Hybrid Intelligence: the quickest path to A.I. adoption
I grabbed my phone and told my assistant, “I’m looking for a mall in this area that has a Lego store, a Sephora, a Justice and a Kiehl’s. And, ideally, it should be close to a Bed, Bath and Beyond because I have to stop by there too on the way. Please don’t spend more than 30 minutes searching for it.” This was a couple of days before Christmas and most of my time was occupied with my family and I didn’t want to spend countless hours on research on my computer. I wanted to disconnect and be present. So I waited a couple of minutes and was relieved when my assistant came back with a humanly warm response: “Jessica, Aventura Mall has all of those stores. And, Bed, Bath, and Beyond is right across the street. Bada bing!”
My assistant is neither a human nor a robot. It’s a combination of both working together.
We are living in the era of the rise of artificial intelligence, it operates our fridges, phones, emails, and it can even vacuum our apartments for us. It is in the newspapers, magazines, social media feeds and, even the most reluctant people know it is here to stay.
In 2013 it had its realistic Hollywood breakthrough in the movie “Her” by Spike Jonze. Where a man falls in love with its new intelligent operating system, which reportedly learns how to feel and develops a reciprocal romantic attachment. The main character has such a smooth interaction with the operating system that he is not disturbed by the fact that Samantha, the operating system from Her, is not a human being.
Artificial intelligence is slowly creeping into our lives. We see the media promoting A.I. and showcasing how they use it, businesses are investing in artificial intelligence more than ever, movies show how characters interact with A.I. in their daily living, and yet the adoption of A.I. by humans is lagging. A recent research study found that while consumers are more aware of A.I. “only 12 percent of consumers surveyed found AI-enhanced assistants like Amazon Alexa useful so far. Home automation and bots in the workplace are slower to achieve acceptance as well, with only 5.5 percent and 1.0 percent of respondents respectively reporting regular use of these advances in their day-to-day lives.”
There are a couple of areas to consider:
Fast tech for some & education for others
The speed of artificial intelligence development is increasing faster than the adoption rate, and this comes as no surprise as the tech industry continues to innovate and develop products and services then, they seek clients and users to use them. Given the nature of this process, there will be a natural lag in adoption by end-users. For high tech businesses, the demand for innovation has become a top priority. Some other businesses are far more cautious and conservative in embracing and adopting new technology, due to the operational and educational changes that it would require.
For people like you and I, we have learned that it could look something like this:
We have the innovators who are at the pulse of what’s new in A.I. and then we have various degrees of education gaps. The mass market is still satisfied with their current lifestyles and the products they use. Some products, like Siri, have gained wider adoption in the lifecycle and are part of our day to day lives. Other artificial intelligence products struggle to get past the early adopters and don’t get the opportunity to be our trusty daily companions. Businesses and governments, to some extent, are tasked to move the majority to a comfort-zone of embracing new technology.
The battle that businesses are facing is less of a technology problem but one of A.I. perception. Bringing an A.I. product or service to a person’s life may feel like being thrown into the deep end of a pool not knowing how to swim. The considerations at stake are not merely about replacing one product with another. It impacts the way a person interacts with their surroundings, shifts their existing habits to new ones, and how they perceive their status change in their social circles. In other words, it leads them to embrace a new way of living.
The popularization of A.I.
Science fiction as a genre has dominated the publishing and entertainment industry with big box movies since the early 80s. Now that the millennials have brought back the nostalgia economy, we are seeing the reboots of Blade Runner and Star Wars show how our favorite characters interact with A.I. Correspondingly, how they develop deep emotional attachments or find a functional comfort from using A.I. in their everyday lives.
For fan viewers and readers, a feeling of being closer to the science fiction worlds seems closer to reality. The disconnect is felt when we step outside the theater or look up from our books and are reminded that the present state is not part of a science fiction world but, perhaps, it’s closer to a hybrid one.
Conserving traditional values
Our modern world is in a constant state of flux and for some people, the reluctance to change and their strong belief on having a fixed identity, conflicts with the potential of them engaging with new technology. It’s the mentality of “I want to test the face ID feature on the new iPhone, but I don’t want to be in a driverless car.” It is arguable that we are in control of every decision we make. We have free will and possess skills that were passed onto us by a previous generation or have learned from people we admire. These experiences are incredibly valuable in shaping the identity of who we are today.
In fact, up to this modern era, we have spent most of our lives learning skills to be efficient at something. Some of our last names symbolize the skillset our ancestors had. And, now at the wake of the on-demand economy, we are left to re-examine the effort heuristics that are so ingrained in our behaviors and attempt to change the way we’ve been interacting with the external world.
By embracing A.I., we are giving away part of our sense of autonomy to a machine, which may make us feel helpless and unskilled. In a recent study by the University of Birmingham, and in older ones too, freedom and autonomy are the number one predictors of happiness, overall well-being and job satisfaction. It seems that beyond marketing an A.I. product, businesses would benefit from paying close attention to the underlying impact it may have on their users at large.
Changing a habit is not that easy
When was the last time you willingly altered a habit because someone told you to? It’s either taken as advice or criticism depending on the state of mind you’re in. Plus, it takes a strong sense of willpower and motivation to take action and change a habit.
Brands and ads often paint the picture of the ideal user in a perfect world, which fails to connect with the audience in two key pieces: why and what’s the level of difficulty. It’s like experiencing cognitive bias after opening a present, expecting it to be exactly what you want but then you notice it’s not the version you wanted and doesn’t have clear instructions.
Starting with a strong “why” is essential for any campaign or new business to reinforce its value with their potential clientele. Aside from reason, if the stakes for adaptation are too high, it requires too many steps and new terminology to learn, then, why bother. To increase adoption, the task at hand needs to be perceived as achievable, and it helps if it’s accepted by your audience’s social circle.
Internal teams are failing at it too
Even businesses with heavy top-to-bottom decision-making structures, sometimes fail to see that marketers and operators are also humans, and if they do not understand nor are comfortable with A.I. technology, then the chances for error can quickly skyrocket.
Marketers and others that fail to see outside of their departmental bubbles, and also find reasons to validate their thinking for deploying eerily targeted messages that can end up startling end-users.
Ok, so what about hybrid intelligence
A.I. is here to stay, but it may be wise to stop and consider that the mass market is not ready for autonomous products. Maybe a step back needs to be taken in the path to A.I. adoption to consider a model for hybrid intelligence. The middle ground from where we stand without assisted A.I. technology and having full A.I. technology in our daily lives.
Here are my reasons why:
- It is new and comfortable and not too uncomfortable
- It has a clear human element that people can connect with
- The stakes are low, and the benefits are high
- The user feels in control
- Hybrid environments allow for a more empathic interaction
- It processes augmented memory — the more you interact with it, the better it gets at recognizing your preferences
- Companies can provide incremental options or upgrades based on the person’s comfortable use of the technology — full A.I. adoption may not be for everyone
Artificial intelligence businesses in Silicon Valley are navigating the path between A.I. and human intelligence with hybrid intelligence. Their business model integrates humans at every step of the process but uses deep learning and natural language processing technology to make their A.I. systems smarter. While the artificial intelligence arena continues to evolve, and the race for super machines and enterprise innovation surges, there is still an opportunity for the exploration of systems that are human-aware, feel more like a companion and integrate real humans in their operations.
This story is published in The Startup, Medium’s largest entrepreneurship publication followed by 283,454+ people.
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