Angry Lemons

Parenting is a tough old game.  I’m doing my best raising a child in these strange, unnerving times, but I can’t say that I’ve been making all of the right decisions.   It’s clear that I am more “you need to be able to learn to live with technology” as opposed to “love life without it” than other parents, reflecting my own childhood where I basically just watched anything my parents did, the naughty bits flying straight over my head. Watching Blackadder again recently confirmed how many lewd and adult jokes I was completely oblivious to.

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So yes, my approach to the topic of technology recently stood out like a sore thumb in the parents Whatsapp chat about her, very carefully considered and parentally monitored, social media use.

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And now I’ve just introduced my daughter to Chat GPT. In my defence, I was trying to make a point about the joy of humanity, the beauty that lies within our variation and how the contribution that we make in the world is imperfect yet important, but yeah anyway, my point might have become lost within the wider revelation.

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Let me explain.

In school they have been studying Beowulf (yikes) and over the last few weeks they have been writing a story from Grendel’s perspective (the monster) as he entered the hall ‘Heorot’ about to slaughter citizens (this was all completely new to me by the way, having somehow successfully dodged Anglo Saxon literature within my 46 years of life on earth. If you have somehow dodged the tale too, this handy BBC guide can fill you in – KS2 English: Beowulf – BBC Teach).  The aim of the English game was to be as beautifully descriptive as possible, jamming their narratives full of verbs and adverbs, adjectives and complex sentence structures. My kind of task. My daughter opened up her online learning system on my laptop to continue the work that she had been doing in School as homework and I was delighted to see how good it was, chock full of wonderful description amounting to a really quite complex and sophisticated narrative for a 10 year old. “There is no way that I was interpreting and elaborating upon Anglo Saxon literature at that age”, I marvelled.

But as she worked away she suddenly became sad. Had she become distressed by the blood thirsty imagery of her own creation, I pondered?  I comforted her and asked her what was wrong and was surprised by her sad response:

“My readability score has gone down to 92%. It was 98% in School”.

Ever pleased to be of some use, I seized control of the laptop to try to see if I could discern what might have triggered this decline.  I read what she had written to try to identify issues but to me it was full of 10 year old magic. I particularly loved this line that she had written:

“hangry and tired and worn and done”

but suspected that this many ‘ands’ might trigger some kind of writing warning.  Also, maybe using the 21^st Century amalgamation of hungry and angry within her writing was a step too far? But it’s a word that we regularly use to describe her minor nutrition deprived meltdowns, so no, it’s valid, she must use it! The joy of language is that it evolves and it’s bound to be a new addition to the Oxford English dictionary, surely?!  Should she seek to reduce the number of ‘ands’? No! I said the line out loud several times, there was a lovely lyricism and rhythm about it that I wanted to protect “hangry and tired and worn and done”.  It worked.  It needed to stay in.  TO HELL with the readability score!

And that’s when I did what I have a tendency to do often.  Over explain and over elaborate.

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“That readability score is just AI”, I said, “It’s the computer’s interpretation of what good looks like, and the trouble is, their good IS really good, it’s perfectly good, but it hasn’t got the sprinkling of humanity that we are able to give things, the sparkle of connection and emotion that humans bring to the table.  Look, let’s type in “write a narrative about Grendel in Beowulf entering the hall about to kill people” and see what it comes up with and I’ll show you that it writes something practically perfectly, but it won’t contain the joy and beautiful quirkiness that your writing has”.

“Gosh I’m good at this parenting lark”, I mused, as I pressed enter and a remarkably similar essay to the one she had just toiled over in class over several weeks materialised in front of her eyes in seconds.

I looked at her beautiful little face, the revelation and shock and awe and horror was evident all over it.

Erm… see how much better your story is?

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There then followed a big homework distracting discussion about what Chat GPT can and can’t do, an admission that it’s just going to keep getting better and better and we’re not sure what this will ultimately mean for humanity, followed by several rounds of joyful experimentation, my favourite of which was “write a song about angry lemons”.

Angry Lemons by Chat GPT

(Verse 1)

In the orchard where the sun beats down,

Lemons hanging, wearing a frown.

Yellow skins, they’re feeling tense,

Sour vibes, making no sense.

(Chorus)

Angry lemons, full of spite,

Rolling in the shadows, ready to bite.

With their bitter juice, they’ll make you see,

Don’t underestimate their acidity!

(Verse 2)

They’re tired of being sweetened up,

Sick of all the sugar in their cup.

When life gets tough, they start to scream,

Juicy rage in every gleam.

(Chorus)

Angry lemons, full of spite,

Rolling in the shadows, ready to bite.

With their bitter juice, they’ll make you see,

Don’t underestimate their acidity!

(Bridge)

Zesty warriors in a citrus fight,

Turning your day from sweet to night.

When life hands you lemons, don’t just cheer,

Beware the wrath that’s drawing near!

(Chorus)

Angry lemons, full of spite,

Rolling in the shadows, ready to bite.

With their bitter juice, they’ll make you see,

Don’t underestimate their acidity!

(Outro)

So if you find them in your drink,

Just remember what they really think.

Angry lemons, oh what a scene,

A sour twist in the lemonade dream!

Erm.. yes .. Chat GPT isn’t as good as what a human can do, honest.

ARRGGRGH!!

She finished the essay, without Chat GPT’s help I hasten to add, and I sat back and worried about her future and my approach to parenting. I’ve written before about artificial intelligence and my fears about it (Writing about Writing – Sarah Lethbridge’s Lean Blog – Cardiff University) but experiencing it through my daughter’s eyes both confirmed my concerns but also offered me new insights.

Artificial intelligence isn’t going anywhere.  We all use it, whether we realise it or not, in so many different aspects of our lives already.  We have to understand how we use it for good whilst protecting our human ability to progress our own thinking, learning and development.  Whether my approach was wise or not, my daughter and I at least had a meaningful, important discussion about something that she absolutely has to live with and master.

When life hands you lemons, don’t just cheer, beware the wrath that’s drawing near …. and maybe attempt to make some lemonade.