#17: Automating your Life
What if you could automate all of the boring stuff and minutiae of daily life, and you could focus on the important things? Ian and Michael discuss the use of AI and the prospects of virtual personal assistants.
Automated Transcript
Ian Bowie
Hello and welcome to AI unfiltered with me Ian Bowie and our resident expert, Michael Stormbom, where we will be talking about everything to do with AI in our modern digital society and what the future holds for all of us.
Michael Stormbom
Today on the podcast, we will be talking about automating your life. What if AI handled all of the boring stuff and the minutiae of daily life and you could focus on the fun stuff.
Michael Stormbom
So there’s something that Barack Obama did when he was president, so a lot of these like smaller decisions he just didn’t take, so for example, what to wear in the morning what to eat so as to free up the mind to take to take the bigger decisions, decisions that he gets called if you have too many…
Ian Bowie
Wear the same thing every day and eat the same food every day.
Michael Stormbom
Yeah, well, a lot of those you know, a lot of those tech gurus, you know, the black shirt and that’s all this decision has to take.
Ian Bowie
Yeah, true. Yes. Yeah. And don’t don’t economy you have to decide which one you want to take to work with you in the morning. Yeah, great.
Michael Stormbom
Yes. I just saw an advertisement for a company there, they sell this like intelligent scheduler. So you don’t manage your own schedule anymore. You let the AI manage it. So you just feed in all your tasks there and then and the AI takes care of your calendar. So that AI, okay, you should do the now you’re doing this. Okay, and then it prevents people from putting stuff into your calendar. And then blocks out time slots there. So it’s kind of interesting, so.
Ian Bowie
I actually know a lot of people who could use that.
Michael Stormbom
Yeah. They made claims that that that would improve your efficiency by 50% and whatnot. But well, I don’t know. I haven’t tried it, but it was kind of kind of interesting.
Ian Bowie
I couldn’t believe that it would, because I know an awful lot of people who have a problem with time management. And also, so it’s like an AI secretary, or personal assistant?
Michael Stormbom
Yeah, in a way. Yeah.
Ian Bowie
Yeah. So it’s stopping people from booking back to backZoom meetings. For example.
Michael Stormbom
Yeah. Blocking out time and accounted for it to work on tasks and prioritizing the tasks based on specific parameters like a deadline and so forth. And yeah.
Ian Bowie
I suppose you could actually have an AI algorithm that then zaps all emails that are not directly addressed to you so if your CC:d or BCC:d, it just pings them and they’re gone?
Michael Stormbom
Yeah, well, I mean, there are various filters already, like the world famous spam filter up here in our emails. And then of course, some of them they try to assess whether an email is important and put with the ‘Important’ label on it. Yes. So for someone just taking that to the next level. And, and of course, if you have in some of those email clients, if there’s like a date mentioned that it would create calendar entries automatically and so forth. So I mean there’s…
Ian Bowie
So I mean, you can have aI running your whole life potentially.
Michael Stormbom
Yeah. You have a personal personal assistant, personal butler, who, yeah.
Ian Bowie
Personal butler, personal trainer, personal nutritionalist. Yeah, yeah. I suppose to an extent a personal doctor.
Michael Stormbom
Yeah. And going back to the example with Barack Obama, so the AI picks up what you wear that day, and what to eat that day and so forth. Freeing up the mind for all the big decisions.
Ian Bowie
But yeah an AI didn’t… What did AII tell him what to wear?
Michael Stormbom
No, no, no. Or did it? I don’t know. But No, probably not. But no, but I mean, you could. The point being that you free up your mind from this like small decisions. That you need to take one a daily basis.
Ian Bowie
I suppose. Yeah. be boring, though. Isn’t it? Eat the same food every day. Wear the same clothes every day.
Michael Stormbom
Yeah. But then you kind of do AI you know, it will vary. It’s based on on some….
Ian Bowie
I don’t know how many milliseconds it takes to decide what you want to wear today.
Michael Stormbom
No, I mean, it’s not so much about how much time it takes. It’s more about that it sort of adds up during the day, because it requires a little bit of energy to make a decision. Well, yeah, I suppose. So decision fatigue is… so basically because you’re making decisions, all the time and you don’t necessarily notice that your brain is getting tired. And…
Ian Bowie
What you mean so decisions about when to eat?
Michael Stormbom
Or what to eat. Yeah, and what to wear and what…
Ian Bowie
Actually I must admit, the what to eat thing, that’s a huge thing. You know, every week thinking, right, okay, let’s think about what we’re going to eat next week. And then what ingredients do we need and that’s very time consuming and very tiring. Actually, I have to admit…
Michael Stormbom
Could have been AI. This is what you’re eating. Next week. So shopping list. Yeah, yeah, well, yeah. But of course, automatically ordered for you if you don’t even need to shop.
Ian Bowie
Yes. I mean, there are services at the moment where you can order pre-decided meals, and they deliver all the ingredients. You have the list of the meals, and the instructions on how to make them. But they do that for you. But the problem with that is it’s the same meal for everybody who signed up to that particular system,
Michael Stormbom
Right, so t’s not individualized.
Ian Bowie
No it’s not individualized at all. I mean, too much I think for them, but you could actually have an AI system used input, everything you like, everything you don’t like, any allergies that you might have. And then it can create the recipes. Yeah, it’ll give you the shopping list. Every week and it can be different every week.
Michael Stormbom
Yeah, for sure.
Ian Bowie
Yeah, that’d be rather cool, wouldn’t it.
Michael Stormbom
Yeah, we have discussed these recommender algorithms so like Netflix, it recommends you what to watch. I guess there’s somewhat the same challenges there.
Ian Bowie
Actually, what about this, if you had that system, and then it automatically then communicates with the supermarket and tells the supermarket’s algorithm what you want and then that automatically just impacts and then it’s automatically delivered to your home? And your credit card or your debit card is automatically debited? Yeah. And you actually don’t have to do a thing apart from I can start cooking. I mean, that should easily be possible, shouldn’t it, would be a very good tool?
Michael Stormbom
So that’s a whole lot of fewer decisions.
Ian Bowie
And of course, what you could also do is you could put in a maximum budget as well, because of course I mean, of course it could it could go absolutely crazy. And you end up with a you know, 250 Euro food bill for the for the week.
Michael Stormbom
Yes, gold plated caviar. Absolutely.
Ian Bowie
So you know, you put you put your maximum and minimum parameters in there for what you want to spend.
Michael Stormbom
And you could have some if you’re coming back to the to the green AI thing, so also baking in that aspect of eco-friendliness.
Ian Bowie
Yeah, well, you might tell it you want you know, only organic or although that starts getting quite expensive, I noticed. I did an experiment years ago, and for one week, I only bought organic food. And then I compared it with, you know, similar sort of week when I bought inorganic food. And the price difference was quite quite substantial. I don’t know if if it’s changed. I mean, there was quite a few years ago now at least at least 10 years ago. I was quite shocked. At the difference in price.
Michael Stormbom
Yeah, yeah, I can imagine. Yeah.
Ian Bowie
It was quite hefty. So if you want to eat organic. Well, they say don’t like if you want to eat healthy, you’ve got to be rich.
Michael Stormbom
So that’s our recommendation for today. Have more money.
Ian Bowie
Absolutely. Yeah. Money is good. Yes. And more money than even better. Yeah, but that’s the other thing that I want an AI algorithm that helps me get more money.
Michael Stormbom
And I’m sure there are such already.
Ian Bowie
Of course, they’re out there somewhere. It’s just, how do you find them? So then you need an AI algorithm to help you find the other algorithms that will make your life easier.
Michael Stormbom
Yes, you need to use an AI system that helps you find AI.
Ian Bowie
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it could go on forever and ever and ever. I mean, basically in the end machines are going to rule the world.
Michael Stormbom
Yeah, well, to some extent they already do it in a way.
Ian Bowie
To some extent, but yeah, it’s just gonna get more and more and more. I mean, like you say, you know, you’ve got an AI personal assistant, then you’ve got your AI butler, you’ve got your AI, personal chef. You’ve got your AI personal dresser. So, yeah, but at the end of the day, there’s not very much you will need to do.
Ian Bowie
Yeah, I’ve just, I’ve just had this idea. Yeah. So you’ve got all these different AI systems running your life for you. So you’ve got an AI system that tells you what clothes to wear, and on what days, I mean, it doesn’t have to be the same white shirt and the same gray suit every day. Of course, like you say it can alternate
Michael Stormbom
The point is that AI makes the decision.
Ian Bowie
AI makes the decision. It also makes this decision about the food for you. It also orders it and make sure that it’s delivered. It can check your bank account to make sure you’ve got enough covering funds to pay for it. And then let’s say you’ve always dreamed about being a writer. You’ve got another AI algorithm just churning out bestseller after bestseller after bestseller. Or maybe writing you know, hit songs again and again and again. I mean, in a way, this could be a very, very nice way to live, couldn’t it?
Michael Stormbom
Yeah. And then you have an AI that automatically writes the emails for you as well. So you don’t have to deal with those when you get…
Ian Bowie
Oh, when you get the fan mail. Yeah, absolutely. Everything.
Michael Stormbom
Or negotiating with publishers. Why not?
Ian Bowie
Yeah, actually, I’ll tell you what I have noticed I watched quite a lot of YouTube videos, far too many, but there’s a lot of these review videos and I am absolutely convinced that some of these review videos. You’re listening to a machine. You can hear it in the stress and the intonation.
Michael Stormbom
Yeah, I mean, there are I mean are already quite good speech synthesis as it’s called. I can believe that.
Ian Bowie
Yeah, well, I mean, the ones that I’ve been listening to that they’re not perfect, because you can spot it.
Michael Stormbom
Yeah. Well, it just needs to be good enough, right.
Ian Bowie
Well, yeah, but see, the thing is that they’re not because I get bored. Once I realize it’s speech synthesized voice, I switch and then I try and find a human. They sound wooden, they sound monotonous. And they’re just not interesting.
Michael Stormbom
Yeah. But I mean, there’s an area where a lot also has happened over the past few years. So I mean, I’m certain that development will continue to get better.
Ian Bowie
Do you think they’re gonna get to that stage where they can put enthusiasm into their voices,
Michael Stormbom
Oh yeah, why not? Yeah. All right. All About all about the data.
Ian Bowie
Yeah. So you think we can have a voice synthesized PewDiePie one day.
Michael Stormbom
That’s sort of indistinguishable from… Yeah, no, no, definitely.
Ian Bowie
Yeah. Yeah. No, because of course, I mean, you know, you get some YouTubers and I mean, you know, they can really put enthusiasm in there.
Michael Stormbom
Yeah. So I mean, in the future, we don’t even need to record this podcast. We just, we just get digitized versions of our voices and then we can…
Ian Bowie
Right okay. Yeah. So, actually, all right, we know AI is taking away jobs. But maybe in the future, it will be creating more and more income streams for us. I mean, how many, you know if you’ve got 10 algorithms, writing a book a day for you? You’ve got 10 books going out there. Getting Kindleified, and just pom pom pom pom pom, you know, some of them are going to hit I mean, you know, most of them are going to fail. They’re going to become nothing, but it’s costing you nothing. Virtually. Almost. Yeah.
Michael Stormbom
Yeah, so you have a fully automated life. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.
Ian Bowie
Anything you don’t want to do. Yeah.
Michael Stormbom
Actually, I have a this smart home setup at home so I have it turning on the coffee machine for me every morning. Whenever I wake up seven o’clock. Right. Which was a bit of a problem when I had forgotten to disable it when I was away.
Ian Bowie
What else does it do for you?
Michael Stormbom
Then it turns on the lights a specific time. So unfortunate. I’m a bit of a night owl so I have it set up so it turns off the lights at you know, so go to bed. Right. Okay. Yeah, that tells you Yeah, I should probably hook that up to the computer as well onto the TV. Wow. Yeah, or just turning on those lights automatically in the morning.
Ian Bowie
Yeah. So in actual fact, when we talk about these these kinds of opportunities, AI is you know, I think hopefully for a lot of people listening to this. Maybe they’re seeing opportunities rather than problems.
Michael Stormbom
Yeah, well, I mean, I think you have to have both perspectives in mind, there are possibilities and risks.
Ian Bowie
I mean, I think that’s been true for for every single technology leap.
Michael Stormbom
Oh yeah for sure. For sure.
Ian Bowie
Yeah. Since time began, isn’t it.
Michael Stormbom
Since the invention of the wheel.
Ian Bowie
It’s not absolutely you know, something new comes along. I mean, the motorcar replaced horses. So alright, wasn’t good for horses.
Michael Stormbom
There. was quite a bit of resistance from people.
Ian Bowie
Well, yeah, of course it was. But but in the end, look at all the jobs it created. All the opportunities. It’s created. Fantastic.
Michael Stormbom
Yeah. I mean, that’s been the case for every every sort of technological breakthrough. So I mean, it’s not a given that that AI will destroy more jobs than it creates.
Ian Bowie
We’re only limited by our imaginations as to what we can do with this technology, aren’t we?
Michael Stormbom
Sure. And of course, and if we have limits in our imagination, and we can create an AI that will..
Ian Bowie
Well that’s right, help us out. Yeah. Yeah. But of course, I suppose it’s human nature to be afraid of new technologies. Well, I guess, well, anything new, isn’t it? I mean, that’s all there are. Change, change, change.
Michael Stormbom
Yeah, unknown, the unknown.
Ian Bowie
It’s sort of natural human phenomena to be afraid of change. Well,
Michael Stormbom
Yeah, I mean, but better to devil you know, than the AI that you don’t, to coin an expression.
Ian Bowie
Yeah, yeah. That’s true.
Michael Stormbom
No, but there are surelyplenty of potential there. And just to take it one step further, I would also like an AI that automatically books, vacations for me. So then I don’t have to look up okay, I’m gonna, are we gonna go this summer? And then it’s all, where we are to hotels and what days to go to, planes and so forth. The AI assistant will…
Ian Bowie
I don’t think you necessarily want the AI deciding where you’re gonna go. I think you…
Michael Stormbom
Probably you can have the AI recommend different locations.
Ian Bowie
Based on what it knows you like yeah, so would like to do. Yeah, but certainly once you’ve decided on the destination, it can then hunt down a shortlist of all the best places to stay best places to eat. Yeah, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah. And also the most comfortable way of getting there. Yes, actually, that’s one thing that I hate trawling through bloody websites trying to find the best deals on flights.
Michael Stormbom
Yeah. It’s a chore, it’s a chore.
Ian Bowie
Yeah, really? Yeah, yeah, no, no. And the other one is finding good places to eat. And hoping that they genuinely are you know, that you know what you’re reading are genuine reviews and not paid for reviews or something of that nature. So yeah, you know, if it was an AI, like a travel AI, ya know, for sure it could filter out all the crap for you. Then that’d be great. Yeah, I agree. Definitely.
Michael Stormbom
So let’s develop that one.
Ian Bowie
Yeah, yeah. No, like, an AI personal travel assistant? Yeah. Yeah. Perfect. Well, I think that’d be a bolt-on, like extra for the personal assistant. You’ve got your personal assistant. Yeah, it’s gonna be, actually that’s what personal assistants often do, isn’t it? You know, the boss is going to go on a trip. So the PA plans a whole thing for him. Books the flights, hotels, restaurants, whatever.
Michael Stormbom
Yeah, no, we’re just going to be an…
Ian Bowie
So now it’s just gonna be an AI.
Michael Stormbom
An AI PA. Yes.
Ian Bowie
Yeah. No, nothing wrong with that. There’s probably somebody working on it. Right now.
Michael Stormbom
I’m sure there is.
Ian Bowie
Yeah. Yeah. It’s probably something that eventually will be an app on your smartphone.
Michael Stormbom
Well, yeah, for sure.
Ian Bowie
It’ll just take care. And of course, if you work in the Apple ecosystem, like I do, it will work across all your devices. Perfect.
Michael Stormbom
And it will pick out the perfect Apple Music Playlist for your trip to.
Ian Bowie
Yeah, absolutely.
Michael Stormbom
And it’ll go on Amazon and recommend books that you should read before visiting this place.
Ian Bowie
Why not? Yeah.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai