The adage may go, “if you want something done right, do it yourself,” but that’s no reason to micro-manage every corner of our lives. Beyond there just being no shortage of tasks where a professional’s expertise is required, we are living in the days of the modern gig economy, and whether you need a ride across town or someone to pick up some groceries for you, apps place you just a few taps away from connecting with someone ready to help.
There’s also another option that’s becoming increasingly available to us, and instead of hiring another person to complete tasks, there are more and more things where AI is interested in helping out directly. But just how comfortable are you with handing over the reins to an algorithm?
We’ve all seen plenty examples of embarrassing AI failures, like when a system is used to summarize information, whether that’s web searches, news headlines, or our latest notifications, and gets those summaries wildly wrong. At least that’s reasonably low stakes, and it’s usually pretty easy for us to spot when the AI is “hallucinating.” Are experiences like that enough to turn you off from trusting AI to complete tasks that are a little more consequential in our lives?
Products like the Rabbit R1 have billed themselves as versatile AI assistants, able to do things like order food delivery on our behalf. This era of “agentic” AI is only just getting started, and you had better believe that over the course of 2025 we’re going to be hearing a whole lot more about AI doing things like scheduling appointments for us, or even finding and booking the best flights for an upcoming trip.
You’ve probably seen enough AI demonstrations to understand that this sort of thing is totally doable… if everything manages to go right. Both humans and AI models are capable of making mistakes, and forming false assumptions, but are they equally good at catching them, and course correcting in time? That’s a very good question, and one where it doesn’t feel like AI is quite on the winning side just yet. Sure, performance is getting better all the time — but how good is it going to have to be before you’re willing to rely on it?
Would you trust an AI to book your flights or buy your groceries?
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Lots of us rely on AI for recommendations about things like which new music artist should we listen to — but are you equally willing to take AI’s advice when it comes to new foods to check out? New places to visit? It’s a complicated balance of stakes, and with AI performance changing by the day, not one that’s likely going to present obvious answers for all of us in every situation.
But that doesn’t mean that plenty of us aren’t also interested in being early adopters, and really pushing these system to see just where they can pick up a little bit of the slack in our lives. Are you a member of team “AI, take the wheel,” or are you happy to keep doing things the old way and have someone else worry about getting a surprise DoorDash delivery that’s just four dozen shallots? Chime in with our poll, or explain yourself in detail down in the comments.
