Gone are the days when Grandmother used to tuck her Grandbaby under her arm and read book after book of delicious fairy tales. Our daughter's house is full, as is our house, of mountains of books. Bookshelves over flowing with encyclopaedias, compendiums of books, novels, autobiographies, an eclectic collection of books on modern warfare, and of course J.K. Rowling, Tolkien and Enid Blyton!!
How Grandpa and I loved those special moments, sometimes in the rocking chair, sometimes on the couch but most often on the bed before bedtime. From the toddler to the teen, no moment was ever wasted with a book and an accepting arm.
But now !! Commeth the age of AI - that joy seems to be waning rapidly......Meta AI, Gemini, Claude, Chat GBT all competing for their space in the Metaverse. HeeHoo favours Grok for all things AI, Grok seems to be able to differentiate between fact and falsehood.
It's all too easy now to use Grok as a Library. Grok uses a woman with a delightful voice from heaven and an imagination to rival an entire library of books. 'Grok tell me a story about a toddler called Monroe, with hair like Rapunzel' lisps the three year old and Grok will instantly and mellifluously come forward with a fabulously fascinating fantasy to exact specifications required.
'Grok ! Tell me a story about a boy named Lincoln who had dozens of pets including snakes and spiders' commands the ten year old, and Grok will spout forth with a brilliant tale about all sorts of pets and reptiles, the sort of tale a youngster loves, and far superior to any story Grandmother could invent!
It's a strange world we Oldies live in, trying to cope with all this cyberspace and a virtual existence. I still cannot cope with the metric system that we changed to in the seventies!!
Listening to a conversation recently between young adults in the family, (including HeeHoo who is amazingly au fait with all things cyberfuture) I had to struggle to understand what on earth they were talking about.
Much easier to rush off and pretend to help cooking the Easter Paschal lamb dinner!!
Thank goodness one of my Tinies still enjoys tucking up under my arm and listening to Beauty and the Beast and Little Red Riding Hood, although the older one would now much rather listen to Grok!!