Microsoft have been running an advertising campaign for their AI-powered digital assistant Copilot featuring a character called Carmen who is a long-standing member of her office and, as such, is endlessly consulted for advice by all her younger colleagues.

The script of the advert runs roughly as follows:

–

Carmen’s been here 20 years.

Carmen knows everything, which is why Carmen has to help with everything.

“Carmen, quick question, is that the right logo?”

“Do I pitch this?”

“Who owns the Nordic account?”

“Who should be in this meeting?”

“Where’s the final deck?”

But today, Carmen has had enough.

So, she shows them Work IQ and Copilot.

Now everyone can find the answers.

And Carmen can get back to her actual job.

–

But what is Carmen’s actual job?  In practice, it is showing all her younger colleagues how to do their jobs.  But Copilot has rendered that role no longer necessary.  So Carmen no longer has a job.  Copilot has made her redundant.  Or, if not redundant, it has taken away all the sense of satisfaction she must have experienced in her job when she was able to advise all her younger colleagues how to do their jobs.

Whatever else AI might be able to do, one thing that it consistently fails at miserably is being able to empathise with the complexities of human psychology.

What I am calling the Carmen Conundrum was more succinctly illustrated thirty years beforehand by those masters of human psychology, Graham Linehan and Arthur Mathews in the 1996 Christmas special of Father Ted – A Christmassy Ted.

The scene is a large department store where Mrs Doyle is watching a salesman demonstrate the latest labour-saving device, an automated tea-making machine called the Tea Master.

The salesman’s final pitch is that the Tea Master:

“…takes the misery out of making tea.”

Mrs Doyle fixes him with a baleful gaze, before replying:

“Maybe I like the misery.”

© Simon Turner-Tree

Simon Turner-Tree has to admit that sometimes he quite enjoys the misery of the office.