Experts believe that using artificial intelligence (AI) on a broader scale would contribute up to $15.7 trillion to the global economy by 2030, in an environment where data is transforming how organisations create value and compete. Many people believe that as AI changes how businesses operate, so will who does the job – and that businesses will begin to replace human employees with intelligent computers. Intelligent technologies are already displacing people in manufacturing, service delivery, recruiting, and the finance industry, forcing human workers into lower-paying employment or leaving them jobless. This pattern has prompted some to believe that our workforce will be obsolete by 2040.
Is it true, however, that people and machines are in competition with one another? The history of work is the history of individuals outsourcing their labour to machines, notably since the Industrial Revolution. While it started with monotonous, repetitive physical chores like weaving, robots have progressed to the point that they can now do sophisticated cognitive tasks like arithmetic problems, speech recognition, and writing. As a result, machines appear to be capable of replicating the work of our thoughts, rather than simply our bodies. In the twenty-first century, AI is progressing to the point that it can outperform humans in many activities, leading us to believe that we are ready to hand over our intelligence to machines. With this current trend, it appears that nothing can't be automated in the near future, implying that no work is secure from being delegated to machines.
This picture of the future of labour has assumed the form of a zero-sum game in which only one winner can emerge.
However, we feel that this view of AI's function in the workplace is incorrect. The topic of whether AI will eventually replace human employees presupposes that AI and humans have the same attributes and skills, which they don't. AI-based robots are faster, more precise, more consistently rational, but they lack intuition, emotional sensitivity, and cultural awareness. Humans have certain talents, and it is these abilities that allow us to be effective.
Machine Intelligence vs. Human Intelligence
People see today's modern computers as intelligent in general because they have the ability to learn and make judgments depending on the data they receive. However, while we may be aware of that capacity, we possess a distinct form of intellect.
In its most basic form, AI is a machine that acts and makes decisions in an intelligent manner. AI imitates how people act, feel, communicate, and decide, according to Alan Turing's viewpoint. This sort of intelligence is highly valuable in an organisational setting: AI has the ability to recognise informational patterns that maximise trends pertinent to the task, thanks to its imitative skills. Furthermore, unlike humans, AI never gets physically weary and will continue to work as long as it is fed data.
Because of these characteristics, AI is well-suited for use in lower-level regular activities that are repeated and occur within a closed management system. The rules of the game are unambiguous and unaffected by extraneous pressures in such a system. Consider a manufacturing line where employees aren't disturbed by outside demands or influences such as work meetings. The assembly line, for example, is exactly where Amazon placed algorithms in the position of supervisors to watch and even dismiss real workers. Because the labour is repetitious and subject to strict rules aimed at increasing efficiency and output, AI can outperform human supervisors.
Human skills, on the other hand, are more diverse. Humans have the capacity to envision, foresee, feel, and assess changing situations, which allows people to transition from short-term to long-term concerns, unlike AI abilities, which are just responsive to the facts provided. These talents are unique to humans and do not require a constant stream of input from outside sources, as artificial intelligence does.
Humans represent true intelligence in this sense – a new form of AI, if you will. When open systems are in existence, this form of intelligence is required. In an open management style, the team or organisation interacts with the outside world and so must cope with external pressures. Such a work environment necessitates the capacity to anticipate and cope with unexpected changes and skewed information flow, while also being innovative in distilling a vision and future plan. Transformation efforts are ongoing in open systems, and successful management of that process need true intelligence.
Conclusion
Humans represent true intelligence in this sense – a new form of AI, if you will. When open systems are in existence, this form of intelligence is required. In an open management style, the team or organisation interacts with the outside world and so must cope with external pressures. Such a work environment necessitates the capacity to anticipate and cope with unexpected changes and skewed information flow, while also being innovative in distilling a vision and future plan. Transformation efforts are ongoing in open systems, and successful management of that process need true intelligence. However, a crucial component of a really intelligent form of future of work is that we expand the workforce to include both people and machines, with the goal of improving humanity and well-being while also being more efficient in our job execution. As a result, while augmented intelligence is collaborative in nature, it is also evident that it is a joint effort in the service of people.