Be polite to Alexa!
Data privacy, accountability and digital literacy in a world of intelligent hyper automation.
‘You must say ‘please’ to Alexa!’ I was reclined on the sofa in a state of post-lunch repose when my ears perked up in mild amusement on hearing my wife admonish the girls on Christmas day. Over the next few days, the girls unleashed a barrage of requests to Alexa, ranging from the mundane to the esoteric — I’d say the treatment was bordering on harassment. But perhaps because of their polite manners, Alexa was very accommodating and respectful in return.
I succumbed to Alexa last Christmas. If friends and family may be used as yardsticks of acquiescence, my stubborn resistance was perhaps the last bastion to fall. I knew my reservations around privacy and self-sufficiency were always destined to fall on deaf ears — but even I was surprised by the ease with which my hitherto courageous resistance crumbled in the heat and frenzy of last-minute Christmas shopping. The iPad has taken a bit of a backseat to the convenience of having a PA at our beck and call. We now know — it is official! — the weather is at the very top of our minds, gauging by the multiple enquiries our Alexa has had on the subject. Coming a close second is ‘What’s the time, Alexa?’ and our innate need to be reminded of the passage of time. When we were wracking our brains and mental jukeboxes to come up with song requests, it was to the soporific accompaniment of Michael Buble. And when we were stuck on a potential Scrabble word combination and couldn’t be bothered to exercise those grey cells any further, we relented and asked for assistance. Having her as part of our lives for a month now, life before Alexa is slowly but surely receding to be a distant memory.
When I talk to my daughters about how we went about our lives ‘back-in-the-day’ without the internet, mobile phones, streaming music, and instant communication, they respond by rolling their eyes and stifling an exaggerated yawn. I rant on about how we are being held hostage by the searing pace of automation, the need to exercise caution in how we adopt technology and the gradual, yet inevitable erosion of key life-skills. My tirades fall on deaf ears as my daughters nonchalantly flick from Netflix to Prime to Disney+. Internally, I am biting my fingernails nervously, darting glances hither tither, breaking into a sweat — an engineering graduate who has spent the better half of two decades in the pursuit of driving technology led transformation in banking, surely thinking such thoughts is tantamount to blasphemy, says one part of my conscience to the other, both embroiled in internal conflict. Much like a scientist has a more nuanced appreciation of the power of science and the potential to harness it for good or evil, perhaps my views on technology stem from similar foundations?
Undeniably, the pace of technology change and the way it has transformed our lives beyond recognition in the last two decades is staggering. Call it what you want — the Digital Age, the IT Revolution — but like its predecessors — Industrial, Bronze, Stone and so on — this Age too will be given due recognition. Each of those periods of breath-taking societal and cultural transformations was also stained with unfortunate casualties of progress — as the adage goes: Two steps forward, one step back. When these historical mishaps and the adverse impact they wrought upon society eventually came to light, efforts were made to rectify them — some were successful, others not; most took time. The Age we are currently witnessing is no different. Let’s tread with caution; doing so will save us some heartache in the future.
Starting with data privacy: there is wide consensus on the need to safeguard this. Technology companies that perhaps put up some resistance at one stage have largely accepted that they need to exercise caution and transparency in how data is collected and harnessed and to that end, face a degree of accountability to the regulators and the public. The EU-led General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) faced considerable push-back while it was being drafted, but since being implemented, is widely seen as a benchmark that other jurisdictions and stakeholders are looking to emulate and enhance. Regulation can provide a framework to hold companies accountable and provide recourse for impacted parties to raise concerns. The interconnected nature of the digital ecosystem is only going to get more complex as vast chunks of the services we consume go online and further advances on the Internet of Things (IoT) and AI/ML (Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning) led automation. The challenge I see is one around comprehension.
As we relinquish access and control of our personal data and other aspects of our private lives to third parties, we should do so in full knowledge of how these are going to be used. It is encouraging that service providers are now required to design their products at the outset with the requirement of transparency in mind. This should and will continue to evolve. It is also common knowledge that more often that not consumers will go with the default settings and only the very conscientious will make the effort of understanding and assuming direct control of how their data is leveraged. How often have we just hit ‘Agree’ and provided our consent to a website wanting to use our data (‘cookies’) or not bothered to get into the privacy settings of services such as Facebook Google, TicToc and the like. This is not new — the disinclination of consumers to trawl through the Terms and Conditions of purchased products and services is only matched by the inclination of the firms that provide said products and services to cram more detail into them. Finding a way to ensuring that the default settings are wired from the outset to provide fair outcomes to consumers is essential.
But equally important is for us, collectively, to find solutions to incentivise consumers to sit up and take an active interest in their personal data and how it is used — not dissimilar to how they would view money and their financial assets and liabilities. This will allow for better ‘happy paths’ — cognizant customers enjoying the services they have signed up to. It will also allow for knowledgeable customers in times of mismanagement — when firms mismanage the liberties they have been given, in cases of data breaches, third party fraud, identity theft and so on. Thus, enabling and empowering consumers is, in my opinion, an absolute prerequisite for a stable digital future. This is Digital Literacy in its broadest sense.
It is not difficult to imagine a future where artificial AI/ML is ubiquitous in the enablement of most of what we consume in our daily lives. This will become omnipresent with the proliferation of IoT devices. From the mundane:
· auto completing the drafting of our emails,
· purchasing household necessities such as washing powder, light bulbs, toilet paper, etc. when they are about to run out, pre-populating our monthly shopping cart and placing an order on our behalf· process automation in operations back-offices
to the more complex:
· AI/ML already in use by financial institutions for large scale asset allocation will come to dominate, impacting among other things, our pension savings
· most sales and service recommendation engines will be underpinned by AI algorithms.
· robotic automation of complex and high-tech processes in our factories and supply chains
· self-driving cars
to name a few.
On occasion when faced with issues such as my internet banking not working, or a payment not going through, or an online order that wasn’t executed to expectation, I have been dissatisfied by the customer support on offer. Often, the customer support agent (human or bot!) was helpless in resolving the issue if it required investigation beyond the rudimentary information at hand. This situation will only get turbo charged as AI/ML and IoT get further enmeshed in our lives. It is crucial that the decisions — whether mundane or complex — that get made for us are explainable. Not just when things go wrong — but at any time.
Getting this right has wide-ranging consequences from safety, security, governance, diversity, and inclusion. In my opinion, this is an extension of data privacy and ownership. If decisions are being made on our behalf or for our benefit, we, as consumers, have a right to understand why they were taken. To that end, it is crucial that traceability and accountability are hard-wired as crucial principles at the outset in how systems that leverage and deploy AI/ML capabilities are designed. Considerations such as XAI (Explainable AI) and Ethical AI are already mainstream in the scientific community. This needs to continue and become centre-stage with all impacted stakeholders including the public, firms, and regulators.
Much to my disappointment, I share precious little in common with Tom Cruise or Will Smith. But in recent months, in the way I think, I draw similarities to their characters in the films Minority Report and I, Robot — characters in a futuristic world that lament the loss of essential life skills! I am not a Luddite. Change dictates that people adapt and skills are refreshed. This is as true today as it was in the Middle Ages and beyond. With the breath-taking pace of change, I wonder though if we are seeing the gradual and inadvertent erosion of skills that should be safeguarded. This is of course eminently debatable. The skill of handwriting; the ability to write, express oneself and tell a story; the ability and right to fix one’s own mechanical devices; the ability to think! Again, it is not inconceivable that some, if not a vast majority of these abilities and skills and more could be outsourced or automated by technology. It is already happening today. News stories can write themselves, machines can self-heal, the keyboard and touchscreen has long surpassed the need to use one’s hands to write and why think when there is Google and Wikipedia.
It is when I reach this juncture that I say to myself: ‘Stop, you are now starting to sound like those doomsters and gloomsters!’ These themes keep resurfacing though. I would argue that the pace of change need not abate. Instead, the integration of these themes at the outset to the ways in which we shape our technology will make for a more equitable, secure, and balanced future. I welcome Alexa as part of our family so long as she does not berate and force me to eat my broccoli when I’m not so inclined.
