EDITORIAL: AI is amazing, but it's not a one-size-fits-all solution

There is a tendency when a new technology comes on the market to see it as “the future” of everything.

As if we might take flawed humans out of the problem and solution equation. That is perhaps the problem with artificial intelligence.

It should be there to assist us, not replace us. For lots of people, social media and internet dating replaced human interaction.

Some people like gamers, fandoms and the socially awkward, they found their tribe. Others found themselves more lonely than ever.

Tech is not one size fits all. And we need to solve the problems that were made before to benefit from future developments.

But AI is not the future. It is the present.

There is a lot of excitement and a lot of concerns and they all are valid.

This week we wrote about Tipperary County Council’s exploration of AI in services.

While details are currently scant, we know that they seem to be looking at it for some customer-facing customer services like sign language and website-based services.

We know in the UK, local authorities are thinking bigger about telephone and home-based services.

We can’t tell you what the impact of AI in council services will be but there are some things to consider.

This could be a really good thing. It might mean people get help faster. More people can be helped and included and problems can be prevented even before they happen.

And if this goes well, there might be scope to explore more tech options for problems like speeding and litter, which come up at council meetings every single month.

There are concerns too.

Will there be publicly available information about the training data and the algorithms? What decisions will be made based on AI analysis?

Will there be policies to safeguard both workers and clients? What testing will be put in place to limit the impact of biased training data?

These are not concerns for today.

Right now, it is just a lot of talk.

But people worry in an information vacuum, and that is valid. New eras in technology are as exciting as they are scary.

But, it is something we will be watching carefully and reporting on every step of the way.