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Heidi Franz: Host
00:00
This podcast episode explores a different topic from our previous discussions. However, I believe it’s crucial as it involves a new use of technology. We’ll be discussing AI, its role in parenting, how to teach our kids about it, and its implications for Christians. I invite you to join us.
Welcome back to “Parenting to Impress,” your go-to podcast for practical ways to love God, love others, and instill these values in your children. I’m your host, Heidi Franz, a mom who has made many mistakes but has found grace and truth along the way. Chris, I’m thrilled about this podcast. I’ve talked about it on social media because I think you’re going to open a world of information for me and our listeners. We’ve been friends for a long time.
Christopher King: Guest
01:02
Yeah, it’s exciting to be here. I’m glad to do it.
Heidi Franz: Host
01:06
Yes, I’m thrilled. I started doing the math today, thinking about how long we’ve been friends, and the number is kind of scary, to be honest. It’s been a long time. We met in college. Chris, you actually sang at my husband’s and my wedding.
Christopher King: Guest
01:20
Yeah, wow.
Heidi Franz: Host
01:21
It was fun. Michael and I have been good friends with Chris and his wife. Most of you don’t know, and even most people I run into don’t know that Chris, you are the one who came up with the name ABCJesusLovesMe. Do you remember that?
Christopher King: Guest
01:37
Wow, it was a long time ago. I think I was just driving down the road, and I thought you should start with an A because you’d be further up in the alphabet, so how about ABC?
Heidi Franz: Host
01:49
That’s how you came up with it.
Christopher King: Guest
01:51
Yeah, because in the Yellow Pages, you’re always supposed to be like AAA or something to be higher up in the index.
Heidi Franz: Host
01:57
That makes sense. I did not realize that. Well, Chris, this was almost 16 and a half years ago, and if I remember correctly, it was through an email you sent me.
Christopher King: Guest
02:10
Okay, wow.
Heidi Franz: Host
02:12
Thinking about the internet back then, so many changes have occurred. Just cell phones, texting, internet searches, and now I just got introduced to this thing called AI.
Christopher King: Guest
02:28
Yeah.
Heidi Franz: Host
02:29
Am I really behind? Has AI been around for a long time?
Christopher King: Guest
02:34
AI has been around for a while. Alexa would be considered AI, or Google or Siri. Those things are all considered AI. But Gen AI, this new generative AI, is brand new and something we’ve never seen before. So, you’re not behind.
Heidi Franz: Host
02:53
Good, because I have just started using something called ChatGPT.
Christopher King: Guest
03:00
That’s right, yeah.
Heidi Franz: Host
03:02
It is revolutionizing my world.
Christopher King: Guest
03:04
It’s amazing, isn’t it?
Heidi Franz: Host
03:05
It really is. So, in this podcast, I want to find out everything you can tell me about this new world of AI. I want to hear about this amazing book that you have written. I mean, when you sent it to me, those illustrations, I was in awe.
Christopher King: Guest
03:25
Yeah.
Heidi Franz: Host
03:26
And when I found out how you created those illustrations, I was like, you’ve got to be kidding me. So, let’s dive in here. Tell me about AI.
Christopher King: Guest
03:36
This new breed of AI is called generative AI, and it’s different from what we’ve had in the past. In the past, AI was used to understand something or to call an existing program. These new generative AIs can generate text, summaries, poetry, songs, or images with very little prompting. For example, you can give it a small prompt like “write a poem about the state of Nebraska,” and it will go into its world knowledge, find all the things about Nebraska, find words that rhyme, and write you a poem. That kind of thing is brand new, and we’ve never really experienced that before. Or you could say, “generate an illustration of a boy riding a bike,” and it would give you a picture of a boy riding a bike. These things are really amazing.
Heidi Franz: Host
04:33
Yeah, it’s absolutely mind-blowing. Okay, so you’re talking about illustrations and how AI can create illustrations, among so many other things. How is this changing the world as we know it?
Christopher King: Guest
04:50
It’s really changing the world as we know it because regular people are getting creative superpowers that they haven’t had in the past. I’m not an artist, but now I can illustrate my own book, and it’s really empowering. That was kind of the missing link for me to publish something, which was to be teamed up with an artist. Now, on the other side, it can be a little scary if you’re an artist or if you’re a poet, composer, or someone who writes content for articles. When someone can give a quick prompt and just generate all that content, it can be concerning. That’s how it’s changing things.
Heidi Franz: Host
05:39
I never thought about that. I know that there’s a big stir in the education world because kids are no longer having to write their own papers. They can simply go to something like ChatGPT and type in, “I want a five-page paper with this many sources on this topic,” and it will write it for them. So, what do we do with this technology?
Christopher King: Guest
06:07
Yeah, that’s a concern for students. It’s kind of the new plagiarism, and it really doesn’t encourage you to learn the basics that you need to get better. You know someone must be the next poet, but if everybody’s just using ChatGPT to write poems, we’re not gonna get to that next level. No one’s gonna go through the basics to know it. Same with art or music composition. If everyone’s cheating for the beginner stuff, how do we ever get to the advanced stages? I think there’ll be a lot of work done on the technology side. I know Google is already creating image generators. They have a way now to embed a signature in there that can’t be removed, so that anybody who has the magic wand can say, “Oh, this one was generated by AI” versus the ones that aren’t. So, I think you’ll start to see that embedded more and more in the responses to curb that plagiarism.
Heidi Franz: Host
07:12
Yeah, so tell me, Chris, tell me about your job. How do you use AI in the adult world in your job?
Christopher King: Guest
07:20
I’m a data engineer and data architect, and I use AI to write code. The first generative AI wasn’t created to write poetry, create images, or compose music; its original purpose was to write code. Surprisingly, some programmers wanted to eliminate their jobs. It’s incredibly helpful for automating many mundane programming tasks. For example, we can use it for chatbots, like when you ask it to show you all the red items you might like, and it generates the necessary code to execute that and display the list. Some of these applications are already in use. We can even use AI for text summarization. For instance, given a description of an item, we can determine if it’s hazardous, fragile, or requires special shipping, or if it’s a regular item suitable for standard shipping.
Heidi Franz: Host
08:32
As you were talking, I couldn’t help but wonder, will this capability revolutionize our lives as much as the introduction of cell phones, texts, and the internet did? Could we look back at this time as a significant moment in history that changed everything?
Christopher King: Guest
08:56
It’s hard to say if it will have big as all of that, but it’s certainly finding its place. Virtual assistants and AI are gradually making our lives easier by automating tasks that used to be manual.
Heidi Franz: Host
09:10
I wonder if it will act as a bridge. It might not be the one big thing, but it could be the massive bridge connecting us to the next significant innovation.
Christopher King: Guest
09:19
Yeah, only time will tell. The way we’re integrating AI with traditional systems and processes to streamline tasks could indeed be revolutionary. Why should we perform multiple steps on our phone and then switch to a computer when it could all be orchestrated seamlessly? I tell my smart speaker to go order my groceries, the same ones I had last week, except for the Ketchup. It’s smart, but it’s not that smart and I think we might get to that next level of smartness where you can really converse with it like another person, and it will remember the things you’ve done before. So crazy.
Heidi Franz: Host
10:09
Okay, so I think we both agree that we don’t know exactly where this will lead, but we’re on a fast-moving highway towards the next significant step. We may not be sure what that step is, but we’re moving quickly, very quickly down this highway.
Now that we’ve kind of laid out this foundation of what is AI, what is it doing, how you use it from a parent level, what does this mean for me as a parent? What does this mean for our kids in preschool, elementary, teen ages. What is this gonna look like in my home? So why don’t we start with the book, because I think that is a great springboard into using these technologies. Your book is called D is for Data, the ABC’s of Data Analytics. Tell me about it.
Christopher King: Guest
11:14
“D is for Data” is a vocabulary book that covers the ABCs of data. Each page features a letter and an illustration representing a specific data-related term. For example, ‘A’ stands for ‘Aggregation.’ I understand that kids, and even some parents, may not be familiar with terms like ‘aggregation.’
To make it relatable, we use illustrations. For instance, ‘Aggregation’ is explained as grouping things by color or shape, accompanied by a visual of blocks being grouped together. What I found in my career is that breaking into a new field has to do with learning the terminology, learning the vocabulary, and not being afraid of a new word that you there may be hearing for the first time. To get kids exposed to that, so that they’ve at least heard the word and they’ve seen a picture, and they have something to grasp onto. I think it’ll give kids a lot of confidence to maybe one day move into this field.
Heidi Franz: Host
12:46
Well, and I find, even in my very limited understanding of websites and web design, the more I use those words, then I hear them, and as I hear them, then I use them creates a constant cycle. Once you’re introduced to them, you start seeing them in your world.
Christopher King: Guest
12:56
That’s right. It used to be if you wanted your kid to be a doctor, you would enroll them in Latin because there were so many Latin terms in the medical field. This is kind of the new way to do that. Once you learn that language, you start to hear it everywhere, right, like you see it in this context and you see it over here and you’re like, oh, that’s that word I learned.
Heidi Franz: Host
13:18
As a preschool curriculum writer, I love in your book how you have activities for preschoolers and elementary-age kids. Short sentences for the kids to draw meaning from the Illustrations. We want them to take the information, take the illustrations, and then discover more. To ask questions like, “How does this fit into my world?” So, in that first picture, looking at the blocks, how would you sort them? Would you sort them by shape, by color, by size? How would you do this? I love that part of the book. By the way, we’ll be giving two books away. There’ll be a link in the show notes for you to enter to win a copy of this book.
I’m telling you; the illustrations alone are worth it. I’m in love with the illustrations. In summary, adding into conversations with your kids these vocabulary words, giving them opportunities to use these words, to be exposed to these words, helping them understand. I think, Chris, you did a fantastic job of putting it on a childlike level so that they could understand what these words are in a basic form. Let’s move on to elementary level, age six to eleven. How does this fit in with this age group?
Christopher King: Guest
14:43
That’s the age of my kids that I wrote this for. My two youngest are in second and fifth grade, so eight and ten. For them, they’re still natives, like they’re growing up with this technology, and so they’re unafraid of it. Whatever you tell them is normal is gonna be normal and you set the rules. For example, there’s this thing called AI, and it can do amazing things, and you can use it as a tool, especially these image generators, like what I use to create all these illustrations. It’s fun! I think you can do it as an activity with your kids. Experiment with it, and they have safeguards on there. So, you’re not, I don’t think, you’re gonna get into too much trouble. You want to be with your kids while you’re doing it and just say, let’s try to make some pictures. What do you want to create a picture of? I did that with my kids, and we made pictures of a funny chicken – thunder chicken with some lightning behind it, and it kind of became one of the little mascots for the book. You can have fun with it, add humor and do it together. I think that’s a good plan for elementary school.
Heidi Franz: Host
15:57
I love that you said something so important there. You said that with these kids, they’re not scared of the big technological words. Chris, when I read through your book, I got some letters of the alphabet, and it was scary. I felt apprehensive, like oh, I don’t think I can understand this, instead of having the freedom to go “No, I can.” This is simple. Chris put it in simple terms. I can understand this and giving myself the freedom to be okay in something that’s not normally part of my life.
Christopher King: Guest
16:34
Yeah, I think kids are really good at that, and sometimes, when you were engaging in these technologies with our kids, we can let them teach us. That’s such a good way for them to engage. Of course, correct them when they’re wrong. But they are completely native to this technology, so to them it’s just, you know, Tuesday, so they’re just going through doing their thing.
Heidi Franz: Host
17:02
So, elementary-age kiddos, sitting beside them and giving them the freedom to explore this with you. I think that is a fantastic idea, especially, let’s say, you have a kiddo who maybe isn’t really into sports or isn’t into some of these other activities that are the norm among his peers or her peers. What an opportunity to have this be the thing the son and dad does, or the mom and the son, or you know, whatever the situation is. Love those ideas. Okay, the last group is teens and I know you’ve got a few teens in your house.
Christopher King: Guest
17:48
Teens need spending money, so I tend to focus on the business opportunities behind it and turn them on to that. Then warn them about the dangers of cheating. Those are my two focuses with the teens. Allow them to do a project like this book or anything else. They want to use technology. They see opportunity there and a chance to innovate. So, I just go with that spirit.
Heidi Franz: Host
18:17
You sent me this quote, and I thought this was so good. “The things that I’ve been focusing on are how vocabulary has a big role in STEM. Stem isn’t just about flashcards, labs, and multiplication tables. It’s about being able to communicate complicated ideas succinctly. That means having a robust vocabulary.”
Christopher King: Guest
18:40
Honestly, the smartest people that I know at work can explain a very complex idea in about 30 seconds. It’s just amazing to me how language plays such a big part in data science and engineering. You’re talking about a very specific thing that normally takes 30 words to express this one thought. But their vocabulary is so good that they just pick out the exact right words and use very few of them to express their thought in a very short amount of time so that you have time to go work on what needs to get worked on.
Heidi Franz: Host
19:43
If you look at statistics, so much of that begins with young kids being read to over and over and over. And not read just any book, but they’re read quality books.
I will put in the show notes links to the top 200 preschool books that every preschooler should be read many, many, many, many times over. And the reason I have those in ABCJesusLovesMe Curriculum is because they build this vocabulary you’re talking about. The illustrations pull the child in. It’s opening their world to things that they wouldn’t be exposed to other than in books, because you can’t experience everything.
Christopher King: Guest
20:14
Right? I totally agree with that. I’ve always read to my kids. I’m a big believer in it. I would love to see your list.
Heidi Franz: Host
20:26
I’ll put in the show notes! Everything continually comes back to laying that strong foundation as early as you can with as quality of products as you can.
Christopher King: Guest
20:38
Absolutely.
Heidi Franz: Host
20:39
Chris, I do want to discuss the word “STEM” from your quote. Can you talk just a little bit about STEM and how you see STEM fitting into your life as a dad to five kids, your life as a programmer, writer, etc.
Christopher King: Guest
21:01
Sure at the school my kids attend, they focus on STEAM, which is just one more letter in inside of STEM. So, it’s Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math. I really love all those subjects and I think they go well together. Science, of course, is that freedom to experiment, to have a hypothesis and then experiment on it. Technology, of course, AI and computers on the internet, cell phones have changed our world. I’ve been an engineer for 20 years, and still am. That’s about building things and putting big systems or big mechanical or electric or even software systems together and making sure that they work consistently. The arts are super important. Music and art really feed our souls. When we’re done with work, we need something.
Music and arts are such a part of that intelligence that the people who do well in science, the technology, the math, engineering, are the same ones that can do the art and music well. I love that art is woven into STEAM. And then, of course, math. Math is just the foundation of everything and really enables everything, and I love that we’re putting vocabulary and language back into it because sometimes it feels like language arts is left out.
Heidi Franz: Host
22:28
Well, we talk a lot in this podcast about impressing upon the hearts of our children to love God and love others, and I’m going to throw this question out at you. How does God fit into AI? How does AI fit into God? What does this look like to use these resources to impress upon our children who God is and what God does?
Christopher King: Guest
23:01
Yeah, that’s a great question. I think that these kinds of endeavors are creative at heart. You’re generating these images, you’re generating text, poetry, papers, whatever. It’s a great time to have that conversation about God, the Creator. He created all of us. He created nature. He created the laws of the universe and the Bible. He communicates with us. And we’re created in the image of God. That’s why we love to be creative as well. I think that’s where it fits in.
And then just the whole idea of work. It’s good to work. It’s good to go out and do things and do them well for the glory of God.
As parents, we need to take the opportunity to connect with our kids, because they need our attention. I think these are fun ways to interact with your kids and have some – you know dads need projects. I think moms can connect in other ways. A dad needs a project to really connect with his kids. So that’s how I’ve used it, even on this project of writing the book. Just to get their feedback, to say, “Hey, what do you think about this picture and what, what else could I put in the? Does this make sense to you?” It’s just a good way to interact with them.
Heidi Franz: Host
24:22
I saw you post on Facebook that you created this book almost entirely on your cell phone.
Christopher King: Guest
24:29
Yeah, you know we’re at the 8th grade football game, but the seventh grade is playing. You’re not really paying attention. You type something in and show it to your daughter, who is sitting beside you in the bleachers playing dolls, for her thoughts. It’s a great way to redeem the time.
Heidi Franz: Host
24:46
It’s funny. I have been praying in the last few weeks asking just God, what is next for ABCJesusLovesMe. I don’t know where He was leading me at all. And then suddenly a friend said “Hey, have you looked into ChatGPT?” And then you send me this book. I’m thinking God, “What is next for ABCJesusLovesMe?” I don’t know. But I’m wondering if he’s not going to be using some of this AI technology to further the gospel through this ministry. I am super excited to see what God does with your book, to see what God does with what you have shared today.
Again, go to the show notes and click on the giveaway. We’re going to be giving two of these books away. You can also go to the ParentingtoImpress.com blog and enter to win.
So, Chris, this has been fun. Thank you so much for sharing this information with us, and I hope that in a few years you can come back, and we can talk about a whole new exciting technology aspect that we never even thought possible.
Christopher King: Guest
25:59
Thanks, I really enjoyed it and I hope we get to do it again.
Heidi Franz: Host
26:03
Absolutely, I’d love to. If you do not want to wait for the giveaway, go to Amazon.com and search for D is for Data, the ABC’s of Data Analytics, to find this book by Chris King. Thanks, King, I appreciate your time. Thank you.
Announcer:
27:00
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