Podcast Summary: AI, Airlines & Xbox: A Candid Chat on Tech Trends and Ethics

The Opinionated Marketers discuss various topics, including the use of AI technology, particularly Microsoft's Copilot feature, as well as emerging trends in the airline and gaming industries.

Key Points

  • The unnamed speaker expresses concerns about the "insidious use of AI" and the push to normalise AI without considering its environmental impact and the user's right to choose whether to use it or not.
  • The speakers discuss the pros and cons of using AI tools like Copilot, with the unnamed speaker arguing for a more selective and conscious approach to using AI.
  • The conversation also touches on emerging trends in the airline industry, such as the rise of carry-on luggage and airlines' approaches to baggage fees.
  • The speakers briefly discuss the gaming industry, noting the recent release of a new handheld console by Xbox.

Podcast Transcript 

Transcripts are auto-generated. 

Charles Nixon (00:04):
Well, have you paid the IT company to put Copilot on your Microsoft?

Kiran Kapur (00:13):
Nope

Charles Nixon (00:14):
It's there.

Kiran Kapur (00:15):
Do I want it? Nope.

Charles Nixon (00:17):
Yes you do. Yes you

Kiran Kapur (00:19):
Do. No, I don't.

Charles Nixon (00:19):
Yes, you do.

Kiran Kapur (00:20):
I want to be able to use it when I want to use it.

Charles Nixon (00:23):
You can do

Kiran Kapur (00:24):
What annoys me intensely is when I go to do a search and it comes back as an AI search. I was like, I didn't ask for that. There are definite times and places for it. And when I did this last week, because it really annoys me, it is using up carbon, it's chucking out heat into the atmosphere. There is a problem that the IT companies need us to think that AI is normal because they want us to think that AI is normal in the same way that car companies need us to think that hopping in a car and chucking out stuff into the atmosphere is good. And the same way airline companies need us to not think about the implications of what we're doing. And also I understand that AI companies want us to think, want us to normalise it because that improves their profits and some of them genuinely believe it will make a difference.

(01:12):
However, I feel that we should be encouraging people to definitely choose to do something. So I choose to get on an airline and I understand the ecological implications of that. I choose to use my car and I understand the implications of that and I choose or do not choose. And I do have a right not to choose which is being overridden at the moment. I have a right not to choose to use a product because I don't believe in the environmental benefit. Equally, I have a right to go "today I need to do" as I've got to do later on today, "I need to do a fair bit of research into something". AI will be fantastic at that and so I will use AI, but I will choose to do so. Stop handing me hammers every single time I want to do something that involves a screwdriver, so shall I get off my soap box now.

Charles Nixon (02:03):
[laughter] Thank you for listening to your opinionated marketers. It's been very interesting to have a conversation though it has been a little bit of a monologue. We'll see you next time. Goodbye.

Kiran Kapur (02:16):
[laugh] Good morning, Charles. What have you known this week? You do realise that they're going to keep this bit in, don't you?

Charles Nixon (02:27):
Oh, absolutely. And they should indeed. Even though you are wrong, but nevermind.

Kiran Kapur (02:29):
Absolutely. That's my opinion. Charles, I will now let you get a word in edgeways and tell me your opinion. Well, anything else other than AI? I think probably you wanted to put an opposing view to my view of copilot.

Charles Nixon (02:44):
Absolutely. Well, the reason I asked the question was it has appeared on all forms of Microsoft that I tend to use, whether or not it has become something that is now standard. It certainly doesn't seem to have been, well, I haven't been charged for it and you probably haven't either. So the issue therefore becomes what do you make of it? And there are indeed three options that it gives you examples of. But one of which to use is just basically replacing something like Google alerts and we'll do you a quick summary of what's happened in your industry on a particular topic over the last 24 hours. As such, quoting the sources, which is very useful because that gives you further information if you need it. It is a very useful quick cut to a particular topic. The element of course is that you do need to check that each summary is actually an accurate summary of what it's proposing, but given the fact that it will only get better, it should be the element as much as anything is that you should explore it as we have said, time and time again and you should use it rather than ignore it and avoid it.

(04:01):
As we discussed last week in the marketers meetup research, which was about people who are trying to avoid AI at almost all costs as opposed to those who are adopting it, the fact that he's now freely available and on a screen near you probably means that you should be not only familiar with, but also have an opinion one way or tother as to why you do or do not use it. It is exactly as you say, it's going to be the same sort of thing as hopping in a car, getting on a plane. There are negative sides to all of these aspects, but you probably couldn't live your life without them.

Kiran Kapur (04:40):
I'm not advocating that one shouldn't use AI. In fact, I said this very strongly last week and I will say it again. There is a definite time and a place, there's a time and a place in my life for a hammer. There is also a time and place in my life where I do nots need a hammer. And I think this is my real ethical dilemma with it, that there is a massive push to us thinking that actually all I need to do is get the AI to do it. And you are absolutely right. The best description I've come across as AI is that it is an overexcited intern doesn't know anything when asked and challenged sometimes makes up the answers because it doesn't want to be seen to not understand something. It's 60% right at best. And when I look at some of the ways that it has been used, so for example yesterday it was my cross and bear to have to try and book a driving test.

(05:30):
This is not something I recommend. Frankly, I would pay somebody else a considerable amount of money to do it for me. It's not my driving test. You have to go online at six in the morning. It immediately accuses you of being a bot. It's a terrible, terrible system. But one of the things they have to decided to use is capture. So a way of trying to prove that you are not a bot and instead of using all the sort of standard things about find the bridges or find the shape or whatever it is that they want you to do, they have chosen to use an AI image generator. So you have what I think was meant to be a frog. I have never seen a frog that entire shape and most of the frogs I've seen have more legs than that. But you then had to try and match this to, or rather pick out the things that didn't look like it or did look like it.

(06:19):
I think by this stage I was giving up the will to live and I just looked at it and thought why waste AI resources to generate a rubbish picture of a frog when there are thousands, millions of images of frogs out there that they could have used? This to me is just a complete waste of what should be a very, very powerful technology that does have environmental consequences. So why just, but somebody obviously clearly thought, oh, we can do this with AI. The AI is not adding anything. In fact, it's detracting. They'd actually spent some resources making the system user-friendly and a better interface and various other things. I can think of many, many better uses of an AI technology than creating bad images of frogs for me to try and work out them to try and work out whether I'm human or not. And this is what worries me about the insidious use of AI because it's being used without thinking

Charles Nixon (07:15):
On a separate topic, then we will move to other subjects in,

Kiran Kapur (07:21):
I get the impression Charles doesn't want me on my soapbox this morning. Sorry Charles, what other topics have you seen?

Charles Nixon (07:29):
I haven't necessarily seen any particular topics, but I have observed several things, which is the changing way in which we are going to have to find again, we come back to the issue of new market opportunities. Retail sales are down. That means that we are probably going to find a situation again, where is innovation that will bring about growth? It isn't going to be consumer spending. The government is doing its best, but those are mainly in capital projects. But there are some capital project opportunities out there that companies should look for as well as international marketing opportunities. Whether it happens to be India where there's a trade deal done and others which will be coming along. So I think from a marketing perspective, it's again constantly looking for the growth opportunities that are out there with or without anything that is enhanced by technology.

Kiran Kapur (08:24):
There was a very interesting article in the BBC this morning, I dunno if you saw it, which was on the amount of money airlines are now making on handling baggage and the fact that this is now seen as an income stream as opposed to a problem. [https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0qg3ylx2g9o]And the article went through the fact that this has caused a rise in people wanting carry on baggage. So there's now a huge market for small suitcases that you can carry on. There's a huge market for videos showing you how to pack your small suitcase and your small hand baggage in the best way possible, be able to use that. But what I actually found fascinating and this on the BBC business page this morning was the throwaway line at the bottom where they'd gone to a small Indian airline called Indigo

(09:07):
And Indigo said, oh no, we have the opposite view. We don't want passengers queuing up. We don't want problems with people arguing about the weight of luggage. And as a result, luggage taking your luggage on is free. We don't charge any extra for it and we can turn around our planes in 35 minutes. So on the one hand, you've got companies making money and perfectly legitimate as an income stream. On the other hand, you've got a company going actually for our business and for the way we want to run a company, we are not going to go that route. And this is where I always think innovation is fascinating, that you can take something and the market can go in two different ways.

Charles Nixon (09:45):
Well, it can go in the third way. Actually, the one that I've spotted and was concierge service, which will go back to what it used to be for the railways, was basically they will come and pick your luggage up from your home and deliver it to your destination. You don't even have to carry it into the airport or do anything with it, but basically they will come and pick it up and take it. It's something that freight companies ought to have got into many, many moons ago. But I can still remember tales from my grandparents that they would ring up the railway company who would come and collect the luggage trunks for their annual holiday and it will be delivered to the station of their destination waiting for them when they got there. It is a service as you say, which is, it's an innovation based on a need. And I think that's a really good aspect. Yes, we now cram more and more into smaller bases because the airlines want to put more people on and they have a legitimate issue obviously with the waiting, but it's an area for innovation and we should think about similar things that perhaps are within your business, a cost, and now how you could turn around and make that into a benefit.

(11:00):
Absolutely, certainly is something that you consider when you look at the pricing. What is the price of the product versus the cost to the consumer and the cost of usage can therefore be something that you can bundle in and add a great deal of convenience and service to.

Kiran Kapur (11:16):
And the other story that I did see was that Xbox has finally revealed its handheld console. I have to say this is not a marketplace I have any direct knowledge of. I merely note that this has finally happened and if anybody wants to follow up on that one again, it was, I saw the article on the BBC,

Charles Nixon (11:34):
Well that's presumably in response to the fact that Nintendo finally released their new game box, which was last week and was run out of production straight away. Almost the sales were astronomical. So yes, it's an interesting marketplace. Gaming is something we've not really featured but is now one of the biggest entertainment industries on the planet.

Kiran Kapur (11:56):
Absolutely.

Charles Nixon (11:58):
Nice to talk with you as ever. I will endeavour to find something non-AI to talk about next week. Lovely to rant at you Charles. Good to see you. My pleasure. Bye-bye.