Stop Using AI for Things That Don’t Need AI
Photo by Bhuwan Bansal on Unsplash
Last weekend, I found myself sitting in a brewery with an incredible meal and a flight of beer that was one of the best I've had in a long time. The funny thing is that I almost never made it there and it would have been AI's fault; or I guess my fault for even using it in the first place.
Before leaving my Bed & Breakfast in Maine, I was trying to figure out where I could kill an hour of time before my flight. So, I did what many of us do these days: I opened an AI Chat App and asked for recommendations. I thought if I gave it my location, destination, and preferences it would be able to give me some quick tips for places to go on the way to the airport. Twenty minutes later I had gone through 10+ places it suggested that all turned out to be either permanently closed or in the opposite direction. I finally got frustrated enough that I dropped an oh for fuck's sake, closed the app, and opened a Map.
Two minutes later, I had a name of a brewery that seemed perfect.
Out of sheer curiosity I went back to the Chat App and asked why it didn't recommend the brewery. This is what it said: "Short answer: That is a good option — and honestly, it’s one I should’ve put on your list earlier. It fits your criteria better than most of the breweries we had to eliminate."
Cue the eye roll.
When I made it to the brewery and realized how delicious everything was and how I almost had missed out on it, I couldn't stop thinking about how often we're using AI for things that don't actually need AI (and this is coming from someone who literally teaches people how to use AI).
There is a lot of value in artificial intelligence, but there is also a lot of harm in it and so we should be consistently questioning whether or not it’s needed. Lifesaving AI that helps detect cancer? Yes. Finding a place to eat? No.
The more powerful a technology becomes, the more important it is to recognize when not to use it. So please save the water and exercise your brain cells.
End of PSA.
