Everywhere one goes, especially online, excuse the pun, one finds artificial intelligence.
That has always seemed an odd choice of words, with artificial suggesting such intelligence is lesser than normal intelligence, that stuff that traditionally came from our brains.
At a webinar last week, Neil Kirk, CEO of London & Regional Hotels, said AI should assist hoteliers, not rule them.
He added that very true but very tried expression that the hotel industry is a people industry, and people stay in hotels for the simpler pleasures.
If AI can help those simple pleasures, then that is the best scenario. Such technology that is hidden but working all the time to improve the time-tested delights of getting away from our routines or the improvements to a business trip that already has all the signs of being stressful and difficult.
AI should certainly help hoteliers from not being overwhelmed by the weight of subsequent AI legislation, regulation and best practices that have developed into a mini-industry of their own. In Europe, there is the AI Act, the Digital Services Act, the Data Act and the General Data Protection Regulation to name a few of the current and new acts that relate to privacy, security and data-handling.
AI has huge scope, and thus is needed a huge swath of legalese. It is enough to strain one’s eyes.
I say that as there is alarming news this week that the eyesight of children has become progressively worse due to and since COVID-19.
I think that has nothing to do with the virus itself or any repercussions but that everyone was at home and not allowed to go out, increasingly staring at small, rectangular screens of data or video all day.
The British Journal of Ophthalmology pooled together data and insights into children’s and adolescents’ eyesight between 1990 and today and extrapolated findings to make predictions, rather dire ones, through 2050. More than 250 studies involving almost 5.5 million youngsters from 50 countries spanning all six populated continents.
Its research published on Sept. 24 appears comprehensive and detailed, but as with any findings and conclusions, more questions and queries pop up than before.
The prevalence of bad eyesight is increasing — genetics do have an effect, researchers said, as does gender — with the prediction that by 2050 50% of teenagers would have eye issues, the report said.
Maybe AI has a huge role in getting us all away from staring at iPhones, Androids, iPads, laptop screens and even at traditional TVs. Or is to too late? Pandora's box can never now be sealed.
Could there be clever AI ways of making our eyes work better and be more healthy?
Perhaps we will be able to project movies a little distance away from the viewer, against the sky or the side of a building? Maybe closed groups of friends can watch it together and have that experience?
That sounds sci-fi, but I remember showing two school friends how my family’s new VCR worked, and there were audible gasps of wonderment and bafflement. I remember I was not allowed to watch it on my own.
Many people go to hotels to get away from technology, a lot of it being at their workplaces. There are hotels that have little or no technology, but everyone does — myself included — bring their devices with them to the check-in.
The bottom line is that the BJO’s conclusions point to the causes of this drop in good eyesight, and one of those is a decreased incidence of people being out of doors and exposed to natural light.
The BJO report added “it is crucial to recognize that myopia may become a global health burden in the future.”
Parents must be stubborn, committed and caring to be successful in limiting screen use, and I think AI and hoteliers have a part to play and a revenue opportunity here.
As someone who in the last year started to wear glasses — a number of decades after stopping being a teenager, I should add — for close-up reading purposes, I count my lucky stars that I have gone this long without having previous eye issues.