After attending AAPOR*, WAPOR** and ESOMAR*** CEO forum, a lot of talk about AI. And the biggest companies in the industry and scientists all agree with my conclusion:
AI is not the magic solution it is being hyped up to be, not a replacement to ask real humans. Sloppy AI use is creating a huge amount of problems instead.
From a market research and polling perspective, we have always been in the frontline of digitalization.
But it is vital that the research is a proper representation of the reality.
Because there exist a reality out there, our job is to give a understandable relevant explanation of that reality.
Our job is to present the facts and knowledge about human behavior.
Listening to Ben Page the CEO of Ipsos, and Michelle Harrison global president of Verian, they confirm my conclusions. The same that the scientists at AAPOR and WAPOR say:
AI is not an alternative to asking real humans. It is riddled with problems, that lead to extremely costly errors for the one who use syntheticly generated research data. It is wide open to manipulation, fraud, and bias. Those things the polling industry is used to counter. But it is already a huge problem in the nonscientific polls. Where AI is used not to combat AI manipulation… The simple solution is to use the known scientific methods for reliable research, then you close the door to fraud, AI generated or other. Reliable research cost money. Being able to trust the data it is worth even more to the client, we just need to tell them that. Part of it is sadly to state out all the problems and risks.
Our job is to do research for clients who use it as a basis for their strategic work. Faulty research result in costly faulty strategic decisions. Everyone need to understand human behavior, and our industry are the ones providing that understanding.
Sure there is loads of money being pumped into AI development, and useful tools are coming out. Understanding spoken word is fascinating and extremely useful. Communicating in a human like way with computers, understanding an image. All these things are useful for the research industry. And are being used daily.
BUT synthetic respondents? Making AI pretend to be a real human… Or leaving the analysis to AI? That is opening up a world of problems. Are we not just beta testing software for some of worlds richest companies…?
We miss the key in our society, the real human, the one whose world we are constructing and living in.
The real human, being replaced by data points? And for that matter miss how their own brand, industry and actions have an effect to the world we all live in. We literally are in this together as humans living today.
The discussion is focused on everything else but the individual, own responsibility and more important opportunities we have to create a better future.
Digitalization, AI, electric cars, education, elections… Everything is there FOR the human to have a better life. If you are a citizen you are of course part of this, your voice matters, and without proper research based on reliable methods, we will rapidly create a world based on a artificial human… A stereotype based on what is written on the internet… Yes it is just as stupid as it sounds…
Opinion polling and market research is more important than ever. Even more important for us to step up and explain what people think and why opinions form.
We will of course use the tools that work. BUT they are tools to help us. Thinking that AI (companies) can replace the human in our world, then who is the tool, and who is using who?
Read more about my thought on AAPOR and WAPOR here: Insights from WAPOR and AAPOR: Trust in Surveys and AI
And don’t buy the argument that “so much scientific research is being done on AI, the same is true on so many things, fusion, cancer. It is not synonymous with that it is usable technology. But I hear it so often falsely creating legitimacy. It should be the opposite, wait until the scientists have gone far enough have usable knowledge and that it is good enough to implement as a reliable tool… How come we all are the beta testers? How did we become so afraid of missing out so we all are willing to spend millions everywhere just to play around with a software?
AI? No one knows what it means but it is provocative!
But there are some useful AI tools that most market research and opinion polling companies use. As I mentioned above, understanding speech, transcribing, understanding text, summarizing, understanding images, textual summary of images.
It enables our industry to handle thousands of answers more effectively. Just as a computer, OCR scanner did, Excel, web surveys do… And there are some interesting things in analyzing big datasets, but that is what we always do… A possibility to refine, not revolutionize (yet). It is definitely not a replacement to ask humans, or humans working with the research that still need to be a proper representation of the real world (not just a small slice of the internet)
Torbjörn Sjöström
President Gallup Nordic, CEO Novus, Board member Gallup International
* AAPOR
Founded in 1947, the American Association for Public Opinion Research is the leading association of public opinion and survey research professionals. Read more here: https://aapor.org/
** WAPOR
For more than 70 years, the World Association for Public Opinion has promoted the highest professional standards, ethics and techniques for polling around the world. Read more here: https://wapor.org/
*** ESOMAR is a not-for-profit membership organisation. Members form a community convinced of the potential of data analytics, research and insights to help improve societies, organisations and everyone’s life, including yours. We’ve been helping individuals and organisations that are part of the analytics and insights ecosystem since 1947.
Read more here: https://esomar.org/