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Summary
AI is being embedded into the apps we already use. Fortunately, so is guidance on how to use
It was sometime in 1995 when my family decided to take away my beautiful pistachio-green Hermes butter-smooth typewriter and replace it with a computer. I stared at the Pentium-something in horror. It stared back at me. Some C:\> thing was blinking expectantly…
My brother gave me a whack. "Well, do something!" he said.
I had no idea what I was supposed to do. It was rather a long time later that I was able to show off the use of incomprehensible DOS and Lynx commands that made things happen on that gaping black screen. Back then, being tech savvy made you ‘one of the boys’. Know-how came from hanging around ‘tech gurus’ and trying to get through Windows 3.11 for Dummies.
Today, the dynamic has completely changed. Instead of users trying to speak computerese, it’s the machine that is working overtime to speak human. While that’s disconcerting, it has its uses.
No judgement
There was a certain shame in being young and not knowing how to look cool when faced with your PC’s ‘blue screen of death’ and other operating system tantrums. Today, there's no judgment. Then, if you didn’t know how to use technology, something was a bit wrong with you. Now, if you don’t know how to use technology, there’s something wrong with the technology. The AI, which is becoming the interface for everything, is only too happy if you don’t know how to do something. Without an invitation, it will step in and offer help with a persistent eagerness. The stupid question is dead.
A chatbot or AI app isn’t going to judge a user for asking a question repeatedly. It isn’t going to baulk at rephrasing something in easier words or supplementing it with images. Even for the most obvious things, the chat assistant would never say something like ‘Well, if you look again, you’ll see the answer is quite simple’. Instead, it will actually offer up the next obvious question itself, making sure to cover every angle, though we all know it’s to keep you using the app.
You can even ask a chatbot about its own features and just ask, "How do I use you?" Or show me how to use your top features. It’s just that new users don’t know this as they’re too wary of trying in the first place.
Going live
All the popular chatbots have a Live mode that new users are hesitant to use, for fear they’ll do something wrong or even broadcast something out to the internet if they’re not careful. It’s an underrated capability. The voice mode is like a private phone call that allows for natural, hands-free dialogue. The AI persona is constantly refined to be more human, even detecting the user’s tone and adapting.
Using these modes and the camera pointed at a problem, one can ask anything, including learning how to use the tech itself. A screen-sharing function lets one ask questions about what is currently on the screen and be guided step-by-step on how to use a feature.
AI everywhere
I recently met a group of people who were keen to understand AI, but in a safe and easy way. Some were unaware of what a chatbot was and why one should be using LLMs at all. The fear of AI use proving too technically challenging, new privacy issues, and the sheer noise of the AI revolution have left many frozen in place. They feel like they’ve missed the first few chapters of a very long book and now can’t find their place. But the reality is that AI onboarding isn’t happening in a classroom or through a manual; it’s happening through osmosis in the apps we already use. It’s going to be difficult not to use AI, which means AI literacy is more important than ever.
Take Google Maps. It used to be a digital version of a paper atlas. Today, it’s a conversational layer. You don't program a route; you ask for a scenic way home with a coffee stop.
In Chrome, the browser isn't just a window; it’s a researcher offering to summarize a dense report before you’ve even scrolled past the headline. In Gmail, the 'Help me write' button is a persistent, eager nudge. By embedding AI into the tools we already trust, the learning curve has been flattened into a straight line.
The 'tech guru' hasn't vanished; they’ve just changed their robes. In the Windows 3.11 era, the guru was a priest who knew the secret incantations to keep the hard drive from screaming. Today’s guru is the person who knows how to phrase a request so the machine doesn't hallucinate. We’ve traded the 'how-to' manual for the 'how-to-ask' guide.
Looking back at 1995, that blinking C:\> prompt was a wall—a binary interrogation that demanded I meet it on its own cold terms. If my brother were to give me a whack today and tell me to "do something", I wouldn't stare in horror. I’d simply tell the device what I wanted, in my own language, and watch it catch up.
The New Normal: The world is at an inflexion point. Artificial intelligence (AI) is set to be as massive a revolution as the Internet has been. The option to just stay away from AI will not be available to most people, as all the tech we use takes the AI route. This column series introduces AI to the non-techie in an easy and relatable way, aiming to demystify and help a user to actually put the technology to good use in everyday life.
Mala Bhargava is most often described as a ‘veteran’ writer who has contributed to several publications in India since 1995. Her domain is personal tech, and she writes to simplify and demystify technology for a non-techie audience.
English (US) ·