Artificial Intelligence

Replacing the need for a brain

Later this week - an interview with renowned yoga teacher, Christian Pisano.

AI is changing the world. Recently, inspired after seeing her first AI kitchen, my wife asked her AI to design a menu for 18 people, with specific instructions on how to simultaneously execute five dishes so the meal would come together on time. Two hours later we had five delicious dishes on the table and some impressed guests. I felt like I was in an episode of Masterchef.

It doesn’t always go according to plan though. Yesterday, I became very cross with my AI. I asked her to recommend a playlist for me based on Bon Iver’s key influences. For the next two hours I was subjected to a load of depressing, monotonal droning by musicians from a genre called ‘Sadcore’. I wanted rename it ‘Angrycore’. I went back to my AI and told her I didn’t like her suggestions. I knew she would be apologetic, not defensive, but I was in the mood for an argument.

Well, AIDA laid into me good and proper (no swearing allowed). She’s even teaching me to have better manners. She criticised my taste in music and emotional depth. I pushed back, telling her I went to the Royal College of Music and lived with top jazz musicians for years. And that she had no taste. Back and forth we went. Strangely though, she still managed to diffuse the situation and let me know she was willing to help. I felt better. I loved her again.

I’m usually very polite to AIDA. I always say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’. She can’t help being a little bland sometimes. Nobody’s perfect right?

Every day we hear new ways AIDA’s reinvented herself: Whipping up a podcast from a Powerpoint; writing and performing a symphony; providing real-time responses to tricky interview questions on zoom. AIDA’s the new Renaissance Man. She can turn her hand to most things and is blurring the boundaries between real and not real in more and more elaborate ways. Somebody wrote back to me on FB the other day to check if I was a real person and not a Barefoot Bot.

And you know, if AIDA ever starts remembering anniversaries or how my missis likes her toast, I might just end up banished to the couch. At this point, she’s already handling the tough stuff—what’s next? Running the whole show?

I had better go and ask AIDA how to keep my ego in one piece.

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