What used to be called “new” technology has undoubtedly transformed all our lives – and, for the most part, we take it for granted. Mobile phones, tablet computers, multi-channel TV, hole-in-the-wall cash machines, online shopping, you name it, we’ve got it – and, crucially, we like it.
However, it has long been a concern of mine that technology is moving faster than we want or need. Teenaged computer geeks, working out of their back bedrooms, are busily innovating for innovation’s sake, often with little or no regard for the market need, let alone desire or demand, for their latest gadgetry.
After all, how many of us feel an irrepressible urge to access the internet via a wristwatch? If you need to work “on the go”, why buy a driver-less car when you can hail a taxi? Do we really want to be given directions by our spectacles?
The latest so-called breakthrough merely serves to underline my point. Japanese techno-giant Toshiba has developed three “communications androids”, one of which is employed in a shopping mall, while another is “working” as a receptionist in a Tokyo hotel.
The third is called Chihira Kanae. “She” is inexplicably female, and she’s touring the world as an ambassador for her current and future “siblings”, programmed to persuade people that she – and they – represent the future of customer service.
Using pioneering “human-looking” technology, these robots will have better memories than us, they will be able to speak more languages than we do, they will work 24 hours a day for nothing, and they’re never going to nip out for a cigarette, or call in sick, or take holidays, or maternity leave.
The technology is breathtaking. What’s not to like?
The answer to that rhetorical question is “quite a lot”. Like those back-bedroom teenagers, Toshiba seems to have lost sight of the needs and wishes of human consumers. Are we really going to ask an automaton to recommend a good local restaurant? How would it know?
The only way it could “know” is if it had been programmed to “know” – and if a truly appalling local restaurant pays enough money to be included in “her” knowledge bank, Chihira and her ilk will tell you it’s wonderful.
Rather more seriously, technology has a nasty – if increasingly infrequent – habit of going wrong. Cash machines don’t always work, computers crash now and then, mobile signals come and go.
When the Dalek at the desk suffers a microchip malfunction, checks you into the gents’ loo, and orders a pint of Guinness with a side-order of custard creams, whilst reciting the latest Premier League results (in Mandarin), who do you complain to?
As an enabler, technology is unquestionably a boon. It allows us humans to interact more quickly, more easily, and more effectively, than ever before. It is, however, only an enabler. It is not, and never will be, “the future of customer service”.
That’s down to us.
Editor’s note: For further information, please contact Simon Scarborough on 07801 571357 or at simon@simonscarboroughassociates.co.uk.