Zap it in the AI
The rise and fall of the microwave oven and what it means for tools like generative AI.
There is a new tool that will save you huge amounts of time, but the results might not be as good as you are used to and there are some potential dangers. Some say people could lose their jobs due to this new technology, while others say that it will never replace humans.
Sound familiar?
Of course I am talking about the microwave oven, a device that is owned by an estimated 90% of American households, but which has seen a decline in sales growth over recent years.
The idea for this article came to me as I made a fire this past weekend - carefully stacking kindling and sticks of olive wood, burning them down to glowing coals to cook with.
Fire!
The ability to make fire, one of humankind’s most controversial inventions. A slippery slope that could help civilisation or destroy it!
As the Palaeolithic pundits of the time said… there were pros and cons of the new technology.
An early influencer regaled to anyone who would listen - The Top 3 Things Fire can do for You. On the one hand it allowed us to cook food, making it easier to digest and increasing its nutritional value and provided warmth during cold nights, making life more comfortable and reducing the risk of hypothermia. It could be used to scare away predators and provide light at night, improving our safety.
But an elder who had seen the destruction nature of fire caused by bolts of light from the sky predicted a more apocalyptic future. Fire could also be dangerous and easily get out of control. Burning wood creates smoke, which can cause respiratory problems (and perhaps even cause planetary catastrophe if too much was to get into the atmosphere.)
Some early commentators also warned that we might become dependent on this new tech. Once we became dependent on fire for cooking and warmth, we had to constantly maintain it and gather fuel. This required more time and effort, limiting our mobility and lifestyle.
Electric Dreams
As a side note, I asked ChatGPT to consider whether it had any affinity with Edgar, the AI living in a PC in the 1984 movie Electric Dreams, but it struggled.
And so to the chattering classes of the Victorian era who were trying to weigh the benefits versus the dangers of electricity.
In a pamphlet titled ‘The Magic of Electricity’, one futurist hailed the new technology. Light could be provided more safely than candles or oil lamps, communication through telegraph and telephone enabled faster and more efficient communication over long distances allowing rapid communication and new industries. Electric motors could increase productivity and efficiency.
But, the naysayers and alarmists used their soapboxes to warn of a divide between the wealthy and the working class. Incorrect use might lead to electrocution and fires. Those who had studied the invention of fire cautioned against dependency.
There would also be some structural unemployment. The narrator of Robert Louis Stevenson’s poem The Lamplighter would be disappointed that he wouldn’t grow up to be a ‘Leerie’.
Electricity would go on to replace fire altogether, to power ‘black-boxes’ where food went in cold and came out hot.
Duke NukeEm
I lived through the consumer adoption of the microwave oven. The magical box went through exactly the same hype and adoption curves as AI. One of the biggest selling singles and most watched music videos of the time featured the device.
We got to install microwave ovens
Custom kitchen deliveries
We got to move these refrigerators
We got to move these colour TVs
Money For Nothing, Dire Straits, 1985
Like AI, the microwave oven was developed by engineers who didn’t really know what they were doing. Scientists mucking about with radar noticed that chocolate bars in their pockets were melting. Without care for the long term implications, they then started experimenting with popcorn and eggs!
Early commercial microwave ovens were large and expensive and used on ships and trains (presumably leading to job losses). But the tech got smaller and cheaper and by the end of the 1970s, more than 20% of households had one.
It was a revolution. Cookbooks were rewritten. A rush to create content that had been the same for centuries. Everything you thought you knew about cooking upended. Suddenly engineers who weren’t trained cooks were developing recipes because they knew how to press a few buttons. And if you didn’t get the right results, it’s because you weren’t using it right.
New products like microwavable TV dinners were created. Those who were evangelists talked like AI enthusiasts of today - It’s really quick and it’s passable in terms of quality. Why cook your own dinner or hire someone to do it when you can push a few buttons and get something edible?
Like AI, the technology was ‘a sledgehammer to crack a nut’. A $500 machine to boil water more slowly than a $10 kettle. Or to make popcorn. By 1995 microwavable popcorn represented 65% of the 1 billion pounds eaten by Americans.
There were of course the ‘enragement equals engagement’ types. Some purists who didn’t want to listen to the benefits, preferring to ignore what the microwave oven might offer. Some of these people highlighted the potential dangers - there are still concerns about the ‘radiation emitted by the ovens.
Despite the alarmists, for 40 years Americans bought microwaves by the millions, but now sales are in decline. Americans just aren’t using them as much.
People are more concerned about their health and the nutrition of the food they are eating. There is also a heightened interest in cooking with the microwave competing for kitchen counter space with slow cookers, air fryers, even Sous vide machines.
Then there is the humble fire or BBQ, which brings us full circle.
Back to the Future
I spent the weekend in a villa by the sea that had no microwave. But even if it had, I wouldn’t have used it to cook my locally sourced sausages and chops. Instead I made a fire and took to time to think as I watched the logs burn down to coals.
And as I watched the glowing embers I thought about how the results of generative AI are a bit like a microwavable TV dinner. Quick, easy, prepared with just a press of a button and a passable imitation of ‘the real thing’.
If you’re happy to trade off the taste of BBQ for salted cardboard and the skill of the chef for a machine that runs on a program, then you might be the sort of person who thinks that generative AI will be a quality replacement for human writers, photographers and musicians.
That’s not to say there won’t be structural unemployment, just as there was with the introduction of electricity. There will be many jobs lost, just like the lamplighters.
But my feeling is that humans do value intent, which the AIs don’t have.
Why did the photographer take this photo? What inspired the lyrics of the song? Why did the chef include sumac in that recipe?
I will return to my series about what AI means for the CMO in the next newsletter, but it’s important to step back and put the current ‘debate’ into a historical context.