The other day I was driving when I decided that I needed directions to drive to a farm to market store that we had visited in the past. I knew about where it was located, but couldn’t remember the name of the road. Since the use of hand held devices while driving is illegal, I used the digital assistant in my phone to ask for directions. “Hey Siri,” I said, “Navigate to Roozengaarde.” A second later, my phone responded, “Here’s what I found on the web, and displayed the names of hardware and home supply stores that sell garden supplies. I ended up having to stop, look up the address and enter it into the navigation program manually. It still was less effort than the old technique I used to use that involved looking up an address and finding a location on the map in a phone book.

The digital assistant in my phone works sometimes, but it is sometimes really off base. I once asked it for directions to a restaurant and it displayed a list of dog breeders. I’m a fairly adventurous eater, but I am put off at the suggestion of eating a dog, and I love dogs, but we are not in the market for a puppy at the moment.

I have a friend who uses a digital device in her office for all kinds of functions. She enters the room and commands, “Alexa, turn on the lights!” That command works for her most of the time, but I’ve heard her raise her voice and repeat the command. Once she asked Alexa to set an alarm for eight minutes. The device complied, but when the alarm went off, it refused to stop ringing at a voice command. I think the device was distracted by its own sound and couldn’t discern what the human was saying over the sound of the alarm.

The idea of a digital device that is always listening to me in my home is creepy to me. I don’t want to have one of those devices. I find it annoying enough that the digital assistant in my phone has occasionally interrupted a conversation. I’m pretty quick on the “mute” button, but it still feels very strange to think that the device has been listening to me and is connected to the Internet at the same time. My digital watch asks me if I have fallen at least once a week. There simply is no way to use a hammer with my left hand without the device thinking I’m lying unconscious on the floor. Generally it thinks I’ve fallen when I am in the midst of doing something with both hands and find it nearly impossible to push the buttons that prevent the device from calling for help. I may be at risk of falling in my own home because I walk around the house in the middle of the night without turning on the lights. But if I do, I won’t be wearing my watch. I leave it on the charger during the night.

As a result of my experience so far, I’m not terribly excited that Google has revealed its new chatbot, Bard. I’m in no rush to turn it on. And despite the fact that our office uses Microsoft Teams for communication, I’m not eager to have its new messaging software take notes of a video conference. I have no confidence that the feature, even though it employs the latest ChatGPT artificial intelligence technology, will be able to get it right. In fact, I fully expect to read a story any day now about a student who has used ChatGPT to assist with an exam and the computer has boldly given the wrong answer. If I were teaching college, I’d give my students assignments to demonstrate the limits of the technology. I’m pretty sure an intelligent and persistent college student can get as many incorrect answers from it as correct ones. The intelligence is, after all, artificial.

I’m pretty sure that it won’t work for universities to ban the use of ChatGPT. They’ll probably be as successful as an attempt to ban the use of the Internet. Artificial Intelligence is here to stay and it has some practical use in certain situations. Were I teaching, I would try to come up with ways to enable students to explore the limits of the technology, and I would give assignments that demonstrated the students’ ability to think critically and give appropriate directions to the Artificial Intelligence. It might be able to write an essay, but it still has to be given the topic and parameters for the essay.

I’m fully expecting the new Microsoft Bing search engine with ChatGPT to be about as helpful as the old “Clippy” office assistant that was built into Word and discontinued in part because it was may more annoying than helpful. When I just used Google to look up a little information about that feature, it asked me if it was OK for it to use location manager. I denied permission. Why does it need to know where I am in order to look up a simple piece of software history? Artificial Intelligence often uses convoluted and obscure information to make a simple answer more complex than necessary.

Nonetheless, artificial intelligence will continue to make its way into our everyday lives. Appliances that can take voice commands are just around the corner. Instead of pushing buttons, we will tell our ovens to warm up before baking. They already make refrigerators that can generate shopping lists based on their contents. When we traveled to Japan three years ago I experienced a toilet seat in a hotel that had more buttons and computerized functions than I had previously imagined. I have no need of a toilet seat that can weigh me. I find an automatic blow dryer that follows a bidet sprayer to be a bit strange. And a heated toilet seat feels like someone was just sitting there to me. I’m not getting one of those anytime in the near future.

On the other hand, if they would make a microwave that would respond to my command, “Shut that annoying beeping off!” I might be interested.