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OPINION

Apple started airing a television commercial called “Write Smarter” last Fall. It shows an office worker in a cubicle using Apple’s “intelligence” system on his iPhone 16 Pro.

He writes an email to his boss…visible in a glassed-in office maybe 50 feet away. Once composed, his email looks like it was written by either a smart chimpanzee or someone who doesn’t speak the language very well.

Most folks aren’t very good writers…with clarity of thought often in doubt. How many times have you had to read someone’s email two or three times to grasp what they meant?

So, the guy in the commercial presses a button…and instantly his gobbledygook becomes an eloquent missive to his boss, who reads it and seems impressed.

We are left looking at the boss, whose expression is part wonder and perhaps part question: “How did this idiot come up with this?”

Maybe, the boss should get all employees Apple iPhones with AI?

(DON THOMPSON / iNFOnews.ca)

Apple aired another commercial on AI, as well. This one shows a wife and mom…finally realizing that she forgot her husband’s birthday…didn’t get him anything…and it’s just before dinner.

So, this jewel of a wife presses a button and magically her iPhone produces a sentimental video of memories of the last year. She looks at it, smiling…“Fooled him again!” Now she can go home.

Wow, she must really be the guy’s soul mate. The commercial closes with the wife arriving home…interrupting her kids celebration of dear ole dad’s birthday. “Look what I got you?” After all, it’s all about her, isn’t it?

You poor bastard…is this the best you can do? I say the same to Apple and this kind of AI, in general. I’m sorry, but technology that makes stupid or uncaring people seem better than they are…isn’t something we should shoot for…is it?

Don’t get me wrong, there’s a place for AI…it’s just not propping up incompetent folks who lack empathy.

Innovations like autonomous vehicles and facial recognition software, as well as virtual assistants like Alexa and Siri are proof of AI’s worth. The convenience and efficiency of these breakthroughs are quantum leaps above what we used before.

So, is AI a force for good? Or evil? Or somewhere in between depending on the application.

There’s little doubt that for repetitive tasks…AI is unbeatable. It can do the same thing…consistently and without error or ever taking a coffee break….forever.

How about analyzing data? AI can do in minutes what it might take a human weeks…or even months to do. It might seem a perfect answer to an increasingly complex world…but then, again…it’s not.

AI uses what has happened in the past to form decisions about today and tomorrow. So, it's not great at coming up with solutions that hinge on new and innovative technologies.

If there’s little or no history…“Houston, we have a problem.” Our history on Earth is chock full of things that never happened before…virtually every discovery, invention or development.

There are ethical and practical elements to pushing AI. Will AI cost jobs…or create more than it makes obsolete? The truth is we don’t know. AI is logical…more so than humans. AI decisions evolve from parameters that humans set…nuance and emotion aren’t considerations…at least not yet.

Like many, I’m intrigued by AI and what it can do to make life better for humans…and animals. But…and there should always be a but among reasonable folks…we would be wise to move AI along with our eyes open…cautiously, like the guy who first discovered fire.

Meanwhile, however, it’s not too early to judge Apple’s AI television commercials. They blow.

— Don Thompson, an American awaiting Canadian citizenship, lives in Vernon and in Florida. In a career that spans more than 40 years, Don has been a working journalist, a speechwriter and the CEO of an advertising and public relations firm. A passionate and compassionate man, he loves the written word as much as fine dinners with great wines.

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