AI: The Future is already here

Over the past 12 months, generative artificial intelligence (AI) technology has been cited as everything ranging from the greatest invention in history to the potential catalyst for the downfall of humanity.

Despite the uncertainty and unpredictability still shrouding AI’s future, its impact is already being felt as businesses in almost every industry are using AI to drive increases in workforce productivity and to cut costs.

Dominick Romano, Founder of AI operating system drainpipe.io, says, “Many of our Fortune 1,000 customers have already started rethinking their company structure, making new divisions for ethical deployment and oversight of AI across departments in the organization.”

This growing adoption of AI in business has ignited one of the biggest concerns about the technology: If AI can do a person’s job faster, more accurately, and for a tiny fraction of the cost, how long will it be before AI completely replaces humans?

Elon Musk is one tech leader who believes this will happen sooner or later. At a November 2023 AI Safety and Security Summit in London, the Tesla CEO said, "There will come a point where no job is needed. You can have a job if you want one, for personal satisfaction, but AI will do everything.”  And the World Economic Forum estimates that AI will replace 85 million jobs by 2025.

At first glance, such predictions paint a bleak picture for the future. But many AI innovators and industry leaders are confident that, contrary to Musk’s assertions, the workplace we know today will evolve to become more of a collaborative environment for humans and AI.  

Assisting and Augmenting Humans

One of the primary benefits of AI is that it can automate or accelerate almost any task, drastically increasing a human’s efficiency and productivity. This is where businesses may be able to gain the most value from the technology.

Susan Sly, CEO and Founder of The Pause Technologies, an AI-powered real-time data analytics platform, notes that in every organization, there are tedious, repetitive jobs that few people want to do and where employee retention is often low.

“What if AI can help to reduce – or eliminate, in some cases – the mundane work, so we can truly help people develop their gifts that actually benefit an organization?” she asks.

Research by McKinsey supports the concept of AI empowering humans rather than replacing them. A report estimated that generative AI is likely to enhance existing roles in the STEM, creative, business, and legal professions, instead of eliminating a large number of jobs outright. This may be because another key benefit of this human augmentation is that it will free up time for more creative and strategic thinking and higher value work.

AI as Job Creator

McKinsey estimated an increase of 23% in the demand for STEM jobs by 2030, despite recent layoffs in the tech sector. The longer-term demand for tech talent across all sectors is likely to increase as businesses continue to digitize. This research also determined the biggest future demand for workers will be in the healthcare sector, with around 3.5 million more healthcare jobs set to become available in the coming years.

OpenAI founder Sam Altman has predicted that AI will take some jobs away from humans entirely, but that it will also create new, better jobs as well. While it’s not surprising that one of the creators of ChatGPT would defend generative AI in such a way, he is not alone in this belief.

Radius AI’s Susan Sly points to recent history to support the idea that new jobs will be created by AI. “The job of social media manager was non-existent prior to 2008, as was SEO analyst and virtual wellness coach,” she says. “Today, these are common jobs, and there are many more like these being created on a consistent basis.”

Researchers have found data to back up Sly’s comments, revealing that 60% of workers today are in jobs that did not exist in 1940. This suggests that more than 85% of employment growth over the last 80 years is due to the technology-driven creation of new positions. In a survey of 1,400 U.S. business leaders across various industries, freelance job platform Upwork also found that 64% of C-suite executives are planning to hire more professionals of all types due to generative AI.

Mitigating the Risks

The issue of introducing generative AI into a business at scale isn’t as simple as plugging it in and sitting back, though. There are a number of key concerns and risks that business leaders, government, and the general public need to work hard to mitigate. For instance, consideration must be given to the adverse effects that over-reliance on AI could have on people’s learning, development, and critical thinking over time.

Paul Spiers, founder of The New P&L [Principles and Leadership in Business] Institute, believes business leaders must approach AI carefully so that automation improves the development of their workers rather than blunts it.

“Business leaders need to ensure the focus is not solely on an ever-increasing pursuit of greater operational efficiency, but also how these operational efficiencies free up more time for employees, and how the business then invests back into those employees,” says Spiers.

“This presents a great opportunity to upskill them, develop them, and ensure they remain engaged, productive, and motivated.”

Indeed, if the AI “revolution” is to lead to a positive outcome for mankind, there will need to be significant investment into education and training with this technology. Not only will this be necessary to maintain the development of critical skills for future generations, but to also enable workers to use AI to its full potential.

There are other risks that will soon arise as AI becomes more self-sufficient and capable as well. When the stage is reached where AI-powered “bots” and “agents” are carrying out critical business processes involving sensitive data without any human supervision, those bots will need to be carefully governed and managed from both a security and an accountability perspective.

A likely scenario is that almost every business will soon have thousands of AI bots working autonomously for them, communicating with each other and making decisions, both internally and externally with bots from other businesses. This will create a multitude of potential issues that many business leaders have yet to recognize.

When a person makes a mistake, exhibits bad behavior, or is responsible for a security breach in the workplace, they have a legal identity that holds them accountable. When millions of digital bots, originating from a vast landscape of different AI platforms, are working with sensitive data on behalf of the world’s businesses, there will need to be strict measures in place for security, identity management, governance, and compliance.

Governments Play Catch-up

The world’s leaders are now beginning to wake up to these trends, in response to demand for transparency, regulation, and governance over AI from many corners.

On October 31, 2023, for example, President Biden issued an executive order for the security and safety of AI development and usage. This executive order’s purpose is to help “seize the promise and manage the risks” of AI. It covers critical issues like AI governance, privacy, and equity, as well as legal, social, and environmental implications.

Within it was a section focusing on supporting the workforce. This stated that the U.S. government will develop principles and best practices to mitigate the harms and maximize the benefits of AI for workers by addressing job displacement, labor standards, and workplace equity. It also pledged to invest in workforce training and development that is accessible to all.

With the U.K. hosting the aforementioned AI Safety and Security Summit, European governments have also begun taking a proactive approach to collaborate with tech leaders to ensure AI is developed responsibly.

One of the most notable takeaways from that summit was that representatives from China were in attendance. At the event, China was one of more than 25 signatories to the Bletchley Declaration, a commitment from countries from North America, Europe, Africa, and Asia to work together to find a common approach on AI oversight.

One of the biggest challenges for governments will be catching up with the already widespread use of AI before any regulations have been put in place. It will be extremely difficult to enforce any meaningful policies that are lagging behind the capabilities many users have already established with AI.

Caution for Businesses, Adaptability for Workers

Can organizations capitalize on the opportunities presented by AI without harming the employability of a large percentage of the global population?

Paul Spiers of The New P&L Institute believes so. But that will require businesses and governments alike to prioritize the best interests of the people who will be affected by AI.

“Business leaders have to take a step back, seek informed counsel, and then view AI through the lens of opportunity,” Spiers says. “Ultimately, I believe the most successful business leaders will be those who see a synergistic future between AI and employee, not an adversarial one.”

Susan Sly warned that business leaders must also ensure they put strict governance in place before they consider deployment of AI tools at scale.

“In my opinion, every organization should be creating their own AI governance policy that aligns with the company’s values,” she says. “They should bring a diverse group of individuals to the table who can provide thoughtful consideration for many perspectives.” She stressed that diversity in this instance means “a variety of technical and non-technical stakeholders, people of various ages and backgrounds.”

To do otherwise, she stressed, is a “license for chaos.”

Ultimately, though, change over the next five years may not turn out to be as drastic nor as quick to arrive as some are currently predicting. Susan Sly explained, “Why are we not all in self-driving cars by now? The answer is because the prediction was greater than the reality. The true capabilities were far exaggerated beyond such an aggressive roadmap and, crucially, didn’t take into account that many humans – me included – still love to drive.”

While AI is already forcing humans to adapt, Sly is confident in a future that doesn’t see humans supplanted. “At this current stage, for those of us working in AI, there’s little evidence to support any near-term threat to human employability.”

For his part, drainpipe.io’s Dominick Romano believes the workplace as we know it is about to change significantly, but more in the way people do their work, rather than overhauling the current job landscape.

“I don’t think many of the jobs we know today will suddenly cease to exist,” says Romano. “The work still needs to be done. But the way we, as humans, interface with our environment to do the work is going to change quite dramatically over the coming years.”

An AI Glossary

·         Automation – The practice of using a digital tool to automatically complete a task, to save a person from carrying it out manually.

·         Conversational AI – An AI tool or “bot” that humans interact with via a conversational, natural language interface, such as chatbots.

·         Generative AI – A popular form of AI technology that leverages algorithms, often based on deep-learning techniques and vast sets of data, to generate various types of content, such as text, images, audio, video, and more.

·         Large language models (LLM) – A type of generative AI based on an algorithm that uses deep learning techniques, and enormous sets of data, to understand, summarize, and generate content.

·         Machine learning (ML) – A way of using statistical algorithms that allow AI systems to learn from data and perform tasks automatically without human involvement.

·         Natural language processing (NLP) – A way to give computers the ability to understand text and spoken words in the same way human beings can.

·         Robotic process automation (RPA) – The use of software-based “robots” to complete digital tasks and processes automatically without human operation.