Worried About AI?

How to Navigate Fear, Fake, and the Unknown.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become an omnipresent force in our society, impacting nearly every facet of our lives. It has introduced unprecedented possibilities. However, I know businesspeople who are worried about AI. They fear job displacement. They are concerned about the spread of fake information and the ethical implications.

Fear Factor: Losing Jobs and Autonomy

One of the most significant fears associated with AI is the potential for job displacement. There is a growing concern that many jobs will become obsolete. This anxiety is particularly prevalent in manufacturing, logistics, and customer service industries, where automation is rapidly replacing human labor.

The fear of losing jobs to AI is not unfounded. A report by the World Economic Forum was published in 2020. It estimated that automation and AI could displace 85 million jobs globally in 2025. However, the report also suggests that 97 million new jobs may emerge because of AI and other technologies. This paradox highlights the dual nature of AI as we know it from previous technological revolutions: jobs become obsolete, but different jobs will emerge, particularly in fields that require human creativity, emotional intelligence, and complex problem-solving skills.

Another fear factor is the loss of autonomy. AI systems become more integrated into decision-making processes, and humans may lose control over critical decisions. Black-box algorithms don’t reveal their decision parameters and methods. Who will be responsible for a ‘wrong’ decision, the manager or the machine? Food for thought as this fear factor raises ethical concerns about accountability and transparency.

The Age of Fake: Disinformation and Deepfakes

AI can help to distribute fake information, text, audio, and clips. Deep learning and natural language processing can take my voice (including my distinct German dialect) and make me tell stories I never said. Using Deepfakes to tarnish somebody’s reputation poses significant risks to personal privacy (you and me). It also affects public trust (politicians) and even national security (government leaders).

The lines between human-generated content and Generative AI are blurring. How can you identify if the publishing person originally produced a text, a picture, a song, or a video? These blurring lines contribute to a broader erosion of trust in institutions and individuals.

The Unknown: Ethical Risks

Are AI – tools becoming too powerful, acting in ways that are not aligned with human values, or even posing risks to enterprises? Even technical scenarios with company-internal ML models can pose risks. The typical “end users” of these systems have no idea what data has been used to train the models. Biased data within the training data set produces biased decisions. Typically, AI decision-making processes lack transparency, even in models that claim to be “open,” such as Explainable AI (EAI) models. Bias in criminal justice, healthcare, or finance can be devastating for private persons. Bias within intra-company scenarios can influence large workforces in one way or the other.

Overcoming the Challenges: Harnessing AI for Good

You should recognize that all the mentioned challenges can be overcome. I’m convinced you can harness the power of AI to create significant benefits for businesses and our private lives.

Learning and getting experiences are an excellent start to embracing AI. Many AI tools are available today that can equip you with the hard skills needed to understand AI but also let you gain soft skills (critical thinking, creativity, emotional intelligence), which are less likely to be replicated by machines (at the time of this post).

Combating disinformation requires critical thinking: is a clip on social media fake or legit? Is this really Taylor’s clip? Of course, you can’t fight fake news alone. But you can help raise your concerns about deepfakes and other misinformation on social media.

Within companies, AI can be a powerful assistant for driving innovation, improving efficiency, and creating new opportunities. Data mining of business processes will provide insights to automate routine tasks and help brainstorm new products and services for customers.

Conclusion

“Try before you buy.” This slogan fits many products to test their features and functions. Within the AI space, however, it means that you should get your fingers dirty to learn, experience, and judge the technical AI capabilities. You will learn by doing how AI can help you personally or the business unit you’re working for. You don’t need to become a computer scientist to understand all the algorithms. However, you should know the concepts, the source of the training data, and the typical pros and cons of an AI model. In my view, relying only on opinions from others isn’t an option.

Navigate the unknown with ethical foresight, and you will harness the power of AI to create a better future for yourself and your businesses.

Andreas Graesser, Co-Founder ERP Strategies LLC