My granddaughter asked me about AI dealers. I told her that I have lived long enough to see people replaced by machines in every industry. Why not dealing.
A card dealer is a person who sits at a table and performs specific actions. Shuffle. Deal. Payout. Collect. These are mechanical actions repeated thousands of times. Machines are good at mechanical actions.
An AI dealer would be a computer program that displays as a person on screen. It would shuffle digitally. It would deal digitally. It would payout digitally. It would never make mistakes because it would not be tired or bored or distracted.
But dealing is not just mechanical. Dealing is relational. A real dealer develops relationships with players. A dealer remembers a player's name. A dealer offers sympathy on a bad beat. A dealer creates the impression that something human is happening, even though the outcome is determined by mathematics.
Would an AI dealer destroy this relationship. I think so.
When I go to the casino, I do not go for the mathematics. I know the mathematics are bad for me. I go for the atmosphere. For the feeling of being part of something human. A real dealer creates that feeling.
An AI dealer would be technically perfect and spiritually hollow.
The Business Case
But from a business perspective, the case for AI dealers is clear. An AI dealer works twenty-four hours without a break. An AI dealer does not require benefits or salary. An AI dealer never makes an error that costs the casino money. An AI dealer is more profitable than a human dealer.
Casinos exist to make money. If AI dealers make more money, casinos will use them. The human experience is secondary to the profit calculation.
Some casinos might market AI dealers as faster or more accurate. But most casinos would market them as just dealing. The player would not know the difference unless they were told.
Live dealer games would become fully automated. The only thing left would be the video feed. There would be a person-shaped object dealing cards. It would be a program.
Would this matter to players who have never experienced a real casino table. No. They would have no comparison. They would accept the AI as normal.
Would this matter to players who remember real dealers. Yes. They would feel the loss of something.
I have watched the world automate for sixty years. Drive-in movies became streaming services. Restaurants became delivery apps. The world becomes faster and more efficient and less human.
Casinos will follow this path. They will not resist. Profit is the only value system that matters in capitalism. If AI dealers are more profitable, AI dealers will exist.
But I wonder if something would be lost. The feeling of playing against another person. The recognition in a dealer's eyes. The small kindnesses that a human dealer extends to a player who is losing badly.
An AI would be programmed to extend kindness. But programmed kindness is not real. It is the shadow of kindness. It is kindness with no cost and no genuine feeling behind it.
I hope I do not live to see this fully automated. But I suspect I will. I am old. I have seen enough transitions to know which ones are coming. This one is coming.
