Intuition - The human superpower

Conversational AI vs our sixth sense

"We can't promise success but we can promise performance".

We all know what it's like to look someone in the face and say "I honestly gave it my best".

Strangely the sentence has value whether the outcome was good or bad. The value comes from the level of honesty that we intuitively register.

It's a difficult lie to tell with conviction and hard to empathise with someone who is willing to try. The truth remains untouched and we all know it. It's a human thing. We were all fitted with a BS detector at birth.

Conversational marketing, business websites & AI

Generative and voice search growth are transforming marketing. Short form video, chat bots and more live interactions are eroding formality. Less lecturing and showcasing. More questions and answers. That's healthy and progressive in my book.

From digital brochure to live reception area.

The home page of the average business website will evolve to reflect this change. But who will be at the front desk?

The clunky chat bots in the bottom right of today's screens will seem quaint and dated a couple years from now. AI's will greet visitors front and centre to start a conversation. The visitor may well then ask "Can I speak to a real person?". Perhaps they won't be able to tell the difference? Will they even care if the AI is answering their questions and giving them what they need?

This brings us back to honesty and intuition.

Will AIs be happy peddling snake oil?

Would a human visitor ignore an AI if it simply regurgitates ambiguous sales messages in response to genuine questions? I suspect so.

But when we can no longer distiguish between an AI and a real human being how will we trust that it's being honest with us? Especially when it's telling us all the things we want to hear?

When a undetectable, human looking AI says "We can't promise success but we can promise performance". Will our intuition be a tool that can still detect the aroma of potential bullshit? Or does that only work with other humans? Like a poker player's tell. Will websites with the smoothest deepfakes clean up? Or will our spider sense still protect us and say "I've been blocked" but don't trust this voice.

AIs as assistants - humans as decision makers

I'm hoping that the general consensus will always be AI for the light weight, repetitive and fluffy stuff. Information, assistance, transactions etc. Handing off to humans for the heavier, more intricate items. Negotiation, debate and decisions requiring experience, subjectivity and wisdom.

Human intuition may prove be a superpower that no training data set will ever empower an AI to simulate. I really hope so.