Artificial intelligence has used to improve software for around twenty years. Google began experimenting with a form of machine learning in Translate back in 2006. In the summer of 2015, machine learning was used to improve spam handling in Gmail.
That same year, Swiftkey leveraged machine learning and neural networks to provide more accurate word suggestions. The following year, the translations in Translate were boosted by neural networks. Google reduced data center cooling costs by up to 40 percent thanks to AI. It has continued this way because the technology works and improves. Today, however, AI no longer only works behind the scenes, but has stepped into the limelight – for better or for worse.
AI has many merits and is already being used with great success in several areas, but there are also disadvantages and pitfalls. Instead of tackling the biggest and most serious societal issues surrounding artificial intelligence, we will focus on AI for consumers and for consumer electronics.
Often, the AI-based functions are about us “not having to” do things ourselves. Sometimes it can feel like the tech giants are trying to foist things on us that few even want – that they want to take away humanity’s ability to think and create on its own. AI can write and communicate for us, generate music, covers and remixes and write invitations, speeches and resumes. The models can edit and manipulate our images, draw and illustrate, generate photo-realistic videos and images so we don’t have to film or take photos, they can surf the web, make comparisons, manage our finances, create podcasts and audiobooks, tell us what to eat and summarize articles so we “don’t” have to read everything. The list goes on.
In one of Google’s early examples from 2023, it was shown how AI turned a colleague’s sloppily written emails into sterile but grammatically correct and concise messages. Google seemed to completely miss that the feature could come across as dystopian. Wouldn’t you rather get a rude message if that’s actually how your friend expresses himself in writing, than a soulless message that a human didn’t even write? The Verge called the feature “a recipe for email hell”.
Recruiters probably don’t want job applications written by AI (because they say less about the person applying for the job). Teachers don’t want essays written by language models, and no one wants impersonal congratulations that haven’t even been written by the person doing the congratulation.
Most programmers probably appreciate not having to write boring and repetitive functions. But at the same time, wasn’t the profession chosen because programming is a stimulating, challenging and creative job that activates the brain and the ability to reason? Because there is a magic in making a computer do what we want through contrived instructions? Chasing bugs and bugs can be hard and frustrating, but the triumph and joy when the bug is finally solved is lost if AI does it for us.
It is a fine line between liberating automation and existential loss and an erosion of human creativity and communication. If we outsource more and more to AI, what is left to do ourselves in the end and what effect will it have on us? Is it possible to find a perfect balance? Of course, all of this is a much bigger question about how AI can affect the labor market and society in the long run, but we won’t go into that here.
During this year’s Google I/O, Gemini was shown writing a speech for someone who either forgot to do it themselves or simply didn’t care (see video below). The examples of the tech giants are often about how we can be lazy with the help of AI and let AI do things we should do on its own.
Another common AI example is travel planning. Isn’t planning a trip part of the charm? Is it a pain to go to one of the price comparison sites for flights, choose a date, a departure point and a destination and book a flight that suits? Who wants to blindly follow an itinerary AI has put together? Why not google exciting places to visit. Do your own research. Check photographs. Read on Wikipedia. Study the history of places.
Perhaps the aversion is based on an ignorance of the potential, on perfectionism, a nostalgic idea of humanity, or on old habit, but is it really that hard to have to do things yourself? Another example that has been brought up many times is AI agents buying things for the user. A Google demo last year showed how the user asks for tips on a suitcase and Gemini suggested a bag for the equivalent of SEK 3,000. With the click of a button, the user purchased the suggested bag. Why not go to Prisjakt or Clas Ohlson and find a cheaper and better bag?
In other visions of the future, we have fully voice-based interfaces without apps. Nothing’s founder Carl Pei believes that AI will eventually replace apps in our mobile devices. Many people probably see the mobile phone as a boring tool among all the others, like the tools in a toolbox. The less we need to use the tool the better. Others may instead like to use interfaces, to take part in the design and animations, to type, to press buttons – to think and do it yourself.
A basic prerequisite is that we actually trust the technology. Maybe AI agents will do most of the work for us in the future. An AI keeps track of what is missing from the fridge, orders new food automatically and the food is delivered directly to the door by drone without us having to lift a finger. A humanoid cleans, dishes, washes and cuts the grass and is an omniscient spirit who has good answers to all questions. Maybe we can book a dream trip with the push of a button and AI will find the best and cheapest flight, a good and affordable hotel and fix everything. All cars and buses drive themselves and we just have to say out loud to our devices what we want, and we get it.
But right now we’re not there yet. AI remains a polarizing and controversial technology. In a survey on Swedroid last year, only 39 percent answered that they believe AI will do more good than harm in the long run. Last spring, 14 percent answered that they are not tired of AI at all, while 48 percent were so fed up with the technology that they vomited.
Whether you’ve embraced AI wholeheartedly, look at AI with horror-tinged delight and take the bad with the good, or shun AI like the plague, we need to decide what future we’re really after—whatever the tech giants try to foist on us.