#ArtificialIntelligence #AI #jobs #technology #thinking
Artificial intelligence is, well, artificial.
Machines don’t think for themselves, but they can piece together information recorded from different sources to make sentences, and do other things, that make sense.
Many of us decided to do what we do for a career thinking that no machine would ever replace us.
But technology and media companies are cutting some of the human brain power that made their products what they are. The suspicion is that artificial intelligence (AI) will replace those tasks in the not-too-distant future.
In the old days when search engines were created, they could categorize data from similar entities and show users who, or what, they were looking for. But, search engines could not describe what a company does. It led to differences of opinion on “search engine optimization,” in which many people, and companies, specialized.
Did you want your company to stand out from your competition, or did you want your company to be lumped in with your, perhaps, inferior competitors? If you wanted the former, your Web content had to explain why your company is better, or, at least, different from the rest.
If you used key words in your content to satisfy the search engines, did those words just make you like everyone else that touches your space?
Because AI gathers, would you rather have a thinking human rather than a gathering and assembling machine?
Make no mistake: the gathering and assembling machine, undoubtedly, will be very useful for some tasks, and save companies lots of money.
But if you are in the business of creativity, there will be no substitute for human thinking in many areas.
Like humans, machines will make mistakes. Like humans, machines can put their talents to use in nefarious ways.
Therefore, it takes humans to know when a machine is most useful, and when a human is most useful.
We have to be on guard for unintended consequences of AI. Presuming we all want AI to do only good things that benefit mankind, we have to guard against the evil it could do – unless our intentions are indeed evil.
Of course, AI does not need R&R, as humans do from time to time. AI can be employed 24/7, as most humans cannot.
In short, it will take human innovation to not only create the AI that will replace some humans, but it also will require human supervision to guard against its pitfalls.
Most humans can adapt to a changing workplace. The jobs we were hired for years ago turn into completely different jobs as companies evolve and change.
It will take humans to help AI adapt to changing workplaces. Some of us humans will learn that AI perhaps can adjust to changing workplaces and conditions more quickly than some humans can.
Humans will create AI. They will maintain AI. They will manage AI. Still, when AI really takes off, there will be fewer humans needed. With jobs going unfilled in today’s marketplace, that could turn out to be a good thing.
Peter