Anticipation and Apprehension: Mixed Feelings Towards AI in 2024

By Will Althoff 

2023 was the year to talk about AI products and systems and how they could be implemented in industry. 2024 will be the year those AI products will start being implemented. Soon enough, AI products like Microsoft’s Co-Pilot and OpenAI’s ChatGPT will be used regularly in both our personal and professional lives. Are we ready for that? Time will tell.                                                       

By now, everyone has probably heard of ChatGPT, even if they have never trusted the “baby Terminator” enough to try and use it. Those familiar with James Cameron’s masterpiece, The Terminator, may also know of the longstanding joke about how AI and robots will take over the planet and eradicate the human race. Fortunately, it does not seem like Co-Pilot, Midjourney, or ChatGPT will be the initial antagonists that lead us towards a technological apocalypse (ergo, the “baby Terminator”), but I suppose that is always fun to debate.  

What is not worthy of debate is whether these types of AI tools can be useful. You can run a Google search about the benefits of these types of generative tools and find dozens of articles that should convince you of their merit. However, there are a few aspects of using these types of AI tools that are debated or are a concern to some UX professionals: 

• What type of impact will widespread use of AI have on job markets? 
• How will businesses use AI tools for internal and external purposes? How will that impact business as a whole? 
• Will AI be used ethically by most users? How will that impact the learning algorithms of the tool? 
• How will the biases of developers and algorithm bias impact usage of AI tools? 
• Are AI tools using accurate and up-to-date information in their algorithms? 
• How will data privacy, human agency, and data collection be impacted? 

There are undoubtedly more questions that experts in academic and industry circles are asking about AI. The great news is that there is a strong initiative to research these questions, figure out the best solutions, and then implement positive changes so that AI can be used for the right reasons. 

End to End User Research has already been involved with user research on these AI topics and tools. There have been many ideas by industry leaders on how to improve their companies using AI tools. That is the exciting part of AI: finding those new ways to revolutionize or create new ways of completing traditionally mundane or tedious tasks. Although we cannot discuss those new and exciting tools (bummer, we know), we can say that consumers in 2024 are paying attention to the way that these tools are being created and how they are providing solutions and answers to users. 

Data privacy, both in the collection of user data and how user data is used by AI to provide solutions, is something that we have consistently heard as being a huge hurdle for AI developers. It turns out that even those consumers who are not afraid enough of “baby Terminator” to avoid AI tools are still wary about what those tools are doing behind the scenes. A cornerstone of our society and market now revolves around data collection, for better or for worse, and AI tools may be the new vehicle for data privacy conversations and debates. Developers and researchers alike should be willing to listen to users and help create safeguards that protect user data and ensure the user stands to benefit the most from using an AI tool.