The intersection of AI and People

?Introduction

We need to look at the intersection between people, technology and (process)work, with the major aim to find areas where the technology architecture and human requirements produce potential risks. The ability to do this relies on the employees corporate wisdom to crystallize an understanding of how the integration of artificial intelligence will affect the relationship between them, your company policies, human resources, training, and security metrics.

It is more important than ever to identify the repercussions that the integration of artificial intelligence will bring to your processes, operational requirements, training, human resources, and the company in general. These findings are necessary BEFORE AI is fully integrated so that changes can be made to ensure the ROI is achieved through the cooperative human element needed to ensure success.

The move to AI began more than 20 years ago

AI is the next step in the movement towards the simplification myth (see my other newsletters) that began with the advent of development tools like Agile, the reduction of business analysts in corporations, and a desire for rapid implementation has led to shortcuts in proven design process that include; task analysis, guidelines, verification and validation studies, input from employees at all levels, identification/ implementation of training, and the interconnected effects to the rest of the organization.

In addition to the changes in development mentioned above, companies have been collecting data and digitizing documents and knowledge for decades. Think of the amount of time:

• Google has spent digitizing every street and location across the globe, as well as our driving habits, locations and destinations
• Meta (Facebook), Twitter and other social media companies have been collecting data about our social lives
• Products like Siri have been listening to our conversations and keeping track of what we search for
• Microsoft and the amount of information we offered up over the decades with our searches
• Companies have spent moving all our knowledge to the cloud
• Universities and research institutes have spent putting their research on the web.

Is there any wonder that products like ChatGPT, Bard and so many more have come to the public now! The movement towards started more than 20 years ago and is now entering its next stage.

Over simplification has made the human factors less critical

The companies involved in AI want you to buy into the myth that AI is not as capable as it really is...They don’t think you can handle the truth. They are oversimplifying what AI can do so that we can feel comfortable with it and not ask too many questions. This is rationalized by management because AI integration is transformation and adaptation, they feel that telling employees part of the story will allow the change to happen in a phased approach for some, while a complete transformation for others.

Oversimplification leads to a reduced understanding of capabilities, reduces of innovation by only looking at technology as a supplement of human activity. AI will create re-work by people due to a general law of adaptive systems, that every system will be stretched to operate at its capacity; as soon as there is some improvement, it will be exploited by management to achieve a new level of productivity that will have adverse affects on human factors.

AI will create new ways of doing things, don’t fall into the trap of thinking it is a simple replacement of what people do. In most cases, it will not keep the old way of doing business (i.e. people), rather it substitutes new technology (AI) that will improve processes that require adaption by employees, and higher expectations of performance from everyone.

The impact on people...Human Factors

No matter what the industry or level of employee, there will be an impact on process and cognitive actions. Some people will excel at the change in routine, others will be unhappy at the potential change in goals, and others will look at the change as an opportunity for advancement through, new role development. Corporate entrepreneurs know that people adapt to achieve goals and avoid failure.

Performance pressures on the overall system for greater efficiency or throughput tend to push employees’ to level-set the performance metrics rather than embracing the benefits of the changes. As a result, surprises occur in the form of new ways of failing to meet KPI’s and other metrics. This is just one of the many negative side effects of an AI integration that did not utilize the S.M.A.R.T Platform when designing the new system.

Management must identify:

1. How the AI integration and process changes, which increase demands and create new complexities that affect the interconnected departments, policies, and people.
2. Areas that are experiencing re-work, additional process steps, or elongated time frames caused by the inefficient use or lack of knowledge of the new technology and process changes.
3. The complexities and adaptations used to overcome unintended side effects of the AI integration and process design.
4. The adaptations and modification employees make to hide the issues from management and developers after-the-fact, who mistakenly judge all failures to be due to human error

Conclusion

Given the dynamics of AI integration in this era of rapidly changing technological possibilities, success will come to those who can see and navigate through the transformations, changing roles, and the kind of impact it will have on human factors.

Identifying, understanding, and utilizing the unseen dynamics of human factors and impact on any AI integration sits at the intersection of traditional business approach and a business approach designed for the future. Coping with the dynamic, co-evolutionary processes of AI technology and the work environment accentuates the need for human Factors to become an integral component of qualitative analysis through observing variations of change and the level of complex adaptive capabilities. Observing and documenting this data allows an understanding of how workplace change and AI advances transforms cognitive and collaborative demands, as well as, how they will adapt to those changes. These observations and documentation can be analyzed to create process improvements, reduce security vulnerabilities, and develop training that addresses the dynamics of the identified change, risk, and adaptation quotient.

PODCASTS:

• ?The transition of corporate decision-making to AI: https://the-corporate-entrepreneur.simplecast.com/episodes/the-transition-of-corporate-decision-making-to-technology
• Cyber security and human factors: https://the-corporate-entrepreneur.simplecast.com/episodes/cyber-security-human-factors-a-comprehensive-approach
• AI... it will change your life and your work: https://the-corporate-entrepreneur.simplecast.com/episodes/aiit-will-change-your-life-and-your-work-environment