"But I don't use AI": 8 Sets of Examples of Everyday AI, Everywhere 🗣️
Concrete examples of some of the many ways that people use and interact with AI or ML systems daily, perhaps without realizing it. (audio; 12:47)
I recently contacted someone who works in a non-technical profession to ask if I could interview them for “AI, Software, & Wetware”. Their initial response:
“Not sure I would be of any help. I don’t even know what AI is.”
And it’s obviously totally okay to not know what AI is or how it works under the hood! We don’t have to be auto mechanics to understand how to drive a car safely.
And for our “AI, Software, & Wetware” interviews, I specifically WANT to talk to humans worldwide who DON’T write software or develop AI models for a living. See this introductory post.
Why? Because it’s actually very hard nowadays for most of us to get through a week, or even a day, of life without interacting in some way with a system using AI (artificial intelligence) or ML (machine learning). (ML is a subset of AI. For detailed definitions, see our AI Glossary.)
“Algorithms perform integral functions in our everyday lives. … most algorithms use machine learning, statistics based on gathered data, and AI to make them more advanced or specified. They are constantly evolving, and as useful as they are, they are missing one key factor: common sense. Even still, most people cannot use the internet without using an algorithm. They are in our search engines, emails, apps, video games, dating services, travel sites, GPS, and our streaming services.”
(from “How Streaming Services Use Algorithms”, Devyn Hinkle, Arts Management & Technology Laboratory at Carnegie Mellon University, 2021-08-18)
This post shares concrete examples in 8 different areas of daily life to help folks see where and how AI is affecting our lives in ways that might not be obvious.
1. Got a ‘smart’ cell phone (smartphone)?
Your phone uses lots of AI and ML. That’s what the ‘smart’ part is. 😊 Even if you don’t knowingly use “AI features” like Siri, here are some examples:
You get an incoming call from an unknown number. Your phone or phone provider looks at the caller ID and your contact list, and classifies whether the call is likely to be spam or a robocaller, or a real call.
You take photos with your phone. Your phone automatically groups your photos into albums by subject, based on looking for similar faces, objects, or scenes in the pictures. Your phone may also use AI to help improve your photo. 1
You edit a text message on your phone. Your phone offers to correct your spelling and grammar as you type.
You compose an email message on your phone. After you type in the name of one recipient, your phone’s email software suggests other people to add, based on other email messages that went to that group of people.
You use a mapping application on your phone to route you to work. The mapping software on your phone shows you multiple routes and road blockages to help you avoid traffic jams.
All of these things your smartphone does for you are done with ML (AI).
Apple recently announced that “Apple Intelligence” (a different “AI”) is coming to iOS in fall 2024 with even more advanced features for new phones. These features include new tools for writing; creating movies; cleaning up photos; recording, transcribing, and summarizing audio; prioritizing emails; updates to Siri; and more. 2
Note that many of these same AI / ML technologies are used for smart devices for in-home automation, such as Amazon Alexa and Google Home.
2. Social Media
Social media sites include Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, WhatsApp, TikTok, WeChat, Facebook Messenger, Telegram, Snapchat, Douyin, Kuaishou, LinkedIn, X/Twitter, and more. (Meta owns 4 of the top 7: Facebook (core), Facebook Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp. All 4 have over 1 billion monthly active users.) 3
These sites use AI and ML to varying degrees to customize one or more of:
your “feed” of the posts you see,
the ads they show you, or
the people they recommend you follow.
3. Streaming Movies or Music
Do you subscribe to Netflix, Hulu / Disney+, Amazon Prime, Spotify, YouTube, HBO Max, or other streaming services? They all use AI / ML to customize the movies, shows, songs, videos, or performers they recommend you watch or listen to. 4 For many years, their ML systems have based these recommendations on massive sets of data. This data includes the genres, actors/performers, themes, locations, or other qualities of movies/songs/…
you liked (gave ‘thumbs up’) or disliked (‘thumbs down’),
you watched/listened to all the way through, vs. only partway before quitting,
that were liked by other people who watched and liked the same movies/songs/… you liked, or that they consider to be “similar”,
featuring actors/performers/… or locations that were included in other content you liked,
as well as other data they may have about you (e.g. Amazon knows your other purchasing history; some providers buy third-party data).
4. Shopping
Purchasing something in a store or online with a credit card? Your transaction is automatically being reviewed by your credit card issuer to detect potential fraud - using ML. 5
Using a loyalty card in a grocery or retail store? The merchant is using your data with ML to help them decide which purchases tend to ‘go together’ to help them with marketing strategies, coupons, and pricing. 6
Applying for a new credit card or credit line increase? Some banks offer ‘instant approval’ to some applicants, based on using an automated ML system to ‘score’ your application and assess the risk. The system decides whether to approve your request right away, ask you for more information, or hand it off to a human reviewer for further analysis. 7 ML is also used to manage credit card portfolios. 8
Purchasing a car or a home with a loan? Your application is probably being reviewed and ‘scored’ by a ML model before it goes to a human loan officer for approval. ML is used for "Anomaly Detection Automation" (looking for fraud or to detect defects) and for "Borrower Default Risk Assessment" (creditworthiness). 9
5. Traveling
Got car insurance? Many car insurance companies offer discounts for you agreeing to put one of their “usage-based insurance” gadgets in your car to track how well you drive - how fast you go, whether you brake hard, etc. That data is analyzed with ML to decide what insurance premium you pay, based on how your car is driven. 10 11
Drive on a modern toll beltline? Odds are either:
You use a special gadget (‘transponder’) in your car that automatically talks to sensors on the beltline, so the toll system knows who you are and what to charge you, or
The toll booth takes a photo of your car and license plate, figures out who owns the car, and mails the car’s owner the bill for your toll. That’s done with “optical character recognition” and “image recognition” ML. 12
Use a ride-sharing service? Uber and Lyft both use ML for many purposes, including how to assign drivers to rides and set ‘surge’ pricing for rides during busy times. (This isn’t new; see e.g. this 2019 article about it 13.)
At the airport? In USA airports, the TSA uses ML to validate that you are who you say you are, and check you against watch lists. And nowadays, unless you tell the TSA agent you want to opt out, TSA will take your photo on the spot, and use ML to automatically compare it to the picture on your ID (driver’s license or passport). 14
6. Health Care
Wear a smartwatch? Many smartwatches now include sleep quality monitoring and other health features, such as checking for atrial fibrillation (‘afib’). Some newer models have “fall detection” features and can automatically call for help when someone has fallen. 15
Getting a medical imaging scan? Some systems use AI or ML to help with positioning patients to get more accurate scans. Odds are increasing that, before a human radiologist reviews your X-ray, mammogram, CT scan, ultrasound, or MRI, a ML model now analyzes the images to generate a preliminary report for the human to review. AI can even help to keep critical medical equipment working by improving “predictive maintenance”. 16 And as I reported just a few weeks ago, new AI-based tools for analyzing X-rays are even promising to help with early diagnosis of lung cancer.17
Using medical websites, facilities, and care practices? AI can help with streamlining hospital operations, triage, managing patient cases, and more. AI is now being used to speed up stroke diagnoses. AI and ML are being used in chatbots to help give patients sounder medical advice than “Dr. Google” can give. AI can also help with coordinating more effective multidisciplinary cancer care and cardiac care. 18 19 20
7. Weather Forecasting
Do you check the weather forecast on your phone or TV before, or while, going about your day? Meteorologists have used “weather models” for many years. Those forecasting models now leverage AI and ML, and have been steadily improving. 21 And new research into forecasting not only weather, but climate, is ongoing. 22
8. Web Browsing and Searching
Ever use web browsers to search for information or answers to questions?
Examples include Microsoft (Edge/Bing), Google (Chrome/Gemini), Apple (Safari), Brave (Leo), other browsers such as Firefox, or search engines like DuckDuckGo.
Even if you aren’t using their “AI Overviews” (e.g. Copilot for Microsoft), you’re using AI. Have you noticed that when you start to type in a question, the browser will automatically show you suggested ‘completions’ to your question? This is ML-driven, too. The browser provider matches what you type to questions frequently asked by other users, combining it with other data from your browser (such as your location), and making these suggestions - e.g. for the question “who will win …”:
Bottom Line
The few examples in these 8 sections aren’t even remotely an exhaustive list of how AI and ML impact our lives today.
If you can truly say that you don’t do any of these things, then maybe you don’t actually ever ‘use’ AI - congratulations, you’re a rarity nowadays, and I’d love to hear from you!
Otherwise, congratulations, you’re an AI user too; welcome to the wild world of AI in 2024 and beyond! (And if you’re now curious to learn more about what AI is, and how to use it safely, check out our AI Glossary and the “AI Fundamentals” section in the newsletter.)
