Oct
A Human Center Makes Market Research All The More Powerful
jerry9789 0 comments artificial intelligence, Brand Surveys and Testing, Brandview World
The Future Of Research Is Here
You’ve seen it and there’s no denying it. Industries have been reshaped by the increasing utilization of Artificial Intelligence just in the last few years alone. Promising and delivering speed and optimization at the fraction of the costs and resources, it’s powerful, revolutionary and exciting. And as with any emerging technology, it comes with its own set of anxieties.
In line with its growing popularity and adoption, people in different industries have been expressing nervousness over being replaced in their jobs by AI. Certain repetitive, data-driven tasks are at the greatest risk of being supplanted by AI. However, AI also opens up opportunities to shift focus and upskill the more complex and creativity-driven facets of work roles, creating new jobs or augmenting existing ones.
The research industry is just as impacted by AI’s progressive application. It’s naive to assume that researchers would be replaced wholesale by AI, but there’s more to delivering research results than just gathering and crunching data.
Image: Circe Deyer
Our take on the integration of AI into research
We’ve always maintained that AI is a good advisor, but it’s a poor decision-maker. We’d like to modify that by saying it’s an even worse storyteller, if at all.
Cascade Strategies has been in the market research industry for over three decades now, serving some of the biggest local and international companies. You can say we’ve seen it all in this industry, but we’re just as fascinated as everyone else by the mainstream popularity of AI in the past few years. We’ve applied it in our methodologies, been impressed by its operational benefits and how it changed industries, but in the end, we know truthfully that it is not the end-all, be-all for research work. We believe that AI would serve us better by being a powerful extension of human judgment, creativity, and insight.
AI can be fed large datasets to approximate human thinking, but we believe it can never replicate human perspicacity, the kind of intelligence honed and guided by human values and experience. Take a look at our Expedia Group Case Study where we’ve utilized AI to generate multiple revenue-granting scenarios, then tempered the decision-making process by applying high-level human thinking to craft messaging that resonates with the end-user.
AI-driven research can produce results based on what has come before, but it can never uncover the truly novel, meaningful and resonant insights high-level human thinking unlocks. These are the insights that empower big and sweeping decisions. Data-based results from AI would seem lifeless and unrelatable. But if they are imbued with human interpretation, that output elevates into a masterful narrative that sparks imagination, questions boundaries, and transforms perspectives.
Image: geralt
Featured Image: mohamed mahmoud hassan
Top Image: geralt
Mar
Are We Getting Dumber Because of AI?
jerry9789 0 comments artificial intelligence, Burning Questions
Is Generative AI making us dumber? Two recent studies suggest so.
A study published early this year titled “AI Tools in Society: Impacts on Cognitive Offloading and the Future of Critical Thinking” showed that growing dependence on AI could lead to a decline in critical thinking. Submitted by Michael Gerlich of the SBS Swiss Business School, the study was based on surveys and interviews of 666 UK participants from different age groups and academic backgrounds. The problem is more pronounced with younger participants who demonstrated increased reliance on AI to perform routine tasks and scored lower when it comes to critical thinking than their older counterparts.
More recently, a study by Microsoft and Carnegie Mellon University shared similar findings that the more workers depended on AI for their work, the duller their critical thinking becomes. The study surveyed 319 knowledge workers who used generative AI at least once a week and examined how and when they apply AI or their critical skills when performing tasks. The more faith the participant put in genAI to produce acceptable outcome, the less they use their critical thinking skills. On the other hand, participants who have higher confidence in their abilities than that of AI’s are found to exercise their critical thinking more out of concerns over unintended and overlooked machine output.
Copyright: Tara Winstead
What is Cognitive Offloading?
Both studies are linking overreliance on AI with cognitive offloading, which is when someone utilizes external tools or processes for completing tasks, resulting in their reduced engagement with deep, reflective thinking. Yes, AI is improving efficiency and saves time and financial costs, but these studies are suggesting that it could make humans less smart over time.
However, cognitive offloading isn’t new as it existed in a variety of forms throughout time, such as using a calculator instead of performing mental mathematics or simply making a grocery list instead of memorizing all the items you need to buy. It’s no surprise then that there are questions about the merits of the studies, such as self-reporting bias or how critical thinking was measured. Forbes suggests that AI isn’t making us dumb but lazy, while another emphasizes that in order for there to be harm to one’s critical thinking abilities, one must have critical thinking to begin with.
Copyright: Pavel Danilyuk
Rethinking AI Development
Nevertheless, these studies contribute to the conversation regarding the direction of genAI development, now with the nuance of being mindful and respectful of its human users’ intelligence and faculties. Recommendations include rethinking AI designs and processes which incorporates and engages human critical thinking. They’re helping bring back focus to AI serving as a tool augmenting instead of overtaking human capabilities.
For us at Cascade Strategies, we’re glad that these studies have renewed awareness and appreciation of human intelligence and creativity. Our world could’ve easily devolved into settling for more of the same output so it pleases us to learn that more voices are becoming advocates and proponents not only of the “appropriate use of AI” but also of high level human thinking.
Featured Image Copyright: Alex Knight
Top Image Copyright: Tara Winstead
Sep
What It Means to Choose or Decide In The Age of AI
jerry9789 0 comments artificial intelligence, Burning Questions
Longstanding Concerns Over AI
From an open letter endorsed by tech leaders like Elon Musk and Steve Wozniak which proposed a six-month pause on AI development to Henry Kissinger co-writing a book on the pitfalls of unchecked, self-learning machines, it may come as no surprise that AI’s mainstream rise comes with its own share of caution and warnings. But these worries didn’t pop up with the sudden popularity of AI apps like ChatGPT; rather, concerns over AI’s influence have existed decades long before, expressed even by one of its early researchers, Joseph Weizenbaum.
ELIZA
In his book Computer Power and Human Reason: From Judgment to Calculation (1976), Weizenbaum recounted how he gradually transitioned from exalting the advancement of computer technology to a cautionary, philosophical outlook on machines imitating human behavior. As encapsulated in a 1996 review of his book by Amy Stout, Weizenbaum created a natural-language processing system he called ELIZA which is capable of conversing in a human-like fashion. When ELIZA began to be considered by psychiatrists for human therapy and his own secretary interacted with it too personally for Weizenbaum’s comfort, it led him to start pondering philosophically on what would be lost when aspects of humanity are compromised for production and efficiency.
Copyright chenspec (Pixabay)
The Importance of Human Intelligence
Weizenbaum posits that human intelligence can’t be simply measured nor can it be restricted by rationality. Human intelligence isn’t just scientific as it is also artistic and creative. He remarked with the following on what a monopoly of scientific approach would stand for, “We can count, but we are rapidly forgetting how to say what is worth counting and why.”
Weizenbaum’s ambivalence towards computer technology is further supported by the distinction he made between deciding and choosing; a computer can make decisions based on its calculation and programming but it can not ultimately choose since that requires judgment which is capable of factoring in emotions, values, and experience. Choice fundamentally is a human quality. Thus, we shouldn’t leave the most important decisions to be made for us by machines but rather, resolve matters from a perspective of choice and human understanding.
AI and Human Intelligence in Market Research
In the field of market research, AI is being utilized to analyze a multitude of data to produce accurate and actionable results or insights. One such example is deep learning models which, as Health IT Analytics explains, filter data through a cascade of multiple layers. Each successive layer improves its result by using or “learning” from the output of the previous one. This means the more data deep learning models process, the more accurate the results they provide thanks to the continuing refinement of their ability to correlate and connect information.
While you can depend on the accuracy of AI-generated results, Cascade Strategies takes it one step further by applying a high level of human thinking. This allows Cascade Strategies to interpret and unravel insights a machine would’ve otherwise missed because it can only decide, not choose.
Take a look at the market research project we performed for HP to help create a new marketing campaign. As part of our efforts, we chose to employ very perceptive researchers to spend time with worldwide HP engineers as well as engineers from other companies.
This resulted in our researchers discovering that HP engineers showed greater qualities of “mentorship” than other engineers. Yes, conducting their own technical work was important but just as significant for them was the opportunity to impart to others, especially younger people, what they were doing and why what they were doing was important. This deeper level of understanding led the way for a different approach to expressing the meaning of the HP brand for people and ultimately resulted in the award-winning and profitable “Mentor” campaign.
If you’re tired of the hype about AI-generated market research results and would like more thoughtful and original solutions for your brand, choose the high level of intuitive, interpretive, and synthesis-building thinking Cascade Strategies brings to the table. Please visit https://cascadestrategies.com/ to learn more about Cascade Strategies and more examples of our better thinking for clients.
info@cascadestrategies.com
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Issaquah, WA 98027
(425) 677-7430