Not really human
When Apple released the Macintosh, it showed you a literal desktop. Files sat in folders, and you could throw them in the trash. On the iPhone, your notes went on a yellow notepad, in a handwriting font. Nobody wants to learn a whole new world, so new technology borrows one people already understand: a mental model.
For AI, the mental model of a person was almost impossible to avoid. Language is the most human thing we have, so it doesn't matter if you put AI in a chat box, behind a dashboard or inside your glasses. People look for the “person” behind it. Right now, everybody seems to be building AI agents and AI employees, because a person is the easiest model to understand.
But a desktop isn't really a desk, and an AI isn't really a person. It almost feels like one. But not exactly. And the spots where this model doesn't fit are where the problems come from. They are what makes AI scary to regular people. You think you understand what’s going on, and then you don’t. AI makes a promise it doesn’t hold, hallucinates, or hits one of the tasks where it’s just not that good yet. Predicting where the “person model” will slip is not intuitive.
At Inkolega, we are trying to build the architecture that makes it the easiest to work with AI. And for now, that means covering the spots where the “person model” slips.
In 2013, Apple got rid of the yellow notepad. Once people were on board, Apple didn’t need to borrow mental models anymore. They created their own.
Will AI ever drop the person model? If so, what might its own mental models look like? Those are the questions we’re ultimately trying to answer, one business at a time.