2 min readDespite having constant access to at least three messaging devices, I am terrible at group chats. I love my friends, and I am fond of talking to them - unless more than ten messages have rolled in in quick succession. After that, I’m out. I’m already packing my backpack full of cheese and bread, and trekking into the hinterlands to begin my life of solitude.
Our gadgets give unfettered access to talk to others about the most mundane moments of our lives. Some people thrive in this dynamic, but not me. If anything, communications technology has made it harder for me to really connect with people. I don’t want to talk about the bird you saw, or the weird thing your door handle is doing, I want you to tell me what makes your soul hurt. That isn’t usually great fodder for the group chat, and plus you’ve got to meet people where they are. Chatter is important, even if it happens in hard-to-manage bursts.
Yet just as technology taketh away, it gives back. Lately Apple’s AI notification summaries have become the hero of these chats. Rather than facing the barrage of messages, quietly reproducing behind the darkness of my screen, Apple delivers me the headline. Like all headlines, it is enough to give me the gist of what I missed. It is just enough information to tear through the usual overwhelm a multitude of messages sears into my brain, and get me to just click in and do the friendly thing - actually respond.
That might seem like a surmountable task to many people, but it isn’t to me. Hefty group chats feel like a loud room where everyone is frantically talking over one another with increasing intensity. I wasn’t built to endure 24/7 contact with fifty or so people at once, and I would hazard a guess there are others also under construction.
At this juncture, I’m calling AI summaries an accessibility tool. It is a piece of technology that makes it easier for people to use their devices in ways uniquely for them. They’re not perfect, but they remove a barrier in a similar way that alt text, and increasing font size does.
Are these summaries always accurate? No. Do they sometimes dangle the lead and give me my own personalised clickbait? Yes. For professional use I would criticise these kinds of results, but for keeping up with nonsense chatter it is almost perfectly suited. Non-coherent, string of consciousness proclamations thrown into the void aren’t made worse by AI derision, in a sense it just mirrors the chaos within the chat.
