Why AI in the Workscape is No Bad Thing
With extensive research and analysis from Oxford University indicating that 47% of jobs are at risk of becoming automated within the next 20 years, it’s no surprise that AI’s rapid advances have been met with some consternation of late – countless think pieces and headlines have focused around the notion of humans becoming redundant in the workscape.
It’s natural to feel some concern – after all, AI’s already become part of our daily lives. Whether we’re being informed that there’s an “unexpected item in bagging area” at the self-checkout, or being greeted with a “Hi there! How can I help?” pop-up while we’re browsing online, interacting with AI has become commonplace – and even complex jobs, such as surgeries, are becoming roboticised, with Fortune Magazine reporting that 1 in 3 US surgeries are expected to be performed by robots within the next 5 years.
But AI is something which businesses should embrace, not fear – those who are quickest to adapt to AI’s introduction will be the first to benefit from the unique advantages it can bestow. In the words of Tom Dietterich, professor and Director of Intelligent Systems at Oregon State University; “AI and human cooperation is an area with tremendous potential […] AI will work its way into our lives in big ways working with people”. In other words, by joining together, machines and humans can achieve things that neither could achieve alone – and Dietterich predicts a future in which we all have our own smart assistant, which we would train as we learn and be jointly employed together.
There’s no doubt that AI have capacities which humans don’t – flawless organisation and data storage skills, unflappability, efficiency, the ability to reliably process and sort huge amounts of data in an incredibly short time-frame. These qualities are invaluable in business – not least because of the consistency afforded by AI. While a human worker will inevitably get bored or distracted at various points during monotonous tasks, a robot will give the same quality and exactitude whether they’ve been working on a task for an hour or for three days’ straight – something that few humans can achieve.
Conversely, despite advances in AI which allow innovations such as Pepper the Humanoid Robot to communicate and even identify emotions, even humanoid robots cannot emulate human creativity – and the Oxford University research mentioned above concluded that jobs which require creativity and social intelligence are least likely to be replaced by machines, meaning that AI has the potential to essentially liberate us from the most mundane aspects of our jobs, while leaving us free to innovate, strategize, create and interact, and supplying a limitless pool of infallible information and analysis to draw upon.
Collaboration between humans and machines has the potential to profoundly transform our working lives for the better – so there’s no need to worry about being replaced. Instead, imagine a future in which your AI assistant takes control of your most burdensome tasks – leaving you free to focus on what interests you most.