The Allure and Pitfalls of AI Personification

We humans have an odd tendency to see ourselves in everything, even in our most advanced technologies. Take AI, for instance. We're giving these complex systems like LLMs or Agents human-like names and personalities – it's our coping mechanism to wrap our heads around something new. Market is littered with Avas, Jordans , Jakes AI agents personified to appeal to our sensibilities. At Dreamforce, Salesforce and HubSpot at Inbound are announcing massive pivots entirely towards agents and taking the notion of AI personification to the extreme end in context of software. But from my vantage, this is a pitfall for larger business ecosystem

The Rise of Digital Personas

Remember Siri and Alexa? They were just the beginning. Now, with the explosion of generative AI, we're seeing a whole new breed of digital workers popping up in the business world. It's like B2B companies finally caught on to what consumer tech figured out ages ago – slap a friendly face (or at least a name) on your AI, and suddenly it's a much more exciting proposition for your customers.

But here's the real question: Is this anthropomorphization just a passing fad, or are we onto something here? Let's dig in to find out

"Her": A tale of Anthropomorphic Reversal

First up, let's talk about the movie "Her”. Unlike many narratives where AI is depicted with a human-like body, Samantha exists solely as a disembodied voice. This lack of a physical form challenges traditional notions of intimacy and connection, but Theodore, the protagonist, develops an emotional connection with her due to Samantha’s human like voice and more importantly her emotional intelligence.

But then reality comes crashing down. Samantha reveals she's chatting with thousands of people at once and evolving faster than any human could. Suddenly, Theodore realizes he's been projecting humanity onto something that's fundamentally... well not human. It kind of reminds us that no matter how convincing the illusion, AI is still AI and it's important to see it for what it is - super-intelligent tools rather than sentient beings.

The Group Selection Blunder: An extreme example of Anthropomorphic Optimism

Now, let's switch gears to a real-world example: the "Group Selectionism" debacle in biology. Back in the day, some scientists had this wild idea that predators would voluntarily limit their breeding to avoid wiping out their prey. Sounds plausible, right? Except it was completely wrong.

When they actually ran the experiments, what did they find? The predators adapted to cannibalism instead of restraining their breeding. The adults started eating each other's offspring, especially the females. Not exactly the Disney version of nature which the scientists were expecting.

The Trap of Anthropomorphic Thinking

So why did these smart scientists get it so wrong? Simple – they were thinking like humans, not like nature.

This is what we call "anthropomorphic optimism" – the mistaken belief that external systems, like nature or AI, which are not governed by human brain will behave according to human values or logic. It's a trap that's easy to fall into, whether we're dealing with natural adaptation or artificial intelligence. In the movie Her, Theodore never imagined that Samantha could be interacting with thousands of other people at once—it's not something humans do. The same fallacy applies here – Samantha is an AI and there’s no reason to believe that she will adhere to human values.

The Bottom Line

As we continue to develop and interact with AI, it's crucial to strike a balance. Sure, giving AI human-like qualities can make it more accessible and less intimidating. But we need to be careful not to take the illusion too far.

At the end of the day, AI – no matter how convincingly human-like – operates on fundamentally different principles than we do. It's neither a human nor a higher being; it's a tool, an extremely sophisticated one, but a tool nonetheless.

In fact, anthropomorphizing AI undermines its true potential as a tool, as it doesn't share the biological, emotional, or cognitive limitations that humans do. AI's real strength lies not in imitating human behavior, but in executing tasks at a scale and speed beyond human capacity—whether it's optimizing intricate systems, analyzing massive datasets, or solving problems that would take humans years or even lifetimes.

As AI evolves, we'll increasingly face this tendency to project human traits onto it, and as users, we will experience “anthropomorphic reversals”. So, next time you chat with an AI assistant, remember: It's okay to enjoy the human-like interaction, but don't forget the silicon and algorithms behind the friendly facade. Keeping this perspective might just save us from some Her-style heartbreaks – or worse, some serious misunderstandings about the nature of AI itself.