Artificial intelligence has gone through several developments in recent years, and with these developments come many concerned workers who think they might be out of a job as a result. With AI now moving into more practical and usable mediums, like writing, these fears are only reinforced and perpetuated by the Turing Test, which can measure the intelligence of a computer.
But is it a fair comparison, comparing your traditional office worker with an artificially intelligent machine? Let’s explore this concept.
Believe It or Not, Turing’s Concept Sparks Economic Inequities
Erik Brynjolfsson, the director of the Stanford Digital Economy Lab, argues that AI has created greater issues than employees simply losing their jobs; it has created entire systems of economic inequity. In the Spring 2022 issue of Dædalus, a journal produced by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, he writes that the goal of AI has become to exceed that of the human mind. In more basic terms, this goal for AI became inappropriate, and attempting to create human-like machines and intelligence has only made wage inequality more prominent.
His argument is based on the fact that the development of AI has removed the need for human employees, leading to greater productivity for business owners and organization leaders. This drives the rift between your average worker and the big bosses of the world even deeper. This wage gap is called the Turing Trap, and it’s a serious problem.
Artificial intelligence is just the latest example of humans trying to create something from nothing, to make life in their own image like the countless myths and legends of old. Of course, modern popular culture only makes this perception of AI worse through its admittedly unrealistic portrayal of this technology. Clearly something is not working with AI, so what can change to make people have more confidence in it without putting down their own abilities?
AI is Better for Augmentation, Not Replacement
AI is great for certain tasks, and so are human employees. These things are, notably, very different from one another. AI can be used to supplement human work, not replace it outright. This is the key difference that must be kept in mind when implementing AI; you can achieve better results through “partnering” with AI.
This is where you start to see the issues, though. Businesses simply find it easier to implement AI and remove the human factor itself. Research shows that there will always be tasks that are preferred to be done by humans, not AI, despite the fact that AI can do them, and not even AI is good enough to handle all of the tasks typically held by human workers.
AI Should Be a Tool and Nothing More
It might be tempting to automate as much as possible for your business, but you shouldn’t see AI as an opportunity to slash your workforce, like so many tech companies are doing these days. Instead, think of ways it can improve your operations through collaboration with your workers. To learn more about some ways you can pull this off, contact Business Solutions & Software Group at (954) 575-3992.
