Swedish author, journalist and speaker Andreas Ekstrom has long worried about the effects of tech on human life.
In his 2022 book ‘The Tyranny of Convenience,’ Ekstrom explores the price society pays for technological ease, and questions whether we were right to trade our privacy for the sake of smart devices.
Ekstrom believes AI will reach into nearly every corner of our daily lives, changing them “in almost every way imaginable,” he says.
He points to three specific ways we could see this shift unfold.
3 ways AI might reshape the human experience
1. It will help offload and automate mundane tasks at work
For one, AI could “help with the mundane” at various jobs, he says.
This could include writing reports, filling out contracts, and analyzing data — all of which could free people up to work on the more creative, human interaction side of the job that AI can’t do.
If a salesperson is now bogged down by hours of paperwork every week, for example, “AI systems can free that time for that really great salesperson,” leaving their days open for making sales, Ekstrom says.
2. It will help people write and understand texts
Ekstrom believes AI could also change the way people communicate. Specifically, it could change how teenagers talk, “because teens are insecure,” he says.
In the future, when texting, he predicts teens might run their texts through AI before they send them to avoid making mistakes or saying the wrong thing. They’ll also run texts they receive through AI to make sure they understand what the other person means.
Texts will be more streamlined and likely have less of their unique voices when they send them as a result. “I think personality is going to be sandpapered off,” he says.
“We’ll literally have AIs doing the talking between two insecure 14-year-olds,” he says.
To some extent, this is already happening — but not with a majority of young people. Eighteen percent of teens currently use AI companions for conversation practice, according to nonprofit Common Sense Media.
3. It will become more specialized and help people improve their skills
Finally, AI could become increasingly specialized.
Instead of generalized AI bots, “it’s going to be a particular food AI,” says Ekstrom. “It’s going to be particular do-it-yourself around the house, wood workshop kind of AI.”
It might even create unique, step-by-step videos for a user, he says.
“I predict that we’re going to be cooking better food,” he says. “I predict that we’re going to be building better stuff around the house when we try to fix it. I expect more people to get electrocuted when they try to do the electricity work themselves.”
‘What we gain in efficiency, we might lose in learning’
There could be downsides to some of this tech, says Ekstrom.
For instance, while some of those mundane tasks at work might seem like drudgery, they could be experience that helps you hone your skills and make you better at the job, he says.
As for chatbots shaping how kids talk to each other in the future, it’s important that kids say the wrong thing to their peers because that’s how they learn to say the rights things down the line, he says.
Ultimately, “what we gain in efficiency, we might lose in learning,” he says.
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