Ansh Arora

AI Actually

These are some findings (notes, but also wild conclusions that I have drawn) from a weekend survey.

And yes, there were, of course, competing titles for this blog post -

There is a special kind of gift that says "I see you" - playlists, doodles, cookies, and cute websites. For most of our history, these gifts have been considered far more special than something you can buy at a shop because time, attention, and thought matter so much more. Until the machines got good at (some of) this.

These questions have been in the back of my mind for a while, but I was finally able to put them into words last weekend. I asked the following to ~30 people -

About the "data"

I reached out to ~30 people from my extended circle (and a few hinge matches, because why not). The gender ratio is fairly balanced, but the data is heavily skewed towards engineers, mostly pro-AI, young Indians. I hope to expand this to a much larger sample set someday. Nonetheless, I was able to spot interesting trends from the data.

Numbers

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I expected that a strong dividing line in these answers would be how people feel about AI in general, and a lot of NOs would come from the Anti-AI camp.

Respondents who answered NO to all 3 questions also identified as anti AI generally.

However, the sharpest split in the dataset happens to be the relationship status of the people.

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My readings

Just presenting insights and not drawing conclusions is the job of any good researcher or data journalist. Since I am neither, I want to share extensive personal commentary on the trends I noticed and how I explain them. Please feel free to disregard this section entirely.

Why are people comfortable with a website but not a song?

The gap between people on board with a website but not a song is the most obvious one to start with. It is also fairly justified in the sense that most people think of a website as a container for the actual gift (which could be a message that you are trying to convey, inside jokes, dumb photos, etc.), but the song is different, since the expression is in fact the gift. I had assumed some devs would assign an equivalent value to the "craft" of coding a website and singing a song, but that did not show up in the results.

Why do people in love go easier on these robots?

I think single people thought of these gifts as a romantic gesture that has to be perfect, while people in relationships just seemed to appreciate the thought that went into it. The singles are answering against an ideal, while the other group is able to put this scenario into perspective based on experiences from inside a relationship.

I made a fancy looking note to my wife AI generated to test out my new printer. She has it hanging on our fridge, despite the fact she says she hates AI and that I spent 1 minute on it. She liked the gesture

To better understand this, I think we also need to discuss the meaning of a gift.

Attention is all you need

From my conversations with most of the participants, I was able to identify two interpretations of a gift.

The first camp says that a gift is a proof of effort. It is a labor of love, and putting in that labor is kind of the point.

AI lacks effort, and the point of gifts is the effort …

The second camp says that a gift is proof of attention, and is only as good as the thought that went into it. It says that you know the person, and the sweat that goes into it is beside the point.

Any gift is good if it's personalised. You could make the best Eiffel Tower drawing ever, with all the blood and sweat, but it'll still be weird if it doesn't mean anything to the two of you.

I feel both camps will agree with each other, but continue to give different follow up answers because of the intrinsic thought process. The "proof of effort" person feels that AI eliminates the one thing that makes it count, but the "proof of attention" person only cares about the gesture and thought.

Either way, a gift says, "I see you" -

Developer's dilemma

The third question is interesting because it really flips things. The same AI generated gift means opposite things depending on who made it.

A bunch of people are happy receiving AI generated gifts from their partners, but wouldn't use it personally. Technical background also seemed to play a big role here (because of the survey being skewed towards developers).

minus two for being a dev and still vibe coding

if someone's a developer, I expect them to make it by hand

Interestingly, it is also the developers themselves who seemed to hold themselves to this standard.

Personally, If I'm making for my partner, I'd like to work on it myself and keep vibe code less.

But at the same time if my partner makes something for me, it wouldn't matter even if it was vibe-coded, it's the thought that would mean the world to me

If being generous towards your partner but demanding of yourself isn't the kindest double standard ever!

It's a sign of the times - Harry Styles

More than anything, I think these results show that people are very confused about where technology is taking us.

I don't think this is timeless. Maybe AI becomes more normalised and it becomes the new "okay." Like, I imagine at some point buying a cake from outside for someone's birthday would have been shameful - but today it's quite normal.

The yes/no responses to these questions overshadow a lot of thought that went into answering them. People had a lot of different reasons for why they said yes/no. For now, the value of a gift mostly depends on -

Machines can now create a gift, but they can't decide what it means. That part, thankfully, is still ours.

Disclaimer - The charts used in this blog post were made with the help of AI.

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#AI #notes #opinion