The H*Factor of AI

It’s a wrap! CRIC’s H*Factor conference has come to a close and we’ve bid farewell to friends and colleagues we may not have seen in years. But we’ve all left with so many intriguing thought nuggets and ideas for pushing the envelope in our own workplaces. Here are just a few of my favourite nuggets fromday two.

• Ryan Little and Jess Collins gave us a good reminder us that today’s AI today is the worst AI we’ll ever use. And, AI doesn’t replace our skills. Rather, it augments our skills allowing us to draw meaningful conclusions and bring our own expertise to the process.?
• Kelly Becker shared that AI should be considered a novice researcher that needs on the job training. It’s good at summarizing, responding to clear questions, and has great grammar and writing skills. People are still better with ambiguity, creating new connections, and figuring out the ‘so what.’
• Jas Jaaj shared that last year was all about AI experimentation whereas this year is about value creation, scaling up, building trust, and evolving your workforce to handle these changes. Given what AI can do, it is in fact rehumanizing our work, and giving us capacity to do the things that energize us, such as strategy and relationships.
• Based on real data shared during the conference, Steve Male and Margaret Chapman showed that with less ambiguous data, AI coding and analysis has high levels of accuracy, often in keeping with the error levels that human coders display. People still need to review the work but the accuracy, speed, and objectivity are impressive.
• Robert Allan and Hilary Borndahl shared that when they’re hiring junior researchers, they expect them to be aware of what AI can do and how it can be used, not necessarily that they can ‘do’ AI.
• Shawn Ashley reminded us that when we build models, we need to remember to operationalize all of our summary concepts so that training programs and evaluation metrics are specific to those concepts. “Listens to me” as a customer experience metric is not specific enough!
• Finally, and most importantly, Lisa Wright and Vijay Wadhawan shared results from a GRBN (Global Research Business Network) survey showing that Canadian researchers aren’t as happy as average Canadians about DEI efforts at work. Researchers are less likely to believe our company has diverse leadership and is committed to successful DEI programs. I hugely agree with an audience member who suggested that every company should include DEI processes in their MSAs just as we do for sustainability.

So many presenters shifted my thinking to a place I hadn’t considered before so I am grateful for their participation in the conference. Thank you, and I can’t wait to see what everyone brings to our conference next year! Happy learning!

-Annie Pettit