Chicken or Egg Intelligence?
I visit CVS pharmacy, and they've refurbished. Now, you approach a counter and “sign in” with you credentials (usually a phone number). You're asked a few questions to confirm you're not there to steal narcotics. A clerk eventually fetches the prescription. You're asked (electronically) if you need to talk the the pharmacist, or if you'd like to “round up” the price for charity, if you'd like to use any store credits, and so forth. On the way out if you walk too close the electronic “cashiers” they will give you commands about where to put your purchases and payment options because they don't realize you're simply exiting the place.
At the Shell station nearby, where I once chatted with the attendant about yesterday's ball game or local politics, I now deal with an automated machine to pump my own gas in conditions in which even the post office wouldn't promise delivering, I'm besieged with video commercials on the pump screen, and a demand is made about whether I want a receipt.
At the air pump, I now have to choose between air for my tires or vacuuming for the car (which is puny, not like a carwash's vacuum), set the pressure, listen to the “dings” which are very faint to know when to move on, and for four minutes, this costs $1.50. Air is no longer free, water in the theater last night was $3 and they don't accept cash (except tips, of course), and the air machine seemed erratic on something as important as filling tires.
The “high touch” saving grace: The guy running the gas station mini-mart came out to untangle the air hose, because that gave incorrect pressure readings when tangled. That was damn nice of him, but it also cost me another $1.50 because my time limit expired.
I'm not complaining about the cost, of course, for any of this. But the lost human interaction, the focus on benefiting the store's inventory control and lower employees count at the expense of human interaction, and the general annoyance of answering the machines, well, I doubt that AI is going to take over much of the world.
When you boil it all away, artificial intelligence is the illegitimate child of human intelligence.
