👾 Will AI take over your job? | Ep16 OoO

🌇 Forbes: The augmented workforce has arrived

👩‍🏫 Amazon: Recruiters are out and AI is in

🦿 The Times of India: AI is the help we’ve been waiting for

Hey! Welcome Back -

It’s episode 16 and the robot wars have arrived.

This week I look at AI in the job market, something being called the ‘augmented workforce,’ and what that means for you in the next couple of years.

Plus, I throw in a jarring tale about a global giant who is already replacing employees with sophisticated Artificial Intelligence.

Let’s jump in -

Forbes: The Future Workforce is Augmented

People have been talking about AI for a long time – but now it’s on everyone’s radar. This year, AI reached a milestone I wasn’t sure I’d see in my lifetime.

Just look at these images:

I made these from scratch with an AI painting tool called Dall-E.

🎨 It’s a lot of fun! You’re only limited by what you can imagine.

Back in September, Forbes said that creativity was one of the top 7 AI trends of 2022. But creativity only came in at number 7 on the list.

In first place was something called ‘the augmented workforce.’

Bernard Marr writes,

“…we will increasingly find ourselves working with or alongside machines that use smart and cognitive functionality to boost our own abilities and skills.”

Marr argues that AI will help us make sense of data volumes and insights, and will become an essential tool for everyone.

A Lofty Prediction: The Upcoming Decade

In the next 10 years – maybe less – we’ll look back on the time most of us worked without the help of AI. And it will feel like we once felt about email.

No-one will question the morality of it, we’ll just wonder how on earth anyone got anything done before it came along.

Choose Your Camp: AI and The Future of Your Job

I’ve found that when people think about AI, they generally land in one of three camps.

• OMG 😱: Skynet is here, the machines are coming
• Nope 😏: My job is too specialized for rudimentary AI
• WTF 😵: Who knows what it means?

Honestly, I’ve spent most of my life in the second camp. My work involves a lot of right brain creativity, and no AI could conceivably replicate what I can do. A video series like this one would be impossible to automate! Right? Not anymore.

Somewhere between the purple rabbit and Mother Teresa I had to admit I was wrong.

AI can’t create this entire show just yet, but someday it will be able to.

Dear Peter: I’m Not a Robot (Yet)

Quick shoutout to Peter who keeps commenting on multiple LinkedIn episodes that I am, infact, a robot. Flattering as it is to be called a super smart AI, I’m not one.

I sent Peter a video of my dogs a while ago and haven’t heard from him since.

🦮 Jokes on you Peter, AI can autogenerate dog videos!

Now, let’s get back to the augmented workforce.

Forbes insists that it doesn’t mean people’s jobs will be replaced by AI, just that more people are using AI tools in their daily work lives.

I’m not sure that’s entirely accurate, based on two news stories I uncovered this week.

Amazon: Actively Replacing Recruiters With AI

A leaked memo from Amazon tells a different story.

🧯 Hundreds of recruiters have been laid off because of an AI.

It was trained to do their jobs with precision accuracy. The memo reveals that it took Amazon over a year to train the AI to predict which job applicants will be most successful in specific roles.

The AI finds them amidst the stack of applicants and fast-tracks them to the interview stage.

No humans required.

All the AI does is identify resume and assessment similarities between applicants and high performing Amazon employees who have already proven their value.

Turns out Amazon tried this a decade ago, but the AI showed such enormous bias against women that it was unusable.

Clearly there are pitfalls to training AI based on human behavior. It amplifies unconscious biases that result in unfair judgements.

Amazon is happy to report that they’ve fixed the issues and have safeguards against racist and sexist bias now.

Jason Del Rey from Vox writes,

“The model is achieving precision comparable to that of the manual process and is not evidencing adverse impact,” Amazon’s internal paper read.

💃🏽 It’s interesting isn’t it – the idea of an automated recruitment process, and how biased the human process was in the first place.

It was AI who found and will move to eliminate the bias that already exists, and really shouldn’t.

The Times of India: AI Has Huge Economic Benefits

The second story involves a report by The Times of India. They believe that AI is a total game-changer for the recruitment niche.

Raj Das writes,

“The advancement of AI technology has the potential to benefit the economy monumentally.”

It can do so many things:

• Improve the quality of shortlisted candidates
• Remove bias that prevents diversity and inclusion
• Detect fraud
• Save hiring managers a boatload of time

A lot of people won’t believe that AI can do any of that. Not as well as they could do it themselves. And they’d be wrong, like I was.

AI isn’t going to swoop in and steal your job. But it will add value in more places and cause a ton of change. A lot of tasks will be more accurate and efficient because of AI, and because people aren’t doing those tasks anymore.

At the end of the day the market will decide.

🏃🏿 The key is not to fight the change. If you do, you won’t win. Not even Usain Bolt delivering inter-office memos can outrun an email!

That’s all for now, and remember the future of work is Out of Office.

Andrew

This Week’s Shareable

• Will AI take over your job? No, says Bernard Marr for Forbes. “…we will increasingly find ourselves working with or alongside machines that use smart and cognitive functionality to boost our own abilities and skills.” #Remotework with AI productivity? Yes please! Read more on OOO.

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