Chris achieving an understanding with a Russian van driver in Mongolia
My friend’s car announced, “ETC Cardo,” as Mona started the engine.
I smiled in recognition. “I know what your car is saying. It’s telling you it needs an ETC card inserted in its slot to pay for Japanese toll roads. ‘Cardo’ is such a cute hybrid word, isn’t it?”
Our Japanese rental car announced “ETC Cardo,” in a satisfied way (or that’s what I imagined) every morning when we headed out skiing in Hokkaido this January. We had inserted the ETC Cardo in the slot before leaving the rental agency but the car felt the need to comment on the cardo every time it started up. When you go on Japanese toll roads, of which there are many, it’s easier and quicker to have an ETC Cardo than to stop and pay the toll. With a cardo you drive through at 20km an hour and the gate pops open in front of you (if you’re driving too fast, you slam on the brakes in fright if the gate doesn’t pop open in time).
The ETC Cardo is a very minor example of crosscultural understanding gained from visiting a country and not necessarily the best example because it doesn’t tell you much about the people. I experienced a more pertinent example of Japanese inter-country customs many years ago in New Zealand when I sat in the wrong place at a table. I was Director of the University of Canterbury Research Office and a delegation of senior Japanese academics and research managers were visiting our university. We all went out for dinner in Christchurch and were ushered to a table with eight seats on either side and one at either end. The younger members of the contingent headed for the seats in the centre of the long sides, leaving the seats at the ends of the table and adjacent positions empty for the senior staff. Except, the senior Japanese people headed for those very same seats in the middle and there was considerable confusion. Afterwards, someone explained to me the most honoured seat in Japan is in the middle of the table. It would have been helpful if they’d explained beforehand!
So what do Japanese table manners have to do with AI? Table manners, and many things about how humans behave, are best learned from interacting with humans. We learn about other humans more successfully through practice than through reading about what humans do or ought to do. The less like us other people are, the more we have to learn new ways of behaving to interact successfully – travel is one way of remembering other people do things differently. However simply meeting different people in day-to-day life activities – at the supermarket, on the bus, in a shop – is also an important facet of practising and learning about others.
However, many people see AI as a useful tool to decrease human interaction. I’ve discussed this with people at the forefront of AI who find human interactions difficult – they see handing off interactions to AI as a huge benefit . More significantly, from a government and business point of view, AI is seen as a way to increase productivity through increasing efficiency. Humans are inefficient and human interactions are often very inefficient. We can use AI to reduce the number of interactions between people and increase business efficiency and profitability.
It can be more efficient to order food from a screen in a cafe than to talk with a person. Soon, AI agents (a system or programme that can autonomously do a task) will be able to do our shopping for us. We will tell the agent what specific, e.g. piece of clothing, we want to buy, and the agent will search online and purchase the item. A smart fridge will know what it should contain and order online from the grocery store; the food will be delivered to your doorstep. People are already asking AI what they should say to a prospective partner to make a positive reaction more likely on a date; AI can dump your partner when you don’t want them any more – no need to even write a text. All those uncomfortable or difficult interactions with humans…AI agents can do them for you. Won’t life be simpler and easier?
Except…human society is a group of humans interacting one another. Our interactions are what binds society, what give us understanding and tolerance of each other, despite and because of our differences. We already see social glue disintegrating as people are actively intolerant of others on social media; they don’t feel the person behind the screen. Soon, there won’t even be a person behind the social media screen (maybe there already isn’t a person behind the screen). And, when we are forced to interact with other people in difficult situations, we will have little practice and understanding…which will lead to poorer interactions…and fewer interactions…until interacting with other people will be something to be avoided because it won’t be pleasant…and society becomes entirely fractured because human interactions are no longer enjoyed, valued, or carried out successfully.
But we will be much more productive.
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