Digital Acrobats: Humans Keep Moving Forward, Aided by AI
This is the part 2 of our thoughts on AI after the FIFA World Cup. You can read part 1 here.
It takes some getting used to. But, let’s face it: there’s no keeping technology out. The infiltration of AI into our lives was bound to happen. Every day, it is implemented into new aspects of our lives. In some areas, that is celebrated and encouraged (and, of course, of great benefit). But some people struggle with this reality. It’s sometimes hard to shake the feeling that AI is taking over everything we know. In some cases, those resisting the widespread implementation of AI make good arguments, like those we explored in the World Cup debates: are we facing a dangerous level of objectivity?
The purists among us will say that some areas of human experience should be protected and that there’s no need to aim for perfection or exactitude since imperfection is what makes us human. The question is how people deal with an objective truth that we can’t see or even perceive, but that an AI can.
Friend or foe?
People didn’t stop watching the World Cup just because AI was used. The experience wasn’t any less enthralling: 26 million people watched the December final. Football wasn’t fundamentally changed by VAR. However, we are being changed by the use of AI. The way in which we deal with this level of predictability, along with a certain loss of subjectivity, is something to be discussed and observed. Most importantly, the greatest concern isn’t about how AI will affect sports but how it will affect work around the world.
It is also a matter of the viewpoint we adopt. Since the improvement of AI isn’t a process we can stop, is fear really the best approach? Are we willing to turn AI into an enemy? Wouldn’t it be more productive to ask ourselves how we can benefit from the hyper-objectivity of AI?
With the advance of low-code and no-code AI development tools, even specialized tech engineers are expecting a remarkable future. Some consider questions like what AI will work with, but it may be more pertinent to ask ourselves who they will work with. That sense of vertigo we feel comes from the certainty of fanger. Like acrobats who train by walking over chalk lines, we have been using technology at floor level. This year, that line became a rope a few feet up in the air: we have integrated AI into designing, writing, and other services. In the World Cup, we gave tech the power to judge. With coding AIs, tech has the ability to transform itself and tell us the perfect way to solve problems. Are we dealing with objective truth? Suddenly, the rope is way up in the air, and we perceive walking on it as unavoidable. And we cannot stop moving forward.
We celebrate digital technologies. Wasn’t it amazing to be able to read the stats the minute each World Cup match ended? That kind of information is very valuable and couldn’t have been registered without digital technology. And even though the predictions and measurements said that a certain team would win, there were plenty of surprises throughout the tournament: teams from small countries knocking out those from central nations, underdogs beating huge monsters, amazing gravity-defying plays, that infamous Japanese goal… Technology does not dampen the surprise.
There’s always room for the human factor if we are able to make these two realities live together, in sports and in life. We are the digital acrobats; without us, the rope is just a line in the sky. We bring the suspense and excitement. We are the goal.
Will we eventually understand how to work with AI? What will we do with them? Our decision is both crucial and unpredictable.
