During the World Usability Congress 2023 I attended a talk by Ben Anyasodo, who is Principal Research Consultant of Redrock Consulting. the topic immediately interested me, as I am generally interested in AI and new technologies, namely how they can be implemented in classic areas of design, such as UX research. It should be noted at once that the topic is quite ambiguous, it conceals a lot of pitfalls: the ethical side of the issue, privacy issue and so on.
During his presentation, the speaker gave several different examples of AI implementation to conduct UX research in the field. I would like to dwell on one example in more detail. One coffee shop had a video surveillance system that was connected to AI and recorded the work of the employees. It counted the number of cups that were dispensed by a particular barista. On the one hand, this seems like a good tool for measuring the efficiency of employees, but the work of a barista includes not just making coffee, but creating an atmosphere, communication, and just a friendly smile, which can be valued even more than the coffee itself. This is something that AI cannot measure in any way. I was so interested that I found a discussion on the Internet about this innovation and most users found the idea terrible. In fact, I tend to share this opinion, in my opinion, such an application of AI is more likely to harm the efficiency of an organization.
Anyway, the presentation was really entertaining, and gave me quite a few insights that I can use in my master thesis.
