Image by Author | Canva
What is the first thought that comes to your mind when you think of AI? As part of my global roadshow, I received varied responses to this question in my conversations with people across all different walks of life — from business owners to real estate agents to digital marketing experts to technology leaders. Strangely, the responses were categorically similar: AI is dangerous. For some, danger is the scenario of “robots taking over the world,” while for others AI is out to take humanity’s jobs.
However, is AI truly responsible for anything good or bad that can happen to our society? Or is it a tool, like any other, it depends on how we utilize it.
This article is an effort to shed some light on how AI is shaping the future of work, and to help address those fears that are rooted in “unknowns” rather than in reality.
Past to Present
Throughout history, many technological advancements have stirred similar fears and resistance. Most feared that the onset of the industrial revolution would replace human labor. Then the rise of personal computers and the internet induced anxiety, with people fearing that increasing the role and efficiency of machines would impact jobs.
However, these innovations have ultimately created net new opportunities than they replaced. AI, often seen as the culmination of decades of technological progress, is no different in this regard. The caveat is that the speed at which AI is evolving and the genres of roles it is able to replace are no more limited to automation of repetitive tasks — they’re quickly expanding to areas once thought uniquely human, such as content creation, customer service, and decision-making.
This raises a legitimate question: where does this leave us?
Transforming Workplaces
I have been to several conferences this year and witnessed how AI is embedded into almost every industry.
For example, robots have become a common sight on production lines in manufacturing. Not only do they perform tasks faster but also with greater precision. Similarly, AI algorithms learn patterns to contextualize and recommend which assets a user should buy to optimize their investment portfolio. Healthcare professionals now use AI for diagnostics, drug discovery, and even patient care. How you make a purchase at retail outlets has changed too. You have an AI agent to help you every step of the way.
On the one hand, there are news agencies announcing redundancies attributed to efficiencies, while on the other hand, industry veterans are seen advocating how AI is augmenting humans instead of displacing their jobs. This is certainly confusing for most. So, here is a practical response that may help clear the air: The reality is somewhere in between.
Yes, there are several AI tools and applications that have made it surprisingly easy for anyone to do many tasks by themselves that would not have been possible even recently. In other words, all you need to know is how to intelligently prompt these models to get a baseline version of the expected output.
However, the quality of those outputs can not be consumed as-is and requires a human expert to vet that response, be it the marketing copy or the data analysis. Therefore, in essence, most AI tools are being used to brainstorm ideas, create a boilerplate, and write that first version of code, but the accountability of taking that response to a workable professional version still lies with the domain expert.
Consider another example of AI-driven diagnostic tools that can provide recommendations and analysis to doctors, aiding them in making more accurate decisions, but the role of doctors that comes with years of medical training is still crucial. By taking over routine tasks, AI is increasingly allowing experts to focus on higher-value, strategic work. For instance, accountants may spend less time reconciling spreadsheets and more time advising clients on financial strategy.
New World of Optimism
Following up on our previous examples of how AI is augmenting human intelligence, one thing is clear: some roles that were largely focussed on repetitive tasks have been easily delegated to AI. Yet new roles such as generative AI architect, prompt engineer, AI ethicist, policy expert, and AI product managers have gained prominence. In fact, I have also spoken at length about the role of Chief AI Officers who are responsible for ensuring AI is developed to benefit humanity.
There is No Off Switch
The biggest concern for many is that the rate of such technological changes is faster than the rate at which human experts have been able to retrain themselves. A workforce trained for yesterday’s jobs may find it difficult to adapt to AI-centric roles without substantial upskilling. For example, truck drivers might worry about self-driving vehicles and their fear is valid.
This reminds me of how Swedish furniture conglomerate Ikea beautifully handled such a transition. They adopted a truly innovative approach to business growth: in order to enhance customer service through effective query handling and personalized experience, they launched an AI bot, named Billie. It catered to increasingly routine customer queries. Now, you must be wondering what happened to the customer care agents. Rather than displacing its 8500 call center employees, IKEA invested in their upskilling and transformed them into interior design advisors.
Amazing, right? Their success story doesn’t end there: those interior design consultations led to $1.4 B in sales.
A cautious and well-informed perspective to look at AI is to not consider it a competitor, but a collaborator, and one which can help us solve existing problems much more efficiently while sparing us the time to think of those “unthinkable” problems that are awaiting our time and attention to create a better future for us all.
Vidhi Chugh is an AI strategist and a digital transformation leader working at the intersection of product, sciences, and engineering to build scalable machine learning systems. She is an award-winning innovation leader, an author, and an international speaker. She is on a mission to democratize machine learning and break the jargon for everyone to be a part of this transformation.