AI, my stalker

The global pandemic has made Netflix an important part of my life. Over the months and several binges later, I feel as though I am being stalked whenever I see the suggestions of movies under the heading ‘because you watched’. When I open Gmail, and see that the mails neatly classified into primary, social and promotions, I feel the presence of the stalker who finished reading all my mails behind my back and also has the audacity to classify them. Furthermore, for any mail, I read there is a suggestion below as to how I can reply. Though, I have to grudgingly acknowledge that these ‘smart replies’ are always appropriate.

Then there is the ‘nudging reminders’ about mails that I have not yet answered. Talk about predictive searches in Google, which guess literally what’s in my mind and my paranoia is complete.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) does impact my everyday life constantly from morning until nightfall. When I unlock my phone in the morning using biometrics, checking my Facebook account, reading and dealing with emails or searching the internet, I am being trailed by AI. As Google CEO Sundar Pichai claims, AI is going be more transformative to humanity than electricity.

I have my stalker to thank for, for the mobile banking app which saves me from the traffic snarl to reach the bank, inattentive bank staff and the slow-moving queue. The mobile alerts I get to prevent bank frauds are also due to AI algorithms. They also enable online retail sites like Amazon to personalize the shopping experience by suggesting new products tailored to my searches. It is equivalent to the pleasurable ‘window shopping’ of my younger days without the physical strain.

During my pre-Covid days when I used Google maps frequently, the display of quickest route to any destination from my location taking into account the traffic and distance is all AI at work.

I try not to get alarmed when I realise how little flying pilots actually do in the cockpit. A survey conducted in 2015 with Boeing 777 pilots reported only seven minutes of manually flying the plane during a typical flight with much of the rest being done by AI technology.

Now, humour is one of the sophisticated forms of human intelligence. Is AI catching up with human brains in the humour department? I am led to believe that the breakthrough in humour is slowly advancing to being ‘a little less artificial and more intelligent’. Days are not far off when my stalker describes me as some form of non-artificial and un-intelligence.