Latest / Integrate This! Ed Tech Podcast / Kunal Dalal | Parenting in the Age of AI, and the Future of Agentic AI

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Kunal Dalal | Parenting in the Age of AI, and the Future of Agentic AI · Integrate This! Ed Tech Podcast

0:00
Welcome to Integrate This, your go -to edtech
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podcast where curiosity meets classroom innovation.
0:07
Join your hosts, David Berner and Jeremy Mikla,
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as we explore the rapidly evolving world of educational
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technology. From game -changing tools to insightful
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conversations with today's top edtech voices,
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we're here to help educators stay informed, inspired,
0:21
and ready to innovate. So tune in, level up,
0:25
and let's integrate this. Hey, welcome to the
0:41
Integrate This EdTech podcast. I'm David Berner,
0:45
joined by co -host Jeremy Mikla, and we have
0:47
a special guest with us today, Kunal Dalal, and
0:51
super excited to have Kunal on. We got a chance
0:54
to meet and hang out a little bit at FETC in
0:58
February, and I thought it'd be great to have
1:00
Kunal on the podcast. When we were there, we
1:02
got to talk a little bit about... his stomping
1:05
ground in California and what's all one of the
1:08
greatest sites to see there. And then we got
1:11
a chance that we we broke bread as well a little
1:13
bit. So, yeah, excited to have you on. And, you
1:17
know, do you want to just kind of kick things
1:18
off and tell the listeners where what your background
1:22
is and how you got to where you got to today?
1:24
Sure. Thanks for the introduction. Yes, it was.
1:27
We did break bread. Not kind of. We did. We had
1:30
lunch together. That was that was wonderful.
1:32
Along with the incredible Dora there from from
1:36
imagine we so my history is in what I've started
1:41
as a science researcher who thought I was going
1:43
to do brain research and then I found a friend
1:46
who was doing wilderness guide work with kids
1:52
who were coming out of lockup and I was in Connecticut
1:55
and he was in Utah and I was like, you know what
1:58
I'm going to do what every Indian mom. Which
2:02
is, I'm going to leave Yale Medical School to
2:05
go live in the desert with kids coming out of
2:07
lockup. Every Indian mom's dream, right? But
2:11
I did that, but once I got there, I was 21 years
2:14
old and I realized, wow, this is my space. Like
2:18
education, young folks, like being able to, especially
2:22
kids who feel like they don't necessarily get
2:26
the same. Uh, opportunities as other, other kids,
2:29
uh, maybe kids who themselves have gone through
2:33
whatever it might be through both externally
2:35
and internally, uh, that feel, uh, like they
2:39
need some sort of belonging, some sort of identity.
2:41
That became my space. And so I went into alternative
2:44
education. I did that both in, uh, Boston and
2:47
in Berkeley, I became a principal of an alternative
2:49
school in Berkeley. uh, in Northern California.
2:53
And then I was a principal for a little bit assistant
2:57
principal in San Francisco as well. Uh, and then
2:59
I went into what I call like my founder phase
3:01
where I started a head film company. And that's
3:04
as, as one does when you live in the Bay area.
3:06
And, and then that kind of brought me into the
3:09
ed tech and technology world, because that was
3:12
very much just in the classroom and insights.
3:15
And that really brought me into that space. And
3:17
so I worked for a few companies. And once I got
3:20
laid off in 2020, during COVID, I was at the
3:24
time with WeWork and got laid off and had my
3:30
boy. And then not too much longer, ChatGPT became
3:35
public. And that kind of turned me into this
3:39
AI, what I call an AI parentologist now, which
3:41
was by the way, a name given to me by someone
3:43
else. I didn't make that up and I thought it
3:45
was so cool that I just started calling myself
3:47
that. And so now it's what I do. I was at Orange
3:50
County Department of Ed for a year and a half
3:52
as one of the administrators for artificial intelligence
3:54
alongside my colleague Wes. And now I am consulting
4:00
mostly with schools, districts, but also, uh,
4:05
I've kind of branched out into the business world
4:07
as well, talking to senior leadership in small
4:10
and large businesses, uh, to figure out this
4:14
AI agentic world that is upending a whole lot
4:18
of both infrastructure work, work processes,
4:22
like, you know, all of it, all of it. So that's
4:25
me in as quick a nutshell as I could give you.
4:27
Yeah, you may be alluded to this a little bit,
4:30
but there's there's a bunch of different things
4:31
that you've been involved in and you know an
4:34
education Seemed to be or or maybe it's Coming
4:39
up. Would you say that that's like a consistent
4:42
through line through all your different experiences?
4:45
Yeah Yeah, and I think I think when I had my
4:47
headphone company I would do pitches sort of
4:49
like I didn't I did shark tank didn't exist at
4:51
the time but sort of like shark tank type pitches
4:54
and I would always bring students in and No one
4:57
else there would understand why, because they
4:59
were all just, you know, like little foundry
5:02
types in the Bay area, just thinking that that
5:05
was, you know, whatever they thought, I don't
5:07
know. But for me, I was like, there is going
5:11
to be no more valuable lesson than these kids
5:14
are going to get than to watch me get up there
5:17
and 90 % of the time fail. Uh, but to see me
5:20
get up and do it again and see me and get up
5:22
and do it again, see me sort of get. In some
5:25
cases, humiliated up there with how bad my pitch
5:28
was, uh, and how many things I missed, but the
5:31
kids got to see me and got to see me learn. And
5:33
so, so yeah, kids have always been interval part
5:36
of everything. Even now today with all my AI
5:38
work, like my, I'm, I'm doing some pretty, what
5:42
I feel like is pretty advanced agentic stuff
5:44
and building some things. And the only thing
5:47
I can think of is, okay, how do I get kids involved?
5:49
How do we get kids involved? Yeah. So if you're
5:52
the of those things that you mentioned like they
5:53
getting up and failing and trying again and all
5:56
that type of stuff Is there anything that you
5:58
could think of that was like particularly difficult
6:01
that ended up? Shifting how you thought about
6:04
things or how you leave people or work with people.
6:07
I mean, I think I think It really what? What
6:12
was unfortunate was, you know, I'm in I was in
6:15
alternative schools. And so we're talking about
6:18
mostly kids of color black and brown students,
6:20
and then you walk into this pitch fest and that
6:23
is not who is in the little pitch fest, right?
6:25
That's certainly not the funders. And so one
6:28
of the things I learned early in my entrepreneurial
6:32
space was it is not a level welcoming space.
6:38
It is a exclusive space that I think maybe 30
6:42
years ago was a lot more open to sort of the
6:46
folk, the guys off the street. uh, but it really
6:49
has converted into this institutional space.
6:51
And so the biggest, the hardest thing for me
6:54
was sort of, it was trying to explain that to
6:56
the kids, right? I mean, they got it, but at
6:58
the same time it was like, how do I position
7:02
this and how position is again, that's a nice
7:04
business term, but like, but really, yeah. How
7:06
do I frame this in a way that the kids can see
7:10
it's not on them and that they still have every
7:15
opportunity to be able to realize this stuff,
7:17
it is going to be a harder ride than maybe some
7:20
of the other folks in the room. But that was
7:22
hard. It was hard to try to explain to the kids.
7:26
They're not dumb. These are high school kids,
7:28
black and brown kids coming from the Bay Area.
7:30
They understand the world that they're walking
7:32
into, but it's still hard to sit there and be
7:35
the adult in the room and feel that responsibility.
7:39
I think that's a great perspective of bringing
7:41
the lens of a student into that AI space that
7:45
you're talking about here, or into the experiences
7:48
that you have here. But I want to kind of like,
7:50
you also mentioned yourself as being an AI parentologist,
7:55
right? And so I want to get into what did you
7:59
notice in the AI space where the voice of parents
8:04
were also being overlooked when it comes to AI?
8:11
It's interesting because I started my A .I. journey
8:14
through parenting. I was a stay -at -home parent
8:16
at the time. I had my kid. It was one of the
8:19
worst fire seasons in Bay Area history. There
8:23
was a lot of being stuck inside. And then I moved
8:28
up to the Seattle area where I didn't know anyone.
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That's where my kid's mom's family is, grandparents
8:34
and everything. And it was lonely. It was lonely.
8:39
Again, single parent, the mom was working, or
8:45
stay -at -home parent, mom's working. That loneliness
8:52
brought me into this space of, okay, what is
8:54
this AI thing? There was one night when my boy
9:00
wouldn't stop crying, 3 AM, one of those things,
9:02
the 3 AM won't stop crying thing. I walked outside.
9:07
And I said, oh, there's this chachapi tea thing.
9:10
I, I this, this let's try this thing out. And
9:13
so I asked it to make jokes for me because I
9:15
just needed some jokes. I needed it because it
9:18
was a tough night. I needed some jokes and the
9:19
jokes were terrible. They were some of the worst
9:23
jokes. And I, in that moment I was like, Oh my
9:27
goodness. Like it doesn't matter what AI is doing
9:29
because right now this is actually about me,
9:32
my son being here, being present AI just happens
9:35
to be this. this thing that can help me sort
9:39
of understand my human space a little better,
9:40
or at least be in my human space. And so my,
9:43
so I wrote the, my first edition of AI parent
9:46
in March of 2023, just like five months after,
9:50
uh, Chachi Pati was public. And the reason for
9:53
that was I immediately was like, AI is not going
9:57
to find its heart and soul at work. It's not
10:02
gonna find his heart and soul at school. It's
10:04
gonna find his heart and soul at home. And when
10:07
we talk about being a parent with AI, there is
10:11
parenting with AI, but we are also all, whether
10:14
we have kids or not, we are all parenting AI
10:17
into this world. AI is just a little three -year
10:20
-old baby, and whatever it becomes in this world
10:24
as it matures is gonna be up to us as a global
10:27
community, how we parent AI into this world.
10:31
If we take that lens, then we start to consider
10:36
ethical implications, geopolitical, social implications.
10:40
You know, all of the things that we are trying
10:42
to kind of put rules on and guardrails on, that
10:47
becomes a very different conversation when we
10:49
think of AI as a little toddler that we're trying
10:52
to raise together as a human community. And so
10:56
that's That's sort of the AI parentology. There's
10:58
the stuff we do at home. I'm actually scheduling
11:01
a Lighthouse Home events, which I know we'll
11:03
talk about a little bit later, but an event for
11:06
my community here in Long Beach in a month or
11:09
so. So there's that piece where parents in AI
11:12
and how do you address AI in the sacred space
11:17
that exists between parent and child. And if
11:20
we can really embody AI in that sacred space,
11:24
Then we have a chance to make AI something a
11:28
lot like something benign right and something
11:31
that actually uplifts us What if we put it if
11:34
we if we mature AI as this competition? Differentiator
11:38
as a solely as an efficiency creator. Well, then
11:42
we were just gonna kind of supercharge this You
11:46
know this completely marginalizing capitalism
11:49
version that we have right now And I don't know
11:52
of anyone other than a few shareholders up in
11:55
some box seat somewhere that really want that.
11:58
I think most of us want a more beautiful, joyful,
12:03
and just future for our kids. And AI can be an
12:07
integral part of that, but we have to parent
12:09
it right, because otherwise it's going to turn
12:11
into a supercharged version of what we have already.
12:14
So thinking about it, I think first from a perspective
12:17
of, how about just, there's going to be kind
12:20
of two parts to this. So the first part is, You're
12:23
the overwhelmed parent that's dealing with your
12:29
own physical students or your own physical kids.
12:34
And I'm thinking overwhelmed from the sense there's
12:36
a lot of demands that are put on parents' time.
12:39
Whether they be work -related, activity -related,
12:44
or preparing dinner -related, all of those different
12:46
things can really stress out a parent, and now
12:49
they have to know about how to use AI, and does
12:54
that just become, I mean, how does a parent,
12:57
I guess, number one, gain the capacity, gain
13:02
the agency, gain certain knowledge to be able
13:05
to see that as being a partner? Yeah, not a parent,
13:10
but maybe a partner in parenting with their own.
13:15
Go ahead at the same time. I think the second
13:17
part of this question is, if we're also parenting
13:19
AI at the same time, what sort of things do parents
13:23
need to really lean into or to avoid doing when
13:28
parenting what we want AI to be? Yeah, yeah.
13:32
Well, the avoiding part I will just quickly answer.
13:35
Avoid avoiding it. Just don't like avoid avoiding
13:38
it because if you avoid it then you have then
13:41
you're relinquishing any kind of responsibility
13:43
as parent right for AI but the first part of
13:46
your question of how do you how does an overwhelmed
13:47
parent even start I In my books, I think all
13:51
three of them, but I think especially here in
13:53
my last one. I really kind of go into what some
13:57
of the daily things that I do and For example,
14:01
just simple things right dream journals where
14:03
every night every morning or Now it's become
14:07
less and less, but we used to do it a lot more.
14:10
But we'd say, what's your, did you have a dream?
14:13
Okay, describe your dream. We'd create a prompt
14:15
for the dream. And then we'd create an AI image
14:18
of the dream. And with that, I have two and a
14:22
half years now of his dreams in this image form.
14:27
And I've been able to see inside his brain and
14:30
his dreams in a way that I just would never have
14:33
had access to. It's crazy like at that two years
14:36
ago, every. Dream was about something else or
14:41
in like about dinosaurs and whales and monster
14:43
trucks and you know, whatever like what a two
14:45
year old boy thinks about and now he is the center
14:48
of every dream and he is like running through
14:51
a field. He like he is sent. He is now he's sort
14:54
of embodied himself in his dreams now in a way
14:56
that he didn't do before. And I've got to see
14:59
that over the course of two and a half years,
15:01
right? We do this thing at night where Uh, we,
15:04
uh, of course there's bedtime stories and a lot
15:07
of, a lot of parents now use AI to help with,
15:10
with sort of like more relevant bedtime stories,
15:13
which is something that we do. We have a story
15:15
series called the tree and the log. And I know
15:17
it sounds a little melancholy, but that's sort
15:19
of who I am, but it's this idea of a tree and
15:22
a log. Uh, and the log is obviously an old tree
15:25
that's fallen over. Uh, but they sort of reminisce
15:28
about life. They wonder about what it might mean
15:31
to like walk around and to run and to laugh and
15:34
all these things. They wonder about, you know,
15:36
and it's like this really cool series of, of
15:39
just wondering about the world from the perspective
15:41
of a tree and a log. And then like the, the cool,
15:44
one of the coolest things I do is it is near
15:48
impossible to ask. My most parents will say this,
15:52
uh, and say, Oh, how was your day? What'd you
15:54
do all day? Nothing. It was fine. Oh how was
15:57
nothing fine it was fine. And it's like near
16:02
impossible to get anything out and I'm genuinely
16:05
interested like I do want to know I'm not asking
16:07
just to be nice like I would somebody on street
16:08
like I really care that's my boy and so rather
16:11
than asking. I do this thing where we record.
16:16
our, essentially our narratives for the day.
16:18
So we'll start first with me and I'll say, Hey,
16:21
I woke up, I went on a run to the beach. Uh,
16:24
I did a podcast with these wonderful people.
16:26
I had two meetings about this. We talked about
16:27
this, this, this, and then I made this for food
16:29
and this for food and now record that. Then he
16:32
goes and he'll say, okay, we did this and we
16:34
did this. I played with Connor. We, I had, you
16:37
know, dates and whatever for lunch, whatever,
16:39
whatever. And then, and then we get these two
16:40
recordings that are transcribed about our day.
16:43
And then I. put it into AI, and I say, read these
16:46
two narratives and find a way that we both positively
16:50
affected the world today. Find a common way that
16:53
we positively affected the world today so that
16:55
now I can tell my son, hey, look, even though
16:57
we were physically separated, we still did this
17:01
common thing together today. And this is how
17:03
we did it. And then, so that connects us right
17:07
there. And then I take it one step further where
17:10
I say, hey, Think of or consider ways in which
17:15
the thing that we did good today. What is some
17:19
indigenous tradition? It doesn't matter from
17:21
where, but what is some indigenous tradition
17:24
that names this or that is that this is reflective
17:27
of so that we're not just connected with each
17:30
other today, but we see how what we did today
17:32
is connected to our humanity from thousands and
17:34
thousands of years ago as well, right? Pre digital,
17:36
pre everything, maybe even pre linguistic. Who
17:38
knows? Interject here really quickly. To me,
17:41
it just seems like that would not have been possible
17:45
for you to get to the depth of conversation that
17:48
you're having with your own child or AI. Impossible.
17:52
And that's where I think you see it as this is
17:55
not another thing to do. This is actually a way
17:59
to understand my relationship in a way that I
18:01
never would have been able to before. Making
18:03
it more human, even though you're using artificial
18:05
intelligence. Exactly. And to me, it's not about
18:09
AI. right? Like AI just happened. Like, we do
18:12
like, one of the one of the most incredible things
18:14
I've ever had with my kid was we he had moved
18:19
down here for a lot. He was up in Seattle, I
18:21
was living down in Southern California for eight
18:22
months, I was going back and forth flying. And
18:24
so then he his mom and sister moved down. And
18:27
he was having a difficult time for the first
18:29
little bit, I was having a difficult time that
18:30
was copy, you know, it's, it's complicated, right?
18:33
And so I wasn't acting. as patiently as I want
18:37
it as I would want to. And he was acting his
18:40
way, but whatever. He's a kid, right? So he can
18:41
do that. I should. I need to have my business
18:43
together. And so I voice mode chat between voice
18:47
mode had just come out. And so I sat with him
18:50
and I said, hey, we're just going to have a quick
18:52
conversation with AI. And he was like, whatever,
18:53
whatever. And so then I said, hey, I'm sitting
18:55
here with my son and he just moved from pretty
18:59
far away. And I feel like I'm having a hard time
19:02
really. You know what? It's something or another,
19:05
right? I talk about me, right? I'm having a harder
19:07
time. And when I said that. His eyes just moved
19:11
from the screen and you know how hard is take
19:13
his eyes off the screen off the screen to me
19:16
and gave me a look that. I mean, I'm getting
19:21
shivers thinking about it, but it's it's. I had
19:23
never seen that look before, like an end and
19:26
it really felt like it was him. I mean, it was
19:31
that look of like, wait, you know that? Like
19:33
you understand that that's happening. And from
19:37
there, it did not matter what AI said, who cares?
19:41
Like, oh, AI is going to give you bad advice,
19:43
biased advice, who cares? It's not relevant because
19:46
what's relevant is the two of us are sitting
19:48
next to each other and we can talk about what
19:50
AI gives us. And we can be the arbiters of that,
19:54
but we're doing it together. It doesn't like
19:55
AI is not an authority on anything in this. We're
19:58
the only authorities AI just happens to be this
20:01
conduit that can help us. connect with each other
20:04
sort of like a good therapist, right, like a
20:07
good therapist just reflects everything back
20:08
and doesn't necessarily interject a whole lot.
20:11
And in this case, and that's fraught to say that
20:13
about chatty, because a lot of people use it
20:15
for therapy, and I don't mean use it for therapy.
20:17
But it is like, it is sort of that that space
20:20
of like, it doesn't matter what they add us.
20:22
So yeah, I think I think what you're saying is
20:24
exactly right. Like, it's not about the AI, it's
20:27
about the human. And that's when the parent lens
20:30
all of a sudden makes a whole lot more sense
20:32
because it's not technology you're not offloading
20:34
anything to technology you're actually on loading
20:36
more it's just now you can do it and you can
20:38
do it more creatively and you can have a little
20:40
bit of fun with it and i really appreciate that
20:43
perspective too because that's not something
20:45
that um gets talked about too much i think like
20:48
in and maybe you could touch on this too kunal
20:51
is like with with our different trainings and
20:53
things that we've done on ai one thing that seems
20:56
very clear is that parents don't really have
20:59
a good idea of what's going on with AI just in
21:01
our own conversations with some of our schools
21:03
and uh and uh it's kind of like this thing that
21:08
is thrust upon them and so it like Jeremy said
21:12
before you know maybe that overwhelming feeling
21:14
but if you know if you take the phrase I think
21:18
you had said we're like we're all parenting AI
21:21
right now what does that mean for families like
21:25
as they try to navigate this, especially if they
21:30
have zero understanding of AI and I think you
21:33
gave some really good examples, but maybe even
21:35
touching upon where could they start? Yeah, yeah,
21:39
I mean, I think again depends on the age of your
21:42
kid. Of course, first I think is to divorce yourself
21:45
of this idea that AI. For your kid means AI at
21:49
school. That's not that's not it AI. between
21:53
you and your kid has nothing to do with school.
21:56
It has nothing to do with your work. It has nothing
21:57
to do with any of that stuff. It only has to
21:59
do with each other. And so that's the first step
22:02
is I think a lot, because I do these parentology
22:04
trainings here, just up here in Newport Mesa
22:07
Unified. And every time I kind of begin a session,
22:12
it is clear that parents believe themselves to
22:16
be there because they're learning about what
22:18
the school district is doing about AI for their
22:21
kid at school. And that's fine, but that's not
22:24
what I'm I try to help parents with. I'm like,
22:28
no, no, no, no, no, don't the sacred space between
22:30
you and your child. Think about that. That is
22:32
the space which AI can exist. And so there's
22:35
some the image examples can be a starting place.
22:38
I just did one with my two and a half year old.
22:40
She was very frustrated that it takes her mom
22:44
so long to make chocolate chip muffins. And so
22:47
she said, can I just have an oven that makes
22:50
muffins for itself? And so I was like, should
22:53
we make an AI image of that? And we did. And
22:56
she was like, oh, put ears and put all this stuff.
22:59
And it's great when they start to iterate, because
23:01
then I get to have the second conversation of
23:03
there's a lot of energy use every time we make
23:05
one of these images. So let's think about how
23:09
we want to do it so we can just make two a day.
23:13
Because I try to say it like. it's like throwing
23:15
plastic in the ocean like this is this you know
23:17
so we got to be we got to be thoughtful about
23:18
how we're doing this but i think there's another
23:21
thing that i do which is i use i you know the
23:24
the those things that we just throw in the recycling
23:26
the little grocery flyers that come in the mail
23:29
and we just throw into the recycling hopefully
23:31
throw in the recycling but uh now I just take
23:34
a picture of that and I say, hey, make a week's
23:36
worth of grocery list. I've got a four year old
23:38
who likes this. I've got a or a six year old
23:40
who likes this. I've got a two year old who likes
23:41
this. This is what I like. Give me it. Tell me
23:44
what my budget for the week is done. And all
23:47
it is is just taking a couple of pictures of
23:48
the flyer of the of the grocery store near me.
23:51
And boom, there you go. And that helps so much.
23:54
Another thing is I showed a few parents like
23:57
don't like don't stress so hard about knowing
24:01
everything about the nutritional information
24:03
and how that affects your kids because AI can
24:06
help you with that. So just take your phone and
24:09
when you want to buy something, just point AI
24:11
at the ingredients list and just say, hey, quickly
24:14
tell me, is there anything I need to be worried
24:16
about here for my kid and why? And then it'll
24:18
give you a quick list and it does it in five
24:21
seconds. Right. And these are just like simple
24:23
things that keep your kid healthy, keep you less
24:26
stressed out because you're doing something that
24:29
you have to do that. you feel like would be really
24:34
stressful and time consuming to figure out otherwise.
24:36
But now you can just do it really quickly. So
24:38
there's a lot of entry points. My book has a
24:40
lot more entry points as well. But yeah, music.
24:43
I think music is an incredible thing where I
24:46
had a kid. I had like I had a kid, my son, who
24:48
was like, yeah, he He was like, I want a soundtrack
24:54
that sounds like someone's chasing somebody else.
24:56
And so I'm sitting there like looking through
24:58
trying, oh, how about this one? How about this
24:59
one? And I was like, what am I doing? I'm, I'm
25:02
an AI person. Like let me go on Suno. Let me
25:05
go on an AI music generator and see if we can
25:07
make something. And so he prompted it. He wrote
25:09
his own prompt with his own instrumentation and
25:12
then it made a song. And he listened to this
25:15
little two minute snippet of a song for probably
25:18
six straight hours where he was quite literally
25:21
like using his fingers like poppy look this is
25:23
the part of the song where the guy is hiding
25:25
and they almost catch him and then he starts
25:27
to run away and he's like doing all of this on
25:29
the dining room table so music is another thing
25:32
that i think can connect us just things that
25:34
connect us just do things that connect you you
25:37
know do you ever worry well i i'm sure you worry
25:39
because all parents worry right that's that's
25:42
90 percent of our job that that pretty much ends
25:45
you know like but i guess you know What are the
25:48
things that worry you most as a parent about
25:51
exposing your kids to with a guy? And I guess
25:53
I'm coming at this from a lens of, you know,
25:56
like interest generation, you know, and digital
26:00
resources, digital media, social media, right?
26:05
And screen time and those sort of things. So
26:07
what like what fears you most about that? So
26:11
I think it's not nothing about AI in itself scares
26:16
me. because it's just a bunch of math and now
26:20
some vector stuff and like none of that scares
26:23
me. What scares me is that it comes at a time
26:27
when we have sort of we are at our almost least.
26:34
Like we have the least amount of digital agency
26:36
if we're not a big tech company that we've ever
26:39
had because for the last 20 years, the consolidation
26:43
of big tech. And now the algorithmic manipulation
26:46
that has become just a part of social media and
26:50
all, really all digital experience, that has
26:53
become so pervasive. And AI happens to come right
26:58
at this time. And so we have this choice now
27:01
to be able to own some of this digital stuff
27:05
for ourselves and fork off and not be subjected
27:08
to this. uh, the space where we're just users
27:11
of technology, right? The same term we use for
27:14
folks struggling with drug addiction. We're not
27:16
just users of technology, but we're actually
27:17
creators and builders and guiders of this technology.
27:21
We can do that now with AI in a way that we never
27:24
were able to before. Like we are, we have agency
27:27
that we never had before. However, we are also
27:31
in a society now that has had 30 years of software
27:36
as a service, SaaS products, phones, apps that
27:39
have created what they call frictionless experiences,
27:43
right? Like it's UI, UX perfection, all that,
27:46
which has made us lazy and which has made us
27:49
so that we just accept that someone else is gonna
27:52
make the technology for us and we're gonna use
27:55
it as best we can. And that scares me because
27:58
if we continue to think like that, then AI is
28:02
going to become social media 2 .0, but it's going
28:05
to be so much more intense and insane than social
28:09
media was because we just we don't have social
28:11
media didn't have this autonomous element to
28:14
it, right? And the self learning element to it.
28:17
It was algorithmically driven, but now the algorithms
28:19
can learn in a way that they just never could
28:21
before. And so that's where so my fear isn't
28:25
about AI. And it's not about exposing my kids
28:27
to screens or anything. My My fear is that the
28:30
attention economy that has developed over the
28:32
last 10, 15 years becomes hypercharged with AI.
28:36
And then we as a society are sort of lacking
28:39
any kind of defense outside of just throwing
28:41
all digital technology out, which means we're
28:43
sort of isolated from the world as well in many
28:45
ways. So that's my fear. It's less about AI and
28:48
more about us. More of a like a stolen focus
28:51
kind of thing for for our attention. Yes. It's
28:54
the attention economy stuff, right? It's yes,
28:56
it's how we've monetized attention and You know,
29:00
I like and it's not just young folks, right?
29:03
Like there's so many I mean we see what's happening
29:05
the political space and that's happening because
29:08
there are a lot of not young folks We're sitting
29:10
there doing this all day and that has poisoned
29:14
all of us Do you suggest or can or do you have
29:19
any things that you recommend to parents that
29:21
are kind of? Practical solutions to some not
29:24
maybe even a solution practical ways to attack
29:28
that that sort of attention, you know economy
29:31
that we're talking about here. Yeah, is it even
29:33
more? You know playtime more, you know face to
29:36
face social time or I mean it is but it's not
29:40
that easy right because we like us here on this
29:45
call. We have experience in a pre -digital world.
29:50
We understand in, even if we can't necessarily
29:53
cautiously remember as well, but we at least
29:56
in our bones and in our personalities have a
29:59
non -digital personhood, right? Young folks do
30:02
not have a non -digital personhood. Most do not
30:05
in, especially in developed countries, right?
30:08
And that now when you ask a kid, Hey, let's go
30:14
do this. And the kid's like, I don't know what
30:16
that is, and there is no joyful connection there.
30:21
Around that and half the time the parents are
30:23
on the phone too, right? So like they probably
30:25
more than half, right? There's a there's a incredible
30:27
article in CNN from I think a year or two years
30:31
ago where a kid was talking about his sophomore
30:34
in high school and he was talking about phone
30:37
bands that were happening in school and he said
30:40
he's super. He's super into it. He likes the
30:43
phone ban, but he said. All of our school notifications
30:46
come through Instagram. All of our homework is
30:49
done on Google Classroom. Everything is digital.
30:52
And so how do we now de -digitize ourselves,
30:56
right? And so he asked his mom, he was like,
30:58
mom, what did you do? How did you guys know about
31:01
club events when you didn't have a phone or Instagram?
31:04
She was like, we used to make posters. And we'd
31:06
hang out after school and make posters and glue
31:09
things on the posters. And we put them up. And
31:11
the kid told his mom, he's like, that sounds
31:13
like so much fun. I wish we could do that, but
31:16
we've never done it in our entire lives from
31:19
being a child to now. We've never done it. And
31:22
so to me, the digitizing of education has been
31:27
incredibly, uh, I know we did it for a good reason.
31:31
because the world was becoming digital. But now
31:33
with AI, AI can handle a lot of the digital.
31:36
And so maybe we need to remind ourselves first
31:39
as adults and then for our kids, remind ourselves
31:42
what a non -digital world looks like, what joy
31:45
looks like when it's not on a screen. Gen Z is
31:47
the first generation who sees themselves more
31:50
themselves online than offline. Online is not
31:53
a thing. That is not a, that's not a place, right?
31:56
It's a made up digital like, you know, Virtual
32:00
virtual we've literally called a virtual space.
32:02
It's not real and to feel like you are yourself
32:05
in a virtual space doesn't bode Great for now
32:11
figuring out what to do in the organics. So that's
32:13
I I'm convinced that we as Folks who have lived
32:17
a pre -digital life our responsibility is so
32:20
much higher than I think most of us realize Because
32:24
our kids do not remember because they never had
32:26
a chance to remember a pre -digital life Can
32:31
you talk a little bit too, just about like how,
32:34
because kids spend so much day in school and
32:38
they are going to interact with AI in school
32:40
as well, how do you suggest like bridging the
32:43
gap between the home life and what happens in
32:46
school with, you know, keeping parents informed?
32:50
More so, I guess, just saying like, what do you
32:52
think schools should be prepared to communicate
32:55
to families, to parents, guardians about AI use?
33:00
And so that that their bases are covered because
33:03
that, you know, schools are getting questions
33:05
already. Yep. Yep. Yeah. What is your yeah. So
33:09
I'll give you a couple of examples of districts
33:11
that I think are doing interesting things. So
33:13
we're going to be, you know, which is down here
33:16
in Southern California, Orange County. They started
33:18
really early. And of course, it's a specific
33:22
community, right? It's like a very well -to -do
33:24
enclave, and everybody sort of knows each other,
33:27
and so it's different. But it gives you a lens
33:29
of what could happen if we start to repair some
33:32
of these connections. We're a very atomized society
33:35
right now, right? Where we're like... Like we
33:38
don't really say hi to everybody all the time.
33:39
I live in Long Beach where we do it more. But,
33:41
uh, once you start moving into the suburbs, like
33:43
it's right. We, we shield ourselves in our cars
33:46
and our roads, right. Wherever we go, our street
33:48
food is drive through, right. We're still in
33:49
our cars. But like first step I think is with
33:53
Laguna beach is they first started this just
33:56
like every school district did it's banned. You
33:59
can't use it. It's cheating, blah, blah, blah.
34:01
And then very quickly they realized that the
34:04
only thing they were doing. was eroding the trust
34:07
between students and teachers. And when they
34:11
were using AI detectors and all that stuff, right?
34:14
All you're doing is you're eroding the trust
34:16
between the adults and the kids at the school.
34:19
And so they said, we don't know what the answer
34:20
is, but this is not it. And we're stopping it
34:22
right now because forget about like, it was your
34:25
paper written by AI. What's way worse is poisoning
34:28
the relationships. that you have in this in this
34:31
community, right? And so first it was like, OK,
34:33
we're going to maintain the relationship. We'll
34:35
figure this AI thing out, but we're not going
34:37
to say we're not going to police our kids. So
34:40
that step one is is for schools to say we're
34:44
not policing your children around AI. Now some
34:46
parents are not going to be OK with that, because
34:48
some parents expect schools to police their kids.
34:50
But that's it. That's a stance that I think all
34:54
school districts have to take. This is prior
34:57
to AI, right? We were using. criminal justice
35:01
system language in schools for a long time. First
35:04
offense, second offense, disciplinary action,
35:06
right? Like all these things, these are all criminal
35:09
justice system words that we use in schools.
35:11
We needed to get rid of that anyway. And so this
35:14
is another moment where here's another reminder,
35:17
like we're not policing our children, right?
35:19
We're building relationships with them. We're
35:20
uplifting them. We're meeting them where they
35:22
are. So that's step one. I think the larger question
35:28
is, What I talk about being present ready a lot
35:31
of parents will come into schools and be like
35:34
What are you doing to make sure my kid is future
35:36
ready, right? Well, what's what's what's with
35:38
the like my kids future, right? We do not know
35:41
what the future is gonna look like We don't have
35:43
any kind of clue. And so I talk about being present
35:45
ready and being present ready doesn't mean you
35:48
need to understand AI inside and out. It doesn't
35:51
mean you need to have some deep technical knowledge
35:54
of all of this stuff. It doesn't even necessarily
35:56
mean you need to keep up with all the news because
35:58
we're busy, but it does mean that you need to
36:01
be in the spaces where these things matter. So
36:05
that brings me to my second district, Newport
36:08
Mesa Unified, also in Orange County, where I
36:11
do parent sessions once a month and I do some
36:14
other work with them. But the parents that show
36:16
up there, are at these parenting sessions are
36:21
like run the gamut, right? Last session we had
36:25
a couple of folks who built their own AIs, have
36:28
been working with IBM for a long time. And then
36:30
we had another parent who was like, I don't even
36:32
know what I'm talking about. I just know my kid
36:34
likes this stuff and I'm here. And she was like,
36:38
I feel so behind. And I said, no, no, the fact
36:40
that you're sitting here and you're okay. Being
36:44
like, I don't know what any of this is, but I
36:45
need, I know I need to be here. That's it. That's
36:48
the everything of it. And so. All districts need
36:51
to have some sort of parent something or another,
36:53
but please, please, please. I would, I would
36:55
ask is. Make it personal as parenting, not about
37:02
schools. We're so obsessed with like a school
37:05
district, so obsessed with sort of bringing parents
37:09
up to speed, which is fine. But in that. there's
37:13
a level of condescension there as well when you
37:16
sort of frame it like that, right? And a sort
37:18
of a deficit mentality with the parents. Whereas
37:21
when we think about it from an asset lens, every
37:24
parent is bringing everything that they already
37:27
need to the room. What do I work with there?
37:29
How do we work together in this AI space from
37:32
an asset based lens? If we, if we try to deficit
37:35
it, we are all deficit lenses with AI. There's
37:38
not one human on earth right now that I can say
37:41
is like, Oh, you're the AI expert. No, there
37:43
we, none of them are. Uh, and so that, that's,
37:46
that's two sort of little smaller concrete things.
37:49
It's not easy because this is like, how are you
37:52
going to keep my kids safe? There isn't an answer
37:54
to that. Cause we can't actually, cause we don't,
37:57
we're not there yet. And AI isn't there yet.
37:59
It's evolving too quickly for us to be like,
38:01
yes, we know how to keep you safe. We don't.
38:03
And we need to tell parents that, which also
38:06
means parents, you need to educate your kid at
38:08
home and make sure that this relationship that
38:10
you have with your kid is also because then you
38:12
can talk about this. If you don't talk about
38:14
it, then we do not know where it's going to go.
38:16
And we can't control all this stuff. The avoid
38:20
avoiding avoid avoiding. Yeah. The working to
38:23
avoid is don't avoid it. Yeah. Can I a little
38:27
bit earlier you touched on this message of be
38:29
a lighthouse what I want you to elaborate on
38:32
that a little bit You know what I mean by that
38:34
message and and how does it resonate with different
38:37
groups? Yeah well this started a year and a half
38:41
ago or so when I wanted to start having events
38:46
at my house where I would cook and I would cook,
38:52
we'd have kids, we'd play, we'd have space, we'd
38:54
have, you know, we'd have some beer and wine.
38:57
Uh, and then we could sit and talk about AI with
39:00
our kids or without our kids. Kids can play outside,
39:02
whatever. And we just sit in a circle, uh, and
39:05
talk about AI, which sounds weird, uh, because
39:08
like you want to talk about, I don't, you won't
39:10
talk about sports or something when you're hanging
39:11
out. I don't know. At least I do. Uh, but in
39:14
this case, it was like, no, we're going to come
39:16
in and talk about it in. I had 15 parents who
39:19
showed up the very first time I this is that
39:21
was mind -blowing to me and we had I think 12
39:24
kids who were playing in the back one of the
39:26
parents wanted their kid to be in the adult circle
39:29
she was 11 and so she sat in the adult circle
39:31
and we just talked about AI we talked about we
39:36
asked like they asked me a bunch of questions
39:38
I asked them a bunch of questions my colleague
39:41
Wes was there with me also I would consider him
39:44
an AI guru and And so the idea was that we are
39:50
not going to be experts, but it is stormy outside
39:57
and a lighthouse doesn't get whipped up with
40:01
the storm. A lighthouse stays steady and shines
40:04
light. And it doesn't matter how stormy it gets.
40:07
The storm could, could go over the lighthouse,
40:10
but it will still keep shining. And if we can
40:14
locate. Lighthouse homes in every district by
40:18
district every neighborhood district, too But
40:20
if we can locate lighthouse homes, and I'm working
40:23
on now trying to get a few more lighthouse homes
40:24
here where That's what we do. We're once a month
40:28
or however often you want it. We've come together
40:31
we eat we cook for each other and We wonder about
40:35
AI and we try to ask questions about our kids
40:39
and our kids present and our kids features That's
40:42
where the idea of being a lighthouse came came
40:44
up And I've done a number of talks now, uh, about,
40:50
about this. And I think the response. I mean,
40:55
has been overwhelming in a way like it's, it's,
40:59
uh, I think it's. It's a little, it's, it's emotional.
41:05
Uh, you know, uh, AI, I think we forget about,
41:10
we try to, uh, sort of. turn AI and these other
41:15
things into just the same digital stuff that
41:17
we've always done. But it's not, it's, it's,
41:20
it's something a lot deeper. And if you're, and
41:23
if you're living in, if you're living your true,
41:27
authentic human experience, and then AI becomes
41:32
a part of that authentic human experience, it's,
41:35
to me, it's very easy to see how I, this is about
41:39
me actually. The AI, the AI is just a reflection
41:42
of anything I do. And so in these talks, it's
41:45
been, you know, it's been talking about, of course,
41:48
my event that I've done and I've encouraged people.
41:50
I have a little on my website, AIParentology
41:52
.com. I have a little Lighthouse Homes guide,
41:56
if you will. Here's how you can do it yourself.
41:58
And so I'm trying to share with folks, do your
42:00
own Lighthouse events. You don't have to be an
42:01
AI expert. Just get together and know your people
42:05
in your neighborhood and start that conversation
42:08
and then keep building from that. but really
42:10
like it's a stormy world feels like it's getting
42:14
stormier by the hour and a lighthouse again we
42:19
stay firm and we don't move and we're drilled
42:22
into the rock but we are light we'll keep shining
42:25
all day and all night so that's my hope and we'll
42:28
definitely put any of those links in the description
42:31
here so if people want to start their own version
42:34
of the lighthouse they can definitely do that
42:36
please I'm just kind of curious here because
42:39
one of my most frequent uses of AI is to help
42:44
me with recipes. So I'm curious. The recipes
42:49
that you're cooking up for people when they come
42:51
to your house, are they coming from? They're
42:55
not. They're coming from my mom. But I don't
43:04
use AI for recipes as much because I sort of
43:07
enjoy the the I can I have maybe this is weird
43:12
or maybe it's not but like I can taste spices
43:15
and food like as I'm putting them in to the food
43:18
to the point where I don't even taste my food
43:21
as I cook it because I can taste it mentally
43:23
without actually physically putting it on my
43:25
tongue and so it's fun to just put things oh
43:29
yeah let me put that so no I don't use it for
43:31
recipes but that would be a cool little uh potluck
43:35
thing where it's like secret ingredient. You
43:37
can only use AI. You can't use yourself and create
43:40
meals and let's have a little potluck. That would
43:43
be kind of fun. A little twist. Yeah, that would
43:45
be fun. That would be fun. Kunal, I just want
43:49
to shift a little bit here. And this is something
43:52
that you've been working on as well. And I know
43:55
in talking to you at FETC, I know you did a session
43:59
or maybe a few sessions on agentic AI. Yeah.
44:02
And so for someone that's hearing that for the
44:05
first time, can you just explain what agentic
44:08
AI is, rather than generative AI, which we've
44:11
been talking about a bunch, what is this new
44:14
term that's coming about? Yeah, so, agentic is
44:18
simply AI that is either semi -autonomous or
44:22
autonomous and can make decisions for itself,
44:24
right? And generative AI becomes a part of it
44:28
because generative AI becomes the decision maker
44:30
for a lot of these agentic systems. And so think
44:36
of what we use as generative AI, the chatbots
44:38
specifically, not the image generators, but the
44:41
chatbots. It is, you know, it's a essentially
44:45
call and response, right? I need something. It
44:47
comes back to me, right? There's a sort of transactional
44:49
nature to it. It's transformational too, right?
44:51
If you have, if you have sort of unsure conversations,
44:53
you can start to go interesting places, but it
44:56
is, it's a, it's a one, one in, one out, one
45:00
in, one out, right? And it is a human. it's a
45:03
human process. When you start to move to agentics,
45:07
I'll give you an example of a simple agentic
45:10
system. We have, we use the term agent, AI agent,
45:14
which is like, uh, has sort of become a catch
45:17
-all term for things that I think I wouldn't
45:19
necessarily call AI agents. Uh, but an AI agent
45:24
is say something that, uh, is like a chat GPT
45:28
or something that I'll use an email as an example.
45:32
that goes into my email, reads all my emails,
45:35
and then prioritizes them by, you know, how quickly
45:39
I need to respond, maybe even drafts some responses,
45:43
and it does that, right? And so that's my email
45:47
agent. I still have to trigger that email agent,
45:50
right? I still have to say, hey, go check my
45:51
email and bring stuff back, right? I do that
45:54
with Claude all the time now. And so that's an
45:57
agent. An agentic system or agentic AI when the
46:04
human is we start talking about human in the
46:09
loop and we actually start talking about human
46:11
create the loop human optimize the loop human
46:14
observe the loop and so your trigger is automatic
46:18
so you might say twice a day so it might be time
46:20
it might be what a new email comes in it right
46:23
whatever it is but there's some automated trigger
46:27
It then goes and tells the AI agent. Hey, read
46:30
all the emails that have come since blah blah
46:32
blah time and then do the thing you're supposed
46:34
to do with drafting potential responses and then.
46:38
Send that send a text to me to show me to summarize
46:44
everything you did and give me the draft emails
46:46
and then have just a confirm button there. And
46:48
if I hit confirm, it'll go. That's still not
46:50
fully agentic because I still have to hit confirm
46:52
at the end, right? Eventually it'll get so good
46:55
that I don't have to do that. Email is a weird
46:57
example, because email is so personal that maybe
46:59
you don't ever want it to just do it without
47:01
you looking. But there are other processes that
47:03
you could imagine where you're like, it's fine.
47:04
Like, even if it's 80%, it's good enough. So
47:08
that's what an agentic system is. Now, when you
47:11
start to get to where, like a lot of these agentic
47:16
engineers are, what you're doing is you're building
47:19
a system that then builds other systems. So now
47:24
we're sort of going meta with this, where that
47:28
agentic AI system, I could now tell it, make
47:31
me a better email system. So it would go study
47:35
itself, and then I would have another coding
47:37
agent. So I only have an email reading agent
47:39
now. I'd add another coding agent. Now the reading
47:41
agent will go talk to the coding agent. Now the
47:43
coding agent will say, OK, blah, blah, blah,
47:44
blah. And now it'll start to build something.
47:46
And now it does that all without me having to
47:49
write any code without me having to do anything
47:51
other than just tell it what it is that I needed
47:54
it to do. And so that's where agentic AI becomes
47:57
really interesting. We're moving from AI as a
48:01
tool to AI as infrastructure. And we're shifting
48:06
processes from how can I make AI act like me
48:11
and make like make my life easier to actually
48:14
now I'm in the place where how do I make AI's
48:17
life easier, right? Because AI is the one doing
48:19
all the work. I'm doing the thinking, I'm doing
48:21
the imagining, I'm doing all the creative stuff,
48:23
but the grunt work, AI is doing all that for
48:26
me. So I need to make sure, just like it was
48:28
an employee, how do I get the best out of my
48:31
AI agents? And so now that's the shift, right?
48:33
And it's less about what can AI do for me, and
48:37
really it's like, what can I do for AI so it
48:38
can work better so I can focus on the creative,
48:40
cool, interesting things? And when you're talking
48:43
about that, like the with those different agents
48:46
doing different things. And I kind of have to
48:49
forgive me because I get visions of the matrix
48:51
with this. Right. It's it's an accurate. There's
48:55
accuracy there. Yes. Yeah. So A .I. swarms. Right.
48:58
Yeah. So can you talk about that just a little?
49:01
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So so swarm intelligence really
49:04
is this idea where you have many A .I. agents.
49:09
So when I do swarm stuff. I have, you know, it
49:16
could be up to five agents at a time. It could
49:18
be 20 agents at a time, but each one of those
49:19
agents can also spawn agents in real time. And
49:23
so what it what a swarm is, is you have, let's
49:27
say five agents, all working on something I and
49:30
I give it the instruction, hey, create me a website
49:33
that captures, you know, I don't know that captures
49:37
all the Olympic news that happened over the last
49:40
three, right? Something like that and make sure
49:42
it updates every. Two hours and so now. I can
49:48
I can sort of make the agents. I can say here's
49:51
a coding agent that does this. Here's a here's
49:53
a blah blah blah agent. There's a web scraper
49:55
agent that looks up all the Olympic news, etc.
49:57
But Claude is pretty good. I use Claude and Claude
49:59
is pretty good at creating its like creating
50:01
its agents for itself, and so it'll read my prompt
50:05
and it'll say OK. I'll create five agents. One
50:08
agent will build the website, or one agent will
50:10
build the front end of the website. One agent
50:11
will build the back end of the website. One agent
50:13
will do web research. One agent will do this,
50:15
this, this, right? And so all these five agents
50:17
now unleash all simultaneously. And what makes
50:21
them work is that they all dump what they're
50:24
doing into a common memory. And in that common
50:27
memory, every agent can have an idea of what
50:31
other agents are doing. And not only can they
50:34
have an idea of what the other agents are doing,
50:36
but now Claude as the orchestrator can see where
50:39
every agent is and what it's all working on and
50:42
that it orchestrates all of the information that's
50:45
coming into some cohesive model of understanding
50:48
of what it's doing, right? And so it's making
50:50
sure that it's not just like. Again, think of
50:54
them as employees, five employees living in five
50:56
different countries that never talk to each other.
50:58
And you just tell them to go do the things and
50:59
then you bring it together and you're like, Oh
51:00
my God, this is never going to work. Cause none
51:02
of these pieces match. Instead it's everyone's
51:04
in the same room. Everyone sees what everybody's
51:06
doing. And it's interesting because as I've been
51:09
working with swarm intelligence, I've now moved
51:12
from agentic software to wondering about agentic
51:17
organizations, right? Cause if agents, if, if
51:20
we can get AI to do that, why is it that we do
51:22
that? Like, why don't we all work in this collaborative,
51:26
common memory tech space? Because agents are
51:29
trying to compete with each other so they don't,
51:30
right? So they collaborate. Whereas I know we
51:33
have a different social model, but it's helped
51:37
me understand that like, oh my gosh, as an agentic
51:39
organization, we need to collaborate more and
51:42
we need to have common memory. So that's a swarm.
51:43
A swarm is just a bunch of agents that share
51:45
common memory that have a common task that they
51:47
need to go to. Is that what you see is, if we
51:52
were to project out 12 months from now, is that
51:55
the future? Or is that not fair to do because
52:00
we should be in the present, right? Yeah, hard
52:02
to say, hard to say. I think there's this big
52:05
move now to local AI, right? I'm building AI
52:10
that lives on a tiny little chip right here,
52:13
right? This is like a $15 chip. And you convert,
52:18
you're moving. like I'm moving from language
52:20
models to these vector or vector models of AI,
52:25
where right now with LLMs, all the thinking happens
52:30
in language, right? It's all next token predictions.
52:33
It's all language. And so whenever all the thinking
52:36
is happening with language and language takes
52:38
a lot of compute, a lot of energy. It's it's
52:41
in order to do it locally on your own computer.
52:43
You need a massive expensive machine. But if
52:47
you separate the thinking from the talking, right?
52:50
Because right now it's thinking and talking through
52:52
the same mechanism. If you make the thinking
52:56
happen just through simple math, i .e. you convert
53:00
your language into math, and now it can do this
53:04
AI search stuff with math, and then it spits
53:06
out the language at the other end, now you can
53:09
do what, honestly, what a lot of these big AI
53:13
companies are doing, like what takes a $7 ,000
53:17
machine, You could do on this $15 machine, but
53:20
it takes a little bit of technical know -how
53:23
and I I think that's where things are going more
53:28
so than the large the large language model. The
53:33
large language model model. Is assuming that
53:37
we still stay in this centralized everyone makes
53:41
like everyone uses someone else's software world
53:44
that we live in right now. I do not believe that's
53:46
what the world is going to look like in a year.
53:49
Not that I know who like I don't know, but I
53:53
do think we're going to be moving to more distributed
53:54
systems. So given, you know, the unpredictability
53:58
of it in all that, you know, like if you were
54:00
to tell a parent, you know, like what is, you
54:03
know, we're kind of bringing it back to the circle
54:06
of the parents here again. What's that one, you
54:09
know, North Star or if you want to call it a
54:11
lighthouse, you know that they. keep, keep their,
54:13
their vision towards, you know, while they're
54:16
navigating rough waters or, you know, take the
54:19
guide them in the, in the darkest night, you
54:21
know, to me, it is just your human relationship
54:26
with your child and with, with your community
54:29
and, and that your kids' friends and their parents,
54:31
like whoever that, whatever that community is,
54:34
the more human you get right now, to me, the
54:37
more prepared you are. for this AI world. It's
54:40
not, it's actually the opposite of technology.
54:42
To me, I think we have spent, uh, you know, the
54:45
last 50, 60, however many years building a very
54:48
robust digital infrastructure, insane digital
54:51
infrastructure that can do so much. And we had
54:55
to, uh, you know, be the people at the computer
54:58
and at the monitors and at the, at the keyboards
55:01
to make that happen. And I want to, uh, there's
55:04
so many software engineers who are so fearful.
55:07
of their futures, and rightfully so. However,
55:11
I wish I could send them all a present because
55:17
our digital infrastructure exists because they
55:19
hand coded it, because they worked day in, day
55:22
out. They spent late nights building this digital
55:25
infrastructure that now AI can use to remove
55:29
us from the need to be in front of this digital
55:31
architecture. And of course, we built an entire
55:34
economy where people pay bills by sitting in
55:36
front of computers. And so that's, we, we need
55:38
to figure out what that shift is. I think we
55:41
will. I think there's a lot of fear, but I think
55:43
we're going to figure it out. We're pretty incredible,
55:45
pretty incredible species when we choose to be.
55:48
Uh, and so, so my advice. And I know it doesn't
55:52
sound like, because in a fear, when we live in
55:55
a space of fear, we want something more protective,
55:57
but I think nothing is going to protect you better
56:00
than having deep, deep human relationships. with
56:04
your kids, with your community, with the people
56:07
who love you and the people you love. That's,
56:09
that is the best preparation you can have for
56:12
AI. Awesome. Well, Kunal, we want to thank you
56:16
for all that you've given us to think about.
56:19
And we want to just end with our, we do, do our
56:21
lightning rounds. Just on the more personal note
56:25
and get to know you a bit more. So we're going
56:27
to kick that off and uh, We'll start I'll start
56:31
right away here. And so the first question is
56:33
what's a moment from your life? That's still
56:35
shaved how you show up for people today I was
56:38
in Utah with the kids coming out of lockup. We
56:41
were we had we had been out for a week and we
56:45
were in the desert in Utah and we had a campfire
56:48
and we had a We had a we always had a discussion
56:54
at the end of the day and this discussion was
56:57
invite someone into the circle who you have hurt
57:01
and apologize. Just talk to them, right? It can
57:05
be an apology. It can be whatever it is, but
57:08
bring them into the circle and talk to them.
57:11
And in that dark, starry night in the beautiful
57:14
desert where the fire is going and the red rocks,
57:16
you can see reflections of flickers on the red
57:18
rocks and the cottonwoods and the sagebrush and
57:21
these kids bawling their eyes out. It sits with
57:26
me. And so that's, yeah, that'll be it. What's
57:30
a belief you've changed your mind about in the
57:31
last couple years? Let's see that social media
57:38
is not inherently evil I Think I've moved to
57:44
a place of social media Well, maybe not inherently
57:47
but the way in which it evolved over the last
57:50
ten years is actually like is Willfully malicious
57:53
and that is something I did not believe before
57:58
What's the best piece of advice you ever received
58:00
and who gave it to you? Oh man, so maybe it was
58:07
my My former father -in -law who said life is
58:15
too serious to take seriously and that's it Cool
58:20
When you're not feeling on you know, what's your
58:25
favorite way to recharge? Oh man, I live in Southern
58:29
California. So going on a walk to the beach has
58:32
been a great savior for me. I love climbing and.
58:37
And I have this thing that I don't know if you've
58:40
watched Jimmy V's speech from a long time ago.
58:42
Jimmy Valvano coach for North Carolina State.
58:45
He was dying of cancer and he talked about there's
58:47
three things that you should ever do every day.
58:49
You should laugh. You should think and you should
58:53
cry. And so sometimes when I need a recharge.
58:56
I do those things in that order and that's it.
59:01
Yeah. Favorite food spot in Long Beach. Favorite
59:05
food spot in Long Beach. Let's see man. There's
59:09
a lot, but probably Calaveras, which is a Mexican
59:12
spot that's in downtown. It's Taco Tuesdays.
59:16
The Taco Tuesdays. They are probably my favorite
59:18
thing to do in Long Beach. You're giving a big
59:21
keynote. What's your walk up song? I've been
59:25
asked this, it is in my mind, I don't play it
59:27
out loud, but in my mind it's Go Go Gadget Flow
59:29
by Lupit Fiasco. Just simply because it's got
59:33
this hook and this rhythm that just like helps
59:35
me bounce up to stage. So this or that, you can
59:38
only choose one or the other. Okay, so I'll give
59:41
you a series here and you can only choose one
59:44
or the other for these. Early morning deep work
59:46
or late night creative burst? I can only choose
59:50
one. Yep. Man. That's the rules. Because the
59:54
answer is both because they serve different purposes.
59:56
Let's see. But if I, if I had to choose only
59:59
one, it would be the morning. Yeah. Cause morning
1:00:01
is like, that's when, that's when the day begins.
1:00:05
And so it's a wake up and begin. I always say
1:00:09
like, how you start the meeting is how the meeting
1:00:10
is going to go. But that's sort of like a, that's
1:00:12
an analogy for everything in life. How you start
1:00:15
blank is how blank is going to go. And so how
1:00:17
you start your day is the way the day is going
1:00:18
to go. So yeah. Okay. Texting your voice notes.
1:00:23
Texting. Sadly, although I voice in my text notes,
1:00:26
so who knows? You're not going to like this next
1:00:30
one. Mountain or ocean. Oh no, this one's actually
1:00:34
easy. Yeah, mountains. I'm a snowboarder, not
1:00:37
a surfer, and so yeah, mountains. OK. Coffee
1:00:40
or tea? Coffee, black coffee. OK, paper and pencil
1:00:46
or tech? Paper and pencil. All right. And then
1:00:54
big keynote or small group workshop. Ah, hell
1:00:58
again. They serve different purposes, right?
1:01:01
Small groups. I, I, yeah, I like the interaction.
1:01:04
I was, I'm a teacher, right? So yeah, small groups.
1:01:07
So canal, before we let you go, is there anything
1:01:10
that we can plug or promote for you, you know,
1:01:12
that you would like to give a shout out to that
1:01:14
you have coming up or, or, you know, and, and
1:01:17
you have, yeah, yeah, certainly just link them
1:01:19
in the show notes. Yeah, yeah. So if you go to
1:01:21
my website, aiparentology .com, well, I have
1:01:24
two websites. That's that's my parentology site.
1:01:25
I have my newest edition of my book. Our incredible
1:01:30
fragile moment linked there. I actually, if you're
1:01:33
on a computer, the whole PDF is actually on my
1:01:35
website and you can just read it. It's a little
1:01:38
bit tedious to read as a PDF on your computer,
1:01:40
but it's there and but it's also on Amazon, of
1:01:43
course. And and so I've got that it's it's a
1:01:48
three part book where. The beginning is really
1:01:50
my third iteration of the AI parent is about
1:01:52
parenting. But then I move into a space of sovereignty
1:01:56
where the middle section is about, uh, what does
1:01:58
it mean to have sovereign AI? What does it mean
1:02:00
to have sovereignty over your digital technology?
1:02:02
And what does that look like from any budget
1:02:05
point in any technical kind of, uh, space? And
1:02:08
then the last one is, uh, the, and the third
1:02:10
section of the book is, uh, really about the
1:02:13
human connection. It's just like, what is, what
1:02:15
does it mean to be human? in this moment. And
1:02:17
that's not about wondering about what is being
1:02:20
human. It's about what does it mean to be an
1:02:22
organic biological being when this digital world
1:02:25
is the primary way in which we talk to one another.
1:02:29
And so there's my book and then I generative
1:02:33
education dot com, which is my other website.
1:02:34
That's where I do most of my consulting work.
1:02:37
And I'm going to be doing I'm sort of launching
1:02:40
this. group of more advanced AI users in school
1:02:46
leadership where I want to create cohort -based
1:02:48
models to build out sort of what is an agentic
1:02:53
district look like? What does agentic leadership
1:02:55
look like in schools? And how do we imagine schools
1:03:00
in a world where answers are no longer what we
1:03:05
care about? Questions are everything. So what
1:03:08
does that look like? Yeah, so thank you so much
1:03:13
in our conversation here today and me as well.
1:03:16
Thank you so much You guys are awesome. Good
1:03:19
work. Thanks. All right. Take care guys. Yeah.
1:03:22
All right Thanks for listening to integrate this
1:03:30
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1:03:35
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