Let the machine do it for you

We increasingly rely on machines to do things for us, which may take away some of the drudgery. At the same time, they can distance us unnecessarily from each other and, in some cases, reduce our natural skills. The trend towards using medical technology for diagnosis, for example, means that medical trainees never learn how to diagnose using their own hands or stethoscopes, as happens in poorer countries.

Sometimes machines do it better. For example, Watson, IBM’s supercomputer, beat the two best “Jeopardy!” players. Some argue that this was not through any deep understanding of semantics, but the ability to crunch terabytes of data quickly to arrive at statistically probable results. Even so, the next step for Watson – and a more serious one - is to help diagnose and treat patients by processing reams of data.

What about the ability to persuade? This is an area where machines are bound to fall down unless they tell great stories. Peter Gruber, author of "Tell to win: Connect, persuade and triumph with the hidden power of story" spent some time in Papua New Guinea to see how tribesmen related to one another through stories. He took what he learned to Hollywood when he was trying to get funding for Gorillas in the Mist, by flopping down on the floor with his arms out saying: I’m a wounded gorilla! He didn’t get up until they gave in. That’s Hollywood.

The lesson in this story has nothing to do with gorillas and everything to do with empathy. Machines don’t have empathy and we’d better be careful what we get them to do. It’s still OK to use a daily activity meter to count how many calories you’re eating and burning (the latest gadget from Japan). But much of our medical technology and robots for old people (see Talking teddies for dementia, above) are a slippery slope down to forgetting the human touch.