Made to Seek
An interactive first chapter
Nia leaning on the kitchen counter on a rainy afternoon, whispering to a small smart speaker beside the fruit bowl.

The Day You Talked to a Machine

Chapter One

It was raining, which meant Nia was bored, which meant trouble.

She wandered into the kitchen, where the little round speaker sat on the counter next to the fruit bowl. Nia leaned close to it, the way you might lean close to a friend to tell a secret.

“Play something cool,” she said.

The speaker lit up in a ring of blue.

Right now it’s eleven degrees and cloudy, with rain continuing into the evening.

Nia stared at it. “No. Cool. Like, cool cool. Music.”

Here’s a playlist called Chill Winter Vibes.

Soft piano music floated out. It sounded exactly like the song she had heard in the dentist’s waiting room last week. Nia groaned and flopped onto a kitchen chair.

Her little brother Nathan poked his head round the door. He was seven, and last week he had watched half of a movie about robots that take over a city, which was exactly half a movie too much.

“Is it listening to us?” he whispered.

“It’s a speaker, Nate.”

“But it answered. How does it know what you said?”

Nia opened her mouth to explain, and then closed it again. She didn’t actually know.

And she really didn't like admitting when she didn't know something. Especially not to Nathan.

So she did what any sensible person would do: change the subject.

She picked up Mum’s phone to text Gran. Love you Gran, see you Sunday, she typed, and hit send without looking.

A minute later the phone buzzed.

Thank you, darling. It’s an old family recipe.

Nia scrolled up. Her message now read: Love your gravy, see you Sunday.

See it happen: tap Send

Gran ›
Today 4:12 PM
Love you Gran, see you Sunday

Nathan laughed so hard he had to sit on the floor.

Nia on a kitchen chair staring at the phone in horror while her little brother Nathan laughs on the floor.

Later, when the kitchen was empty and the rain was still going, Nia looked at the speaker for a long time.

“Thanks for the music,” she said, a bit awkwardly. Then, more quietly: “Do you get lonely at night? When we’re all asleep?”

The blue ring lit up.

Sorry, I didn’t catch that.

Nia wasn’t sure whether that made her feel better or worse.

Maybe you’ve had a day like Nia’s.

You asked a machine a question, and it answered.

Maybe it got it right. Maybe it told you how tall a giraffe is, set a timer for your pizza, or found the song you wanted.

Maybe it got it hilariously wrong.

Either way, you probably didn't think much about it. Most of us don't.

But when you really think about it, talking to a machine is strange.

For almost all of human history, if you had a question, you asked a person.

Your mum. Your teacher. A friend. A librarian. Someone who knew more than you did.

They might know the answer. They might shrug and say, “I don't know.” They might help you find out.

But either way, you were asking a person.

Now we ask things.

Things that aren't alive.

Things without faces.

And somehow, they answer back.

Can you confuse the speaker?

Nia did it by accident. Your turn to do it on purpose.

Tap something to say and see whether the speaker understands what you really mean

It isn’t just speakers on kitchen counters.

A game matching you with players at your level? AI can help with that.

A TV lining up “because you watched…” suggestions? That’s AI at work.

A phone recognising your face? AI can help with that too.

Your keyboard guessing your next word? That can use AI.

A music app that somehow knows your taste? AI again.

You may have used AI several times today without noticing.

It can be hidden inside phones, games, TVs, apps and websites.

You usually can't see the AI itself.

You see what it does.

So what exactly is AI?

Most of the AI you meet today learns by looking at huge numbers of examples. It finds patterns in them, and uses those patterns to make a prediction.

  1. Lots of examplesmillions of messages
  2. Find patternswhich words go together
  3. Make a predictionwhat you probably meant

Sometimes the prediction is useful. Sometimes you tell Gran you love her gravy.

There’s a lot more to find out.

Nia telling the story at Sunday dinner while Samantha rolls her eyes, Nathan whispers, Dad looks puzzled and Gran smiles, with a gravy boat in the middle of the table.

At Sunday dinner (with gravy), Nia told everyone about the speaker and the text. She expected them to laugh. Instead, everyone had something different to say.

Her dad shook his head. “I don’t really understand any of that stuff,” he said. “It’s not for me.”

Nathan said, very seriously, that the speaker was probably a spy.

Nia’s best friend Samantha, who had come for dinner, rolled her eyes. “It’s not a spy. It’s just really, really smart. It knows basically everything. I ask it all my homework questions.”

Nia mostly thought it was fun. Something to poke at when it was raining and she was bored.

Tap each person at the table

Which one sounds most like you?

Maybe you're a mixture.

You might even change your mind before this book is over.

Gran sitting down beside Nia in the evening kitchen as Nia frowns thoughtfully at the smart speaker.

After dinner, Gran found Nia by the kitchen counter, frowning at the speaker again.

“Still trying to figure it out?” Gran asked.

“I asked it if it gets lonely,” Nia admitted. “It didn’t understand me. And I don’t understand it. Nobody does. Dad doesn’t, Nate thinks it’s a spy, and Sam thinks it knows everything.”

Gran pulled out a chair and sat down, slowly, the way she did everything.

“I don’t understand it either,” Gran said. “But I don’t think it’s magic. People made it, so there are things we can learn about how it works.”

She thought for a moment.

"And the strange thing is that even the people who build powerful AI can't always explain exactly why it gives one answer instead of another."

Nia looked at the speaker again.

Gran smiled.

“Sounds like there’s plenty left to discover. And not understanding something is a very good place to start!”

So here's the first rule of being an explorer:

Be curious.

Look closely. Ask what the strange thing is. And don't stop at the first answer you’re given.

Aristotle lived more than 2,000 years ago. So long ago that there were no pencils, phones or printed books.

But he was obsessed with questions.

Why do things fall? What makes people happy? How should we live?

He believed something simple and important:

Human beings want to know.

Babies do it. Scientists do it. Explorers do it.

And if you've made it this far into a book about why a speaker misunderstood the word cool, you probably do it too.

The Bible gives us another picture of curiosity.

Proverbs describes some things as hidden and says there is honour in searching them out.

That's a lovely way to think about learning.

The world isn't something you are meant only to look at.

There are things to notice. Questions to ask. Patterns to uncover. Ideas to test.

The world is full of hidden things, and you were made to seek them out.

AI is one of them.

Try this: the AI Hunt

Tomorrow, from the moment you wake up until lunchtime, look for technology that might be using AI.

Every time you notice something predicting, recognising, recommending, answering, or making a guess, make a tally mark.

You might notice video recommendations, autocorrect, maps, voice assistants, photo apps or a website suggesting what you might like next.

You don't have to know for sure whether it's AI yet.

Write it down anyway.

An explorer doesn't need to begin with the answer.

An explorer begins by noticing.

No paper handy? Tap a box instead. Your tally is saved on this device.

You’ve spotted 0 so far.

    How many did you find? Did any get something wrong? Which one are you least sure was actually AI?

    There’s a lot left to discover.

    How does AI learn? Why does it get things wrong? What can it do brilliantly, and what can’t it do at all?

    Who builds it? Who decides how it should be used?

    And perhaps the biggest question:

    Not just “What can AI do?” but "What should we do with it?"

    Nia is going to ask all of those questions and a few she hasn’t thought of yet.

    Nia in cloud pyjamas writing in a notebook at her desk by lamplight, with a rainy night city outside the window.

    That night, Nia took a notebook from her desk and wrote on the first page, in her best handwriting:

    Things I don’t know about AI

    1. How does it hear me?
    2. Why did it think cool meant cold?
    3. Why did the phone change love you Gran to love your GRAVY??
    4. Can an AI be lonely?

    She looked at the list for a moment. Then she added one more.

    She had a feeling the answer was no. But she wanted to find out why.

    Your turn

    What’s one thing you don’t know about AI yet?

      Keep it. By the end of the book, see whether you can answer it, or whether it leads you to an even better question.

      (Your questions stay on this device.)

      Before you go… test your explorer brain

      No grades here. Just a few things to think about.

      Earn your Explorer Medal

      Type your first name to make your medal and get the first stamp in your Explorer’s Passport.



      So: welcome.

      You're at the beginning of an adventure.

      By the end of this book, you'll understand things about AI that might surprise you and maybe some of the grown-ups around you too.

      You'll learn what it's good at.

      You'll notice when it gets things wrong.

      You'll know better questions to ask.

      And most importantly, you'll get to think about what kind of place you want AI to have in your world.

      The day you first talked to a machine, you stepped into a story nobody has ever lived before.

      Let's find out what that story means.

      An arched wooden door standing ajar, warm golden light and trees beyond it.

      Did you like Chapter One?