As a grandad to a (near) 3 year old, I’m a bit of a fan of Nick Cope. Friday afternoons around Midday I’m normally driving, trying to give my grandson the full hour’s sleep he needs to avoid being crotchety. I have Spotify on, and up among our favourites is Nick Cope. Songs like ‘A round of applause for the Dinosaurs’ and ‘The Baby’s done a poo’ are quality grandparent/grandson time.
Last Friday driving in the lanes around Bewdley, I was listening to the song called ‘Why is the sky blue?’. It’s about that age when kids get really inquisitive, when they ask all sorts of questions that we parents and grandparents struggle to answer. (I know my grandson was asleep but the tunes are catchy and I do need to learn all the words!)
And of course being creative and giving us the right answers are things that generative ai is simply superb at doing. So I thought I’d ask Chatgpt, see what it came up with.
Here’s what I put into Chatgpt …
‘You are an experienced digital marketer who writes a lot of blogs. You are helping VAI Solutions with writing blogs that promote its insolvency bot that uses generative ai. You have a 3 year old grandson who loves listening to the songs of Nick Cope. In one of his songs he sings about Joe, who is a toddler who asks his mom and dad lots of questions, I think the song is called ‘Why is the sky blue?’. I want you to write a blog that shows just how powerful generative ai is by providing the answers Joe’s mom and dad could give their son if they used generative ai. The blog must list all the questions in the song. It must give the answers as if Joe’s mom and dad were talking to a 4 year old. Use quotation marks. Quote Joe’s questions. Then after that, give another answer with the real answer as if talking to an adult. The article should be humorous, engaging, and written from Joe’s mom and dad’s viewpoint. Write it in British English. Conclude that all Joe’s mom and dad needed was generative ai to get a good night’s sleep.’
This is what Chatgpt came up with…
‘Why is the Sky Blue? How Generative AI Saved Joe’s Parents from Question Overload
Parenting a toddler is a whirlwind of questions, giggles, and occasionally, complete exhaustion. For parents like us, with a curious 3-year-old named Joe who loves asking why about literally everything, generative AI has been a lifesaver.
Inspired by Nick Cope’s song Why is the Sky Blue?, we thought we’d put generative AI to the test. Could it help us answer Joe’s endless stream of questions? Spoiler alert: it did, and it was glorious.
Here’s how generative AI helped us tackle Joe’s inquisition, providing answers tailored to both a four-year-old and, for the curious grown-ups, the real science behind them.
Joe’s Questions and Generative AI’s Magic
Joe: “Why is the sky blue?”
- Answer for Joe: “The sky is blue because it’s wearing its favourite colour today! Just like you pick your blue T-shirt, the sky picks blue too.”
- Answer for adults: “The sky appears blue because molecules in the air scatter blue light from the sun more than other colours. This is called Rayleigh scattering.”
Joe: “Why do stars twinkle?”
- Answer for Joe: “Stars twinkle because they’re playing peek-a-boo with you from far, far away.”
- Answer for adults: “Stars twinkle because their light passes through layers of Earth’s atmosphere. The air moves and bends the light, making stars seem to flicker.”
Joe: “Why do dogs bark?”
- Answer for Joe: “Dogs bark because it’s their way of saying hello, ‘woof!’ or maybe, ‘where’s my biscuit?’”
- Answer for adults: “Dogs bark as a form of communication. It can mean different things, like alerting their owners, expressing excitement, or responding to stimuli.”
Joe: “Why do fish live in water?”
- Answer for Joe: “Fish live in water because they’re superheroes with gills instead of lungs, and water is their special home.”
- Answer for adults: “Fish live in water because they have gills, which allow them to extract oxygen from water rather than air.”
Joe: “Why do we need to go to bed?”
- Answer for Joe: “We go to bed because our bodies need a little snooze so we can have energy for more adventures tomorrow!”
- Answer for adults: “Sleep is essential for physical and mental restoration. It allows the brain to process information and the body to repair itself.”
Joe: “Why do birds fly?”
- Answer for Joe: “Birds fly because they have wings and love zooming around in the sky like your toy aeroplane.”
- Answer for adults: “Birds fly because their lightweight bones, powerful muscles, and wing structure create lift and allow them to soar through the air.”
Joe: “Why does the sun shine?”
- Answer for Joe: “The sun shines to keep us warm and light up our world so we can see where we’re going.”
- Answer for adults: “The sun shines because it’s a giant ball of gas undergoing nuclear fusion, converting hydrogen into helium and releasing energy as light and heat.”
Generative AI: The Unsung Hero of Parenthood
After using generative AI, we not only survived Joe’s “Why?” phase but also managed to sound like the smartest parents on the block. AI gave us playful, age-appropriate answers to satisfy Joe’s curiosity and scientific explanations to appease our own.
So, when Joe tucked in that night after an endless day of “whys,” we finally had a good night’s sleep. And guess what? We didn’t even need to Google once.
With a little help from generative AI, Joe’s mum and dad are back to their best—fully caffeinated, well-rested, and ready for whatever Joe throws at us tomorrow.
All you parents out there, if you’re dreaming of a full night’s sleep, give generative AI a try. Who knows? It might just answer the one question that keeps your little ones up at night.
I don’t know about you, but I think it did pretty well? Here are a few points I’d raise…
- It took Chatgpt just 30 seconds to come up with the entire piece. After a few minutes of some pretty basic posting of a ‘prompt’.
This means that no matter how hard a human works, they will never be as quick as generative ai at the things that ai is great at. No matter how many people an organisation can muster for a project, they will never be as creative or quick at certain things. Resources are an irrelevance. Creativity matters far more.
Going forward, us mere humans will need to focus our efforts on things that ai cannot do as well… like coming up with creative ideas that engage, like putting the top and bottom on things the ai has produced, as I’m doing here. - But did it get anything wrong, or could it have done better anywhere? It missed ‘Why did my goldfish die?’. It also misquoted the bit about bed. I think the question in the song is ‘Why am I so tired?’. That’s to say, ai isn’t 100%, certainly not at the first instance, without some proper dialogue between the user and the bot. I didn’t challenge it on these scores, but what it does show is that there is always a need for ‘professional skepticism’ of the results of the ai. Especially in this case as the question ‘Why am I so tired’ is at the very end of the song, when Joe has given up all hope of getting answers. The ai didn’t get the ‘aaah, that’s sweet / thank God for that’ moment parents and grandparents have when the little one finally gets to bed.
Ai isn’t human. It tries to mimic human emotion but, at least this far, there’s still work to do.
I bet you’re now going to add Nick Cope to your Spotify list? Honestly, he’s brilliant!
I wonder if he uses ai?
