Maurício Pinheiro
On the last January 25th, I was about to give in to sleep, sitting on the couch of my apartment by the beach, after a wonderful day enjoying the sun, beer, and the beautiful turquoise sea waves. But unfortunately, I was interrupted by a scene worthy of a melodramatic novel. The soap opera in question was “Travessia” from the beloved Globo network, full of cliches and absurdities. The scene that took me out of my sleep involved a fight between mother and daughter against the father, all discussing a cooking pot with artificial intelligence. The idea was that you would put the ingredients in and the pan would cook for you. The mother’s expression was one of unparalleled ecstasy, as if AI were something divine. The father was desperate at the idea of cooks losing their jobs. And the daughter, apparently an authority on artificial intelligence, unconditionally supported the mother. However, the screenwriter, probably with good intentions in including a current theme, ended up slipping on the banana by writing the absurd and decontextualized dialogues. A true slip-up!
I already have a so-called intelligent electric pot for years and I can say that there is nothing so amazing about it. I just follow a recipe and set the time and temperature, something that anyone with a minimum of knowledge in microprocessor programming could do. I don’t see the reason for all the fuss around it. In fact, it’s just basic programming disguised as AI. I can even prepare a delicious Piedmontese rice, but there is nothing truly intelligent about it. It’s sad to see people being swayed by the media and believing in such absurdities. This is programming and robotics, not AI! 10-year-olds taking private technology courses would understand how to program the microcontroler of such cooking pot. Unfortunately, it’s not common to find these programming and robotics courses in schools (in fact, our new government had the misfortune of removing them from the public education curriculum, unfortunately).
But the smart pot would have an advantage over other conventional pots. In addition to being programmed with Deep Learning and facial recognition, it would have access to ingredients from the refrigerator and an integrated pantry through the Internet of Things. In this way, it would be able to identify who is requesting the recipe and based on the available ingredients, the pot would be able to create the perfect recipe, taking into consideration his personal taste. The smart pot would always be updated with nutritional and culinary information to make the best use of its resources. It would be a true personalized digital cook, always informed and ready to prepare the best dish for my wife!
And then, here comes the next scene of the soap opera: an old man watching a TikTok video of a funk dancer. The scene is as absurd and meaningless as the discussion about the smart pan. It is sad to see how popular media uses technology concepts and technical terms inappropriately and sensationalistically, without the slightest understanding or precision. It is pure exploitation of popular topics to attract audience and profit, without any concern for the quality of the information being transmitted. It is a shame for the media industry and a lack of respect for the public. It’s time to change the way technology is portrayed in popular media and demand more rigor and precision in its use. In contrast, meanwhile, TikTok has accumulated an enormous amount of data to feed Chinese AI and the government has heavily invested in this area. Unfortunately, here in Brazil, technological education is seen as unnecessary.
Oh, I can hardly wait for the next episode of Fantástico, where they will show their distorted and sensationalist view of OpenAI. No matter how absurd or misinformed the report may be, I know they will try their hardest to show us the ChatGPT for text production.
…
After watching, I realized that the report wasn’t completely bad as academics were interviewed. I apologize for my biased expectations, Globo. However, the last scene was amusing as the reporter expressed fear of losing his job.
https://www.tecmundo.com.br/mercado/259285-aulas-programacao-robotica-escolas-vetadas-governo.htm