There’s an interesting article in the New York Times called Why Do Americans Hate A.I.? The article goes through the litany of some of the bugaboos just about anyone can recite from memory these days: jobs, trust, and agency. As fast as Artificial Intelligence has dominated the conversation, warnings about the pitfalls have run side by side in what I think resembles a barefooted three-legged sack race over broken glass.
Over the holidays at what seemed like an infinite number of family gatherings I picked up on some interesting themes that I mentioned in my end of year post about all things Apple that I think is worth calling out here again. Everyday Janes and Joes are souring on artificial intelligence, not for any of the now almost clichéd anti-AI reasons, but after everyday unsatisfactory encounters with their doctors, banks, and any number of the other institutions and business that they deal with.
As I said in that post about Apple,
I also think Apple and the other tech companies need to pay attention to the warning signs that are starting to bubble up about Artificial Intelligence. I think most of the growing distaste of AI comes not from what these tech companies are offering on computing platforms, but from the day to day encounters people are experiencing in their daily lives as more and more non-tech companies roll out versions of AI support. The way I’m hearing and feeling it, jokes and complaints about AI at holiday gatherings this year are starting to compete in numbers with ones about government and politics.
Because money rules the roost, most of the conversations we hear about Artificial Intelligence center on how much money is being spent propping up and expanding the bubble that is keeping a sagging economy afloat like a hot balloon on a cloudy day. There’s only so much liquefied propane in any tank once things lift off.
Here’s the thing about holiday family gatherings. I can’t remember one when conversations didn’t at some point offer up a “you’ve got to try this” recommendation or some sort of eye-grabbing new thing or trend that captured attention along with the usual complaints and grievances. But AI-negative conversations seemed to take precedence on the grievance side of the ledger this year.
Everyday folks don’t care about who wins the AI technology race or who has the best on device AI or how many tokens a system offers. They care about getting results in less time and more so, getting it done with a human they can talk to, not a robot in a chat window. So far based on the jokes, swearing and condescending attitudes I’m hearing (anecdotally, I admit) everyday folks aren’t buying the pitch, but they’re getting closer to picking up the tar.
We can talk about data centers, job efficiencies and job losses, chatbots, AI slop, and scientific advancements all day long, but when everyday folks on the ground develop a distaste for what you’re selling and turn your efforts into the butt of a joke, eventually you need to discount or clear out the inventory no matter how many data center servers you pop up.
Even so, perhaps that’s the aim of the A.I. purveyors. If they salt the fields with enough of their product to the point that everyone condescendingly abides it the way they do government, it may not matter if it doesn’t offer any harvest that yields nutrition, just that it yields a ubiquitous tolerance.
(Image from Andres De Santis on Unsplash)
You can also find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above.
This is a sticky wicket. Web publishers justifiably don’t feel great about having their content grabbed, regurgitated and spit back out without some consent or control. The other side of that coin is that the info is on the open web and by and large folks can access it through a variety of methods. There’s also the reality that the horse is already far from the barn because most of these AI models have been doing the same thing Apple is doing. AI has a been both a cash grab and a content grab from the get go, because without the content there’s diminishing returns on the cash.
Life on the Wicked Stage: Act 3 