By Anand Rao
Artificial intelligence (“AI”) is fast becoming the next great democratizer for services. In the medical field, 56% of consumers surveyed see its potential to lower cost and break down barriers in providing medical access to lower income adults. And the beginnings of that technology can already be seen: an AI system has successfully identified autism in babies with 81% accuracy, while a Stanford-led experiment used AI to identify skin cancer with 91% accuracy.
But as much as these technologies develop and become more successful in application, the majority of consumers still want a human touch accompany cutting-edge tech. While consumers trust AI to make vital decisions on the back end in terms of data processing and analysis, they still prefer a human to deliver information to them or to help explain a result. According to our latest Consumer Intelligence Series survey, 77% would prefer to visit a doctor in person than to take an at-home assessment with a robotic smart kit, and only 22% think it’s likely that people will turn entirely to an AI assistant versus a human as a doctor.
The same sentiment is echoed for office environments. AI is great for the processing it brings to the table, but not for making final decisions. Executives see AI as a liberator when it comes to repetitive tasks in their day-to-day life. Our survey reveals that paperwork, scheduling and timesheets seemed like appropriate, tedious tasks to be delegated to a machine. However, executives were less confident about AI’s ability to handle HR-related tasks which require a human touch. Sixty-nine percent of executives believe AI would be just as fair, or even more fair, as a human manager when making promotion decisions. But in practice, 86% would want to speak with a human after a review decision made by AI.
Ultimately, people are optimistic that AI will save time and provide more services to even more people. But when it comes to tasks that require emotional intelligence, they aren’t ready to hand over the reins just yet. The emotional skills that humans innately have as, well, humans, are their strength. Where AI is logical and methodical, humans can be inventive and empathetic. The role of humans will be to push AI further: to create more useful programs, to develop more unique ways for machines to think, and to tackle new problems. All of which will lead to a smarter – both intellectually and emotionally – world for all.
Man and machine together is better than either one on their own.
Reference:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/people-want-ai-its-brain-power-skills-anand-rao?trk=v-feed&lipi=urn%3Ali%3Apage%3Ad_flagship3_feed%3BzFYTCfNGRKWVNoLnccIClw%3D%3D
