Valentine's Day with Artificial Intelligence

valentine card kids
When love was easy. Or at least easier.

Since my dating days were before dating became an online thing and literally before online was a thing, I haven't really kept up with dating and technology. 

I have friends who got divorced and dipped back into dating and used online dating apps. Over 300 million people use dating apps worldwide, according to a 2023 report by Business of Apps. To visualize this figure, it’s almost the entire population of the U.S. or half of Europe’s population.

Tinder is an online dating and geosocial networking application launched in 2012. On Tinder, users “swipe right” to like or “swipe left” to dislike other users’ profiles. A profile has their photos, a short bio, and some of their interests. Tinder uses a “double opt-in” system, also called “matching”, where two users must like each other before they can exchange messages. In 2022, Tinder had 10.9 million subscribers and 75 million monthly active users.

Renate Nyborg was Tinder’s first female CEO, but she recently left the popular dating app and launched Meeno which is described as relationship advice rather than dating. For example, you might ask for advice about dealing with your boss. The Meeno app uses artificial intelligence (AI) to help solve relationship problems. She predicts that the future will be less about online dating and more about real-life encounters.

The numbers for online dating are huge but Nyborg and others see a trend (with Gen Z in particular – 18 to 25-year-olds) that they are more interested in meeting people organically.

When she left Tinder, she had said she wanted to use tech to “help people feel less lonely” and dating is only a part of that. According to a 2023 report on loneliness commissioned by the European Commission, at least 10% of European Union residents feel lonely most of the time. A Pew Research study revealed that 42% of adults surveyed in the US said they had felt lonely during the COVID-19 pandemic. So, Meeno is intended to be your mentor, distinct from a virtual girlfriend, boyfriend, clinical therapist, or coach.

What can AI do in all this? Broadly, AI can speed up the processing of all these apps. It can analyze very quickly user behavior patterns and datasets to identify potential matches based on shared interests, values, and preferences. AI can filter profiles for inappropriate content, such as nudity or hate speech. It can analyze a user’s swiping patterns, interests, answers to questions, and personality results to introduce them to tailored recommendations.

There are other apps, like Blush, Aimm, Rizz, and Teaser AI, that use personality tests and physical type analysis to train AI-powered systems. Some apps use machine learning algorithms to scan for attraction and then suggest images of real people that the app thinks the user might find attractive. these are more for “dating” than everyday relationships which is Meeno’s current target.

This post first appeared in a different format on Weekends in Paradelle

Simple AI-Generated Imagery Programs

Cross-posted from my blog at https://ronkowitzllc.com

 

Artificial intelligence scares some people. When AI takes over human roles and takes the form of a human, that is quite scary. AI writing essays scares teachers and pleases students. It also scares people whose income comes from writing. None of us want to be replaced by a machine.

I have found that AI used to create images seems to be less scary. Oh sure, if I were a graphic designer, artist, or photographer, I would be frightened that my career could be replaced by AI. And you have heard the horror stories about "deep fakes" of photos and videos. But I have been playing with a few simple programs for generating images using AI. These are all free - for now. I do some drawing, painting, and photography myself with my hands, but I would not rate them as professional and this AI method is just so easy. 

One of the first things I tried was Microsoft Bing  bing.com/images/create/  These programs are very easy to use. You input text - a prompt - describing what you want to see created. The more detailed the prompt, the more likely it is that you will get a result that matches the one in your imagination. Beyond that, you don't have a lot of control. You can't choose colors for small parts of the image but you can describe a style (like a Renaissance painting, or anime, etc.) and add details.

For example, you could ask for an illustration of a woman. That is very broad. Let's try again - an Asian woman on a computer monitor. How about a man creating an image of an Asian woman using his phone and Bing and projecting it on a monitor. Okay, just as a test of its capabilities, let's add a small teddy bear.

Here is the result:

Search and you'll find lots of these programs. www.craiyon.com is another one. I also liked experimenting with deepai.org/machine-learning-model/text2img. I went down a similar path asking variations on a woman standing by a wall, sitting by a lake, etc. 

I'll keep posting things I create on this site and I will be using them for a lot of my posts online.

I would like to see more control over these simple tools - such as being able to start with a photo of my own - and they are not perfect in following prompts. Did you notice that in the image at the top, Bing misspelled Bing?

4 variations on a monochrome man walking in the woods prompt

Can Bloom's Taxonomy Teach Us Anything About AI?

spiral model
Image gettingsmart.com

 

When I was studying to be a secondary school teacher, Bloom’s Taxonomy often came up in my classes as a way to do lesson planning and a way to assess learners. Recently, there have been several revisions to its pyramid stack. An article on www.gettingsmart.com suggests a spiral might be better, particularly if you want to use it as a lens to view AI.

The author, Vriti Saraf, opines that the most important potential of AI isn’t to enhance human productivity, it’s to enhance and support human thinking, and that looking at AI’s capabilities through the lens of Bloom’s Taxonomy showcases the possible interplay of humans and machines.

It is an interesting idea. Take a look.

 

 

The Soft Skills of AI

workers talking
Communication is a rising soft skill

AI, especially its subset, generative AI, seems to be changing everything including the workplace. As machines become adept at tasks once considered uniquely human, what does this mean for the workforce, and which worker skills will become more important? For some jobs, AI will simply be complementary to the job, but the prevailing belief is that about half of all jobs will be significantly disrupted by AI.

I have never been a fan of the terms "hard and soft skills" since it seems to make some "soft" skills seem less important. Still, some historically “hard” skills will drop on the hiring credentials.

An article on www.fastcompany.com featured some soft skills that will be important in an AI world.

SOCIAL INTERACTION SKILLSsuch as listening to others in meetings, or collaborating with teammates under pressure, will remain in the human domain. A working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research showed that almost all job growth since 1980 has been seen in jobs that are social-skill intensive, while jobs that require minimal social interaction have been in decline.

CREATIVITY especially in using AI. One study found that knowledge workers who used Chat GPT 4.0 completed 12.2% more tasks, 25,.1% faster and with 40% greater quality over those who did not use AI to perform their work. That’s astonishing data, especially the data on the increased quality level. Human workers who leverage AI and who demonstrate a combination of strong creativity and critical thinking skills will fare the best.

CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS I don't think that critical thinking has ever been off the skills list for jobs. It must be applied to evaluate AI responses since (as you may have discovered already) not all responses will be valid, unbiased, factual, or error-free. AI can generate vast amounts of data, analyses, and potential solutions at unprecedented speed, but the veracity and applicability of generative AI’s responses are not guaranteed. A uniquely human skill is to think critically.

CURIOSITY is that innate drive to explore, understand, and seek information about the world around us. AI is not curious unless it is told to be or programmed to seek out information. Workers ask questions, probe into things, challenge assumptions and delve deeper.

Yes, the rise of AI will fundamentally alter the nature of skills deemed crucial in the workplace. While some hard skills and jobs will disappear for workers, some soft skills will remain human-only and therefore will become more important - perhaps "harder" -  than ever.