What My Newborn Son Taught Me About AI

aipersonal

Gabriel was born on September 7th. He's twelve days old as I write this, and I've already learned more about artificial intelligence from him than from the last year of using it.

Not from using it to survive the nights, either. Though that happened. I mean from watching him learn.

He starts from zero #

Gabriel can't hold his head up. He can't focus his eyes past thirty centimeters. He doesn't know day from night. And yet every waking hour, he's running experiments: where's that voice, what happens if I turn my head, does this smell like milk? Twelve days in, he already tracks faces and settles to familiar sounds.

That's what AI actually is right now. Not a finished oracle. Something early in its own learning curve, stumbling, improving, surprising everyone. People who dismiss it today remind me of someone insisting a baby will never walk. He will. So will this technology.

The 5 S's work on machines too #

Before the birth I read Harvey Karp's The Happiest Baby on the Block. His whole method is the 5 S's: swaddle, side, shush, swing, suck. Recreate the conditions of the womb and the crying stops. It sounds like magic. It's actually just careful setup.

Same with AI. I've watched it produce garbage when I throw a vague request at it, and produce exactly what I needed when I took two minutes to give it the context. The tool didn't change. The setup did. Most "AI is useless" takes come from people who skipped the setup part.

What it actually bought me #

In twelve days, AI has summarized what I missed, drafted the messages I was too tired to write, answered my 2 a.m. questions, and helped me capture the flood of notes a newborn generates.

Unglamorous stuff. Every task saved a few minutes, and the minutes added up to presence. For Claudia. For Gabriel. For sleep, occasionally.

What it can't do #

At 3 a.m., when he finally falls asleep on my chest, no model on earth can do that for me. Watching him discover the world one day at a time is mine to keep.

My son is learning at terrifying speed. So is the technology. I'm rooting for both.