Or maybe everything. Keep reading and you be the judge
One thing I can say from my experience with Big Mac's is that they are quite a good hamburger. In addition to being tasty they are the same taste regardless of where you order them. Mostly. I have had them in the USA, Canada, Ireland, England, Philippines, Japan, and Indonesia. In each of those countries a Big Mac has a taste that is the same across borders.
The burger is also customizable. You can ask for it with onions, without sauce, with pickle, double patty or even no patty although I'm not sure that truly qualifies as a hamburger.
End result: A tasty hamburger that is available all over the world. A reliable, tasty food that you can customize to your individual liking.
..... But is it a gourmet burger?
Of course you can grill a burger at home and depending on your skill you can make a gourmet experience or something that is really sub-par. The same thing goes for getting burgers at other restaurants. Some burgers are barely worth the name (Looking at you Burger Machine in the Philippines) while others are tasty beyond what a Big Mac provides (Hat's off to the Moxy in Solo, Indonesia). Honestly though, I bet some people prefer the Burger Machine hamburgers in the Philippines maybe for price, maybe for taste, or maybe because its made by a Filipino.
What is the difference? Big Mac is a corporate burger designed for taste, efficiency and uniformity. Burgers at other places? May be corporate like Burger King Whoppers or could be gourmet like small independent chains. Maybe even be home made according to the specs and skill of the individual.
Good question. This post really isn't about Big Mac's. It is about AI.
Which brings up the question: What does AI have to do with Big Mac's?
Honestly? Nothing.
... except....
If you give an AI a question it will give you a very good, very uniform, very reliable answer. There is of course the possibility of a wrong answer but in general if you ask AI a question you will get a very good answer.
*But I believe it is a Big Mac answer. There is no soul to the answer. It is good but sterile. There is no heart to the answer and while it isn't bad it is sort of predictable. If that is what you want? Great. AI is perfect. You can even customize your AI answer by changing the prompts a little just like you can change your Big Mac. However, even with customization you are still very much getting a predictable product.
With regular people answering the prompt? Some answers are going to be terrible. Some are going to be incomplete. Some are going to be competent and some are going to be excellent. However, it is very likely that anything done by a human will have a different feel to it. Just as most home made hamburgers don't quite taste the same as a Big Mac. Some are better and many are worse but all are different.
Looking forward with AI? AI may be added to robots. Will interacting with an AI based robot be the same as dealing with a human? My guess is it will be more pleasant, more uniform, and generally easier. I also bet it won't have the same heart and the same potential for connection. AI truck drivers? AI barrista? AI pharmacist? AI doctor? I'm sure any role that AI takes over will deliver a competent and acceptable "Big Mac" type experience but will it have a human connection? I doubt it.
Honestly I would say that AI will do things smarter and faster than the average human. Probably better than most as well. Again, look at Big Mac's. They are designed to be fast, cheap and arguably better than competition burgers. Better burgers can be made for sure but they certainly won't be as inexpensive or as fast. The same argument could be made for AI. An article that takes me an hour to write an AI can do in 5 minutes. Code that would take me months can be done in hours. Humans can't compete on speed, quality, or even general knowledge.
But we can compete on heart and spontaneity. Just as a fun example. One day I was at work at Radio Shack. We had various computer games for sale on the wall (it was back in the 1980s) and Tetris was available for purchase. One kid with his mom looked up at the game excitedly and blurted out :
"Look mom! It's that Kotex game!" (Kotex is a feminine pad).
The staff burst out laughing.
AI will never generate that kind of mirth by making a mistake.
The fact that humans don't get things right all the time. The fact that we don't provide all the angles. The fact that we give only one portion of the answer letting other people develop a counterargument or alignment based on conversation and joint learning. That is something that makes human answers an experience instead of a commodity.
I admit that I quite enjoy Big Mac's. I also quite enjoy AI. However, humans being flawed and fallible are awesome too. They give depth that corporate burgers and AI interaction just can't mimic. Of course, you may not agree with me and I would love to get comments. However, comment or not thank you for reading the article. Always great to have eyes on a post.
