The Awkward Foray into Tech

To imagine what the human-machine relationship may look like in the coming years, I’ve put together a list of six drivers I feel have the most impact. These are high-level drivers, and I am certain other professionals will have alternate ideas that make just as much sense. In the coming weeks, I will review each of the six drivers and talk about the potential impacts they could have on organizations. Organizations need to explore this relationship because with it will come challenges very similar to human-to-human relationship challenges. How we manage these challenges, however, may be very different.

This week’s driver is technology adoption. Every day another article appears highlighting some organization that has started to use some sort of new technology. In almost every industry, companies both big and small, government agencies, profit, and non-profit organizations you can see and feel the chaos of tech adoption. According to the World Economic Forum, “Over 85% of organizations surveyed identify increased adoption of new and frontier technologies and broadening digital access as the trends most likely to drive transformation in their organization”. A PWC survey found that 73% of US companies have already adopted AI. The survey indicated that “One year after ChatGPT hit the market, more than half of the companies surveyed (54%) had implemented GenAI in some areas of the business”. And it isn’t just AI. The global robot-to-human ratio in the manufacturing industry is 1 to 71. Industrial companies plan to invest 25% of their capital in industrial automation over the next five years. Needless to say, the writing is on the wall, humans are being force-fed technology and there aren’t any plans to slow down.

The adoption of this tech has been messy, to say the least. Most employees operate their existing systems on a sub-par level and now they are being asked to pivot and learn to work with a half-baked tool that may or may not make their jobs easier, and more efficient. On top of having to now learn how to operate the new tech with little to no training the fear of being replaced altogether looms in the back of their minds. We will cover this later. The picture, as you can see, is not pretty. For those of us who have experimented with AI, we can see the power behind the machine. The ideas for improvement are worthwhile and for some seem quite exciting. But going from an idea to a functioning process is not as easy as flipping a switch. The relationship between human workers and tech seems to be getting off to a rocky start.

Let’s start with an exploration of the baseline over the next ten years. Organizations will have implemented AI into at least two of their functions, most likely administrative tasks and customer service. The number of human workers who held those jobs previously has been cut in half. The remaining half of the employees now hold other jobs, some of which work with the tech that took their roles to run audits and make adjustments as necessary or to stand by as a backup when the system is unable to assist the customer fully. Manufacturing companies have more robots than humans. The technicians who are responsible for maintaining said robots are the largest department within most organizations. Researchers and those within education work side by side with AI-powered bots capable of running experiments and documenting outcomes. Our life is permeated with technology.

Large organizations that have the bandwidth have introduced a plethora of training options for their employees to help them adapt to the new technology. Mid-size companies, without the capital for a full training team, have started to partner with colleges in local communities to help their employees gain the skills necessary to operate the tech efficiently. Small organizations seem to leave their employees to figure it out on their own. It is a sink-or-swim situation, as it has always been within smaller companies.

Relationships between employees and tech are rocky. It is hard for the current workforce to learn new skills so quickly and it is almost impossible for inexperienced individuals to find work. Tech is easy to blame and thus the relationship is volatile. HR ends up with a desk full of complaints, managers are fielding employees’ frustrations daily, and some have even started to sabotage the technology. It isn’t all bad, however. Some have adapted well, excited about the changes and challenges that come with the new tech. They feel lucky to have a job and work hard to keep it that way. Some even begin to build personal relationships with the tech as if it were a human co-worker. Chatting by the cooler turns into online chats with your personal AI assistant. And when programs are decommissioned and replaced with others some feel as if there was a mass layoff and they’ve lost their work companion.

Imagine where we could go from here. As organizations continue to adopt technology whether that is in the form of AI or robots or whatever else is developed in the coming years, the ones that survive and thrive will be the ones that address the human side of change.

It is easy to imagine a collapse scenario. A world where either technology fails or humans revolt. A world where massive amounts of workers lose their jobs, the economy crashes, companies can’t survive because of the economy, they close their doors, and small human-driven start-ups begin to sprout up again. Maybe this isn’t a collapse for some, but I think we’ve all played out a similar narrative. The pandemonium created by a hodge podge of tech being thrown at the wall just to see what sticks ends up being the undoing of many organizations. With that, I won’t go into a collapse. Instead, I want to talk about transformation.

Remarkably, transformation, in my scenario, comes with a series of regulations. Restrictions put in place by governments or even through the market to aid in the ethical adoption of technology. Large tech companies have set up co-ops and laboratories for mid-size and smaller companies to come and experiment with the technology they are developing. It is a feedback loop that allows the tech companies the opportunity to adjust as needed before the deployment of version 2.0. The race to implement the latest and greatest tech has slowed to a steady drumbeat. Organizations have implemented tech into their processes, very similar to the baseline scenario. However, instead of replacing workers, they act as their virtual twin, freeing employees up to work on strategic and creative projects. If something happens, the human is there to interject immediately, still responsible for just as much work as they had before just with a bit of extra help.

The laboratories at some of these big tech giants make an excellent training facility. Most companies have signed up for a pretty cost-effective subscription allowing their employees regular access to the lab and the support that comes with it. Some employees can even test into expert-level classes that help catapult their careers into the tech space. Technicians learn how to maintain and update the robots that work throughout their facilities and can even join engineering teams in the development of new products. It ends up being quite economical for both the tech company and the organization paying for the service.

Because there is a feeling of safety and collaboration most employees are comfortable with the technology. Thanks to government programs, workers who are uncomfortable or just unable to perform with the tech are given opportunities elsewhere, where interaction with machines is limited. This isn’t a tech-laden utopia, however. There is still fear lingering and there are certainly still organizations that don’t play by the rules, pushing their tech to go beyond what has been established in the code of tech ethics. However, the general relationship between human employees and the tech they work with is one of partnership.

The introduction of technology into an organization is one of the most important changes leaders should be paying attention to. Organizations will not survive without the people helping to move them forward. They need buy-in from their people, trust that their jobs will be safe, and their voices will be heard. Pay attention to how this relationship is playing out in your organization. Those that do so will most certainly come out on top. ?

References:

Butts, Dylan. “AI Is the Talk of the Town, but Businesses Are Still Not Ready for It, Survey Shows.” CNBC, 6 Mar. 2024, www.cnbc.com/2024/03/06/generative-ai-holds-massive-potential-but-businesses-arent-ready-yet.html.

Cardillo, Anthony. “How Many Companies Use AI?” Exploding Topics, 4 Mar. 2024, explodingtopics.com/blog/companies-using-ai.

Howarth, Josh. “39+ Robotics Industry Stats & Trends (2023).” Exploding Topics, 15 Sept. 2023, explodingtopics.com/blog/robotics-industry-stats.

Hutson, Matthew. “How AI Is Being Used to Accelerate Clinical Trials.” Nature, vol. 627, no. 8003, 13 Mar. 2024, pp. S2–S5, www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00753-x, https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-00753-x.

PwC. “AI Predictions.” PwC, 2021, www.pwc.com/us/en/tech-effect/ai-analytics/ai-predictions.html.

World Economic Forum. “The Future of Jobs Report 2023.” World Economic Forum, 30 Apr. 2023, www.weforum.org/publications/the-future-of-jobs-report-2023/digest/.