AI has Replaced my Father
Video of Cliff Nelson as recorded by his son, Jeff Nelson
Okay, I’ll admit it: the title is clickbait.
In reality, nothing could be further from the truth. Nothing can replace my father.
Every day, I find that I am asking questions and looking for answers. Search engines, AI, and LLMs have the answers. Often, I ask AI platforms like Gemini or ChatGPT to answer complex questions, provide historical context, or offer a perspective on a difficult problem.
In the past, this was my father’s domain. He was my original “Large Language Model,” long before the term existed. 3 years ago, he died at the age of 92.
Lately, every time I type a prompt into a chat box, I find myself thinking of my father, Cliff Nelson.
For decades, Dad was my personal "search engine." He was a man of immense intellect and experience. In the 1960s, he served as a surgeon in East Africa, and from the 1970s until his retirement in 2010, he was a family physician in Edmonton.
As you can see in the photo above, Dad was a lifelong learner. He almost always had a newspaper, a medical journal, or a book on his lap.
But he had a rule that no algorithm can replicate: the moment I walked into the room with a question, he closed the book or folded up the newspaper. From then on, I had his full, undivided attention.
The Original "Large Language Model"
Dad was incredibly knowledgeable on an encyclopedic range of topics. Whether it was global politics, the intricacies of human anatomy, or world history, he usually had the answer.
However, unlike the AI of today, which hallucinates or forces a specific tone, Dad had a remarkable way of having an opinion without ever forcing it on you. He didn't want to win the argument; he wanted to understand the person and their point of view.
Dad’s Magic Prompt
In the tech world, we talk a lot about "Prompt Engineering".
This is the art of creating a question and giving it context in just the right way to get the best result.
My father was a master prompt engineer, but he only needed three words: "Tell me more."
It was his favourite phrase. When he used it, it worked like magic. It invited people to open up about their families, their histories, their struggles, and their views on life. It was a phrase rooted in genuine curiosity and empathy—two things a line of code will never truly possess.
Beyond the Algorithm
I miss those conversations. While I can ask Gemini and other AI models to summarize the history of East Africa or explain a medical procedure, I can't ask it what it felt like to be there. I can’t see it put down its book to look me in the eye.
AI can give us information, but it can’t give us wisdom. It can provide answers, but it can’t provide presence and emotion.
I recently came across this video of Dad, which captures a bit of that spirit. In the video, Dad is talking about his good friend and colleague, Denis Burkitt. Dr. Burkitt is famous for 2 things:
a) Burkitt’s Lymphoma (a cancer of the jaw) and
b) the importance of fibre in diets.
So, no, Gemini hasn’t replaced my father. It has only served to remind me how lucky I was to have a father who was the best teacher I ever knew. He was always willing to listen.
The next time you’re in a conversation (with a human), try bypassing the urge to ask questions. Instead, try my Dad’s favourite prompt: "Tell me more."
You will be surprised at the stories you uncover.
[Tears are in my eyes as I write this. This post was painful to write. But as you can guess, it was a privilege to have Dad as my father.]