The title "More Human Than Human" comes from the famous movie "Blade Runner" (released in 1982) based on the novel "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" by American writer Philip K. Dick, first published in 1968 (!).
It is about a company creating androids equipped with artificial intelligence being almost identical or even superior to humans. The full quote goes like this:
"Commerce, is our goal here at Tyrell. More human than human is our motto. Rachael is an experiment, nothing more."
This remembers me to our efforts with regards to Artifical Intelligence and Machine Learning and the topics connected to Digitalization.
We work so hard to get machines more human than human for providing friendly, quick, and quality services to our customers, so that at the end we may make real human interactions to luxury products.
We soon can let us be analyzed even more accurately and faster by algorithms when we feel sick, instead of visiting a real doctor - which is a great achievement, especially if there is no other option for getting help quickly. So at one hand, it is - of course - a fantastic thing: people who cannot get any medical care finally can get it. Lifes will be saved.
At the other hand, what if this is going to split the society even more?
Just think about it: it is already divided today: to people can pay for private medical care vs. others who cannot, and can only afford to have social medical care. This soon may mean the difference between the ones being wealthy enough to have themselves be treated by a real human doctor, and the others for whom a computer program should just be fine.
Today several companies create their unique selling proposition by advertising their AI equipped virtual agents for e.g. initial customer contact purposes. Soon enough there may be others, advertising themselves exactly in the opposite way, like:
"No Chatbots Here - Real Humans Only"
But then you might need to pay some extra just for a real human smile...
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