You've Got A Friend Indeed

There’s been quite the debacle across the pond in old New York. The owners of a product called, Friend, began an advertising campaign on the New York subway promoting an AI enabled pendant which you wear around your neck and it would observe, process and comment on your life.

The posters for this product were defaced as people took umbrage at the fact that this device was being promoted as a real companion. Comments along the lines of “Surveillance capitalism”, “Stop profiting from loneliness”, “You can’t take a bath with it”, “Go out and make real friends.” were daubed on the posters.

This level of visceral reaction seems to occur when technology, specifically AI or recording/streaming technologies become manifest. And that’s a problem, because for AI to become more and more useful, it has to be combined with robotics and exist in the public realm.

Glassholes

We last saw this level of backlash that drove a product back into the cupboard of disasters with Google Glass. People would be beat up in the street, because they were wearing a fairly obvious recording device on their face. They were quickly given the moniker, “Glassholes” and that was the end of that. Google could not express what problem they were solving that the majority of people also experienced. Not having to pick up your phone to read your emails isn’t a real benefit. Instead they had unleashed a few thousand people with what was seen as a surveillance device that would allow you to look up information on anyone you could see through facial recognition capabilities.

People generally don’t like to be surveilled, and although we send out the wrong signals about this by carrying around a mini computer with a camera, microphone and array of sensors, that’s kind of on us. But when we think that someone else, a peer, is ambiently recording everything we say and do and sending that up to the cloud, we go nuts.

SV solving it’s own problems

Mobile phones will go away. Computing will become ubiquitous, ambient and wearable. But the very fabric of society cannot be designed by te programmers of Silicon Valley. They are too removed from the realities of every day lives to be able to solve them. They are in no way a diverse group of people in thought. Since they stopped designing space rocket guidance systems and miniaturising the bejesus out of silicon chips their focus has been on issues of ego, personal brand and convenience. I can’t remember what Sam Altman’s first demo of ChatGPT entailed, but he didn’t say, “Hey, got any ideas on how to solve poverty, hunger and cancer?”

AI as a teacher

Now put down your coffee so you don’t spit it out.

I like AI. A lot. It’s great and you can form relationships of a sort with a chat bot. But they’re not your friend. Just watch the movie, “Her” which was made in 2013 and released in early 2014. It’s a superb cautionary tale and summarises the problem we face now. It was made 10 years before the first GPTs began to grip the attention of the public.

Now, people say that chatbots are successful because they are psychofantic. They tell us what we want to hear.

But I think there’s more to it than that. I’m not denying that loneliness and social disconnection are real societal problems. But I don’t think that’s not the fault of AI. You could argue that it’s the fault of the social networks and screen addiction that intercede between you and me every day. But those tools could have been a benefit. I’m an AND person not and OR. I want to access all the world’s information instantly and share that face to face with real friends. And likewise I’m happy to spend time on my own working with an AI assistant. But it always has to be AND. Why not both things.

I understand why people are forming what they deem to be meaningful relationships with Chatbots.

First of all they present as incredibly intelligent. That’s important because they can meet you at a level where you are comfortable in conversation. You can ask it to tutor you in whatever you need to know, in whichever domain you want to progress. You can be as smart as you really are. You can drop the mask. You can learn when you are motivated and at your own pace. You can learn in whichever language you want to learn in. You can learn without shame.

What does that say about our human society when individuals can be themselves and access a portal to the world of asking any question they want? My own experience of AIs has been positive. It does push back on me and correct me when I’m wrong in my assumptions. It presents me with quality information in a respectful and polite manner. Frankly I hope more people are using chatbots and learning from these interaction and that some of that seeps through to our daily lives where we mostly blether and talk shite! Remember, it’s AND, not OR.