Augmented reality: AI and the receding hairline

People are all abuzz about AI.

Now check yourself: When you read “AI” you likely had a reaction. Was it instant existential dread? Excitement? Curiosity? Did your mind flash to a specific use case, an example you’re aware of, or a news headline you read?

Or, like me and so many others, did you involuntarily, metaphorically look over your shoulder, wondering what’s already in place and impacting your daily life, likely without your knowledge and maybe your explicit, informed consent?

I work in insurance, where I am happy to say I do not work in the Claims area because people who work in insurance claims are, I don’t care what you say, national treasures and deserve our respect and a generous pension. Think about it: People who are filing an insurance claim, regardless of the type, are 100% of the time doing so because something went wrong. Claims examiners get the best of us and the worst of us, but always when we are at our worst.

That’s insurance. Insurance takes a little money from you today with the promise that, when the fecal hits the fan – as it inevitably does – they will give you the money you need. It’s a little like legalized gambling. When you go into a casino, smart people have an idea what their “budget” is for the evening; they know what they are comfortable leaving behind when they say goodnight, all for the potentiality of a windfall. The windfall may or may not happen, kind of like the damage to your house, or the theft of your belongings, or the unexpected Emergency Room visit. Insurance is like that, only they don’t comp your drinks while you wait.

As it happens, the company I work for is an innovator in the application of AI in the claims process. We saw the potential early, identified a partner that has accelerated the model for us as well as others in the industry, and embarked on a roadmap that delivers significant value to the business – and more importantly, the customers. For example, AI can use years of data to predict trends and workflows of certain types of claims. AI can traffic claims behind the scenes so that the best prepared individuals work on exactly the claims for which they are most qualified. AI can automatically assemble data from multiple systems and sources, scraping off time-sucking manual research and leaving the important parts – the judgment and expertise – to the claims professionals.

These are the “easy” applications, the ones normal people don’t see but benefit from nonetheless. The main thing you can say about them is, “OK, great. That totally makes sense.” Occasionally you read about other applications, whether proposed or actually in practice, that don’t sound as benign.

Which is why there are several class action lawsuits currently in process alleging that large national health insurers, for example, have used AI algorithms to essentially automate denial of claims, for reasons including racial and other bias. Those are the headlines that make people shudder and, if they are the type, wonder what else is being controlled by Big Data without their knowledge.

I tend to try not to think about it too much. But there are days that force my hand.

A few years ago I was at a conference in New York where Insurtech startups were presenting their newest applications in a speed-dating kind of format.

The pitch I remember most clearly was a mobile app that used a selfie to initiate the health insurance application process. Remember filling out multiple-page forms every Fall for your benefits at work? What would life be like if you simply entered your name, address and Social Security Number, then took a selfie with your phone, and that’s it? You’re done.

It's fascinating, right? The best thing since EZ Pass. Until you think for a moment that the technology behind the app is doing several things in order to process your application. At a minimum, it is likely:

• Reading more than a dozen health indicators communicated by your appearance, things like body mass and skin health, for example, that speak to your overall wellness.
• Using a combination of your PII and facial recognition data to seek and apply supplemental data about you that could include prescription usage, medical records, buying history, credit information and so on.
• Scrubbing the internet, specifically social media, to paint a picture of lifestyle habits and familial relationships.

Are you weirded out yet?

Now, this was a start-up pitching its wares, and it was a few years ago; and thankfully I don’t work for that kind of insurance company, so the temptation – let alone the opportunity – isn’t there. But, yikes! You can see the rabbit hole clearly, and you have to admit none of us really knows how deep it goes. And yet, whether we like it or not, whether we choose to acknowledge it or not, the genie is out of the bottle.

How often do we use GPS on our phones when driving? Back in the day, we had maps. Then we had Mapquest. Then we had actual GPS receivers. And then Google and Waze and…. I used GPS when I drove Uber for a time. I needed it to know where I was going. I used it when I traveled for business or pleasure. Now I use it almost daily to figure out what the fastest route to work is on that particular day. For that matter, when I travel with my wife, we will often play dueling GPS apps – me on Google and she on Waze – to seek alignment on the fastest, easiest route to where we’re going. Whether we know the way or not.

I am a little embarrassed to say I have no idea how much data these apps are collecting on my driving habits, my destinations, or anything else. I don’t know what they know, and I don’t know what they do with that data, who they sell it to, or for what reasons. What I do know is, like almost every American, I obediently click “OK” to acknowledge the Terms of Service when installing or updating an app. Because I want it. I want the convenience. I want the benefit they are pitching, even though – as a marketer – I know the benefit is not what they are selling.

I’m what they are selling.

Years ago, when my kids were in high school marching band and my wife directed the middle school musical, I would go to the same Wawa convenience store every Saturday morning and order pretty much the same things to get the family through our day. When my order altered, even slightly, the older woman at the cash register – whose name I never knew – would ask, “Uh-oh, who’s not having practice today?” And it was nice, like being a regular at a neighborhood watering hole where the waitress knows your order before you place it. It was a little slice of Americana, hardly creepy at all. Well, maybe a little creepy.

Now flash forward to today. Can you imagine what Door Dash knows about my eating habits? Think about that for a moment.

I was on Instagram recently, which is a sentence I really hate to acknowledge, let alone put in writing. Let’s just say I had to be, and let it go at that. While there I saw an ad for corporate headshots, photos you use for everything from LinkedIn profiles to corporate bios. It caught my eye.

Side note: Why did I see that particular ad on Instagram? Because the application knows everything about me. They knew it would catch my eye. Duh.

But there was a hook to this ad: the photos are generated by AI.

It’s easy. You upload a minimum of 10 selfies – or any photos of you, as long as they are just you, not you in a group of people, etc. You pick out how many backgrounds you’d like, what “package” you want, and boom: they send you a portfolio of head shots immediately ready for use.

Now, I have fought a lifelong battle with my weight. The lens-end of the camera is not among my friends. To make matters worse, God has revoked his covenant with me and some years ago began to recall my once thick, awesome hair. Without my prior consent. I would also like to have my teeth whitened but haven't gotten around to it, yadda yadda. Simply, I don’t like pictures of me, and because I am in the corporate world I can’t really justify using pictures that are 10-plus years old. It’s not cool.

So I was intrigued enough to give it a shot. The bottom-tier package was $39. To put that in perspective, that’s about what I pay PER DAY to park my car at work, including tip. Two backgrounds, a dark and a light, and I receive a total of 30 different head shots. It’s a no-brainer. I uploaded 10 photos from my “Recent” folder on my phone (it was all done completely on my phone), used Apple Pay, and got a message I would receive an email once the photos were ready for download. I was informed the process takes a minimum of a few hours.

I hope that you, as you’re reading this, have the same realization I had at that moment, which is: Moron! You just sent a completely unknown entity a virtual shoebox of photos of yourself, along with money. You clicked “OK.” Why don’t you skip to the end and make a copy of your house key for them and order them a duplicate ATM card?

I instantly had buyer’s remorse and felt like an idiot. What if they never even sent the pictures? I mean, as scams go, this would be an elementary one. You probably wouldn’t even see it on the news. So I checked every hour for the rest of the day. By the time I was ready for bed that night I was sure I had been scammed and I felt terrible. But I thought, “Check one more time.”

And there they were, in my email in box.

I clicked “Download” with trepidation, suddenly more afraid of the actual promised product than I was at being cheated out of it hours before. They appeared one at a time: 30 different photos of me, in different shirts, suits and ties, with different backgrounds. But there was more: I was smiling in some, and not in others. Collared shirt, no collared shirt. In two I was crossing my arms, looking confident and credible.

My hair was different in each photo, a little longer here, a little shorter there. Kind of mussed up in one, like I was serious about the work, not a silly picture. Oh, and yes – by the way – I had hair. Even though I uploaded recent photos, the AI KNEW I WASN’T HAPPY WITH MY HAIRLINE, AND IT GAVE ME MORE HAIR.

God taketh away, and AI gaveth me back.

In all, 25 of the 30 were, in my estimation, wonderful. Ten out of 10, as my daughter says. The other 5, the ones I didn’t download for use, were a little too thin. They weren’t bad, they just weren’t me. They were me-ish. But let’s be clear, I don’t think I’ve had 25 photos of myself that I liked if you added up every photo ever taken in my life prior to this point. And now, suddenly, I had 25 photos I would be proud to put on my LinkedIn profile (and did!). On my corporate bio. Honestly: I’m going to look for opportunities to use them. They are so good, I may have to start dating. (My wife may have something to say about that idea.)

Speaking of my wife, as I said, it was bedtime when I looked at these. I was giddy and instantly awake and wanted her to look at them immediately. She kind of squinted at them and didn’t say anything for a while, and then she said, “I don’t know. They’re not…you.”

And I said: “I know! Isn’t that great!!”

The next day I showed a couple folks at work and recounted the whole story. The overall reaction was overwhelmingly positive. One colleague immediately vowed to get a package for her husband for Father’s Day. We laughed and marveled and compared notes. We were amazed at the choice of apparel the algorithm had selected; all of them looked and felt like I could have bought and wore them. They were “me.” We started assigning names to some of them based on the pose and the clothing – clothing I didn’t own, but could have. Clothing that was not real. There was Mafia Me. And Author Me. And Casual Me. And Approachable Me. None of them were Despicable Me, which sums up my feeling about pretty much every other picture of me in existence.

There we were, a handful of professional marketing people in a corporate office, marveling about technology and lavishing praise on my good fortune. We were positively buzzing about this amazing AI application, instant acolytes.

We dismissed, immediately, the very real existential risk of sending even MORE personal data to an anonymous corporate entity for the purpose of having photos of myself that were a little bit younger, a little bit thinner, a little bit better dressed than I could manage alone. Believable, but without the hassle of diet and exercise. Mostly me, but a version of me that didn’t make me sad. Here we were, adults and professionals, and we know better. But damn…they are great pictures. I love them.

I wonder what else the machine has in store for me. I’m sure I will find out soon.

Copyright ? 2024 David Gittelman