Introducing personal AIs: Unparalleled convenience and efficiency, but at what cost?
Picture this: It’s the year 2040. It’s 6 am. Amazon drones are whizzing outside your window, delivering their goods. Your alarm is ringing, accompanied by the voice of someone trying to wake you up with a thoughtful message.
“Rise and shine, Judy! You’ve successfully recorded 7 hours and 13 minutes of sleep. Your heart rate marked a minor fluctuation between a stable 40 to 50 bpm. Your overall vitals indicate a good night’s sleep. Now, it’s time to wake up— there’s an exciting day ahead. You’re low on Vitamin C, so I’ve organized you a freshly squeezed OJ in the kitchen. Your client presentation is at 12pm. You’ve been working hard on it, you got this!”
Whose voice is this exactly?
Is it your spouse? Your mother? Your father? Surely only they would be privy to such personal information about you, your life, and your career?
Nope. It’s your personal AI assistant, “Wolfgang Cynthia” (the name I’d give mine), your own JARVIS of sorts. An intelligent construct that accompanies you every day. It augments all the tech in your life by connecting to your smartwatch, smartphone, laptop, smart home infrastructure, and even your car.
It does all the mundane and boring tasks for you at work, keeps track of your calendar, books appointments, and schedules your dry cleaning pick-up. It manages your finances and your health. And, based on the nutrients you require, it advises on the diet you need to follow and selects your groceries accordingly.
It’s your personal P.A., accountant, stylist, nutritionist, secretary, and doctor. At this point, it’s fair to say Wolfgang Cynthia knows you more intimately than even you do. It knows you don’t like seafood. It knows if your blood sugar is up or down. It knows when you’re not in the mood for a friend’s outing and would rather just sit at home - it even types and sends a sympathetic apology text to said friend.
It’s integrated with sensors in and on your body, in your home, office, and car—so it knows when you’re getting hot or cold, especially while you’re asleep at night, and will constantly alter your bedroom thermostat to the optimum temperature.
Surely this sounds like science fiction—right? Well, if you had told someone in the early 90s that in 10-20 years, 85.68% of the world’s population would be carrying around a little device in their pocket to book a doctor’s appointment, pay their way, and even shop online, they probably wouldn’t have believed you. Yet, here we are in a post-iPhone, post-Siri (and Alexa/Google Assistant) world.
Think of personal AIs as the next evolution of these assistants—over time, they will move beyond voice, and offer even more convenience and efficiency in our lives. However, like everything, they also pose some challenges and risks, such as privacy, security, reliability, and ethical issues.
Through my latest documentary and on my podcast HYPERSCALE, I’ve been exploring the power of AI to augment humans, increase our productivity, and expand our human capabilities. Let’s investigate…
Where we are today
Since the beginning of the generative AI boom, tech companies have been feverishly trying to come up with a killer plan for the technology. First, it was online search, with mixed results. Now, it’s AI assistants.
Mustafa Suleyman, the co-founder of DeepMind, Google's AI division, told CNBC in 2023 that within the next five years, “everybody is [going] to have an intelligent assistant, a personal intelligence that knows you, that is super smart, that understands your personal history… It will be able to reason over your day, help you prioritize your time, help you invent, be much more creative. It’ll be a research assistant, but it’ll also be a coach and companion.”
Late last year, Microsoft introduced Copilot, an early vision of personal AIs intended for professional use. Copilot was originally known as Bing Chat, an AI chatbot—Microsoft’s take on ChatGPT, if you will. "We believe in a future where there will be a Copilot for everyone and everything you do,” said company CEO, Satya Nadella, at the time.
OpenAI’s Sam Altman has similar aspirations, telling some developers he wants to turn ChatGPT into a "supersmart personal assistant for work."
Bill Gates is of a similar opinion, also believing that we could each have a personal AI assistant in 5 years (as of 2023). He believes it will be “able to help you with all your activities if you want it to. With permission to follow your online interactions and real-world locations, it will develop a powerful understanding of the people, places, and activities you engage in. It will get your personal and work relationships, hobbies, preferences, and schedule. You’ll choose how and when it steps in to help with something or ask you to make a decision.”
Reid Hoffman, the Co-Founder of LinkedIn, predicts that every profession will have an AI copilot by 2028. “No matter what profession you are, doctor, lawyer, or CEO a copilot will become something between useful and essential.”
Why Big Tech’s big bets on personal AI assistants are risky
It’s clear Big Tech has its eyes trained on personal AI assistants, which means we need to address the elephant in the room: data privacy. After all, how does your AI assistant get to know you? By spying on everything you do (with your permission, of course).
But here’s the thing: Big Brother, cough, I mean Big Tech already knows many creepy things about us through how we interact with our smartphones - our search history, messaging, and app usage reveal a lot about us. Do you really think we have privacy in this day and age? After all, the world’s most valuable resource is no longer oil, but our personal data.
With this in mind, consider what happens when AI assistant companies get hacked (which, if you are privy to the news, you will know that companies get hacked quite often—the saddest thing about it is that we don’t even get shocked anymore), and malicious individuals gain control of our most private information.
Data can be harvested to steer people in certain directions. For example, manipulative advertising could push a hypochondriac into unnecessarily beefing up their insurance plans, or influence an AA member to start drinking again. These types of concerns are why the FTC is constantly grilling tech CEOs about their companies’ use of user data; Google’s Sundar Pichai, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, and TikTok’s Shou Zi Chew, are among those who have recently come under fire.
But let’s take this a step further. When we reach the point where personal AIs can be embedded directly into our brains, thanks to the evolution of brain-computer interfaces (check out my article on BCIs from earlier this month), could a hacker manipulate you and/or cause you physical harm by negatively altering your environment, devices, or home?
Or, imagine an era where not even your thoughts, deepest feelings, and desires are your own to keep private, and they are commoditized and sold to the highest bidder? It’s a frightening thought.
We’re clearly in a transformative era in AI, however, what we need to realize is that technology is a tool—it’s neutral. It’s how we use it that matters. Yes, personal AIs could bring about tremendous risk, but could also bring about equally tremendous benefits for humanity, and it’s up to us to guide our futures.
The truth is that our brains don’t always know what’s best for us
Not only could personal AI assistants offer convenience, productivity, and efficiency in our lives, but they could also give us an unbiased third-party opinion on our lifestyles. ‘The world’s most measured man,’ software billionaire Bryan Johnson, says he’s trying “to demonstrate that an algorithm takes better care of me than I can myself.”
Because, unlike the human brain, AI doesn’t get tired; it won’t choose to eat those croissants over the eggs when we feel sluggish and have less willpower. It can follow consistent logic and rules without being influenced by emotions. It can also process large amounts of data and information faster and more accurately than humans.
Let’s think about how data-driven our lifestyles have already become through wearables. My Whoop watch monitors my steps, sleep, and exercise, and gives me a constant view of my key vitals like my heart rate, blood oxygen, skin temperature, and more. I understand my baseline metrics, and get alerted if they deviate, and can share my data with my health team. I’m motivated to improve, because as they say in business, what gets measured gets achieved.
Tech is supposed to make our lives easier, so why does everything presently feel so frustrating?
In today’s digital world, there is a freaking app, software, or gadget for everything. I carry my phone around like it’s an extension of my arm, and spend a disgusting amount of my time in front of some form of screen (much more than I care to admit). As someone who lives and runs businesses between two big cities—Dubai and New York—like most people, I am fully reliant on tech for my day-to-day. A big part of me looks forward to the day all my tech acts in concert and is seamlessly integrated.
Technology always evolves; the future always changes
Simply, technological change is like a wave—it’s going to splash on shore whether we like it or not. So, instead of sitting back passively and letting Big Tech write our futures for us (because we all know how that has historically panned out), let’s get more curious as a society about how AI personal assistants or copilots can be harnessed to expand our human capabilities in a responsible and ethical way.
Because, honestly speaking, who wouldn’t opt for a digital assistant that helps us manage our day, perform better at work, and manage family responsibilities?
Once it becomes mainstream, it will likely become the de facto way to handle a lot of our mundane tasks and day-to-day affairs, allowing us to focus on what it means to be fundamentally human: getting creative, exploring our curiosity, and spending time with our loved ones.
It’s truly a matter of when as opposed to if, as Bill Gates and his tech bros are predicting. But ETA for my Wolfgang Cynthia in 4-5 years? Let’s see.
