
7:12
Be it at work or at home,
7:14
when I'm working with AI now, I ask myself three questions.
7:19
First,
7:21
has a wiser human overseen this decision and approved its output?
7:30
As a rule, I never copy-paste from an AI window
7:34
to a human response window.
7:37
That way, while AI sharpens my thinking,
7:41
it's my judgment that's driving the decision.
7:46
Second,
7:47
do the humans on the other side know that they are listening to an AI
7:53
and have they said yes to that exchange?
7:57
Now there are times I'm busy.
7:58
I travel a lot, and I have a digital version of myself
8:02
for work as well.
8:04
While my team can talk to my digital avatar,
8:09
anything it says comes with the caveat that it's AI output and not me.
8:15
I can't afford for them to confuse one with the other.
8:21
Third,
8:23
what moments of care am I about to automate
8:27
and what might that automation cost me
8:31
and the people I love?
8:34
Feelings and emotions are a strict no-fly zone for AI.
8:39
The people that I care about most have earned me with all my idiosyncrasies,
8:45
flaws and messy feelings.
8:49
After careful reflection and with my marriage on the line,
8:53
I decided to retire DaddyGPT.
8:56
The boys would have to go back to the old system, asking Ray and me.
9:00
You should have seen their faces. Their expressions were priceless.
9:05
You would have thought we'd taken away Wi-Fi and oxygen.
9:09
But much to our delight,
9:12
they've come to appreciate the humanity of their very human parents.
9:19
Turns out, inconsistent, moody,
9:23
slightly forgetful parenting has its own charm.
9:28
Ironically, I learned a thing or two about being a better father
9:34
from the AI part of DaddyGPT.
9:38
To be present,
9:40
to adapt, to be real.
9:44
Now whenever I hear the words “can I,”
9:49
I want for my boys to get me,
9:53
the dad who mispronounces their friends’ names,
9:56
who sometimes says “no” for no good reason,
9:59
who gets increasingly unpredictable as the day goes on.
10:04
But also the dad who tears up at their piano recitals,
10:09
their tennis games and award functions.
10:13
Who cares deeply about the people they are growing into.
10:17
Who pushes them to be the best version of themselves they can be.
10:23
Because here's what I realized that summer.
10:28
Parenting isn't about perfect responses
10:32
or optimal decisions.
10:34
Parenting is presence.
10:37
Messy, flawed, gloriously human presence.
10:44
In a world racing toward digital perfection,
10:48
being authentically, imperfectly human isn’t just important,
10:55
it’s the one thing only we can do,
11:00
and it might just be the most radical act of love
11:04
we have left to offer.
11:07
Thank you.
11:09
(Applause)
