Why A.I. assistants need to stay neutral

You might think assistants today are trivial or stupid, and you wouldn’t be wrong. They often don’t understand what we say and can’t hold real conversations yet. Mostly they’re relegated to simple tasks like playing music, sending texts, or setting timers.

The people building the assistants of a not-too-distant tomorrow see it differently. The next generation, of which the Google assistant that ships with Allo is one, have a grander ambition: to replace search and mobile apps as we know them. They are designed to provide information and guidance to everyday questions, to hold longer conversations, and even make complex decisions on our behalf.

As of today, the situation doesn’t look good. The assistants offered by major companies today come with significant bias because they exist primarily to promote another business interest. For example, when you ask the Google Assistant questions, it always leads you to one of Google’s properties for answers. If Google thinks one of their products, like Google Places or Knowledge Graph, can provide an answer, you get that. Otherwise, you get a single blue link from web search (the ultimate “I’m feeling lucky!”). There are no third parties directly informing Google’s assistant.

If there’s one thing to learn from the way everyone has turned the internet into their own private echo chamber it’s that the last thing anybody wants is neutral. Neutral AIs are a fine idea, and will rarely happen, and the few that do will fail miserably in the marketplace.

2 posted on 10/01/2016 7:00:32 AM PDT by discostu (If you need to load or unload go to the white zone, you'll love it, it's a way of life)

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