演讲题目：Can AI help with the chaos of family life?

演讲简介：

科技创新者阿夫妮・帕特尔・汤普森设计了一款应用程序，旨在帮助忙碌的父母摆脱各类琐事困扰：安排孩子放学接送、协调玩伴聚会、策划生日派对等等。但随着产品不断完善，她却感觉有些不对劲。当人工智能抹平了日常家庭生活中的这些小摩擦，我们可能会失去些什么？帕特尔・汤普森分享了她令人意外的发现，以及如何借助人工智能，与所爱之人建立更深厚的情感联结。



中英文字幕

So it's a Tuesday afternoon and I'm in my home office, working on a tricky product design.

这是一个周二下午，我在家庭办公室里，正在进行一项棘手的产品设计。

I have my headphones on and I'm in my groove.

我戴着耳机，状态很好。

Just then, one of those annoying dings cuts through my Do Not Disturb.

就在那时，一个烦人的铃声打断了我的《请勿打扰》。

So it's someone important.

所以这是一个重要的人。

It's Rosa, our nanny.

这是罗莎，我们的保姆。

"Hey, Avni, I was wondering if I could take next Friday morning off." I silence it, I'll just get back to her a little bit later.

“嘿，阿夫尼，我想知道下周五早上我是否可以休息。“我压制了它，我稍后再联系她。

I realize I need something for my email so I head mindlessly to my inbox.

我意识到我的电子邮件需要一些东西，所以我不假思索地走向我的收件箱。

Big mistake.

大错特错了。

There are not one, but six basketball emails, rehearsal and a field trip.

不是一封，而是六封篮球电子邮件、排练和一次实地考察。

That's OK, I've got remarkable self-restraint and I leave them unread.

没关系，我有非凡的自我约束力，我不读它们。

I also activate my really foolproof system of telling myself not to forget.

我还激活了我非常万无一失的系统，告诉自己不要忘记。

I grab my email and I get back to work.

我拿起我的电子邮件，然后回去工作。

Two more minutes, another ding.

又过了两分钟，又是一声叮。

It's Rosa again.

又是罗莎。

"Hey, Avni, I'm at the school for pickup, but there's no one here.

“嘿，Avni，我在学校接人，但这里没有人。

Should I be somewhere else?"

我应该去别的地方吗？"

Immediately, monkey brain activates.

猴子的大脑立即激活。

I grab my phone, "What day is it?

我拿起手机，“今天是星期几？

What time is it?

几点了？

Today's play rehearsal, right?

今天的戏剧排练吧？

That should be at the big gym." I head back to my email, looking through all of the rehearsal emails, costumes, volunteering and there, on the schedule for today, at the bottom, "Oh, by the way, today's in the music room."

那应该是在大健身房。“我回到我的电子邮件，查看了所有的排练电子邮件、服装、志愿服务，还有今天的日程安排，在底部，”哦，顺便说一句，今天是在音乐室。"

I text Rosa and tell her to head to the other side of the school, and I sit back, relieved, and my eyes fall on those unread emails.

我给罗莎发短信，告诉她去学校的另一边，我如释重负地坐下来，目光落在那些未读的电子邮件上。

And I think, you know what happens next.

我想，你知道接下来会发生什么。

I finish that product doc, obviously.

显然，我完成了产品文档。

Yeah, no.

是啊。

I'd like to tell you that this is the exception, but I ended up creating an AI company because it wasn't.

我想告诉你，这是一个例外，但我最终创建了一家人工智能公司，因为它不是。

Because with two kids, two jobs, and your modern family cocktail of crazy-hair days and soccer tournaments and misplaced library books, I loved how full our life was, but I hated that somehow my brain had become the computer that ran my family.

因为有两个孩子、两份工作，还有现代家庭的疯狂头发、足球比赛和放错地方的图书馆书籍，我喜欢我们的生活如此充实，但我讨厌我的大脑不知何故变成了管理我家庭的计算机。

And worse, it made collaboration nearly impossible because everything was in my head, and the only way to get it out of there was to ask me.

更糟糕的是，这使得合作几乎不可能，因为一切都在我的脑海中，而摆脱困境的唯一方法就是问我。

At which point I would look to my husband and say, when was it that I became his project manager?

此时我会看着我的丈夫说，我什么时候成为他的项目经理？

Pro tip: not a very good way to handle human relationships.

专业提示：这不是处理人际关系的好方法。

But maybe it's because I've been a scientist and a product designer before I became a tech founder, that next to that frustration, I also felt curiosity and opportunity.

但也许是因为在成为科技创始人之前，我曾是一名科学家和产品设计师，除了沮丧之外，我还感受到了好奇心和机会。

I had honed my ability to find the tiniest bits of friction in everyday interactions, and to build products that solve them, like packaging for an osteoporosis drug that was both child-resistant and accessible to arthritic hands.

我磨练了自己的能力，能够找到日常互动中最微小的摩擦，并开发出解决这些摩擦的产品，比如一种既适合儿童使用又适合关节炎患者的骨质疏松药物的包装。

Or designing a service for parents to connect to sitters and doing it over SMS because that's where they already are instead of sending them to another app.

或者设计一项服务，让父母连接到保姆并通过短信进行操作，因为这是他们已经在的地方，而不是将他们发送到另一个应用程序。

And this, parenthood, well, this felt like the friction Olympics.

而这个，为人父母，嗯，这感觉就像摩擦奥运会。

I wanted to build myself a force field, a machine that could intercept every interruption, an expert that was more capable and organized than I could ever be.

我想为自己建造一个磁场，一台可以拦截每一次干扰的机器，一个比我更有能力、更有组织性的专家。

I mean, if we were going to use my brain as a computer to run it all, why couldn't we use an actual computer instead?

我的意思是，如果我们要使用我的大脑作为计算机来运行这一切，为什么我们不能使用真正的计算机呢？

My first few tries failed.

我的前几次尝试失败了。

It didn't matter how meticulously I entered every last detail of our family's logistics, there was always some situation or scenario I would fail to detail.

无论我多么细致地输入我们家后勤的每一个细节，总有一些情况或场景我无法详细说明。

I mean, try explaining a five-year-old's sudden allergy to square-shaped foods to software.

我的意思是，尝试用软件解释一个五岁孩子突然对方形食物过敏的原因。

But then three years ago, things changed.

但三年前，情况发生了变化。

Large language models started to get really good.

大型语言模型开始变得非常好。

And unlike software, AI could handle ambiguous and incomplete information.

与软件不同的是，人工智能可以处理模糊和不完整的信息。

It could take something like a birthday party invite and not just do the explicit thing, like get it into my calendar, but handle the implicit things that too often mess tired, busy parents up, like reminding me to buy a birthday present or checking for conflicts.

它可能需要像生日派对邀请这样的事情，而不仅仅是做明确的事情，比如将其纳入我的日历中，而是处理经常让疲惫、忙碌的父母感到不安的隐性事情，比如提醒我买生日礼物或检查冲突。

So now, when my husband and I are hit with something related to the family, I've built Milo, the first AI sidekick for parents, to be able to take those school newsletters and grocery items and library books and be able to handle it.

所以现在，当我和我的丈夫遇到与家庭相关的事情时，我创建了Milo，第一个家长的人工智能助手，以便能够拿走学校时事通讯、杂货和图书馆的书籍并能够处理它。

And best yet, Milo can tell everyone what's happening every day.

最好的是，米洛可以告诉每个人每天发生的事情。

Finally, a computer that can actually run things.

最后，一台可以真正运行事物的计算机。

So you'd think that this is where the story ends.

所以你会认为这就是故事的结束。

But no.

但没有。

Because I'm human and I'm greedy.

因为我是人，而且我很贪婪。

If Milo could take on the rote, repetitive, administrative parts of family life so beautifully, why not keep on going?

如果米洛能够如此出色地承担家庭生活中死记硬背、重复、行政的部分，为什么不继续呢？

Why couldn't it coordinate playdates with Sienna's mom, Carrie?

为什么它不能协调与西耶娜的妈妈凯莉的玩耍日期？

Or when the girls were bickering, pop in to suggest the ideal way to resolve their dispute?

或者当女孩们争吵时，突然出现并建议解决争端的理想方法？

So a couple of months ago, we're working on ways to improve this force field and one of my investors, a guy who's pretty reserved unless you get him fired up, goes, "Well, Milo can see those evening events and just automatically text your sitter.

所以几个月前，我们正在研究改善这种磁场的方法，我的一位投资者是一个非常保守的人，除非你让他兴奋起来，他说：“好吧，米洛可以看到那些晚上的活动，然后自动给你的保姆发短信。

Or it knows your friends' birthdays and it can just send them birthday wishes.

或者它知道你朋友的生日，并可以直接向他们发送生日祝福。

And those teacher emails?

那些老师的电子邮件呢？

Well, Milo can just connect directly to your inbox and suck every last one up so you never have to see another one again."

好吧，Milo只需直接连接到您的收件箱，然后吸收最后一封，这样您就不必再看到另一封了。"

As we fleshed these features out, though, something just didn't feel right, but I couldn't figure out what it was.

然而，当我们充实这些功能时，感觉有些不对劲，但我想不明白那是什么。

After all, I was looking for friction and finding ways to eliminate it, but something just didn't feel right.

毕竟，我正在寻找摩擦并寻找消除它的方法，但感觉有些不对劲。

What was it?

是什么？

That question nagged me for weeks until one evening my daughter Saaya ran into the kitchen to show me something she had made in art class.

这个问题困扰了我几个星期，直到有一天晚上，我的女儿萨亚跑进厨房，给我看她在艺术课上做的一些东西。

And as I ran my fingers over those tiny clay pieces, it hit me.

当我的手指滑过那些小粘土碎片时，我突然想到了。

Not all friction is bad.

并非所有摩擦都是坏事。

You might know, to connect two of these clay pieces together, you actually have to score each side haphazardly so that they have something to grip on to.

你可能知道，要将两个粘土块连接在一起，你实际上必须随意地在每一边划线，以便它们有东西可以抓住。

Otherwise the smooth sides just slide past one another.

否则，光滑的边就会互相滑过。

This resistance is called productive friction, and it's valuable because it creates connection.

这种阻力被称为生产性摩擦，它很有价值，因为它创造了联系。

And where people are involved, there's lots of productive friction, meaningful interactions disguised as inefficiencies.

当人们参与其中时，就会出现很多富有成效的摩擦，伪装成低效率的有意义的互动。

I didn't need a perfectly solid force field.

我不需要一个完全坚固的磁场。

I needed a permeable one instead.

我需要一个可渗透的。

One that shielded me from the things that I found unproductive, but let in the fewer, messier, more meaningful ones for me to handle.

它保护我免受那些我认为没有成效的事情的影响，但让我处理那些更少、更混乱、更有意义的事情。

Milo could find three times that worked for the playdate, but I could text Carrie, which would give me a chance to ask her about her mother.

米洛可以找到三次工作的游戏日期，但我可以短信凯莉，这将给我一个机会问她关于她的母亲。

Or Milo could comb through every last detail of that school newsletter, picking out details that my eyes might miss but leave for me on top Miss V's note about how our daughter Arya's creative writing has really been blossoming.

或者麦洛可以梳理学校通讯的每一个细节，挑出我眼睛可能错过的细节，但在V小姐关于我们女儿艾莉亚的创意写作如何真正蓬勃发展的笔记上留给我。

You might draw your line in a different place, and that's OK.

您可能会在不同的地方划清界限，这没关系。

And I might draw mine differently under different circumstances.

在不同的情况下，我可能会画出不同的画。

In a week when my husband is traveling and our nanny is sick, the girls have tennis tryouts and I have a product launch, I want Milo to build me a force field you could see from space.

一周内，当我丈夫去旅行，我们的保姆生病了，女孩们要参加网球选拔赛，我要参加产品发布会时，我希望米洛为我建造一个你可以从太空看到的磁场。

But I guess the point is, we finally have the kind of technology that can tell the difference between load that we need help lightning and work that is hard, but that is mine to do.

但我想重点是，我们终于拥有了一种技术，可以区分我们需要闪电帮助的负载和困难的工作，但这是我要做的。

I've begun to realize that one of the most radical things AI can do for us is not do the things for us faster and better, but to push us to choose what is most meaningful and then make the space for us to do it ourselves.

我开始意识到，人工智能能为我们做的最激进的事情之一不是为我们做得更快、更好，而是推动我们选择最有意义的事情，然后为我们腾出空间自己做。

This feels like a brave new world, but I'm excited to see what is possible when we have tools that encourage us not to be more perfect and productive, but unfinished and evolving.

这感觉就像一个美丽的新世界，但我很高兴看到，当我们拥有鼓励我们不是变得更完美和更有成效，而是未完成和不断发展的工具时，什么是可能的。

That reminds us not to be afraid to bear the friction, that just shows us how we are all beautifully, imperfectly, inconveniently human.

这提醒我们不要害怕承受摩擦，这只是向我们展示了我们是多么美丽、不完美、不方便的人类。

Thank you.

谢谢。

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