Why You Don’t Trust Technology

And how to fix it

In the last decade, our world has changed dramatically. From the rise of smartphones to artificial intelligence, virtual reality to self-driving cars, our technology is improving at an ever-growing clip. One of these in particular breeds mistrust: artificial intelligence.

Setting aside for a moment the Hollywood version of AI (which is hyperbolic at best), I will walk you through why we don’t trust it and what can be done about that.

AI is, to most, a black box.

Entire worlds of complexity lurk within it, and the things it does seem to work like magic, yet few can offer an intuitive explanation of how it is able to to what it does. Unlike physical technology —electric cars, smartphones, LED lights — you have no way to tangibly gauge what it is capable of or how it behaves.

We’re not done yet: the situation gets much worse.

You see, even if you could “open up” the black box, you might see something like this:

Knowing the details will do you no more good than knowing how jet turbines work will help overcome a fear of flying. You may arrive at a little peace of mind, but the underlying problem is still there.

Now consider that we have no evolutionary history with things of this nature: with AI, we are interacting with entities that would seem to have minds but no body. Even if it has a body — as in robotics — we often don’t feel a connection to it, and indeed we must be careful in how those are designed.

It’s no wonder, then, that encountering an AI often triggers alarm bells. Your brain doesn’t know how to classify it, thus deeming the “magic” more like some techno-voodoo. It’s not an animal, it’s not another person, yet it often behaves in a way that is intelligent like a person.

Intelligent machines are new on the evolutionary scene, and our relationship with them is not evolving as quickly as their own capabilities grow, leading to a widening gap in understanding. How can we trust something we fundamentally don’t understand?

This is where human agency comes in. Almost every AI system that is brought into the public is designed and trained to help you in some way, crafted by a team of researchers and developers to reliably perform a function.

Given that relationships are built on trust, and trust on understanding, we must understand the technology a little bit more to feel comfortable with it. The crucial step toward this understanding is this: remembering that AI is developed by people. Your relationship with AI technology is not between you and the AI; it is between you and the creator of that AI. With Siri, it’s the folks at Apple; with Cortana, Microsoft; with Alexa, Amazon. The AI is serving as a representative of the people who created it. More so than any other kind of product, more than perhaps any other kind of work, AI is part of its creators, and it represents them in some way.

Your relationship with AI technology is not between you and the AI; it is between you and the creator of that AI.

When I use a virtual assistant such as x.ai’s Amy, I’m not placing my trust in algorithms. I’m placing my trust in the developers who created it, in the leadership at that company, in the brand that they collectively represent. I trust that they’ve refined the technology to the point that mistakes will be few.

It’s no different with anything else: when I step on a plane, I’m not placing my trust in turbines and wings; I’m placing my trust in the engineers who crafted that system, in the captain who’s flying the plane, in the airline itself.

With AI, we can overcome the relative unfamiliarity of the technology by remembering that it is made by people, and that implicitly we place our trust in the people who create the products we use. We can fix our mistrust by keeping in mind the people we are trusting and, as a result, we’ll get more used to the new technology just like every other one before it.