Do you fear the AI apocalypse too?
If you get to know me, it’s apparent that I talk about the imminent zombie apocalypse far too much.
I tend to examine any environment I’m in and evaluate how well I could survive in that area. For example, if my escape route is an uphill slope and the zombies are as fast as the ones from World War Z, I’m not even going to try to run (I’d probably even say, “Just take me”).
Even after living in the United States for a few months, I still can’t get over how large the gaps are for the public bathroom stalls.
This ‘irrational’ fear might have stemmed from watching one too many zombie films but anything can happen right?
But what could be worse than the zombie apocalypse?
The AI Apocalypse.
AI stands for artificial intelligence, and it refers to systems or machines that mimic human intelligence to perform tasks while continuously improving themselves based on the information they collect.
When I think of AI, I can’t help but think about the movie ‘Terminator 2: Judgment Day’. When this movie was release in 1991, the term “Skynet” became the descriptor for any technology one would think would get out of control. This amplified reason to believe that the people were genuinely terrified of AI becoming too powerful.
Well, how realistic are those fears?
It boils down to the amount of information we’re giving away, intentionally and unintentionally.
With modern day technology, AI is very present in our everyday lives.
Services such as Netflix have recommendation engines (a common use case for machine learning) that provide automated recommendations for shows based on users’ viewing habits. Netflix tracks data points such as how long the viewer took to finish an entire TV series, the scenes users have watched repeatedly and much more. This provides the recommendation engines enough data to ensure that users stay engaged and continue their monthly subscription for more.
AI tools use data and customer profiles to learn how to best communicate with customers, ensuring maximum efficiency while serving tailored messages. This real-time personalisation is an example of AI Marketing, where speed is essential.
It’s not just Netflix, but social media applications such as Facebook that uses machine learning to personalise each user’s feed. By giving each post a score based on a variety of factors, such as how it matches with what the user generally interacts with and who shared the content, the recommendation engine starts personalising the feed from there. The news feed will adjust accordingly if the user changes patterns and stops reading posts from certain groups.
Thus, with Apple’s new tracking-optional update for iPhones, Facebook is expected to lose $10 billion in its social media sales. By providing new privacy-preserving features that allow users to opt out of being followed via trackers in their apps, it reduces targeting capabilities by limiting advertisers from accessing an iPhone user identifier.
From just 2 examples, it’s shown that you didn’t have to actively provide information to these companies in order for them to predict future behaviour. Marketing teams are constantly using AI to make the most out of this data using predictive analytics, and show which campaigns contributed most to ROI by accurately tracking attribution.
Does that mean that Apple delayed the AI Apocalypse?
Not really.
Companies like Amazon can still track what users are doing on the app once they’re logged in, regardless of whether a user opted in or not. Similarly, big players such as Walmart and Target are able to maintain their strong first-party relationship with consumers.
Isn’t it daunting knowing that a machine has the ability to process your next move even before you think about it?
Whenever I think about how my iPhone gives me suggestions on where to go based on my recent searches, I can’t help but imagine a robot predicting my next step when I’m trying to escape from them.
So what can I do?
By practicing these 5 privacy tips, you may be able to prevent future robots from correctly guessing if you’re turning left or hiding in your basement!
