Do you think you would be receptive to having an AI co-worker?
When you think of artificial intelligence (AI) you likely envision a collection of systems fine-tuned to collaborate with one another, whose role it is to take over many of the tasks you don’t have the time or the motivation to complete.
But, as we move further into the fourth industrial revolution, certainly in the workplace, AI is becoming less of a machine and more of an asset. But are we prepared for a workforce that counts AI as a co-worker?
“When I say AI employees are likely to join the workforce in the very near future, I’m referring to AI systems that can reason through ambiguous problems, maintain context and operate with increasing autonomy within company systems,” explained Sean Cavaliere, the chief technology officer at talent optimisation platform The Predictive Index.
“The technology is ready now. Capability is no longer the limiting factor. The remaining challenges involve implementation, access management, providing institutional context and defining appropriate boundaries. These are solvable problems that forward-thinking companies are already addressing.
“Organisations that prepare proactively will likely have their first AI employees handling meaningful work within the next 12 months.”
Why should organisations employ AI?
For Cavaliere, the world of possibilities for AI employees is endless, in that they bring a velocity that simply can not be matched by a human. For example, they never tire, they have achieved a high degree of unwavering consistency and can scale on demand, all without incurring onboarding delays.
“The economics make sense, too. Yes, there’s upfront investment, but AI works around the clock. It’s perfect for those repetitive tasks that burn humans out and lead to mistakes, freeing people for work that requires human creativity.”
More importantly, with the increasingly unstable global cybersecurity landscape in mind, he noted that AI employees boost security for their organisations.
“We can implement ultra-precise permissions granted for seconds then automatically revoked, with continuous monitoring for unusual patterns. AI follows security protocols exactly as implemented without the workarounds that humans often create for convenience.”
But the real win, he said, is in unlocking human potential. While AI is managing routine work, teams are freed up to work on the durable soft skills, such as emotional intelligence, ethical judgement and relationship building. Real life employees can divert their attention to more fulfilling work and organisations as a whole operate far more smoothly, he argued.
Are there downsides?
It is, however, important to remember that with the pros come the cons and Cavaliere explained one of the biggest risks presented by the integration of AI into the workplace is when too much power is given to it, without the proper guardrails.
“These systems lack human judgement for weird edge cases that pop up and without supervision, one mistake could be replicated thousands of times in an instant. We need good monitoring and clear paths for escalating issues when they arise.
“Security presents a double-edged sword. While AI can enhance security with proper controls, implementing those controls requires careful planning. Without appropriate permission systems and monitoring, AI’s ability to move through systems at superhuman speed could potentially expose sensitive data or create unexpected vulnerabilities.”
Additionally, people themselves can throw a wrench into the works as there is often a natural and all too human resistance to change. Employees may harbour fears that AI could potentially replace them and companies have a responsibility to get ahead of it by leveraging uniquely human skills that cannot be automated.
Getting started
To ensure that the workforce is prepared for the AI wave and a future in which artificial intelligence is a peer and employee, Cavaliere stated, training should begin on the ground floor, where people learn the basics of AI and what is and is not achievable.
“People must understand when their AI colleagues can handle things independently and when human judgement is needed. This sets the right expectations from the beginning. We need simple guidelines for how teams delegate work to AI, provide feedback and know when to step in.”
The end goal, Cavaliere said, should always be to create a transparent and genuine partnership between the human and AI teams, where more is achieved together.
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