Why AI won’t take your job and why you should use it

Thanks to advances in technology, some computers are able to run business processes without human margin of error. Natural Language Processing (NLP) allows chatbots to understand speech and provide customer support in many industries. HR departments and finance companies use robotic process automation (RPA) to verify payroll systems and manage expenses. Computer vision is used to scan barcodes and track packages without the help of human hands. Artificial Intelligence is everywhere in our daily life. 

The advancements in the technology and AI revolution cause people to question whether their job will be taken over. On the contrary, implementing AI solutions is actually creating demand for more knowledge workers. And even though some jobs will disappear from the market, other new ones will appear. Twenty, thirty years ago people were afraid that computers would take over their job – but here I am, working the job that wouldn’t exist without computers. A report from the World Economiс Forum shows that by 2025, 85 million jobs will be replaced by machines with AI, but 97 million new jobs will open by the same year.

Artificial Intelligence has been developed to the point that it can perform some easy and common tasks. AI has the potential to really disrupt the labour market. However, there are a number of more complex tasks and decisions in business and everyday life that still require human skills, expertise and creativity. AI can (only) help humans to make better decisions and to work in newer and smarter ways.

Here are 4 reasons why AI won’t take your job:

AI doesn’t have emotional intellect

Have you ever heard that soft skills, like communication and building relationships, are becoming more important for jobs nowadays than technical skills? This – emotions – is what makes us human. People expect you to share your emotions, be empathetic – for example in customer service. Sure, a robot can find an issue and suggest a solution, but would that interaction be enjoyable? Moreover, emotional commitment and a good relationship with the team members improves the employees’ engagement. Thanks to relationships we can find business partners and clients, as humans tend to work with people they like. This is the emotional side that machines can’t obtain.

AI can’t do creative work

Computers are great at repetitive tasks. Humans, on the other hand, really excel when it comes to creative thinking. Evidently, AI can appear to be creative, if you view creativity as just another skill that can be learned. AI needs to be trained, fed thousands of songs or poems and it will find some patterns and will try to recreate, but can we really call it creativity? Computers are currently not able to create truly random and original data.

AI can’t think outside the box

As mentioned at the beginning of this article, the narrow AIs available today are programmed to do only one certain task. If anything comes up that is not within what the machine was trained to do, the machine won’t be able to do it. AI can only process the data that it has been fed and that was designed for it. Humans still need to define the cases and scenarios that the AI program will operate under. An AI program will work within those cases and scenarios, but it will not define new scenarios to operate in. 

Someone needs to program the AI

As simple as it is – someone needs to manage the AI, train it, set up the tasks, maintain it. The same thing happened during the industrial revolution, in the late 18th and early 19th century, when mass-production and assembly lines came into use, new job positions opened like maintenance and controlling. With AI coming more into our life, there will be new jobs like AI and Machine Learning Specialists, Digital Transformation Specialists, Software and Applications Developers, Robotics Specialists and Engineers and much more.

Why should you be excited about AI

We are still far away from developing General AI which could perform any intellectual task with efficiency like a human. Currently we have only narrow AIs that can be trained to do one narrowly defined task. An AI never gets tired and can keep working, processing useful data for you without breaks. Its calculations are error-proof and it is perfectly suited to perform lower-level routine tasks that are repetitive. 

Recent Forbes article “AI 50 2021” presents a list of America’s 50 fastest growing and most exciting companies. Among the top 50 are startups that help doctors screen for cancer, help people learn languages, and help farmers get rid of weeds. Some track cargo ships as they sail the oceans, and one helps construction workers install drywall. These algorithms are going to make us safer, smarter, more efficient and more productive. But none of them threaten to replace doctors, teachers, farmers, sailors or construction workers. 

At Iris.ai we have developed the tools to help researchers do literature reviews faster and more efficiently, so they can save time and focus on other tasks. Our tools find more relevant papers and can reduce manual work by up to 80%. 

Many AI applications are helping humans to do their job better, to make our life easier. History has taught us that after the so feared Industrial Revolution we became more productive, the costs of production decreased and the quality of life improved. Therefore, the AI revolution will likely –we believe– upgrade our standard of living and open up more options.

Key Takeaways

AI can help us be more efficient and more productive. It will take over some jobs, but it will create many new ones. Humans beat –and will likely continue to beat– machines with their emotional capabilities, creativity and thinking out of the box.

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