The Banality of AI
Welcome to the Dull Side.
This just in from a well-known online-shopping site named after a river in South America. An email suggesting that I might want to buy a coffee-mug warmer.
Huh?
Oh, wait. Yes. Of course. I know.
I happened to remember a news item from a few years back. A failed scandal. A newspaper waxed indignant about then-Prime Minister Rishi Sunak getting an (apparently expensive) coffee-mug warmer from his other half.
Birthday present, I think. It was photographed on his desk while he was failing to say anything newsworthy to an invited group of journalists.
Hot coffee while the rest of us are struggling to keep warm — I forget what the scandal was supposed to be. Nobody was interested, so it fizzled (if that works out as a pun, I didn’t intend it).
Where was I? Oh yes — I remembered the news item, and I just idly looked up coffee-mug warmers. Yes, they exist. No, I don’t want one.
And then — yeah. Of course. That email.
There’s really very little to say.
That email is just another minor example of the sheer banality of artificial intelligence. I looked at something and didn’t buy it — and that’s the best clue AI can find as to my wants, needs and desires.
Empathy? Understanding? Getting to know me after all these years?
Not AI.
End of story.
