Generative AI: Everyday Playbook

Key takeaways

• Three house rules cover almost every situation: the tool predicts rather than knows, the person who presses send is responsible, and private things stay private.
• When homework looks machine-written, ask your child to explain a paragraph in their own words instead of accusing; it reveals the real problem calmly.
• For letters and messages you need tonight, supply the facts yourself, let the tool shape the wording, and delete any detail it invented.
• The more a wrong answer would cost, the less the tool's confidence should count; health, money and legal questions go to a professional.
• A five-line family agreement written together, revisited each term and modelled out loud by you, outlasts any rule imposed on a Sunday night.

Inside this bit

1. The three rules behind every play

   A playbook is a list of moves for moments you can predict. Every play in this book rests on three rules, and once your family knows them the moves become obvious.

2. When homework arrives with a chatbot's fingerprints

   The situation: your twelve-year-old hands you an essay on the water cycle that reads like a textbook, and you suspect it was not written by a twelve-year-old. The poor play is an accusation, which teaches concealment.

3. When you need to write something by tonight

   The situation: a leave letter for school, a complaint to the housing society about the lift, a message to a relative you have been avoiding. These are ideal jobs for the tool because you know the facts and only need the shape.

4. When the answer sounds right but you are not sure

   The situation: your father asks the chatbot whether his new tablet can be taken with his blood-pressure medicine, and the answer is fluent and confident. This is the moment the playbook exists for.

5. When someone wants to paste something private

   The situation: your teenager wants to upload the family holiday photos so the tool can make a collage, or your spouse wants to paste a bank statement so it can sort the expenses. The play is to ask one question before anything goes in: would I be comfortable if this appeared on a stranger's screen?

6. When the family needs rules that actually stick

   Rules imposed on a Sunday evening tend to be forgotten by Wednesday. The play that lasts is a short family agreement that everyone helped write.