It’s hard to find news in the technology space these days that doesn’t touch on artificial intelligence. Whether it be Big Tech’s race to release generative AI tools and fine-tune their large (and small) language models, or a bank perfecting their chatbot to assist and augment the role of customer service agents, or the very real threat artists feel from robots that can reproduce their creative efforts with astonishing speed and at very little cost.
LLMs and GenAI learn from their human creators — the written content, spoken words and real-life interactions we all experience and produce. All of this learning enables AI to spit out search engine-optimised blog post copy, and quickly analyse reams of data, freeing us from repetitive and boring tasks.
This learning can also lend itself to creating deep fakes, AI-generated identities that are used to defraud institutions like banks. The data used in AI’s education could also be flawed and incomplete, leading to decisions being made — such as who gets approved for a loan or a mortgage — that are biased and unfair.
Last week former hacker Monica Verma talked about AI at the Cross-Border Distribution Conference, presented by Deloitte and Elvinger Hoss, and supported by FT Live (the Financial Times conference division) in Luxembourg.
In her talk, Verma described how the ability to “make decisions” lies at the core of what it means to be human. She said she is a “tad bit worried about AI because it seems to be not only augmenting, but also replacing to a certain extent that decision making”.
Human beings are indeed flawed and fallible. In an effort to create an AI that serves us, which removes our repetitive and boring tasks and irons out our flaws and mistakes, are we eliminating the very essence of how we understand and make decisions in this world?
I’m sorry to lean more toward the philosophical, rather than focus on hard-core, bank-led digital transformation this week. (I am grateful you indulge me from time to time.) But we, as a society, are at a crossroads with the rapid development of AI. Many can make predictions on how it will shape geopolitics, finance and creativity in the coming years, but in reality, that future is yet to be realised.
Much of this future is being played out, right now, in the world of art and creative industries. How can other sectors, like banking, learn from these lessons?
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What is often touted as a benefit of AI development is the removal of “repetitive and boring tasks”, leaving space and time for humans to take on more creative and interpersonal pursuits. But what if we need those tasks to learn how to be creative?
As a child I played the French horn to a high level, to the point where my parents thought music would be my chosen career. While a place with an international orchestra was not my future, I wouldn’t have achieved any level of competence performing Mozart’s Horn Concerto No. 1 in D major without spending an inordinate amount of time practising “repetitive and boring” scales until I thought my lips would fall off.
Visual art is a funny thing. Well known paintings and sculpture can be experienced well before you find yourself standing in front of a Botticelli or beneath the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.
Art from around the world, and from generations of artists, adorn posters and postcards, keychains and umbrellas, as well as doorstop coffee table books. Even if you are someone who knows nothing, nor cares about Renaissance art, you have probably seen an image of David, the statue created by Michelangelo which resides in the Accademia Gallery in Florence. It is very easy to pick up a replica of David from any number of souvenirs shops around the city. There is even a replica of David that sits outside the museum in case anyone forgets it is the Accademia Gallery and not the more famous Uffizi Gallery that houses one of the world’s most famous statues.
When I was 17, I took a school trip to Italy and visited that museum.
I can say that its celebrity, its various reproductions, its ubiquity in the hallowed halls of what is considered fine art does not prepare you for what it is like to round the corner of this museum in Florence to see the towering image of a teenage David looming above the heads of hundreds of people who also paid to see a naked boy made of marble holding a slingshot. It will go down as one of the most profound moments of my life.
A few weeks ago, someone on TikTok posted that their lack of religious faith had been tested by the prevalence of AI-generated art, which made them think that humans did indeed possess a soul. There is a difference between seeing art created by human hands, rather than an assembly line in a factory or in an AI-generated programme. I learned that lesson in 1989.
We all know financial services can be data heavy, repetitive, and somewhat boring, but the products offered underpin real life events that are experienced almost universally. The financial services industry needs to examine how much of its humanity it is comfortable handing over to an automated and artificial system, and must plan for the unintended consequences that may result.
Liz is deputy editor of The Banker. You can connect with Liz on LinkedIn, or follow her on Bluesky.
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