Tea & Tech
Tea & Tech
Tech Transformations: AI's Role in Our Lives
Ever wondered how AI is quietly reshaping your daily routine without you even noticing? This episode promises to open your eyes to the astonishing ways artificial intelligence is integrated into our everyday lives, starting with the much-anticipated Apple iPhone 16 and its new iOS. From the often-criticized Siri to the AI magic behind SatNav, Apple Maps, and Google Maps, we break down the conveniences and subtle influences of AI. I share personal stories and practical examples, illustrating how AI enhances services like Netflix and YouTube recommendations, and even the smart home devices we can’t live without. We also touch on AI’s life-saving applications in medicine, offering a broad perspective on its growing importance.
Shifting gears, we explore AI's broader implications on various industries. Learn about the financial boon AI promises, with new monetization models like subscription-based access to advanced features, and marvel at OpenAI's ground-breaking capabilities, including photorealistic video content generation. But it's not all rosy; we tackle the ethical dilemmas and risks, such as job displacement, emphasizing the need for responsible AI use. The episode also features a thought-provoking segment on an AI-generated TikTok song, sparking a debate on authenticity and ethical concerns in the music industry. Join the conversation, stay informed, and connect with me on social media to navigate the evolving AI landscape together.
Hey, what's up, and welcome along to another edition of Tea and Tech with myself, mr B. It's a podcast where we talk all things tech all whilst enjoying a nice cup of tea. It's a podcast where we talk all things tech all whilst enjoying a nice cup of tea. It's that simple, mr BK Official, that's where you can find me. Make sure you reach out, give me some feedback, ask any questions, or, if you want to talk about something in particular, let me know. I guarantee you I'll get back to you and, who knows, we might be talking about your topic on the next podcast.
Speaker 1:So there's a lot of buzz around at the minute. It's that time of year again. Our friends at Apple are about to announce a new iOS and a new device iPhone 16. I had to think about that for a second iPhone 16. And there's a lot of rumors about what is coming with iPhone, and one of the things that Apple are kind of criticized about is Siri and the lack of AI involved in what they do, and we're going to delve into that a little bit more. This is not a podcast all about Apple, don't worry, but it was time I thought to touch on this topic, given all the news about the iPhone at the minute, and what we want to talk about is AI the minute, and what we want to talk about is ai. It's a tool that can be used for good and for bad, and this podcast is totally off the cuff. I haven't scripted it, so this is me just spitballing it and forgive me now if I'm waffling a little bit. But, uh, hopefully you can get involved as well. Make sure you reach out to me, mr BK Official, and let me know what you think, and we can discuss this more on another podcast if needs be.
Speaker 1:But, as I said, we're going to talk about AI and how that works for us and how it can work for us and what we need to be careful of with AI. So I guess we'll start with what is AI with AI. So I guess we'll start with what is AI. So AI is artificial intelligence and there are many different terms for AI. So there is an artificial intelligence. There's another one, which is an AI that pretty much thinks for itself and can make decisions for itself, which is a different type of AI, the name of which escapes me right now. But there are many ways in which we use AI on a day-to-day basis and there's a lot of resistance for AI. But a lot of people who are resisting AI don't even realize that they're using it on a day-to-day basis and some of the examples of where it's being used would be the obvious ones, like your SatNav or the likes of Apple Maps, google Maps, waze, whatever it is.
Speaker 1:These applications are using AI in the background to analyze real-time information. To analyse real-time information, analyse routines, analyse times of day. As I said, part of the routines it looks at your routes on a Monday to Friday. You go this route to your office every day on a Monday through to Friday, and it will suggest best routes based on A that routine, b live information that it's got on traffic and any other obstacles that may be in the way, and it will make a suggestion to go potentially a different route. And one thing that happened to me this weekend I take my son to his drum lessons every saturday morning and an hour before I was supposed to go, I got a notification from Apple Maps saying that if you want to leave to be at this destination by this time, you should leave at this time. That was the first time that's ever happened to me. I hadn't. I know it's possible and I know Waze can do it. You can set it up to set reminders, but I'd never done. It had never been done before where they've been asked in my situation and it was quite an eye-opener.
Speaker 1:But if we look at Netflix, you open up Netflix and it makes a suggestion for you. It makes a suggestion based on what you've viewed before. Look at YouTube, the most obvious one. You watch certain types of videos on YouTube and YouTube will look at that algorithm, which is AI, looks at algorithm and says, right, well, you look like this type of content, so I'm going to suggest this video for you and you like to watch this video, so I'm going to suggest this one. Or you don't like this one so much because you don't normally watch it very long, so I might throw one of these in there as well, just to mix it up a bit. But that's AI working in the background. Same for your Apple Music, your Spotify, your YouTube music it's suggesting songs based on your listening history. And these are some cases of where AI is being used without us even knowing or without us even thinking about it.
Speaker 1:Look at your smart homes. One clever way that we can use AI to our advantage is with smart thermostats in your house. So, again, it looks at a routine. It might look at a daily routine on a Monday through to Friday and know that certain time your kids come home from school they go to their room, so therefore it will set the temperature to that room with time to spare, so it'll bring the temperature down to match that temperature and it'll keep it there until, let's say, an hour later when they've finished doing their homework or finished playing and they've left and they've gone downstairs. And this can be used in our advantage, in that, a it's saving you money and, b it's better for the environment. You're not using your AC or your heat 24 hours a day or more than it needs to be. It will only use it when required, which is obviously a plus for everyone, bringing your bills down and making it a greener environment, which is always a winner. A greener environment, which is always a winner. It's been used.
Speaker 1:Ai has been used in many different fields, and medicine is one of them, and for me this one is a huge advantage. But I still think it's probably and I don't know where exactly we're at with it in the medical world. I know of situations where it's being used and I think it's incredibly powerful, but I think, where lives are at stake, I think you're always going to need to have, ultimately, that human input, which is what needs to happen. So, for instance, an MRI scan or a CT scan or an X-ray AI can analyze those images and it can potentially spot a tumor or a an anomaly before a human can, or even without a human seeing it. Now, the obvious response to that is that's great, that's fantastic, it's saving time, it's predicting earlier and it's potentially picking up on something that might be missed via or with the human eye, and that can only be a plus. But ultimately, it needs a human input to finalize, to take it forward from there. So it's being used to aid, which I think is where it's a key thing for AI. It's used as an aid, it's used as a tool to help, as an aid. It's used as a tool to help, but in my opinion, we need to be careful of how much of that control we give, and that will lead to another part of this topic which I'll come to in a minute.
Speaker 1:Ai has also been used in the medical field for predictive medicine or prescribing medicine based on a patient's genetic background history, surgeries, previous medicine, any reactions, any allergies. It can make suggestions and predictions to prescribe medicine for that patient, which, again, a fantastic tool to start the process and saves a lot of legwork for doctors, freeing them up to be able to do potentially other crucial bits of information or, sorry, other crucial tasks. But ultimately it needs to be signed off and it needs to be approved and it needs to be agreed by a doctor. But going back to the point of it being an aid, it's saving a chunk of time and that's where we have to look at it and use it to our advantage. It can be used for good and the power of it is there for it to be used as good, but it can also be used in a negative way, and that's where we're at such an early stage of AI.
Speaker 1:We need to be monitoring it, we need to be controlling it and we need to be very open about how it works and the downsides to it, the flaws, the limitations, and that needs to be regulated. How do we stop it from being something that takes over and I don't mean the robots coming and taking over all of our jobs, although we can touch on that in a minute but it needs to be regulated to a point and we need, as I said, the information needs to be shared from the creators of the AIs, whether it's OpenAI, chatgpt, or whether it's Microsoft or Copilot, which I think uses ChatGPT anyway or if it's a Siri, or if it's an Alexa, or if it's a Google. All of these big companies need to be able to share the information and share how they're getting that information, and that there lies a problem, because these companies don't necessarily want to give away and play their card on how they're doing it. But ultimately, it does need to be regulated and this is the phase we're at at the minute. It's quite uh, I won't say scary, it's quite nerve-wracking that this thing is so powerful and so intelligent that it can do a lot of tasks for us and we can, uh, see it in the workplace. Is it going to take our jobs it? It depends on the role that you're in. If you and this is a prime example was it last year? We had the script writers in America on strike because they've made a career and spent hours and hours and hours writing scripts for movies, tv shows, comedians. And now, with a quick prompt, you can write a script for a movie and it's done within seconds, if not minutes, and quite rightly so. These people are concerned about their roles in the industry.
Speaker 1:Information that is used for AI is taken from open source. If it's available on the internet, ai will look for it and take it. This is a grey area. If a comedian writes a comedy set and that comedy set is put up on the internet whether it's on a Netflix, whether it's on YouTube, wherever If it's on the internet, ai will look for and take that information and use it to create content itself. So it's plagiarism at the highest level and it's taking content that is copyright to an artist or copyright to a publishing company or copyright to a film studio, and it's taking that information and using it. And the laws of copyright at the minute are very vague when it comes to AI and there's a huge push to try and regulate that in America, amongst other countries, but I guess, america being the key leader in this at the minute, it's this is where it can be used as a negative, and we've all heard the track from Drake sounds like Drake, the music, the style of music, the voice, everything it could be Drake, and it certainly passed and has passed for Drake, but it's completely generated through AI and that's where we need to be careful and we need to be managing and need to be regulating its uses.
Speaker 1:We've all done the search on Midjourney or on Copilot or now on ChatGPT, where you can type in a prompt and it'll generate an image for you, and these images can be photorealistic or they can be abstract. It can be what you want, depending on the prompt that you give. Again, if I go back to my point of, this is a hugely powerful tool that can be used to aid what we do. So if you're a marketeer or if you're in social media or you create content, you can use this to your advantage 100% and you can save yourself time. If you use it to the extent of you're doing yourself out of a job, that's where it becomes an issue and I think we are, as I said, we're at a very early stage of AI. Although it's been around for a few years, it just seems to be more prominent in the last maybe two years. We need to be educated on it. We need to understand the complexities and the abilities of this AI, of this software, of this app and it again goes back to it needs to be regulated.
Speaker 1:Now the problem is there's money to be made off the back of AI, and people are making a lot of money off the back of AI. Even though it's an open source, you can use it most of the time for free online. If you want to use its full potential, you may have to pay a membership or pay per search or per word. There's different models for it. It's something that is freely available and OpenAI.
Speaker 1:The people behind ChatGBT have a new AI which, through a prompt, can create not just an image or give you information. It can create a piece of video content that is almost photorealistic. It's still in the early stages, so it's not 100% accurate and you really have to look for it to see that it is AI generated, but it does it within seconds. The positive of that is that this is the worst AI is ever going to be. It can only get better and that's very exciting about thinking about how we can use it and what it can do. Obviously, there's the negative. So everything is a flip and a negative, a positive and a negative, and there's the negative to that is is that okay if, if it becomes so powerful, then I'm out of a job, or?
Speaker 1:you know, thousands of people are out of a job and there is always going to be that risk. We need to stay on top of it. We need to use it to our advantage. We need to embrace it. We need to learn about it. We going to be that risk. We need to stay on top of it. We need to use it to our advantage. We need to embrace it, we need to learn about it, we need to be educated about it, and it needs to be restricted to a certain extent where and how it's used, and we need to be completely transparent about how it works so that people can use that to their advantage, so that people can use that to their advantage.
Speaker 1:There's something I wanted to show you, which is I touched on it earlier about the Drake track. Ai is currently able to generate music for you. This is another industry where people are slightly upset, and quite rightly so, because what I'm about to play you is completely AI generated. I typed in to ChatGBT to create some lyrics for a track and it is basically. The prompt was create a song about being a TikTok star in the style of a trending TikTok song, and let me just play you what it came up with. Now, don't forget, this is all AI the backing track, the vocals, the lyrics, everything AI. So have a listen to this.
Speaker 2:Scrolling through my feed just trying to find that beat. Gotta make a video. That's got it won't. I repeat, busting out the moves. Gotta show them what I got. I'm a TikTok sensation. They just can't get enough. Dancing like nobody's watching, styling up my TikTok fashion Living for the likes and comments. I'm a TikTok star in action. Put the camera, start the countdown. It's time to shine.
Speaker 1:Gotta do something catchy, gotta get it right this time. So I think you'll agree that's not a badly produced track, considering it was done by AI. Yes, you can delve into it and look at the flaws of the production, but let's be honest's a quite a catchy beat. Okay, the lyrics were a bit cheesy, but that was first. Prompt took the first answer. Put it in and use those lyrics. You can refine that. You can go in and play around with a little bit more and teach it. Going back to the whole thing of it's only as clever as the information it's given. So if you don't necessarily like the style of lyric that it gives you back, you can tweak it. You can say you want it a bit more lively, a little bit more of a ballad.
Speaker 1:whatever the case may be, that's just a prime example of how powerful AI is at the minute and that is a free piece of software that's available on the Internet and this is something that music industry should probably be concerned about, because that is certainly capable of being used as a track on TikTok and it could potentially with a little bit of work, be a pop song and it took a total of maybe four minutes to do the prompt, get the results back, take that lyric prompt and put it into the software generator track and it generates two or three options and you can go in and tweak that and you can select whether you want to change the styles or whatever. So it it's a hugely powerful, huge, it's hugely powerful tool. It's fun to do. Yes, I had fun making it and and there are. I can't go back to the advantages. There's huge advantages to using ai and having a bit of fun with it, as long as you're not taking advantage of it and misusing it.
Speaker 1:And the problem is it's it's so easy to misuse and it's so easy for people to take that song and put it out there as oh, I, I wrote this, I produced this and potentially gain recognition and potentially money off the back of something that's not real, it's not created in a real way. It's anybody putting a prompt in, anybody doing it. It can be a 12-year-old, it can be a 50-year-old, it can be anybody. And that's where we have to be real about this. People are making money off the back of it and that's a huge, again, huge. I keep saying huge. That's a massive pull for a lot of people and, of course, if there's a possibility of you making money off something that's so simple and potentially free to use then yeah the temptation is there to do it and to try and make some money.
Speaker 1:Is it right that you're doing that? Probably not. It depends on what you're doing with it. It depends on how you're using that product afterwards. If you're writing a script and then you're selling it off to somebody for a TV show or for a movie, then yeah, that's wrong. If you're creating a track like this and you're selling it off to a record label, then yeah, that's wrong. But it's so tempting for people to do it, and people in this early stage of AI will and are making lots of money off the back of it.
Speaker 1:So where do we sit? How do we stop it? How do we refrain from abusing it? And it goes back to what I said earlier. It's all about being transparent, it's all about sharing the information, it's all about managing and restricting where and how it can be used, and that's a big task. And that is something that a lot of governments are not in a major hurry to do, for a number of reasons, because they may be using it themselves. It can be hugely influential. I've got to stop using the word huge. It can be influential in so many ways that can benefit people in many, many ways financially. So the temptation or, sorry, so the need to monitor it or restrict it is not top of the list for a lot of people. So I guess my thoughts on AI as an overall Very exciting, very exciting to see where it goes and what it will eventually do. Autonomous cars you know we're still a long way off. Yes, teslas are doing it and other companies are doing it and it's still kind of the novelty factor at the minute, but we're a long way off of being perfect and unfortunately, there's been many accidents, many incidents around the world where people have lost lives because of it. So it's not a hundred percent yet, um, but if it's used in the right way, ai is a great tool to have.
Speaker 1:I would say that we need to be just educated. The more we know about it, the more we understand it, the more we can use it, the more we will accept it. If we're not gaining the information that we should about this and not understanding its potential power and its potential dangers, that's when people will resist and that's where people push back, because they don't know. They don't know about it, they don't know its full potential, they don't know how to deal with it. They just think it's a negative, negative, negative. So I guess we need to be a lot more transparent about it. We need to be a lot more giving with the information and forthcoming and and that's certainly happening with so many companies there Um being very open about it. Um, I think it'll. It's as I said earlier it's it's, it's not going anywhere, it's here to stay and it's um, it's something that we should all be looking at and learning about.
Speaker 1:It's the easiest way of putting it. When you look at early days of the car or the airplane, if you didn't understand how it worked off, you were going to be a bit skeptical about it. You were going to be a bit worried about how it's going to get used. Like that first aircraft, going to be a bit worried about how it's going to get used. Like that first aircraft. Fantastic, yes, huge time saver. Again, huge, stop saying huge, you know. Time saver from a travel perspective, allowing us to explore further.
Speaker 1:There was always the risk of well, what happens when you put some bombs in there and you want to drop it from an aircraft? You see what I mean. Like it's, everything has a positive and a negative. If it's used in the right way, aircraft around the world, taking people around the world, airlines. Putting six 700 people on an aircraft and flying them from point A to point B in a matter of hours is nothing but a positive, is nothing but a positive. But those aircraft still being used as weapons is the negative. And AI is similar to that and if it's used in the right way, it's of course a positive.
Speaker 1:If it's used in the wrong way, then, yes, it's a negative and it can be a big time negative and that's where we need to be careful of. So, on that, I will finish with saying that I don't think you should be scared about it. I don't think you should be worried about it. I think you just need to read a little bit about it. And here's something for you Go to chatGBT, openai or Copilot or any of the or Copilot or any of the AI softwares out there, and ask it to tell you about AI, and ask it to explain about the pros and the cons, and it will educate you about itself and it'll be very open, because it doesn't know how to filter sometimes, so it will give you a genuine, honest answer.
Speaker 1:So I would suggest the best thing for you to do is go to chat gpt and type in a prompt asking it to explain what is ai, how can it be used, what are the advantages, what are the disadvantages and, who knows, maybe you'll get some more information. That's been more informative than this waffle of a podcast that I've been doing for the last 20 odd minutes. Um, and apologies for that, but I just felt I wanted to have an open discussion. I wanted it to be off the cuff, I didn't want it to be scripted and I wanted to give some of my honest opinion.
Speaker 1:So if I waffled a little bit my bad and I'm sorry for that, but I encourage you to go and have a look, have a read, watch some videos, see the power of it, see where it's being used for good, and just be conscious of the fact that it is being used for negative in some ways. And as long as we are educated and managing that, we should be in a good place. So on that I'm going to say adios. Thank you for listening. Don't forget, Mr BK Official. Reach out to me. I do get back to everybody. So reach out to me, give me some feedback, ask any questions, or if there's anything you want me to discuss, or even if you want to get involved and you want to get on this podcast, let me know and we can have a discussion. And because two is always better than one, so if we can have a back and forth and you're interested, by all means let's do it. Reach out to me at MrBKOfficial and I'll see you on the next one you.
