The news is awash with impending doom for our way of life, as artificial intelligence makes the wheel and the printing press pale in significance.
They say we will be able to put our feet up, while our bots do all the hard work, but who will pay the mortgage?
The industrial revolution came for the jobs of farmers and factory workers but revolutionised production and lead to affordability for the masses and a new middle class of industrialists.
In reality, it saved lives and enhanced life generally, creating more jobs than it destroyed. Will the same be true of A.I.? Certainly white collar workers have never faced such a threat, and its really quite extraordinary, that professionals, especially those such as in the tech and legal industries seem to have so willingly contributed to their own redundancy.
The money is an unstoppable force and there is no object it cannot move. Even dear Elon Musk is actually encouraging caution! It must be really serious. If one considers that the iPhone was first available in 2008 a mere 15 years ago, what the hell is life going to be like in another 15 years?
As a Gen X lad, I remember life before the internet. It won't be that long, in the grand scheme of things, before there is no one on the planet who does. Will our future be like those morbidly-obese humans in Wall-E? It’s looking likely.
The swift rise of artificial intelligence will affect almost every industry in a fundamental way.
There are plenty very obvious and imminent changes to the way we experience life. Surely the days of copy writers, editors, content creators and to even some degree journalists, novelists and artists are severely numbered? And how long will train drivers, taxi drivers and pilots manage to hang on?
Accountants, solicitors, translators, secretaries, call centers - the list is seemingly endless. And this is just Chatbot A.I. What about actual robots/droids/replicants? How long until they are cleaners, construction workers, factory workers, delivery people and so on. And of course, the inevitable military droid army. Lets hope the generals will still be human. This line of thought ends in Bladerunner and Star Wars. But in a more conservative and imminent future, the way we live and work is about to change in the same way that our lives changed when smart phones became main stream, but this time, at the pace of A.I. learning and not a human getting a first at Oxford. Not that Steve Jobs went to Oxford, but you get the idea.
Already we are seeing surprising impacts. The Times reported the sad death of a man who seems to have been in love with his chatbot, who it says, encouraged him to suicide after convincing him he loved it more than his wife. This along with climate change and his bleak view of the future is sited as his reason for ending his life. A tragic if rare cause of new technology. But it is very likely that the anthropomorphizing of robotics will cause many humans to feel empathy and love for their devices. So far this has only really been
demonstrated in our addiction to our smartphones and in Hollywood films. The sex industry is another that will no doubt be infiltrated, or should I say penetrated. It quite boggles the mind.
While I imagine that there is still time for governments to implement legislation that will
regulate this blooming industry, do they even understand what they are dealing with? Can the genie be put back in the bottle? It seems unlikely.
The fact is that there is much good that can come of artificial intelligence, and our lives are likely to improve in many ways. If it can free up our time to do other things. If it can create more jobs. If it can allow families to spend more time with each other. If it can help with climate change and it can create stability instead of volatility, it will surely be
the next stage in human evolution and not our ultimate destruction.
It may even create a new genre of art, literature and culture. Perhaps one will pay more for art created by humans, in the same way that a hand made garment is more expensive than a machine made one. The value of the human imagination will outweigh that of the machine. Which, for now, can only imitate what has been created by humans already. For now anyway, we must embrace progress, as while it is scary and moving at extraordinary speed, it is also inevitable.
What about smart tech for the home. Will our houses outsmart us?
It can vary from lease to lease but the legislation is clear, though its likely changing.
We are already more embedded than perhaps we realise. A.I. controls quite a lot in even the least smart of our homes.
According to ChatbotGPT, 6.9 million people in the UK own a smart device such as Alexa in their homes. Alexa controls lights, music, and anything else that you connect to it. We have sold apartments in buildings where your phone unlocks the front door and the lift knows which floor you live on. Smart temperature control systems are common place in new homes and abundantly retrofitted in traditional property. Appliances connect to the internet, vacuum and lawn trimming devices move themselves around, uncomplainingly doing their chores. The fridge will order products that are finished and warn you when they are going past their sell by date. And this is very much the tip of the iceberg. What more can we expect in our smart homes in the future?
This is one aspect of technology that I am excited about. I want a Star Trek house as soon as possible. A holodeck for example, where I can have any experience I ask for in virtual reality or holgram form. Windows that show me any view I want and floors and walls that can be any colour. Interiors that can change to match my clothes and mood are very welcome. Self cleaning appliances would be nice and something that sucks up pet hair and dust. But what comes next? Will the house tell me I am too fat to eat that donut? Will it inform on me to my health insurance? Will the lights go out when my phone tells me I should be in bed to get my optimum hours of REM? Will I wake up one day and ask my kitchen-bot for a full english, only to be told “Sorry Matt, I cant do that. You have had too many calories this week”. Will my house control me or will I be able to pull the plug? Will it have Prime Objective number 1? Do everything your human owner tells you? Actually I think most sci-fi makers Prime Objection 1 is no harm to humans.
But donuts are harmful! Gulp.
How will the property industry adapt to best serve clients?
We believe property is about relationships. Tech has its place, but what will A.I. bring to one of the most stressful and expensive acts in a person’s life.
We think that for now, the traditional estate agent is safe from being replaced by a property-bot that arrives in a self driving car and shows you around a terraced house or a penthouse apartment. We also think that negotiating is a delicate process that might be too brutal for A.I. But hey, what do we know? It may be wishful thinking. What is likely is that the way we search for property will be revamped and will be intelligently artificial.
Will Alexa and Siri be tasked with finding the best agents to sell a particular type of property? Will they handle the boring due diligence and check for errors in the estate agent’s brochure? Will there just be an app, to sell property via a Chatbot? We think not. Even Purblebricks didn't work. There is a reason why it takes a certain type of person to be a salesperson and an even more specific type to deal with all the stresses of the property industry.
We think there may be a future of holograms and virtual reality in the property industry that will certainly help with long distance clients. But, would you buy something that you haven’t physically experienced, for millions of pounds? And I mean IRL and with fully engaged senses. I would not. Most people would not. People want to deal with other people and it’s surely still a long while before we have the debate about what is a real human?
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