My stepfather, Dave, is a seventy three year old forensic scientist turned IT security expert. He retired at the age of sixty five after an illustrious career culminating in banking systems security, witnessing the birth of mainstream computing in the 1980s and the sheer explosion of our modern digital life in more recent years. It is safe to say that he knows a thing or two about computing, yet he has never once logged in to ChatGPT, or any other AI for that matter. Reflecting about how such an educated, experienced man could completely ignore the latest revolution in data science got me thinking – is AI all it is cracked up to be?
Now don’t get me wrong. I am a convert to AI, I find it incredibly valuable in my work as an Operations Manager for Attanz Research. For my own company, I was able to feed it a spreadsheet with thousands of fields of data and it spat out a comprehensive report that would have taken days and days of analysis, alongside a subscription to SPSS or similar. Ask it for a T-test or a factorial ANOVA and it will comply willingly, taking the blood, sweat and definitely tears out of the equation (pun intended), and for all the marketing boffs out there, it will gladly produce a comprehensive van Westendorp graph. It is truly a time saver – assuming you can verify the output as not being the product of hallucinations – but what about automation of scheduling tasks, and acting as your virtual PA?
In the interest of research, I tried an AI scheduling tool. I have a very full, busy life, with my Attanz role and my own company launch, studying, caring for my severely disabled Mum, writing a book and embarking on a speaking career all at the same time. Anything that could help automate the small things would be a bonus. So I signed up for a trial of one of the well known systems ( I shall protect its integrity and also mitigate the risk of being sued by the manufacturer by keeping it anonymous!), with the view of squeezing out some more hours in the day.
The inputting of events, buffer zones, categorisations and preferences of when certain tasks should be done was a whole mission in its own right. Take the example of walking my dog. A simple, once or twice daily event, that could in theory be time blocked for 8.30am, right? Wrong. Anonymous AI didn’t realise that my dog liked a lie in. He would sometimes be awake and wanting a walk at 8.30, other times he would be snoozing until gone nine. Anonymous also didn’t factor in the weather. My dog would refuse point blank to leave the house if it was raining, which would completely throw the time consuming inputting of daily events out of sync. The use of scheduling software and PA tasks is all very well and good until you consider the 7.999r billion other people, and further 1 billion dogs, and you have confounding factors that will completely scupper your carefully-planned timetable. AI can not take into consideration the effect that working with other humans has – unpredictable, messy and often disorganised.
And then there is the well known human trait of “control-freak-ism”. I confess I am a free spirit, and I like having control over what I do, when and how. I must admit I felt a sense of annoyance and “who do you think you are?” when Anonymous sent me another irritating ping to tell me it was time to do the next task. My long suffering mother will happily tell you that when I am told to do something, my natural response is refusal, (persisting even into adulthood!), so for me, allowing software to control what my next task would be is complete anathema.
My verdict? Algorithms are great but only when controlled by the human mind. An AI assistant cannot respond to the nuances of daily life, and the delights and frustrations of other people and their own conflicting needs. Your scheduling assistant can’t telephone your client and tell them you are stuck in traffic and move the meeting back by an hour. It cannot account for taking extra time to talk to a colleague who is going through a rough period at home. It can only mimic your tone of voice in automated email replies, and this loss of authenticity is being replicated across businesses and social media platforms worldwide. In an age where digitisation is becoming the norm, isolation and loneliness is increasing, and we would do well to remember that we are living, breathing humans that need other real, face to face humans for our own wellbeing. Relying on AI to do our administrative tasks and scheduling is completely failing to take into account these gloriously unpredictable connections, and for me, just like my stepdad Dave, I will continue to run my own crazy schedule all by myself.
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