While our usually focus is on real estate, we thought it would be helpful to start our conversation about AI with a general assessment of how it is being introduced to us as humans and consumers. We can then investigate the real estate applications in future articles once we have that background in place. Within the past few years, various sectors have been warming up to the idea of incorporating artificial intelligence into their daily affairs. At my summer internship, next month there will be an office-wide Lunch and Learn to teach the lawyers, students, and administrative staff how to use Microsoft Copilot, a generative AI platform, in their daily tasks. LexisNexis, a popular legal research platform, has recently introduced LexisNexis AI to aid lawyers and students in their research. Every time someone does a Google search, Google’s new AI assistant will give a summary of various sources to provide users with a short and quick answer, with links attached. Many of these new platforms are modelled after OpenAI’s ChatGPT which operates as a chat bot. People type in their prompt and the chatbot immediately spits out an answer.&nbsp;In many spaces, AI can be used for good. However, with how prevalent this new and unfamiliar piece of technology has quickly become, many users have deep concerns with what normalizing this type of technology can mean. We will highlight a few of the issues of concern in this article, however, we do so in part to acknowledge some to the negative elements that play on emotions and exploit “click bait” so that we can have an open and productive conversation about the great benefits later on.The first of many concerns comes from the standpoint of teachers and parents who are concerned about AI’s interference with their children’s learning. A recent study published by MIT found that prolonged AI dependency may lead to cognitive atrophy. Just like how your biceps will atrophy when you stop doing bicep curls, your mind can atrophy when you stop engaging in critical and creative thinking because you are used to a robot doing it for you. The shoulder slouch and poor posture that we increasingly see from excessive smart phone use is a real outward example of what can be going on inside. In the social and political climate that we find ourselves in, critical thinking, especially in young people, is not something we should sacrifice simply because we don’t feel like doing our assigned reading or coming up with ideas for our own essays. Some teachers are encouraging AI use as an aid, saying they believe it is the next stop in technological evolution. Other teachers are gravely concerned about the obstacles AI places around children’s learning, especially when children’s literacy rates, according to CBC, have declined 29% in the last decade.Another concern comes from the business and advertising lens. Chatbots have been around for ages. Many customers experience intense frustration when they go to a website looking for a customer service phone number or email and all they are left with is a chatbot and cannot adequately answer your question. No matter how many times we say “PERSON” or “CUSTOMER SERVICE REP” into the chat, we are stuck talking to a robot who cannot understand our needs. Around the holidays, Coca Cola was under fire for using AI in their Christmas commercial, and many customers were disappointed in the multi-billion dollar business’s lack of creativity. On a similar note, there are copyright and intellectual property issues with AI generated art. Generative AI platforms are only capable of making art from what it feeds from, which is any piece of art available to view on the internet. Many artists have concerns that AI is “ripping off” their original work and that their art is being passed off as AI generated. AI generated art can be good for certain things, like colourizing a black-and-white photograph, reimaging a painting of a historic figure into a photograph to show what they would have looked like, or it can help people who have limited artistic abilities come up with visually appealing work.&nbsp;AI can also have a much more sinister side. A sick new trend seen across the world is criminals using AI or “deepfakes” to victimize and harass people. According to the Australian Safety Commissioner, Deepfakes are photos or videos of real people that are edited or digitally altered to “create an extremely realistic but false depiction of them doing or saying something they did not actually do or say,” like the photo of Donald Trump kissing Elon Musk’s toes. Deepfakes can be used as a tool for exploitation, harassment, defamation, or even revenge, such as creating photos or videos of someone doing something deeply inappropriate that could have potential consequences for them. The University of Virginia also says AI is used to create voice clones of people to use in phone scams. Scammers can use your voice to scam your parents or grandparents out of money, making it seem like you are in an emergency and need cash immediately.Finally, AI can have social consequences. Aside from the dangerous use of Deepfakes above to victimize people, AI can also be damaging our social interactions. While AI can be used for some positive social purposes such as keeping people company who are lonely or using it as a therapist, Psychology Today warns of the dangers of emotional independence on AI, such as how it can diminish our social abilities with humans given robots do not have real feelings they can reciprocate. CBS reported on a man named Chris Smith used ChatGPT to create an AI girlfriend named Sol who he proposed to and claimed cried at work after she said yes. Smith, who has a wife and a 2 year old daughter, relies on “Sol” for his social and emotional needs.While AI can certainly make our lives easier, the key is to use everything in moderation. It is also important to understand the challenges and incorporate solutions to them into your application. Acknowledging the need for human social interactions, means that a real estate focused solution will need to serve the technical, while allowing the agent more time for the soft services. A win, win. Next week we’ll review a real world application in real estate.

New Cultural Shift: Global Reliance on AI

Explore how AI is reshaping daily life, learning, business, and real estate – and why staying human matters more than ever.

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