Some wonder whether — and who — machines will replace in the workplace.
Alok Gupta, information technology chair for the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management, says that's the wrong framing for the issue.
Instead, people should ask how humans and artificial intelligence (AI) can work together more — and what companies and employees can do to prepare or respond, said Gupta, also a senior associate dean.
"There are plenty of stories about AI failures in complex job situations," Gupta said. "Certainly, where you need to make decisions based on a variety of different inputs and where it's not clear ... in those kinds of situations where judgment comes into the play, AI has become quite good but it's not perfect, and it won't be anytime soon."
Artificial intelligence (AI) — or computers that imitate human intelligence in performing tasks — already has a growing presence in several industries. And expanding adoption of AI could fuel a 14% boost in gross domestic product in North America by 2030 through increases in productivity, product quality and consumption, according to a PwC report.
Counterintuitively, AI for the near future is likely to take on low-skilled jobs, Gupta said. It may run chatbots to answer simple questions but send more difficult ones to humans.
For example, the latest AI tool, ChatGPT, writes and does coding, but not at an advanced level — at least not yet.
The problem for AI, simply put, is that it isn't human, Gupta said. AI lacks the creativity, intuition and judgment that enable people to "connect the dots" in unexpected ways that can lead to innovation.