Tweedle-dee and twaddle dumb

I know I’ve previously written about Artificial Intelligence, but, bear with me, my stomach is once more roiling about this nonsense that keeps intruding into our lives. In my morning paper, the Report on Business, was a story announcing that bank CEOs say that AI is already in use in their institutions.
According to the article banks are using AI to boost staff productivity, cut costs, combat financial crime and improve customer service. Wow! Isn’t it odd that the CEOs would cite those things, given how poorly the banks appear to be performing in all those areas.
“We don’t talk about ‘this is going to eliminate jobs,’” said CIBC CEO Victor Dodig. Assuming he was not misquoted, does not talking about something mean it will happen or it won’t happen? My five cents is on the former.
He also claimed that AI will “actually make working at CIBC more interesting because it will take the sand out of the gears.” Wait a minute. There’s sand in the gears? Hard to believe a bank could run at all in such a clogged condition.
Scotiabank CEO Scott Thomson was only slightly more optimistic, saying AI would provide revenue-producing opportunities, but muted his prognosis by saying that “right now we are focussed more on the client experience and the cost side as opposed to the revenue-generation side.”
Have any of these CEOs used Google recently? We’ve all relied on Google for years to solve queries that come to mind, but in the last little while, Google has gone through a metamorphosis: Answers are now generated by AI. Yes, you read that right.
Try a question on Google. The answer pops up on your computer screen headed by a four-pointed star and the words AI Overview. Read through the total answer that has been generated and at the end it says: “AI responses may include mistakes.” Click on the link and there’s a further explanation about how Overviews “may provide inaccurate or offensive information. AI Overviews can and will mistakes.”
How’s that for an admission of sins, both of the omission and commission kind? Yet this is the very AI that the bank CEOs are turning to for answers to problems such as improving customer service. And here I thought it was personal knowledge and professional talent that meant CEOs got paid the big money.
Maybe that thought was just another mistake generated by AI.