I have to admit: AI makes me nervous.
I’m not sure this is a radical opening line…I suspect most people out there have a degree of apprehension and uncertainty about what lies ahead for the future of AI.
At the same time, I know I’ve got to embrace it. AI is the future, and there’s nothing that says my age more without actually saying my age than being resistant to new forms of technology.
And yes, I know. The benefits of AI are many: streamlining work processes; reducing workload; tackling time-consuming, manual tasks; adding objectivity to analysis…the list goes on.
Still, the concern continues to gnaw at me.
Why am I nervous? Well, my work product is my intellectual capital, and my fear is that AI will undermine my intellectual capital and threaten my value. Basically, I’m nervous that one day, I’ll be out of a job.
But this week, I’ve been on the receiving end of some reflections that have helped ground my perspective on the role of AI in my professional life:
AI still needs a shepherd. AI outputs still require critical thinking to mold them into something meaningful. Certainly, AI systems have incredibly sophisticated aggregating and synthesizing capabilities, but ultimately, the output has to be shaped into something with real-world relevance.
AI can spark new ways of thinking: By nature, our human ability to consider possibilities is limited; by adding another (automated) brain to the case, we’re allowing for more possibilities to emerge: inspiration for new ideas, different avenues to consider, and rebuttals that may push our thinking. In this way, AI doesn’t replace thinking – instead, it can make it more expansive.
Human experience matters. AI can’t feel, and it hasn’t been shaped by lived experience. These two facts are critical when considering the limitations of AI and the advantages of the mind (especially in the qualitative research industry). After all, what is the most important quality of a killer insight? That it derives from a core human truth.
The only person who is going to be eaten up by AI is the person who doesn’t adopt it. You know the phrase, “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em?” It applies here. Those who are bound to be the biggest losers to AI are the ones who keep it at arm’s length, and those who want to stay ahead of the technology will find a way to make it work for them.
I may not be sure about where AI’s future lies (and where mine lies in relationship to it), but these reflections have helped me to re-center and remember that the human mind is not something that can be made dispensable by AI.