I know someone who recently lost his 18 year old son in a horrific car accident. It was his only son.
We are very close and have always been able to talk about everything. Yesterday we talked. During the conversation he said something I did not understand at first. He said "and now some algorithm is sending me stuff all the time".
He is on facebook, which is I think how this all began.
Apparently, since the accident he has been receiving unwanted links and stories. About fathers losing their sons. About grief and how to grieve. Parents talking about losing their children and how they coped. About car accidents, and how to avoid them. Pictures and sad songs.
We are all constantly asked to click on traffic lights, bridges and crosswalks to prove we are human and not a robot, while AI operates in the background, with no oversight and no control over what it does. It functions with no sympathy, no empathy or the discretion to know what is appropriate in a given situation.
When you remove humanity from the equation we all suffer.
There are those who think AI is the bee's knees. That it will be a help to us all.
When a grieving father, who at this moment is trying to decide whether he should remain in this world with what is left of his family, or try to go be with his son in the next, receiving a link to the song "Not Okay" by Crimson Vale is not what I consider helpful.
It's wrong and should never have happened. But we no longer have control do we?
Tell me, am I wrong in viewing AI this way?