Typically, this time of year we look to the future, and the future of AI isn’t too bright for humans. I participated in a podcast on this topic earlier this month. OpenAI has released their template for AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) and while this makes it more likely that we will achieve AGI in the near term, this AGI construct will not help humans be better, but work towards replace them. The definition is that AGI represents highly autonomous systems that outperform humans in the most economically valuable work – benefiting all of humanity.
While the last four words seem to try to soften the “better” part of the definition, the conclusion would have to be that AGI, once it matures, will replace us and the “benefit” would be that we can no longer function because AGI is doing that work for us autonomously. If we don’t have something like universal basic income by then, there will be a lot of very bored unemployed homeless people. The Twilight Zone episode called “The Brain Center at Whipple’s” explored this outcome years ago, and it didn’t end well then either.
Let’s talk about where we need to focus AI so that this dire outcome doesn’t become inevitable in our future.
AI in HR
Staffing organizations are typically underfunded, and Human Resources (HR) is generally no exception. HR was conceived as an alternative to the Union, which allowed for employee care without creating the difficulties that Unions are designed to provide. When HR gets good, Unions are redundant. However, the recent growth of Unions is just one indication that HR has become largely a compliance organization and has little focus on creating a better place to work where employees know where they stand, understand what it will take to advance and problems with management are few and mostly solved fairly and equally.
Today AI is not focused on making people more productive at their jobs, ensuring work-life balance, or helping new workers fit into their new companies. AIs can be trained to provide guidance to workers on the retraining needed before the worker becomes obsolete, help them create a career path that better matches their interests and skills, and more effectively ensure a healthy work-life balance.
While employees should be encouraged to advance, today too often they feel that the work they do to advance is not appreciated and they do not understand that they are an integral part of their companies or how their contribution affects the performance of the firm. Thomas Watson Jr., often considered the real power behind IBM’s rise, would visit its factory sites and casually meet with relatively junior-level employees and ask them how they contributed to IBM’s goals. If they could not answer him with satisfaction, he did not penalize them; he penalized their leaders.
Artificial intelligence can provide the employee with a better view of their individual importance and thereby better inform the employee where their priorities should be if they want to progress. The same artificial intelligence can better inform management about employees who are achieving the most and point out those who are treading water and take credit for the efforts of others.
Rather than replacing humans, AI can be used to help people be more effective, more loyal, and have better lives at work and at home.
AI digital assistant
Agent AI is primarily being used to replace humans, such as in sales or customer support. But what should be prioritized is allowing employees to delegate tasks like filling out forms, creating status reports, quality assurance (like commenting code), and dealing with the wide variety of tedious tasks that must face every employee, which have little to do with the actual work product.
As a digital assistant, they can provide timely advice on decisions so that those decisions better meet the needs of the individual and the company. “
It is estimated that there will be about 7 levels of AIS agents; at least some of it should focus on helping employees improve and retrain so that they become and remain valuable contributors to the firm’s future.
Finishing
Like the old Twilight Zone Episode, AI is, in my opinion, too focused on providing monetary benefits by replacing rather than helping or complementing employees. If this trend continues, not only is quality likely to decline, but employee problems are likely to increase and the road, I believe, will eventually become unsustainable.
We need to start focusing AI on improving workers and in doing so better ensure the quality of the AIs that will be created while also improving working conditions for everyone. If we don’t, the AIs and workers will get into escalating conflict, which likely won’t end well for either the AIs or the humans, they move. Humans are the foundation for the future of AI, and unless we use AI to improve our humans, the future for both workers and AI is increasingly likely to be disastrous.
About the author: As President and Director
Enderle Group analyst Rob Enderle provides regional and global companies with guidance on how to establish credible market dialogue, target customer needs, create new business opportunities, anticipate technology changes, select vendors and products, and practice zero dollar marketing. For over 20 years Rob has worked for and with companies such as Microsoft, HP, IBM, Dell, Toshiba, Gateway, Sony, USAA, Texas Instruments, AMD, Intel, Credit Suisse First Boston, ROLM and Siemens.
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