When can my son start using his personal data?

With Father’s Day approaching, I’m imagining a future where AI and private data converge to create a personal AI for my 5 year old son, enhancing his individual growth (hello, Apple Intelligence 👋🏽.) This raises important questions about privacy, security, and data ownership as we navigate an AI-driven world. Imagine leveraging advanced AI models like GPT-4o or Claude 3 as personal assistants, enriched by individual private data—this could lead to incredible personal agents. Though combining fatherhood with thoughts on private data may seem odd, it opens up exciting discussions about how AI can shape our lives.

We generate massive amounts of digital data daily, often used by businesses for insights. But how can my son benefit from his digital footprint? Beyond mere data collection, consider capturing photos and videos of milestones, tracking educational progress, or monitoring screen time. Instead of letting this data serve businesses, we can envision AI as a personal digital agent for our children, enriching their lives with tailored insights.

In the era of the "quantified self," people meticulously tracked their lives for self-improvement. However, my son can't yet track his own data, despite generating valuable insights. This suggests a need for systems, like personal data lockers, to organize and make sense of our digital data. We tried this idea back in the early days of the internet, It never really took off,  but perhaps it’s time to reconsider. Such a system could create a perfect memory for my child, generate meaningful photo albums, and even compose personal theme songs.

Forget old baby books; envision a digital diary for my son, guided by an AI offering wisdom and witty banter. This is the future of fatherhood—where data is not just information, but the colorful threads weaving our family’s fabric. It’s a brave new world, both terrifying and exciting, and I can’t wait to see what comes next.