Forget AI – Give me a Person!

Forget AI. Give me a Person!

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I love technology. I am an Apple junkie with my iPad, iMac, iPhone and Apple Watch. I only read magazines using a device. My iPhone wakes me up in the morning and my watch tells me how well I slept. But despite my infatuation with the world of tech, I’m the first person to acknowledge that there are skills and knowledge that cannot be replaced by the microchip. No matter what advances are made in artificial intelligence, there are things that only I or another human being can do.

In my personal life, the limits of technology are also pretty clear. I haven’t found a computer yet that can figure out which way the wind is blowing and then hit a tee shot so that it lands in the centre of the fairway a hundred yards from the pin. Hell, I can barely do that. No technology will replace the thrill of attending a Raptors game or any other live sporting event. Even with my tech swag, I’m still taking out the garbage and walking the dog.

In the business of caster manufacturing we have automated huge parts of our production. As I have written about before, those advances didn’t eliminate jobs in our company. Rather, they changed what we need people to do. For example, while the new CNC lathe we purchased will expedite production, we had to hire someone to program it in the first place.

Personally I get involved in a guess-timating element of production planning and that cannot possibly be replaced by artificial intelligence. We proactively anticipate customer requirements based on a combination of market trends, buying patterns, and personal interactions. And, we usually get it right so that we are almost always able to meet our customers’ needs.

In addition, there are functions that only a person can fulfill. When someone calls our customer service department, they want to speak to a person – someone who can provide solutions based on a unique set of requirements. In fact one of our distributors advised us not to include too much automation in the new website we will launch next year because, beyond a certain point, it will take a person to find the best caster or wheel to meet his needs.

That’s also the reason we have resisted having an automated attendant answer our phones. Despite the efficiency, we know that our customers enjoy talking to real, live, human beings.

The best quality assurance systems can’t replace what happens when someone looks at and touches a caster to make sure it’s what the customer ordered and has been manufactured to standards. And here’s one for you. Find me a computer that is going to load a truck so that it’s organized to match a delivery route.

It seems to me that the key to technological success is a combination of embracing what computers can do and, at the same time, recognizing their limitations. At the end of the day, there are some things I will never want an AI driven matrix of microchips to do for me. Sometimes, you just need a person.

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Algood Casters has manufactured, designed and developed industrial and specialty casters, brakes and wheels since 1969, in capacities from 25 to 65,000 lbs.