“And your change is four dollars,” the counterperson told Michael, and told it quite proudly. He had given her a twenty dollar bill and 21 cents in change to pay a bill of $11.21. “That’s not right,” he said. “Sure it is. You gave me the cents and I’m giving you change from your bill.” “But it wasn’t a fifteen dollar bill.” “Oh right…”
That was an exchange Michael had that came within twenty-four hours of his daughter telling him the story of her encounter with a barista/cashier when she could not figure out what to do with the $5.14 offered to satisfy a bill of $3.14. Instead of performing simple subtraction, her solution was to ask, “Don’t you have a card?”
Unfortunately, these are not isolated instances, and the title of this post notwithstanding, acts committed solely by the younger, and perhaps still uninitiated to life crowd. Michael recalls a time trying to make it easier for a busy booth owner at a farmers' market by including the cents total from his pocket change, saving the harried gardener from having to root through the cash box. The total announced was $15.76. He dug into the pocket and pulled out a twenty dollar bill and a penny. “What’s the penny for?” she asked, insisting she had been given too much money and would he you like another peach or cucumber. The exchange reminded Michael of the children’s story, “If give a mouse a cookie,” as it kept spiraling until he gave up and took his change in cucumbers.
Michael’s daughter’s explanation of her encounter was “I guess she didn’t have a Fisher Price cash register to play store with when she was a kid.” And a new thought was born. What do kids play and learn with today?
Our children are well beyond the Fisher Price years, but we remember the cash registers, vacuums, tool kits, and telephones. Today’s children’s toys are electronic devices and child size smart phones and tablets. Children from the start of that era are now entering the business world. Reliance on computers has moved beyond being a competent assistant for routine and repetitive tasks, to taking the part of a major player in the workforce, with the humans assigning the tasks.
As concerns for the role of artificial intelligence grow, the role of people as managers in the computer world is growing smaller. It starts when basic calculations like subtraction are left to computers and the world stops if the computer cannot provide the answer, or more likely when the human cannot input the proper information to secure the correct answer.
And do you know what? It’s not the fault of artificial intelligence. It’s not the fault of the people and company releasing machine and large language learning software. It’s not the fault of the young people who rely on computers and computer assistance. It’s our fault.
Yes, our fault. All of us. We have placed so little emphasis on basic life skills that we should not be surprised that cashiers cannot handle cash. When a child’s first toy was a Fisher Price vacuum cleaner, you raise a child who appreciates a clean house as an adult. When a chid’s first toy is a kid-size iPad, you raise a child who relies on computers to function as an adult.
We can do better. We can take the time to work with children and grandchildren so they learn the valuable assistance that electronics offer us, but that the technology is just that, an assistant. We can work with the younger members of our teams and in our workgroups introducing “down time” procedures and how they keep our minds sharp while we still allow computers to do the heavy mental lifting of the everyday tasks.
We are like everyone else. We use computers everyday. They are our search tools, our calculators, our word processors, and our entertainers. We can still make change from a twenty dollar bill and a penny because we were taught basic arithmetic and continue to use it. We cannot be upset by someone who cannot say what two and two are if they’ve not been taught that basic function. If we can be upset about anything, it is that those basic functions are not being reinforced with the reverence they deserve as the valuable reference and life skill that they are.
We must continue to emphasize the basics. Nobody should ever have to take their change in cucumbers.
What an understatement! Yes, we have been negligent of helping younger people learn real life skills that will set them up to live sans technology. It's going into a store to purchase an item to find that something has happened to the WiFi and they can't sell you anything because they don't know how to do it without tech. Basic functions for living--maybe not writing real checks but handling money and balancing what you have, budgets, dealing with simple math on a daily basis--have become a greater challenge than the glitches that strand us in Tech Neverland. Michael, I wish I could have seen that young person's face when they realized there's no such thing as a fifteen dollar bill.…