On the ability of Algorithms to truly understand Humans...

While the world heads with breakneck speed towards ever-more automation in recognizing users, quantifying their need, and serving them alternatives to drive them to a decision - it is perhaps not entirely appropriate to wonder what (if any) role humans will continue to serve in future.

We see the role of digital technology in reducing humans from their respected role as sales people and deal makers, to replaceable robots who are merely used to either stack shelves in a physical store, or pack, process, and deliver goods in the digital world - and we can only wonder at how much worse it can get in a world driven by AI.

It is said that the Art of making a deal has been lost in the digital age. The digitization of human need works only to the extent to which human needs can be quantified. To understand what that means, is to understand the difference between efficiency and satisfaction.

The digital marketplace can facilitate efficient, data-driven decision-making. We can quantify screen resolution, processor speed, memory size, screen brightness (in nits!), and anything else that can be measured. But the critical measures of customer satisfaction like keyboard feel, screen sharpness and warmth, the look of the product, and sound quality - are also those that defy easy measurement or quantification.

If the majority of the things that contribute to human happiness and satisfaction with a product are subliminal and defeat easy quantification, that also means that the extent to which algorithms can truly "understand" human decision-making will continue to be limited for the foreseeable future.

So the digital age is excellent for efficiently delivering on our human needs - after all, if we need a tomato or a pencil, then an algorithm that can deliver what we need at the best price from a location close to us, is more than adequate to "close the deal" with a customer.

But while AI grows apparently more human-like by the day, it is safe to say that till algorithms can compute beauty, simplicity, elegance, and feel, then anything that is aspirational (rather than filling a basic human need) will always need some level of human intervention in the form of a specialist, and intermediary, a 'product whisperer'.