Did I Invite Your AI Note-Taker to This Party?

I frequently lead online webinars and workshops. Like most things in life, they’re both good and bad. They lack the human touch that, in-person, can lead to real relationships – but they also let us share a much broader range of knowledge and opinion than we are likely to find in a face-to-face meeting in one place.

Not everyone who registers for these events shows up. That's their privilege. But recently, I came across something new. A couple of people showed up – kind of – by having an AI note-taker application log in, listen and summarize what it heard for later reading.

Now or later?

So, how does that strike you? Good? Bad? Like most things in life, it’s probably some of both. Weirdly, it put me in mind of my devout grandmother saying that the Lord was the unseen guest at every meal. That's a more comforting phrase than "Your robot overlord will see you now."  

On the good side of the ledger, the human beings who sent an AI to the event had found a way – kind of – to be in two places at once.  Perhaps they were too busy to attend in person but thought the topic was worthy of their attention and wanted to learn later from our teaching and discussion.

But there’s a hole in that reasoning. When my daughters were teenagers and I asked them to do some chore, they would often tell me they would do it – but later. That would usually lead me to say “There is no such thing as later. There is only now.” Okay, it made me sound like Yoda and produced no result, but it was still a good line.

A Hail Mary pass

In a working world where digital technology sets the pace, we all have more to accomplish than will fit into the day. This applies not just to desk jockeys like me but to people in the warehouse, at the construction site, on the assembly line or the hotel cleaning staff. In response, we triage where we can and let stuff pile up where we can’t, and some of it gets done in the continual battle between what we want to get done and what we know we must do. Inevitably, we wind up with more in the “later” pile than in the one labeled “now.”

So, on the bad side of the ledger, sending an AI note-taker cannot disguise the fact that you didn’t show up. That is your privilege. But sending an AI in your place? That's a head-fake toward engagement. It signals your interest and intention without demanding that you be interested or intentional. It's a Hail Mary pass made in hopes that somehow, in the future, you will be in the end zone to catch it. 

My real concern is more basic. That AI application is one more tool for avoiding connection. It is one more downside to a digital world that – for all its benefits – encourages us to engage anonymously and connect without commitment. And as we should have learned by now, anonymity and disconnection lead us to to treat others’ attention as a place to purge ourselves of our emotional poison and then drink more of it again. 

I don't have a solution, or even the desire for one yet. If it were all good or all bad, it would be easy to have an opinion. But it’s not. So, I will wait, watch and see what develops. But be warned: AI note-takers will be cheerfully admitted, but they are not invited to the party. 

Photo courtesy Ant Rozetsky Unsplash.com

Robert Bell
Robert Bell is co-founder of the Intelligent Community Forum, where he heads its research, analysis and content development activities.
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