00:00:00
Dan Loney: I was gonna ask you
whether or not there's a permanence to this concept that they have, or
whether or not there's a
00:00:06
fluidity to it. And it almost
seems like maybe there's a little bit of both that companies have
to have in this mix.
00:00:13
Cait: Yeah. It's funny. If you look at a lot of
company websites, they'll— especially
00:00:17
in healthcare, pharmaceuticals—
to a lesser extent, some other industries— you're gonna see the
word dignity. It's gonna come
00:00:23
up. they built it into their
stated purpose. I think that— and so they have— they've taken it
on as something that they
00:00:30
permanently want to pursue. But
then this— the next step, which is systematically building
it into everything— the patient,
00:00:37
the physician, the caregiver
experiences— that, that is the connection that's only partially
made. Another thing that's fluid
00:00:45
about it is that it may have to
change across cultures. So we've done some work where we've
looked at, for example, what
00:00:53
dignity means for people who are
in Nigeria, as opposed to people who are in India, as opposed to people
00:00:57
who are in the United
States. And in India and the US, it's fairly similar.
It has a lot to do with being
00:01:03
seen and heard. And having
agency. You see those things come up over and over again. Our
Nigerian respondents, though,
00:01:09
talked a lot more about being
treated fairly as part of a group, because their group
identity was extremely
00:01:17
important. We also found that
Indian— or, I'm sorry, consumers in the US were, of the three
groups, the least sensitive to
00:01:26
the affirmation of dignity. And
if you affirm their dignity, in some cases, they actually think—
they actually feel like, "Okay,
00:01:32
if you— if you respect me, I'm
going to ask for even more from you." Which, you know, could be
an opportunity for firms to grow
00:01:39
too. But our consumers from
other regions sometimes said, "If you respect me, I might give you
some grace. If I don't get
00:01:49
everything I want." So there's a
substitute and a compliment relationship that may be fluid
across
00:01:54
different kinds of markets. And so there's probably also
kind of multiple reactions that
00:02:00
you will get from the consumer.
In certain cases, if you don't deliver, there are going to be
some consumers that are going to
00:02:06
be mad, they'll go away from the
company, you know, they'll they'll have a big negative
impact. But as you said, some
00:02:11
may have a little bit of anger
or angst towards the firm. Yeah, there can definitely be
heterogeneity. What I'll say is,
00:02:20
on average, I don't think you
make anything worse. Especially if you— if you incorporate
agency. So if you, early on in
00:02:30
the process, say to consumers,
"Listen, we can allow you a lot of choice and a lot of control.
Or we can— we can, you know, help
00:02:36
you out more along the way?
Which would you prefer?" "Oh, look." Now, you know, somebody
can say, "Listen, I don't want to
00:02:42
think about everything, I don't
want all the choice." And you just simply send them down one
pathway or other. Now we may get
00:02:48
to a point where AI will
actually be able to tell who are the people who value agency at
every step, and who are the
00:02:54
people that are happier to have
a more supportive experience. But right now, it's also not a
hard thing to do to ask. And people
00:03:01
tend to be able to self report
this kind of thing. So you talk about the next step
in the process and potentially
00:03:07
being around AI. And obviously,
we're learning so much about how AI is going to be impacting what
we do on a daily, weekly,
00:03:14
monthly basis. I guess most
companies are already starting to think about so many things
about AI, including this
00:03:21
component as well.
- Yeah, there's a big movement that has—
that's focused on data dignity. And
00:03:28
these folks are pointing out
again that representation, which is one of these three
pieces of dignity, also means not
00:03:34
being seen when you don't want
to be seen. Which would mean, "I don't want to be included in
that data set that's used to
00:03:40
predict everyone's preferences."
Or certainly, we would want our data to be used in ways that we
feel good about. You know,
00:03:50
otherwise, What's basically
happening is our voice is being co-opted by a firm. And people
do not like that experience. So
00:03:57
I think, too, there— there'll be
regulations about that that will be— that will slowly work their
way through the courts. But we
00:04:05
do need to be sensitive to the
way that consumers are seen and heard. And the extent to which
they begin to feel that their
00:04:13
control is— is being eroded by
the way that artificial intelligence is used to connect
with them. You know, when we
00:04:22
connect with a person, I think
we're all very aware that at the end of the day, we get to walk
away. But if everywhere we go in
00:04:28
the environment, there is some
AI reaching out to us, we lose agency. And so we would probably—
we're going to have to learn a
00:04:35
lot about how to— how to use that
in a way that doesn't make humans feel as though they're
devalued relative to technology.
00:04:42
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