AI and the Future of Work

I remember it as if it was yesterday when I first got on the internet over 25 years ago. I was in my college dorm, I turned on my Dell Computer and connected to Netscape with that bing dial-up sound that lasted minutes until, finally, I was transported into a whole new world of endless websites. I didn't even have Yahoo as a search engine set up but I could navigate our university library and review vast amounts of books and articles online. Academic research was forever transformed. Then came endless emails, the e-commerce revolution, Google ́s powerful search, and social media connecting us beyond our dreams (for better or worse), and we mutated into these digital human hybrids with our cell phones.

We are experiencing a déja vu moment with artificial intelligence (AI). Just as with the internet, we know that what comes next will be different. With the introduction of generative AI through ChatGPT, we are entering a new technological disruption that will forever change how we work, write, brainstorm, think  — almost everything. Are we prepared for this new digital tsunami?

Why This Time Is Different

Artificial intelligence has been around for decades but has now taken us by surprise with its readily available and potent predictive power in a familiar voice. So why is it different this time? With generative AI, the new subset of artificial intelligence, the technology works by learning from patterns and examples in existing data. It studies thousands of images, texts, or sounds to understand how they relate to each other. You get an output sourced from a huge amount of information that is returned in a very human-sounding language. This is the lightbulb moment where everything seems to have changed, which probably explains why ChatGPT acquired 1 million users in only five days. 

Where Will Much of the Disruption Happen?

According to Tomer Cohen, Chief Product Officer at LinkedIn and Stanford professor of a course on AI, this new technology will have vast implications for many industries, companies, and job roles. Below are a couple of use cases he used to illustrate its transformative power and company examples I added:

Use case: Personalized Marketing and Customer Engagement – AI marketing campaigns

Generative AI can create personalized advertisements tailored to individual consumers. By analyzing customer data, AI  can create personalized content and increase the effectiveness of marketing campaigns. Google just announced its plans to apply generative AI to create innovative ads based on materials used by human marketers. 

Use Case: Financial Services – AI scoring for financial products.

The predictive power of AI comes into play with how the Mexican startup Yalo leverages WhatsApp to interact with customers. By applying generative AI with language processing they can ask customers via WhatsApp about their purchasing experiences and apply credit scoring to assess their credit worthiness. 

What Are the Risks in Terms of Jobs? 

Bloomberg reported that the CEO of IBM, Arvind Krishna, announced that he expects to pause hiring for roles he thinks will be displaced by AI in the coming years. He is particularly focusing on back office roles, such as human resources, that could total over 7,800 jobs lost over the next five years. The Future of Jobs Report 2023 (WEF) estimated that 23% of jobs will change by 2027 with the creation of over 69 million jobs and the elimination of 83 million jobs. 

Beyond jobs at risk, there is a serious concern that AI can pose grave societal risks. Just recently in the New York Times, leaders in the AI movement from OpenAI, Google DeepMind and other AI labs have come forward stating that with the accelerated pace of advancements we have seen in the past six months, “AI might one day pose an existential threat to humanity.” They warned policymakers that AI regulation is critical to put in the necessary safeguards to mitigate this risk. 

How Can We Better Prepare?

At a recent Future of Work with AI conference, CEO Gabriela Ceballos from Hitch, the HR tech startup that applies AI and machine learning for recruiting, stated that upskilling teams will be essential to be prepared in the AI universe. ”Doing a thorough diagnosis on the current capabilities and gaps will help us ensure we get our teams up to speed on AI,” Gabriela said.d.

But let’s be clear, for the non-tech people reading this, you don’t need to go and take a coding class, but you do have to start understanding how to translate the practical application of these new tools. You can start by applying business use cases for your department or business with AI, define your objective or problem to solve, predict something and test it with the right AI tool.  

The next time you use a product, think of how AI is empowering your experience, from the movies you watch on Netflix to the products you choose on Amazon. As for jobs, the impact of AI on the future of work is undeniable. While automation may replace certain routine tasks, it also creates new opportunities. Understanding these dynamics and adapting to the changing landscape will be crucial for individuals and organizations to thrive in the AI-driven future. 

FYI: A section of this article was written by ChatGPT. Can you tell the difference?