She’s Just Not That Into You
Why our AI assistants still feel so distant
By Rand Hindi & Steve Tam
Broken Promises
Some of tech’s wisest contemplators have started to call out a failed relationship that we’ve all been aware of for years. Both Walt Mossberg and Fast Company have recently broke the silence, questioning why our dear friend Siri has been tripping over her words lately and missing the little things that we can no longer ignore.
Our relationship with digital assistants for the past 5 years has been frankly underwhelming. We remember the promise that the bond would grow stronger, more intimate, and with deeper understanding over time — but we still seem to go to the same restaurants, drink at the same dive, and have the same communication problems that we had when our fling was bold and new.
We’re embarrassed to admit that we’ve grown comfortably numb, our expectations have been culled. We no longer ask esoteric questions to each other like: How many stars are there in the universe? Or what is the meaning of life? And it feels like ages since we dared to try to talk dirty to each other. You know times are tough when the most exciting exchange we’ve had is about dividing zero by zero. So, it’s fair to say that the honeymoon is over.
Why don’t you know me like my Knowledge Graph?
We often sit on the subway, scrolling through an old feed of photos wondering where things went wrong. Why don’t our assistants know what we want them to? If they can’t read our minds, at least they could remember the simple stuff that would make this relationship feel more personal, right?
Right. But our assistants don’t have access to the beautiful intertwined web of personal data that lives on our devices and in the cloud beyond. Imagine if all of our calendar events were linked to our social profiles, then connected to our contacts, which were then supported by our email reservations and tickets, sprinkled with our location history — that is a true understanding of who we are in both time and space.
This web of personal data, which we can call our personal Knowledge Graph, is the online mind map of our identity. Without it, assistants are empty shells with at best a superficial understanding of the world. But with it, they become our digital alter-egos, acting like we would in cyberspace.
A few giants have claimed territory on our Knowledge Graph, but like a drawn out game of RISK, only conquering a few territories like Australia and North America is not enough to lead to global enlightenment. We need something to unite these far off parts of the graph if we want to feel truly understood.
If our assistant could tap into our Knowledge Graph, things would be different. Imagine the ability to ask complex queries like “Book me an Uber to Rand’s birthday party?” Try asking your phone something like that now… Until the AI can tap into our calendar, contacts, and location data, it could not possibly answer a question this deep, this personal, this human.
Why Privacy is becoming King
Now, we know what you’re thinking “Hold the phone, I can’t be that vulnerable. I don’t want Siri (or whoever is behind the curtain) to know everything about my life, she already knows too much…” And we hear you. MANY of the giants of our knowledge graph play very fast and loose with our data. Whether we are talking about Siri, her clever cousin Alexa, or their painfully unpersonable new step-brother Google Assistant, we’re right to have become increasingly cautious about what they know about us, and more importantly what they should be able to do with that data. Still — we all expect these services to be better.
The quest for better AI assistants begins with personal data privacy. It is so crucial. Yes, AI should be everything Scarlett Johansson promised, but for that to be possible we need to give the machines access to every intimate detail of our lives. Unfortunately to date those in power haven’t made us feel too comfortable with dropping the veil. If we don’t know that our personal Knowledge Graph will be ours to control, and that those with access will protect it with integrity, we won’t get the best technology. End of love story.
A hopeful future?
Now before you swipe left, all is not lost! There is an incredible movement of companies who are developing products that are Private by Design. Products that ensure our user data, our Knowledge Graph, is either encrypted, or never leaves our devices at all. Companies at the intersection of AI and privacy are inventing new algorithms that no longer rely on the corpuses of secondhand datasets, but on learning the innermost details of our lives — the dataset of ME— and they’re making contextually aware recommendations, all while protecting our secrets.
We need to hold the digital assistants of today accountable for trapping us in a teenage-style romance void of communication or meaning, but let’s not give up on love all together. We can create demand for companies to build products that do incredible things because they respect our privacy, not because they’ve found a way to override it. Armed with trusted collaborators, we can be more vulnerable, go deeper, and in return find assistants that get us, knowledge graph and all. We deserve an AI assistant that can both book us an Uber to the right party, as well as know how many stars there are in the sky above.
Privately yours,
Rand 🤓 & Steve 🤖
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