Rescuing humanity in the age of automation, artificial intelligence and Big Tech

Recent experiences navigating the digital space of the U.S. Postal Service confirmed what I learned when I interviewed Kevin Roose, the author of “Future Proof: 9 Rules for Humans in the Age of Automation,” for an upcoming Reader’s Corner show. Roose knows his stuff when it comes to the rampant pace of technology in our lives, thanks to his job as technology reporter and columnist for the New York Times.

“Future Proof” is a primer on how to be a human in a world that is increasingly arranged by and for machines. Roose focuses mainly on helping consumers take their lives back with several interesting strategies, including “demoting their devices,” that’s right, going on a phone detox plan that he himself tried for 30 days and lived to tell the tale of his enriched life during the period. He advocates boning up on the unique human skills machines can’t replicate so you won’t lose your job or your sanity.

Roose counters the optimistic appraisals of artificial intelligence (AI) made by many technology gurus by identifying “four big claims” that AI optimists use in arguing that it will create many more positive than negative effects.

One of them contends that “humans and AI will collaborate, not compete.”

This assertion rests on the premise that AI is designed to work with humans not against them. Although my experience is anecdotal, I find it hard to believe I’m the first consumer to find serious gaps between the advantage of talking with a person with a heartbeat and an AI machine we are forced to use in so many of our transactions today.

Too often, the personal experience of dealing with a person who can adjust to the unique issue of the consumer can be lost in the more rigid and inflexible set of options used in the online or phone experience. Too often, the so-called collaboration between the human on the job and the AI system in place looks more like two native speakers, each using their own language without a clue of what the other is saying.

In my post office experience, I opened a box of books I had insured which was initially sent to the wrong city and eventually delivered to my address. The box arrived torn and repackaged and contained only a few of the 25 books originally packed in the box. A note on the box directed me to my local post office to fill out a form to file an insurance claim.

The confused local postal office worker handed me a form that basically instructed me to file the claim online, and then the fun began.

With not much help at the counter, I found myself online trapped in a circular set of instructions that was just maddening enough to make me realize that insuring a package at the post office is a waste of time — a process that works only if you do not have to file a claim.

The moral of my story is not to waste my time or money sending a package through the post office. And if I ever suffered a lapse in judgment, I certainly wouldn’t waste the money insuring it and dealing with the “online insurance claim denier” of the post office. I can only conclude from my experience that God created FedEx and UPS on the Eighth Day for folks who have been caught in the post office’s tangled web, even though charges of the alternatives are pricier.

My experience is an example of what can happen when companies use AI ostensibly to ensure ease of operation for the consumer, not to mention eliminate workers in the process, but it also depersonalizes the human experience. Too often that has the effect of insulating the company from consumers who need assistance with legitimate concerns about service or product. Some AI systems do allow for a consumer to talk with a person with a heartbeat, but that is often discouraged by the exceptionally long wait times.

If the only problem with AI was consumer inconvenience or, in my recent post office case, loss of items shipped, I would be the first to admit that’s the price of doing business with a machine world, so just move on and chalk it up to the times.

It’s a different story when AI is used to eliminate thousands of jobs without a hoot of concern for what happens to those workers next or whether it’s even a good idea to automate a function that requires emotional intelligence beyond the scope of AI’s power.

Roose tells an interesting story based on his visit to Davos where he hung out with the rich and powerful who spend their Davos days explaining how they will cure the ills of the planet. In the evenings, he heard off-the-record conversations about how CEOs could use AI to shrink their companies’ reliance on human workers.

After reading Roose’s experience hearing tech consultants at Davos selling “digital transformation projects” to replace workers with automated systems in areas of human endeavor, I realize that his nine rules may work for those of us intent on disconnecting from our digital world and taking back our lives for a period of time, but there is a larger issue looming out there that appears to be entirely beyond our control.

To date, executives and engineers of the Silicon Valley have shown little or no interest in scaling back technology to preserve our humanity. Facebook dominates the news these days with a variety of government agencies on its case, but it’s only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Big Tech’s impact on our futures and the individual freedoms we enjoy.

Books and articles are written monthly warning us how artificial intelligence is likely to take over our lives and become the real threat to individual freedom.

Just in case this sounds like the rant of old guys, read “The Age of Surveillance Capitalism” by Shoshana Zuboff, a professor emerita of the Harvard Business School. She warns that a ubiquitous digital architecture of behavior modification now threatens human nature in ways that remind us of Big Brother in 1984.

Capitalism has been regulated by government throughout American history, often to the chagrin of conservative supporters of unfettered capitalism. But if articulated correctly, here we have an issue with the potential to unite conservatives fearful of Big Brother and liberals who fear Big Tech will enable autocrats to rule the land.

Now all we need is the leadership to bring liberals and conservatives together on an issue that threatens our lives no matter where we find ourselves on the political spectrum.