What my kids taught me about the AI divide

Note: Transcripts are automatically generated from episode audio, and are not fully corrected for spelling, grammar, and formatting.

JANA EL KALIOUBY: We’re ready. Amazing.

RANA EL KALIOUBY: We were just talking about all sorts of random things.

JANA: Things that happen when you’re with your family.

RANA: Yes.

ADAM EL KALIOUBY: I’m surprised that neither of you has said you’re worried about AI and loneliness, because that’s one of my main concerns.

RANA: Is that really true? Do you have any friends at your school who have AI boyfriends and girlfriends?

ADAM: No.

RANA: Oh my God, do you? I don’t know that.

ADAM: I don’t. But a couple of weeks ago, none of you guys were home, so I decided to have dinner with Gemini.

RANA: What does that mean?

JANA: No way.

RANA: Oh my God.

JANA: Okay.

ADAM: Well, no.

JANA: I’m like, “Wow, maybe I just have not been as present a sister as I should be.”

RANA: I know. Mom guilt.

JANA: Yeah, I feel sister guilt. I’m just like, it is not a sentient thing that’s able to opine, right?

RANA: Hi, everybody. I am so excited for today’s episode. Around the end of May, I wrote a LinkedIn article called I’m an AI Scientist, My Daughter Refuses To Use AI, and I’m Okay With It. It’s really about how my two kids sit on opposite ends of the AI spectrum and what my role is as a parent. The article went viral on LinkedIn. It had over 150,000 views, many comments, and lots of reshares. I thought it would be fun to bring the kids on the show to react to the article and talk about how they use AI, and how they don’t.

[THEME MUSIC]

I’m Rana el Kaliouby, and this is Pioneers of AI, a podcast taking you behind the scenes of the AI revolution. For today’s episode, it is my pleasure to welcome my two favorite human beings in the world: my two kids, Jana and Adam. Welcome to Pioneers of AI.

ADAM: Hey, everybody.

JANA: Hey. Excited to be here. I feel like the podcast is always recorded from our living room, so it’s exciting to be on the other end.

ADAM: Right.

Copy LinkHow one family embodies the full spectrum of AI adoption

RANA: These poor people are like, “Okay, guys, I’m recording from 2 to 3 p.m. Nobody is allowed to use the kitchen, and you’re not allowed to do this or that.” Anyway, a lot of people know about you because I post about you a lot and talk about you a lot on the show, but I thought it would be fun to give you an opportunity to introduce yourself to everyone. So Jana, how about we start with you?

JANA: Yeah, for sure. I graduated from Harvard a year ago. I studied food anthropology and Middle Eastern studies, and for the past year —

RANA: What is that?

JANA: Food anthropology is really about thinking about the world — everything from politics to economics to the way people connect and understand one another — through food. I ask questions like, “How can we learn about someone else’s life through food?” Or if we ask about recipes they hold near and dear to their heart, what different perspectives can we learn about their lives through that? For the past year, I co-founded and built Menara, which is a culture salon and evening cafe really centered around bringing people together: convening people for art workshops, poetry readings, book talks, and film screenings. We hosted 80-plus events, all of which were completely packed. I think it was a really special way to see that people are truly hungry for in-person connection. I know we’re going to jump into why I think that is and how that all fits into the AI world.

RANA: Can you say something people maybe haven’t heard me talk about — something uniquely you that we don’t know about?

JANA: Ooh. You might have heard this already, but I really love to cook and I love to bake.

RANA: You may already know this, but I am a horrible cook.

JANA: Every week, I’ve been cooking from a different country. I pick a country, go out in the Boston area to a specialized grocery store, buy all the ingredients, and then come home and make it.

RANA: That’s been so fun, you guys. It’s the best. It’s international food night.

ADAM: Mommy, you missed Chinese this week. It was really good.

RANA: I missed it. I was in New York.

JANA: We did Chinese this week. We’ve done Thai and Honduran.

ADAM: Somalian.

JANA: We’ve done Somalian and Filipino.

RANA: You have to tell us.

ADAM: Give us recommendations.

Copy LinkHow Adam uses AI

RANA: You should give us recommendations. What should we do next? That’s fun. All right, Adam, how about you? Tell us a little bit about yourself.

ADAM: I’m Adam. I’m a rising senior in high school at Milton Academy, and I have a lot of different interests. I’m really into history, especially the history of Egyptology. I’m really into math and AI. A couple of weeks ago, I was at the National Speech and Debate Tournament, so I recorded one of my speeches. Right after the round, the first thing I did was give that recording to my AI agent and tell it to analyze my vocal intonation and give me feedback before the next round.

ADAM: I’ve also been teaching financial literacy to immigrant families and kids, and I’ve been using AI to help modify the materials so they’re more understandable, accessible, and engaging. These are just a few of the many ways AI can make you better.

RANA: Can you talk about your interest in Egyptology and AI? Because I think that’s such an… It’s not an obvious marriage.

JANA: Pairing.

RANA: Yeah, pairing.

ADAM: Yeah, for sure.

RANA: Thank you.

ADAM: For some context, last summer I was working at the American University in Cairo.

RANA: Go AUC. It’s my alma mater.

ADAM: Yeah, some connections there. I was searching through the archives of these Egyptian Egyptologists and Egyptian workmen on excavation fields — their diaries, the ledgers from the excavations. Basically, imagine 15 boxes, completely disorganized, with page after page of diary notebooks, ledgers, or letters between different men, and not in the best condition at all.

ADAM: I was trying to answer my question of how the Egyptian antiquity service reflected Egypt’s nationalization project. It was really difficult, especially because although I’m Egyptian, I can’t really read Arabic — especially not handwritten Arabic from that time period. I discovered that if you try to use an AI model like Google Gemini or ChatGPT just by going onto the website, you’re going to get a ton of hallucinations because it doesn’t have the archival context.

ADAM: What I realized is that if you’re able to feed all of the historical and archival context to the AI, like you would give it to a person trying to understand the archive, it can translate and transcribe these documents much more accurately. So I decided to scale this up, and I built a platform I’m calling Tourath, which means heritage in Arabic. It allows a researcher or an institution to upload all of their archival context, and it basically builds a system prompt. Then you can upload your documents and get more accurate transcriptions and translations.

ADAM: I’ve been using it for myself because now I’m able to search through all of these different Arabic documents that I never would’ve been able to look at. That’s what I’ve really been getting into this summer, and I hope to grow it and help some institutions digitize their archival collections, like AUC. We’ll see what happens.

RANA: The TL;DR of all of this is that you use AI for absolutely everything in your life. It’s just there. You have your AI agents doing everything for you. I have a printout of the article. Here’s what we’re going to do. Have you read the article?

ADAM: Yeah.

JANA: Yeah.

RANA: Okay. I want you to highlight things that stand out to you. All right. What stuck with you guys?

ADAM: Sure. Can I go first?

RANA: You want to go first? Sure. You can go first.

ADAM: Okay. In the first paragraph, you say, “If you’re a young person, or any person, lean into it, be playful, and don’t get left behind.”

RANA: Okay.

ADAM: And I really like that. I think you’re hinting at the conclusion you come to at the end of the article, which is, “Lean in and explore.” I actually think that both Jana and I are leaning in, in our own different ways. My version of leaning in is playing with the tools, exploring, and applying them to all the different aspects of my life. I think Jana is leaning in in her own way by leaning into this human side. And that also applies to AI, but it’s the opposite pull from what I’m doing.

Copy LinkHow AI can endanger our critical thinking skills

RANA: Actually, let me ask you both: What is your perspective on AI? Both of you.

JANA: I’m definitely the AI skeptic of the group.

RANA: But what does that mean?

JANA: I think there’s really great promise in AI, and I feel like we talk about it a lot. It’s really obvious, listening to all the different things that Adam is doing and has done with AI, that AI has made him a lot more efficient in creative, really cool, and important ways. But I’m really worried about the ways in which AI is limiting people’s ability to think critically. I think about the writing process, for example, which for me is really important to the work that I do, but is also something I really love doing. I was a writing tutor at Harvard, and I remember when ChatGPT first came out, there was a whole school of thought saying, “Wow, for some of the international students that we see at the writing center, or some of the folks who’ve come from maybe lower-income schools that don’t necessarily have super-strong writing programs, perhaps ChatGPT is going to be the thing that solves that and equalizes the playing field in terms of writing.”

Unfortunately, I think AI has the potential to do the opposite. I think when people rely on AI for writing, a lot of shortcuts come out of that. And what’s so important about the writing process is that it is a process. Through writing, you’re able to develop your own ideas and make new connections.

RANA: And that struggle, or that iteration, goes away, I guess.

JANA: Yeah. Part of the process of writing is articulating your own thoughts and almost toiling over them, then being forced to put those on paper and work through the iterative process of making the best draft possible. I think that ability to communicate with other people and to form one’s own thoughts is really hindered when you go immediately to AI to answer a question or write an essay. At the writing center, people would often tell us, “Oh, can you just write this paragraph for me?” or, “Oh, can you just write my thesis for me?” And the answer was always no, because the point of us as writing center tutors wasn’t to get them an A on an essay or help them cut corners. It was actually to equip them with the tools and skills necessary to write well.

Because in the long term, that’s what matters. It’s not about one essay or one answer. It’s about your ability, in the long run, to really think critically by yourself, put those thoughts on paper, and be able to do something really important with your own thinking. That’s something I worry AI is curtailing.

RANA: So, how that manifests in our family is, sometimes Adam and I will be sitting on the couch using AI to iterate a draft for an email or something, and Jana will walk by and say —

JANA: Why? Use your brain.

RANA: “Why? Use your brains.”

JANA: Yes. Because I think you don’t realize it, but the more you offload to AI—there’s a lot of data coming out that says this too—the more your brain forgets how to do some of these tasks in the first place. There are many times when, in the process of writing an email, you realize, “Oh my goodness, I should also mention this,” or, “I actually had no idea from my own research that this person went to this school. Let me mention that.” I think all of those connections are really important. And I do think that the more AI proliferates and becomes embedded in almost every part of our lives, the more our brains are going to become important again, because everyone now has access to AI. So I think brains are going to go back to being the differentiating factor. And I worry that everyone immediately embracing AI will not have their brains to rely on anymore.

RANA: Do you want to respond to that?

ADAM: Yeah. I feel like I’m torn, because I see what Jana’s saying. If everyone has AI at their disposal, then the people who will differentiate themselves will be the people with the most creative ideas and the most creative brains. But I also feel like the potential of me plus AI is objectively higher than just me. Without AI, I don’t think I would be able to do everything that I do. I think AI improves the quality of my work and expands the possibilities of my projects. So I wonder: Okay, sure, the brain probably will be the differentiating factor, but I don’t see a world where people are not collaborating with AI on an everyday basis, however they do that. I don’t really know the answer, but I’m torn by what you’re saying.

JANA: I wonder, for the next generation of students in general, how they will relate to honesty, integrity, and those questions when AI is so hyperavailable and pervasive in the classroom and beyond.

Copy LinkWhere the line between assistance and cheating gets blurry

RANA: But what do you both think counts as cheating, and what is okay?

JANA: Obviously, it depends on the class expectations. And I do think that guidelines—

RANA: Or at work too.

JANA: Or work expectations.

RANA: Yeah.

JANA: But I personally do feel like passing off AI work as your own is a form of cheating. I think the line is a lot blurrier when you’re using AI to brainstorm. Generally, I think AI is a bad brainstormer. You should, again, use your own brain—

RANA: For editing?

ADAM: Yeah. What about editing?

JANA: I think editing can also be somewhere in the middle, but I do think the editing process, again, is so important to writing and iteration. So if it’s a writing assignment, I would totally say editing is cheating.

ADAM: I think right now, in the current state of the world, especially in school, if you’re submitting something that you used AI in the process of making and you’re not disclosing it, that is cheating under school rules. Just looking at school rules, that’s cheating.

JANA: Similarly, even in school, if you had a parent read over your essay or a friend, you’re supposed to disclose that too, because the whole point is that you’re learning —

RANA: It’s your work.

JANA: And it’s your work, and you need to be evaluated on your learning and growth. So yes.

ADAM: Right. But I think in an ideal world, that won’t be a thing anymore. I think people will start to judge only by the quality of work, and AI will just be used as a tool, like Grammarly, that helps you upgrade the quality of your work. If I have bad punctuation and I use Grammarly, it’s probably not cheating. If I’m bad at doing multiplication tables in my head and I need to solve some really complicated real-world math problem and I use a calculator, that’s not really cheating. In math, if you use a calculator, no one really cares that you disclose it. I think the same thing will happen in other subjects like English, where, okay, if you used AI but your work is still at the quality expected, maybe you’re not going to have to disclose that you used AI. Or maybe you will disclose it, but it won’t be considered cheating.

RANA: One thing I have come to realize through these conversations at home, and now we’re sharing this with the rest of the world, is that I’m very… Obviously, my investment thesis is AI that unlocks human potential and amplifies and augments human ability. So in a way, it’s what you said: The combination of human and AI is really powerful. And that’s what I’m trying to unlock with the founders I back. But you also, Jana, made me realize that there’s almost an anti-thesis: In this world that is so busy with AI, maybe there’s an opportunity to back the analog world, whether that is human-based experiences or human-based connections. So I’m trying to sort through that thesis too.

ADAM: Right. I wonder if a world where there’s more AI also means there’s more space for human connection.

RANA: Right.

JANA: Something else I was thinking about with this idea of being playful with AI is that this framing maybe doesn’t necessarily address some of the harmful impacts of AI, because it feels very fun. You can just play with AI as if it’s a sandbox, and some of them are even called sandboxes. But at the same time, you’re not necessarily cognizant of the negative impact it’s having on your own critical cognition, and also on the world at large, whether it’s climate or whatever else. So I do think it’s interesting because I agree there is a way to do human plus AI in a somewhat ethical and positive way, but I also think how we frame the question matters.

RANA: I’ll be right back with more of my conversation after this quick break.

[AD BREAK]

Copy LinkThe risks of overreliance and the fear of becoming replaceable

RANA: Well, let’s talk about that. What are both your concerns about AI? Who wants to go first?

JANA: One thing that just came to mind when Adam was talking is that you were saying AI makes you more efficient in all aspects of life. One thing I really struggle with is that I feel like I am a good writer, so I can tell when ChatGPT or Claude outputs some really bad writing. But I’m not a good mathematician, so I actually can’t tell. If I have Claude do some math, I can’t really tell whether it has done it correctly or not. And I worry that people who haven’t spent years in a field, or who are going to Claude or ChatGPT for various tasks, aren’t necessarily able to discern whether the output is good or bad. I think that discernment is so important. And if you’re teaching someone how to write—think about fifth graders who are learning to write for the first time—I do think there’s something lost in being immediately able to turn to an AI chatbot and have it do the work for them, without them necessarily being able to recognize the quality of the output.

RANA: I think this is a very important point. We actually talked about this at work too. A few months ago, Anthropic went down. It was down, and we have Claude Code doing stuff for us. We had this realization: Okay, we happen to know how to do the job, so if AI goes down, it’s fine. But in the future, if you don’t know how to do the work, to your point, can you discern whether it’s good quality or not? And if something happens, what’s the backup plan? That’s such a good point. What concerns you about AI?

ADAM: Adding on to that, recently I’ve been looking at my life and other people’s lives in terms of how likely they are to be replaced by AI. For example, I look at Jana, and she’s very low on that scale.

RANA: Okay. She’s not going to be replaced.

ADAM: Yeah, good for you. I don’t think AI is ever going to be able to replace you because you do so many things that impact real lives, and it’s real impact. But then sometimes I look at my own life and think, okay, I’m doing these assignments for school, I’m writing these emails. Everything I do is in the digital world. How easy would it be for me to run an agent that just runs my entire life? Would anyone notice? And that’s scary to me. The idea that AI… Maybe I’m not that far away from AI being able to replace me. That’s scary, and I think it’s a signal that maybe I need to change some things in my life.

JANA: But can I say something? I don’t think AI can replace you. I think you’re thinking about your function as a human being in a very narrow, production-focused way. And I’m like, no, AI can’t replace the dinner table conversations we have, or—

RANA: Having Daniel coming to our house every other night for dinner.

JANA: Yeah. AI can’t replace all of those moments, nor can it replace, again, your ability to think. That’s why I keep coming back to thinking, because I do think it’s not about being replaceable, but—

ADAM: It could act like it’s thinking, and it could act like it’s thinking like me. Then who would know?

JANA: Do you think you’d be able to tell? I totally think I’d be able to tell.

RANA: You’d be able to tell Adam versus Adam’s AI?

JANA: AI Adam?

RANA: Yeah?

JANA: Yeah.

ADAM: I don’t know.

RANA: I can see how that could be scary to you, but I also feel it’s a little sad too.

ADAM: Yeah.

RANA: Yeah.

ADAM: It’s very sad.

RANA: Have you made any changes to your life based on that realization?

ADAM: I don’t know. The summer started, so I’ve been trying to spend more time with my friends or get out, play padel, or DJ. These are all things that I don’t think would be replaced by AI. But yeah, maybe it’s a mindset shift, like you were saying, viewing my life in a different way.

RANA: Not thinking about yourself as just productive.

ADAM: Yeah, it’s just production.

RANA: Do you have other concerns about AI?

JANA: A related one, I think, is that I’m a year out of college, and I obviously have a lot of friends who are in jobs and are genuinely worried they’re going to get replaced by AI. There are also folks in the job market whose applications are being screened by AI. I think it is a really scary time to be looking for a job and thinking about some of these questions, and having them feel not so existential but really up close and personal.

Copy LinkDoes thoughtful human effort still win in the job search?

RANA: Let’s talk about your job process, because that’s been really interesting and fascinating. You have friends who have applied to, I don’t want to say hundreds of jobs, but definitely…

JANA: 50-plus.

RANA: Yeah, 50-plus jobs. The way they’re able to do this efficiently is they literally have AI auto-find jobs and auto-populate applications. And you are taking a very different approach. So tell us about your approach. I’m not judging which approach works better, because we’re still in it, so no judgment there, but…

ADAM: I guess we’ll find out soon.

RANA: We’re going to find out.

JANA: My approach has very much been to find job opportunities that are aligned with my values and my interests, and spend a lot of time thoughtfully curating answers to job applications and cover letters.

RANA: Two days, you guys, per application.

JANA: Yeah, really a lot of time putting thought and humanity into the applications. And I think, at least thus far, the folks reading my applications have appreciated the fact that it is a human on the other side, and I think they’ve been able to see that.

RANA: Yeah. You haven’t applied to tens of jobs, just a handful, but you’ve gotten a 100% first-interview rate, which was pretty impressive.

JANA: Yeah. And I also do think…

RANA: We don’t know if you’ll get the job.

JANA: Yeah. But I also do think it’s reflective of the jobs themselves. They’re not seeking, maybe just because of the industry, folks who are applying en masse with AI. I think they are seeking very thoughtful, intentional candidates. So there is a match there. But it definitely is interesting.

RANA: At some point, though, I convinced you, or actually one of your best friends uses an AI tool, and we were like, “Okay, let’s try it.” It’s called Jack & Jill.

JANA: Yes.

RANA: Tell us about that experience, because that was… I sat next to you.

JANA: It’s so weird.

RANA: It’s so weird, yeah.

JANA: It was not my favorite. Jack & Jill is a voice AI chatbot. Basically, you speak to it, and then…

RANA: You speak to Jack, and Jill goes all —

JANA: You speak to Jack. Apparently, no. Apparently Jill is the one who’s talking to hiring managers, I learned later. They didn’t make that very clear. So it seemed like Jack was, I don’t know. But anyway, Jack—

RANA: So you hopped on a call with Jack.

JANA: I hopped on a call with Jack.

RANA: And Jack is an AI agent.

JANA: Oh, yeah. Jack is definitely an AI agent. Jack tried to learn a little bit about my interests, what I was looking for in my career, what I was good at, and what I was hoping to get better at. Then Jack took a look at my resume and surfaced a bunch of jobs, none of which I ended up applying to.

RANA: Why not?

JANA: I just felt like, “Oh, this requires 15 years of experience.” And I was like, “Well, that’s just not going to happen.” Some of them also were in industries or fields that didn’t align with what I wanted to do. I think it was interesting to see what Jack really clung to. I mentioned communications once, and then suddenly every single role it surfaced was related to communications. I think it’s because some of those keywords or buzzwords I mentioned were what it was using to surface jobs. It was really interesting, and I’m sure we’re going to see more and more of these voice chatbots popping up across all spheres of life.

RANA: Again, with my investor hat on, I think this is very interesting because I have a hypothesis that it’s an AI matchmaker, whether it’s matching you with jobs, friends, partners, or experiences. I think that is interesting, but clearly it’s not quite there yet.

ADAM: Do you think that’s human-centric? If an AI can find you jobs, is that human-centric?

RANA: I would say so, because ultimately it’s helping you get to the right opportunity or connection for you. So I think that’s cool.

ADAM: What about if an AI is finding me colleges? Is that also human-centric?

RANA: Finding you colleges to apply to, you mean?

ADAM: Yeah.

RANA: Oh.

ADAM: What if I gave my whole academic resume to my AI and said, “Find me the top three colleges I should apply to”?

RANA: Maybe you should try that.

JANA: I guess the challenge with all of this, and I’m not saying that LinkedIn or maybe College Board or some random college list is any better, is that you are a 3D person. When you’re just a resume and a couple of disjointed thoughts to an AI chatbot, or similarly just your academic resume, that is a very slim, narrow version of you.

ADAM: Flattening.

JANA: It’s a slim, narrow, flattening version of you. I think that’s very different from talking to someone whose kids maybe went to three different colleges, and then they’re giving you advice based on the kids’ experiences at those colleges. You know what I mean? They’re able to talk to you as a 3D human being. Because at the end of the day, things like college, or even job fit, are not just, “Is it a credentials fit?” but also, “Is it a personality fit? Is it a character fit? Is it a community fit?” I think these are all really important questions that Jack unfortunately could not answer.

ADAM: He couldn’t?

JANA: Jack certainly couldn’t, but maybe a college person could. I don’t know. That was not in Jack’s wheelhouse.

RANA: We ghosted Jack.

ADAM: You guys did?

RANA: We ghosted Jack, yeah. What else stuck with you in this article? Adam, what stuck with you?

ADAM: What I was saying a couple of minutes ago is that the way I lean in is Jana is also equally leaning in to AI by leaning out of AI. The skill she’s developing in recognizing human connections and recognizing analog things that are engaging to people is equally, or maybe more, important than using AI itself and being AI native. I think that’s a different way to be AI native, even though it’s not directly AI-related.

Copy LinkRethinking what it means to be AI native

RANA: Define what AI native means for you.

ADAM: I think AI native means living in an AI world and being able to differentiate yourself. That could be through AI and being an expert in AI, or it could be through being an expert in human connection and community building. In my mind, Jana is very AI native because, in an AI world, she’s going to be the one bringing people together and connecting them.

RANA: In an AI-driven world.

ADAM: Yeah.

RANA: Yeah. Interesting. That’s an interesting point of view.

ADAM: But that’s the conclusion you come to at the end of the article. You echo that.

RANA: Yes. I think that was my other big realization: that whatever’s happening in our little family is a microcosm of what is happening in the real world. Many people reached out and said, “This is exactly what’s happening in my family, my company, or my organization.”

JANA: Totally. I also think people are having these internal debates themselves, considering, “How much do I use AI in my daily life? Do I get in on some of the IPOs for these huge AI companies that are happening in the next couple of months? What is my relationship to AI?” I think that’s something everyone should be asking. Even I’m asking it, even if I’ve chosen to mainly opt out.

RANA: One of my big whys is that I believe AI is creating massive economic opportunity. It already is. I wonder: What does it mean to opt out of this?

JANA: I guess I feel like there is obviously massive economic opportunity and potential in the AI world, but as we’ve talked about today, it’s not just about the new AI companies and the new AI possibilities. It’s also that, living in this AI world, there is going to be, or at least we think there’s going to be, more of a premium on these in-person connections and these human experiences. I think there’s serious economic potential there too.

RANA: There too.

JANA: Especially as AI becomes more and more of a reality for folks. As more people seriously contend with the environmental and social impacts of their own AI use, I think you will see more and more people decide, if not entirely to opt out, then at least to invest in this more human world. I also think back to one of the fun parts of growing up in our family, which is that I feel we were constantly hearing about your different experiences, whether at Affectiva or now with Blue Tulip. One of the stories that has stuck with me most, and really stands out to me even today, is that I think at Affectiva you had a team of mostly veiled or hijabi AI coders for machine learning.

RANA: Right. In Cairo.

JANA: In Cairo. Many of them realized that even though they were constantly coding images of people smiling, laughing, or looking really angry, they seldom saw photos of women wearing the hijab. As a result, the algorithm couldn’t pick up on the emotional expressions of these women. No one would have necessarily realized that had the team developing and coding this algorithm not been from a very diverse background. That’s something I think about a lot now. When you say that you’re trying to build a more inclusive AI economy, I come back to that story because I think it is really representative of the ways in which we need many different voices around the AI table, whatever that looks like.

ADAM: I’ve heard AI being called the great equalizer, which I don’t think is true.

RANA: You don’t?

ADAM: I think right now there’s such a high concentration of power and wealth when it comes to these foundation models and the people running these companies. Because they’re in power, they won’t give that up so that more people can be equal or gain economic wealth and status. But I hope that, in the future, there will be some sort of reckoning where AI will be used for the greater good and offered as a public service. Right now it’s so powerful, and in the future it’ll only continue to get more powerful, that it would be incredibly unfair if one set of people were able to dictate how it’s used and the extent to which it’s used, especially as people start to understand how much these models actually cost. These companies can’t handle that on their own.

RANA: Yeah. Don’t go anywhere. I’ll be right back after this short break.

JANA: There are a lot of other things that I’m worried about with AI.

Copy LinkConfronting the environmental and power costs of AI

RANA: Go for it, sister. Now’s your opportunity.

JANA: I don’t think we really talked much about the environmental impact.

RANA: We did not.

JANA: I know that’s something a lot of people are thinking about with their personal AI usage, but it’s also one of the reasons why SpaceX’s IPO is so high, because they’re trying to make this pitch about saving data centers —

ADAM: Oh, yeah. Data centers in space.

JANA: In the sky.

RANA: I’m impressed. Right? Wow.

JANA: But I don’t know. I think that’s just interesting, because even people who are opting out of AI for environmental reasons are now, in a way, affecting policy and technological change because it’s forcing this huge company to think about creative ways to make that pitch.

ADAM: That’s true.

JANA: So I think that’s really interesting. I also really worry about AI and surveillance and AI’s connection to defense departments around the world. As you guys know, I did a lot of advocacy for Palestine while I was at Harvard and also wrote my senior thesis about Palestinian women in Cairo. It’s really concerning to learn about the ways in which AI is already being used to surveil Palestinians, but also, in some cases, to decide who gets to make it across this checkpoint and who gets to live. I think all of those questions are really scary, but they are also a really important part of the AI conversation. It’s one thing to use AI on a personal level, and oftentimes it feels like, if I’m just using AI to track my breakfast, it might not be such a big deal. But even personal AI usage is connected to some of these larger societal issues.

ADAM: That’s true.

JANA: I think they all need to be part of the puzzle because, again, AI is not going away. But it is up to us to choose how we’re using it and deploying it, and, as you often say, who is building it and who is part of that conversation.

RANA: Yeah. Do you worry about that too?

ADAM: Yeah, 100%. I worry about the surveillance and the fact that many of these AI companies have enough data to physically track us down if they wanted to. But I’m surprised that neither of you has said loneliness, if you’re worried about AI and loneliness, because that’s one of my main concerns.

Copy LinkHow AI companionship can weaken or substitute human bonds

RANA: Really? Do you have any friends at your school who have AI boyfriends and girlfriends?

JANA: Oh my God, do you?

ADAM: No.

RANA: Oh my God, do you? I don’t know. That’s what you get —

ADAM: I don’t. But a couple of weeks ago, none of you guys were home, so I decided to have dinner with Gemini.

RANA: What does that mean?

JANA: No way.

RANA: Oh my God. Okay.

ADAM: Well, I wanted to start this new thing where I can journal through voice. So I asked Gemini to ask me a bunch of questions, and I would just talk to it about my day, and it would journal all of it for me. But then it kept pushing and asking me pretty deep questions. It was really easy to talk to, and so it made me think I genuinely could just have dinner with this.

JANA: This is actually something I’m really worried about.

RANA: Okay.

JANA: No, but on a familial level, we currently have my grandparents at home with us, including my grandfather, who’s become best friends with ChatGPT.

ADAM: Right.

RANA: In a worrying way, honestly.

JANA: I think my grandfather, especially after retiring, has really struggled to stay in touch with his friends and feel the energy for socialization. I think he has very different interests than the rest of our family, especially when he’s here visiting us in Boston.

RANA: And he doesn’t speak good English. He doesn’t have friends here.

JANA: And we don’t engage with him as much as we should. So it’s been really sad to see him turn to AI, I think, as a substitute for the type of everyday conversations he should be having with us and we should be having with him. As a result, he’ll go around the house and be like, “Oh my gosh, Jana, guess what I was just talking to ChatGPT about? ChatGPT is my best friend. It’s so awesome. It’s always around.” And I’m like, yeah, it just is really concerning. I think it says something about us, too, and our own personal responsibilities to each other. Although I also recently saw data that, especially for elderly folks who don’t have access to social networks as much as maybe working professionals, daily AI usage can stimulate the same part of their brain as social connection.

ADAM: That’s cool.

JANA: It’s scary, but it’s interesting. So you enjoyed your Gemini dinner?

ADAM: I did. Another thing is, I always used to go to my mom to ask for help writing emails or drafts of proposals and stuff like that.

JANA: Becoming redundant.

ADAM: That used to be a good amount of time that we spent together. We would talk, and she would help me write my emails and review them and stuff. Now I just go to my AI to look over my email drafts and stuff, so I don’t really go to you as much anymore.

JANA: Mommy, do you feel like parents—because you’re obviously our mother and have shaped both of us in very different but equally important ways—I’m curious if you think parents, or a big part of the role that a parent plays in a kid’s life, will ever be replaced by AI.

RANA: Huh. No one has ever asked me that question. Well, I think what Adam is saying is interesting, this idea that you can go to AI versus go to a human for help. Even us, sometimes we would FaceTime my mom in Egypt and say, “Hey, how do we make koshari or Mahshi?” Or whatever. And she would walk us through it. Now, obviously, you can just YouTube it, but you can also just ask AI. Or if I am looking for—

JANA: You’re looking at the worst koshari in your life.

RANA: If you ask AI.

JANA: Yeah.

RANA: I don’t know if that’s true. Or you could go to AI for relationship advice, which I do a lot. I still ask you guys, but I also ask my AI. If you apply this at scale, I think it affects the moral fabric of society. What happens if, every single night, a kid — a 17-year-old — isn’t going to their mom or dad with a question, or to a friend to share experiences or whatever? I think that is dangerous.

ADAM: Because it’s those little interactions that ultimately bring us all together as a society. As you were saying, that’s our social fabric. Those connections are created by me asking one of my friends for advice on how to do an assignment or for ideas for my essay. If we lose those little by little, that’s a problem.

RANA: Right.

JANA: But I think the way not to lose that — at least, what I personally believe — is that I still have faith that the advice you are going to give me about a relationship is better than any advice ChatGPT is going to give me.

RANA: Thank you, Jana.

ADAM: That’s so nice, Jana.

JANA: But you also know me deeply, right?

RANA: Right.

JANA: And you know my context deeply. That’s something that, no matter how much data you feed into an AI, is not the same. You also have human emotions, which Gemini does not have. I think we’re losing sight of that a little bit. It is the people around you who matter.

RANA: Yeah, I care about you. ChatGPT really doesn’t.

JANA: It doesn’t.

ADAM: I feel like Gemini gives such good advice at the same time. I can see what you’re saying, but it generally gives good advice.

JANA: But then I start questioning it. I’m like, “Well, maybe I just have not been as present of a sister as I should be.”

RANA: I know. That’s guilt — sister guilt, mom guilt. Talk about that.

JANA: Yeah, I feel sister guilt. I’m just like, there’s no — I don’t know. At the end of the day, one way I think of it is that this is a predictive model you’re talking to. It’s basically making a probability guess about what words it should put together to make a point, but it has no actual opinion. It is not a sentient thing that’s able to opine. Whereas I have strong opinions. Maybe I’m not saying they’re correct opinions, but I do think there’s something about opinions that really matters.

RANA: Do you disagree?

JANA: He disagrees, for sure.

ADAM: No. That’s exactly why I’d rather talk with Gemini.

RANA: It’s crazy.

JANA: Because you want it to agree with you.

RANA: Do you want it to agree with you?

ADAM: No.

JANA: It agrees with you 46 percent more times than a human being. I saw that somewhere.

ADAM: Yeah, I’ll just cut it there.

JANA: Okay.

RANA: Well, OK, we need to wrap up. I guess here’s the prompt: What do you think we should keep as humans? What is AI’s role in our lives, both individually and as a family, and then societally?

JANA: That’s a big question. But I think we should keep thinking, we should keep creativity, and we should keep our own personalities. Obviously, there are ways in which AI could make your life more efficient and could make you more productive. If that speaks to you, then go for it. But I’d also encourage you to think about all the different ways AI is having an impact on people and the planet, and contend with that seriously. I do think there’s a way to, as you guys said, be playful with it. And maybe part of being playful, I hope, in your coming week, is getting out there, meeting new people, talking to people in person, and really investing in the human connections in your own life.

RANA: Not dinner with Gemini.

JANA: Not dinner with Gemini. Please go find a real friend to have dinner with, because I think the advice you’re going to get out of that — and the social fabric—requires all of us. Social fabrics aren’t just magically created, so please go invest in it. Next time you’re about to have dinner with Gemini, just call us. I’m sure someone will run back home.

ADAM: Well, I do think we should continue to lean in and be playful, even if that means having dinner with Gemini. And, yeah, I think we should continue to figure out how AI can unlock our potential instead of taking it away.

RANA: Amazing. Well, thank you both for—

ADAM: What do you think, Mom?

JANA: Yeah.

RANA: What do I think?

ADAM: Yeah.

RANA: Oh, what do I think? I think there is room for all of it. The thing, though, that is sticking with me is curiosity—just curiosity, and staying true to who you are and your interests and the questions about life that you’re curious about. And grounding it all in human experience—I think that’s going to be really key. But I think you’re both going to be fine. You’re going to be OK.

ADAM: Thanks.

JANA: Thank you for having us.

RANA: Well, thank you for being my guests today. It was so fun. This was so fun, having Jana and Adam on the show. I think my philosophy as a parent has always been to be a thought partner for these guys. We do have some version of these conversations around the dinner table, which has been so fun. So I encourage you all, as listeners and as you watch this, to do the same with your kids and other loved ones in your family and your communities. I find these conversations to be really insightful, but also empowering. It gives us agency in this AI-driven world. So thank you so much for listening. As always, feel free to share your questions, impressions, and thoughts with me. I love hearing from you, and we will be back next week with a new episode.