AI – Pie in the Sky?

I was chatting recently with one of our Future Leader delegates, who was regaling me with their experience of using an artificial intelligence chatbot.  Their reaction to this so-called modern marvel was quite surprising. 

Acclimatised as I am to the occasional blind faith of some early-adopters, I’d expected excited, effusive praise.  What I heard however was reassuringly critical, bordering on outright scepticism.   I have to say, I heartedly approved. 

Not because of the rejection of unproven, tech per se, but because it showed an entirely sensible, logical approach to evaluating new technology, and not relying solely on trust.  That’s an engineer for you! 

I had a bit of a reputation in my youth for embracing technology – my PR team in industry for example was one of the first to embrace the brave new world of desktop publishing, WYSIWYG (remember that?), and AppleMac computers.  

It was an exciting time for a lad who, up until then, had literally been using cut-and-paste techniques requiring glue and scalpels.  We had proper software manuals back then too, to ease our learning.  Oh, and just one-week’s grace to learn it all, before going ‘live’. 

Later on, in Association-world, I was introducing PC networks, email, databases, websites, digital catalogues and all that good stuff.   I embraced the lot, but I never lost a healthy dose of scepticism when it came to pitches from suppliers.  I may be even more circumspect now that I’m greying, but even I still get caught occasionally by the over-promises and under-delivery that seems rife these days when it comes to software – which by the way has become horrendously expensive, and largely ‘rented.’ 

My view?  AI has its place, but isn’t yet ready for everything, everywhere.  It may change the world one day, but not yet.  We need to tread carefully.  The ‘P’ in ‘GPT’ is for ‘pre-trained’ and judging by the error-strewn responses my young friend was getting, it’s far from ‘qualified’ yet.  For proper customer service, you can’t beat a caring service-provider, who happens to be human. 

As the old saying goes, ‘intelligence is knowing what to say, wisdom is knowing when to say it.’

Published: 28th June 2023