We should always remember that even, or especially in science, we need to be critical and that one opinion and point of view is not the truth or whole truth and not all inventions are good inventions even if it solves a problem. Everything and every opinion are someway bias. In addition, AI and the development of technology frightens me. We give AI the possibility to do our work and take over something in our everyday life, even though, we know the intelligent and wisdom behind it is artificial and lacking of humanity. Where is this world going?
I’m working as a sales person in a safari company that provides activities for tourists in Ruka. I receive an order from a customer like a tour operator or a consumer itself. My main work is to find availability for activities they want to have or offer them activities with availability that I think are suitable for them and serve customers on the spot. Sounds quite simple and a work that AI could maybe do later in future. And of course it will, as it will be cheaper and more efficient. But what scares me is the lack of humanity and personality what comes for sales by AI as that is what is needed when selling experiences.
Will AI handle it?
As I haven’t work in this exact industry more than a year (in hospitality though over 10 years), I haven’t really witness, what has specifically changed technology wisely. However, some of the developments are easy to understand. Example how we store information. It is kept in one place and with easy access. You can reach it remotely anywhere and use search function. As compared to before you would need to be in that exact place where the information is stored in paper and search by hand. In other words, digitality has affected efficiency rapidly. People book their tours or activities face-to-face or via travel agencies office to an ever-decreasing extent as booking straight from website or via email increase. Although it’s quicker and number of human errors decrease, different kind of mis-bookings are more common and supply and demand do not necessarily meet. As the information flow to both directions are limited and lacking humanity and personality again, especially in website bookings.
I talked with a guide college of mine who has worked with the company more than 10 years. He pointed out how he has seen a change in customers over the years. How they used to be excited and eager to learn and experience stuff. But nowadays, even without any or huge changed of the activities, they are more and more disappointed or not actually interested of what they are doing. We came to a conclusion that customers behavior and what is offered to them has changed. Customers are influenced my social media, other customers experiences, photos and even the sales person. They are manipulated to want something. And then they arrive and the weather is not the same as in the pictures and the experiences isn’t what they thought and aren’t giving them what they wished because it wasn’t actually anything they wanted in a first place. With the development of technology and AI I am afraid we are going more and more towards this kind of movements, not just in my industry but in life generally.
AI is artificial intelligence, as the name suggests wisdom that is not real. It learns from humans, but what happens when it gets wrong information or that kind of information from AI itself? Or if the resources for it are narrow and imperfect, it will see that this is the whole truth even though it might be just a part of it with one point of view. As the world is infinitely divided, the information that AI gets is or can be really bias as the knowledge of it can be easily controlled. It could also create “knowledge” from two different sources that are irrelevant for to each other. The humanity is already easily manipulated and influenced by the governments and world leaders via example different media sources. So, what happens when AI start to be more and more involved to this.
I was asking questions from Chat GBT which is a platform based on artificial intelligent. I used some more uncommonly used words in my questions and Chat GBT interpret the meaning of the question wrong. Although the answers were still valid and correct to what it thought was asked. With clarifying the question, it gave wide answer for the question. I could see that the answers were quite advertising, example when asked “What entertainment there is in Ruka?”, the sentences where like “It is a great place…” or “The stunning landscape…”. However, when I asked Chat GBT to be more critical, it did just that. I could still see that some of the answers were bias, but so is example the searches in google.
It might be that at the moment it is easy for us to recognize what is made by AI and what may not be true and even recognize the bias point of view. But how will it be in future? Maurice Conti tells us in his speech how computer has developed in playing games. At first computer learned to play children’s games and now it can win the most skilled player in the most difficult game in the world. The development is kind of same as for humans, but this development doesn’t disappear in a way it does in single human being when they die. Computer can and will continue development. What if in future AI will be so advanced that we can’t separate the truth from false at all. Same time the knowledge of humans is disappearing as we are more and more depended of the internet and that we will find the knowledge there. We don’t even question what we would do if the internet wouldn’t be in our hands. We have already lost lot of practical skills because of technology which we count on. What else will we lose as technology and AI takes over our life?
Right path – Easy path
Open digital society is delicate and risky area. Most of the people have no idea how much of information of them is already collected. People are losing their privacy and independency without even realizing. Because of the openness online frauds are easier and more common. Nowadays we can have some kind of control what data is left behind from us thanks to the general data protection regulation (GDPR) law. This is of course a good add in side of data collecting era. It gives some safeness in our private information. However, it is highly likely that frauds and phishing will rase and come harder to recognize with the development of AI.
In personal everyday live we can easiest recognize GDPR law as we go to any website and the first thing, we need to do is allow the cookies. However, in many sites it is made easier to agree than disagree the data collected. To disclaim you usually have to click more times. This of course made on purposely like this. The whoever is collecting it, wants of course more data. And as the modern people are hooked with fast action, fast clicks and fast dopamine, most of us will choose the website to collect all data as it is quicker and easier.
My motto kind of phrase is stolen from one of my favorite childhood movies Pocahontas. The phrase goes “Sometimes the right path is not the easiest one”. This is something the society and each one of us should remember, even though someway is easier or quicker it doesn’t mean it is the way it should be done. And now the technology is pushing us more and more this kid of lifestyle. We should take a step back and eye things more critically.
I like to be critical; it gives me more freedom. And let’s be real I am not fan of TED talks. There is scientist or otherwise “intelligent” or “important” people talking enthusiastic to audience usually really manipulative way and lack of critical review. Which leaves the people thinking this is something revolutionary and one sided of the idea. What was also horrifying for me to see is where we are focusing our resources when there are more crucial dilemmas in world.
It was nice to read other’s ideas of the matter as I saw some good critical reviews of some of the topics discussed. But also understood that some technological developments are really a step forward and necessary. All in all, intriguing topic.