The Trojan Horse in your Kitchen
Postcards from the Edge #3
“Alexa, could you set a timer for 6 minutes?”
Many of us start every day by asking our smart AI assistants about the day’s weather, to remind us of an important task, or even to tell us a joke. But could it be that the addition of Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant to our lives is shaping our attitudes about the future of AI and our relationship to it? That question, among others, led to our recent AI Dis/comfort index.
The AI Dis/Comfort Index is the product of a study conducted by San Francisco-based Register that took a representative sample of the US population to gauge America’s comfort level with various scenarios relating to use cases of AI. To look into the future without knowing what it holds, we brainstormed a range of applications of AI from the factual (AI chatbots) to the far-fetched (Robot/AI Border Patrol), from the mundane (Robot/AI house cleaner), the mischievous (Robot/AI Sex Partner) to the outright macabre (uploading your brain before death so it could live online).
While the majority of respondents still showed a great deal of hesitation around many current and future AI / Robotics Scenarios, one group showed a markedly greater tolerance for AI in their world: those who already used it daily. We asked those surveyed whether they owned any hardware featuring the most popular AI voice assistants on the market today (Alexa, Google Assistant, and Siri), and the difference in comfort level between owners and non-owners with each scenario was as follows:
Those who have already experienced voice AI agents show significantly greater comfort with all scenarios across the board vs those who have yet to, with the delta between the cohorts being as large as 20%+ in some cases. Though the data cannot prove causation, only correlation, we bet that the well-spoken voice emanating from the aesthetically-pleasing, light-emitting hardware in your kitchen is changing how you think about even the most far fetched applications of AI. But, the powers of persuasion are not equal across all AI personalities.
Google Assistant users, for example, were more open to the idea of AI/Robotic teachers than Alexa or Siri users. Google is directly associated with the answering of questions and gathering of knowledge, and its user base seems to have connected that reputation to their acceptance of AI. When compared to non-users of voice AI, Google Assistant users are 24% more comfortable with AI teachers. They also come in higher than Siri and Alexa users at +7% (vs. Siri) and +6% (vs. Alexa). Alexa users, meanwhile, have a 6% higher rate of comfort with AI Matchmakers than users of Siri.
The concept with the least support behind it, generally, by non-users of AI voice assistants and by users of said technology is consistently AI/Robot childcare. While all cohorts showed varying levels of openness to experimenting with applications of AI on themselves, very few were willing to ‘risk’ such experimentation on the youngest members of our society. This is an interesting revelation, particularly as “millions of children” across the country are being exposed to AI-powered devices. These interactions with Alexa, Siri and Google Assistant are not only shaping how children learn and play at home but they’re being used in the classroom setting as well. Amazon has gone so far as to introduce a version of their popular Echo device designed for kids. The device rewards children for saying “please” after their requests and even provides advice if they open up to it on being bullied.
Just how sure are we that we aren’t open to AI childcare?
This post is #3 of 5 in a series of Postcards from the Edge based on the findings in our Dis/comfort Index, presented at TED 2019. In the days to come, we will publish additional postcards of our findings on various topics. Follow these links to read Post 1 and Post 2.