The World Economic Forum announced that by 2025, artificial intelligence will completely take over more than 85 million jobs.
This information may sound worrying to you, especially if you belong to those generations who in primary school wrote essays that in 2025. we will be driving flying cars. That year is dangerously close, so this prediction also seems dangerous.
However, are there any real reasons to be afraid of artificial intelligence? In the end, it was created by man. What if we could find a way to work together without AI tools and software taking over our business?
We have a few ideas – enjoy reading.
What is Artificial Intelligence (AI)?
It is human nature to be afraid of the new and the unknown, so it is not so strange that we are disturbed by the thought that we can lose our job just because a machine can do it as well. Artificial intelligence is actually a set of computer programs and systems, that are considered to be able to perform certain tasks, achieving the same results as people.
These tasks, which we try to teach machines, include many skills that we have so far considered unique only to people: translation, speech recognition, decision making, etc. The most famous forms of artificial intelligence are the famous Alexa and Siri, virtual assistants, then chatbots on websites, self-driving cars, etc.
Advantages of Artificial Intelligence Over Humans
We cannot ignore the obvious, and that is that artificial intelligence still has several advantages over people, if we look at tasks performing efficiency.
1. Artificial Intelligence Cannot Get Tired
AI’s child doesn’t have a cold, nor does it suffer from insomnia, so it didn’t sleep at all last night and now can’t work at the usual level. So, by using artificial intelligence, we reduce the possibility of everything that simply makes our lives – because we are human – affecting our productivity at work or increasing the possibility of an error.
2. Artificial Intelligence Cannot have Emergencies
True, most of us know how to behave professionally and forget about our private problems for a moment in order to focus on work. However, sometimes losses in the immediate family or other events that affect us emotionally surely take a toll on our efficiency in the workplace. This means that our concentration will not be at a high level, we will be distracted or take more frequent breaks, which is not the case with machines.
3. Machines Make Fewer Mistakes when Processes are Automated
Why are different professions using more and more software today? Marketing, finance, HR, sales… They all rely on the automation of certain processes, not only to save time but also to reduce the likelihood of an error. An error is very possible if we manually enter data in dozens of sheets or “on foot” calculate hours, salaries, and more. The computer is less likely to make a mistake in this case.
4. Artificial Intelligence is a Better Choice for Dangerous Tasks
From putting out fires to painting cars where we are exposed to chemicals, there are occupations that require us to take a certain risk and put ourselves in danger. If artificial intelligence replaced people in such jobs, the potential damage would be incomparably less if a problem arose – it would only be material.
The Advantage of Man over AI Tools
If you have already started to think that we are on the side of the machines, continue reading. We believe that no one can surpass people in certain tasks and that we still have advantages over all those machines – which we created ourselves. This brings us to:
1. Complex Strategies are Better Managed by People
The machine can function well at a certain level and, thanks to algorithms, conclude about certain phenomena and perform actions based on those conclusions. However, when things get complex and involve many different factors, usually only the human brain can see and analyze them well enough, especially when it comes to creating strategies or exceptions to the rules.
2. Creative Thinking is Man’s Best Quality
No matter how well-programmed and designed artificial intelligence is, it only knows what we tell it to know. Man’s possibilities are much more far-reaching and he is able to create connections between concepts that a machine could not. Artificial intelligence may be a good choice for tasks that are constantly repeated in the same way, but when it comes to innovation, they cannot match a person.
3. There Must be Empathy in Business
For many businesses, just being efficient and productive is not enough. Even in technical jobs that are seemingly devoid of emotion, there should be cooperation between people, empathy, caring for employees, connecting at a human level… in order to achieve the best possible results. Just imagine that the machine is expected to hold a quality psychotherapy session.
4. People Rely on Experience
How many times have you not had the technical knowledge needed to solve a problem, but still succeed in it thanks to experience? That is why people have an advantage over artificial intelligence. It can solve problems using just the provided knowledge, but if the problem is not according to the pattern, it can hardly think “outside the box” and use experience.
Why Artificial Intelligence will Not Replace Humans (Any Time Soon)
Although there are advantages to using machines and tools by artificial intelligence, this is exactly what it is all about – the use of it. They must be used by man. And if there is already something that can speed up or make our job easier, why not learn to handle it?
There are many reasons why we believe that artificial intelligence will not take over your business, at least not in the near future.
1. New Jobs are Created Every Day
Artificial intelligence will not only cause some jobs to stop being done by people but will also create hundreds of new occupations. Experts who claim this do not even know what kind of professions await us in the future. But one thing is for sure if you decide to expand the list of skills you possess and learn to work with machines, your options increase.
Career change has become a common practice in the last few years, even if your original occupation has nothing to do with the new one. As many as 72% of people, according to research conducted by LinkedIn, started managing social networks or writing for the web, a profession that didn’t even exist fifteen years ago.
So, just as online editions of newspapers didn’t cause the extinction of print media, artificial intelligence will not necessarily take over your job – if you make an effort to learn new skills and keep up with changes.
2. People are Needed to Train Machines
Machines cannot learn certain processes on their own. We need people who will teach them, and later analyze the results obtained in order to optimize the work of the machines even more.
For example, Cortana, Microsoft’s smart assistant, was created under the watchful eye of a huge team, and among those people were even a poet and a novelist. So, various profiles are needed for one machine to reach the level that we consider satisfactory.
3. Raising Personalization to a New Level
Because of the ability to teach machines certain processes, many professionals will be able to do their jobs better.
For example, many aspects of marketing can be optimized with the introduction of artificial intelligence into common processes, ranging from personalized email campaigns that have been proven to deliver better results than generic, to better-targeted ads, etc.
And remember Netflix – are you getting suggestions for new movies and series based on what you’ve seen so far? This also is a form of artificial intelligence that personalizes your experience.
4. Together, People and Machines can Provide a Fantastic User Experience
When you call the customer center because you need help, sometimes it’s a question that a bot can solve in half a minute. On the other hand, sometimes you need a customer support representative to pay more attention to your problem because it is not common or it is more complex.
A strategy in which queries are first taken over by the machine, and if they exceed its capabilities, it redirects them to the customer support employee, saving time for both the company and the caller.
Together We Can Achieve Better Results
As Nick Burns, an SQL Services Data Scientist, explained: “As good as your models are, they will only be as good as your data.”
For now, it is clear that the machines will not take over your business – at least not completely.
In fact, by working with artificial intelligence, we can skip all those tedious, repetitive time-consuming tasks, shorten their duration through automation, avoid manual errors, and optimize processes so we have even more time for what we do best – and that’s strategic planning, creative thinking, and innovation.
