Most workers worry that AI will replace them. While many people now use AI at work, few would directly refer to the technology as a “coworker” or “employee.” But the CEO of people management platform Lattice thinks we need to change that.
On June 9, Latisse Advertise It will become the first company to offer AI tools for its own employee records. The software giant will integrate the AI tools the organization uses as “digital workers” into its human resources information system.
This means that the company will treat these “digital workers” in the same way it treats human workers. Franklin argues that AI should also be subject to the same rules of conduct as human workers; be internalized in the same way as human workers; be subject to performance management, have clear goals, and receive feedback in the same way as human workers; and be reflected in a team organizational chart with clear managers and coworkers.
in letter In an interview with employees, Lattice CEO Sarah Franklin acknowledged that “the idea of AI employees, or ‘digital workers,’ is not exactly comfortable.” However, she suggested that “the inevitable arrival of these digital workers raises important questions about their integration, measurement, and impact on human jobs.”
To keep pace with developments in AI and the ways AI is transforming work, leaders like Franklin are looking for a term to accurately describe the professional positions AI is filling — and a way to provide AI with guardrails.
“Technology is being marketed for rent,” Franklin says. Fast company“We are not saying here that we are for or against artificial intelligence, we are just aware that it is happening.”
Names, characters and pronouns
There’s no doubt that the idea of calling an AI an “employee” is a joke. If you fire an AI employee, does that AI qualify for COBRA? Or if an AI employee shows signs of bias—as many are known to do—should you send the AI to HR?
But while it may seem counterintuitive to think of an AI tool as an employee, many AI tools are intentionally designed to have human-like personalities: cognition.ai’s software engineering tool Devin, Qualified’s sales agent named Piper, Salesforce’s service agent named Einstein. And, of course, there’s IBM’s AI persona, Watson.
“The tech industry is starting to develop AI to have a personality. People think AI is just a robot, but it’s actually a pre-defined set of if, then, or else Rules – such as decision trees -[where] “You know exactly what the outcome is going to be,” Franklin says, “but that’s very different from what we see with these AI-embodied workers who not only have personalities and names and pronouns, but also have the ability to think. The question is, how do you make sure that they incorporate your values and are accountable for their outcomes?”
Human workers rights
Franklin sees the move to view AI tools as digital workers as a first protection against a “dystopian future” where leaders blindly replace workers without making new technology meet the same expectations as humans, citing research that suggests spending on digital workers is set to increase from $4 billion to $20 billion in the next three years.
“As a CEO, whether you’re going to invest money in a digital employee, you have to be accountable for what you’re doing. And they have to perform well,” she says. “Because you might hire a digital salesperson; they might bring in a lot of leads, but not a lot of good leads that lead to revenue. So you need to have a very honest conversation about whether or not that’s possible.” [AI] “He is a good employee.”
Karla Walter, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, stresses the need to prioritize workers’ rights.
“Clearly, companies might be tempted by the idea that AI could be an employee, and thus allow them to replace employees, if it helps with bottom line profits. As we saw with gig work, companies will go to great lengths to prevent people from being considered employees to save money and commitments,” Walter said in a statement to Fast company“It is workers who need more power in the system to negotiate to ensure that technology is deployed in ways that benefit workers.”
Technical Definitions
Artificial intelligence researcher Chris Witcher has been at IBM for more than 40 years and spent many years working on Watson. He says that AI is essentially a powerful “cognitive technology” capable of completing much of the work that knowledge workers have historically done independently.
But Witcher argues that while AI tools should be integrated, vetted, trained, and given career growth opportunities in a similar way to human workers, there are still clear differences between human and digital workers.
“In some ways, AI is a great employee,” says Witcher. “They don’t take coffee breaks, they work 24/7, you don’t have to give them benefits, but they are able to retain and grow knowledge.”
However, when it comes to decisions that involve variables such as human emotions, the importance of empathy, and the value of making sometimes technically irrational decisions, AI fails to live up to the capabilities of workers.
“AI is an incredibly powerful technology, but it is not human. The human brain is too complex to understand. It will be a long time, if ever, before systems can embody or inspire, rather than mimic, human characteristics like empathy,” he says. “Deep learning-based AI, as a cognitive technology, does not mimic human cognition—it is inspired by it. The judgments that embody empathy, understanding, compassion—these characteristics are not present in AI knowledge workers.”
Ultimately, Witcher understands the desire for a term that captures the vast capabilities of AI and the ways in which it can resemble human workers. But he insists that there needs to be a more specific word to describe an AI tool that does the work of humans.
When I asked him what the term meant, he didn’t have an immediate answer. “You’ll have to make up the name,” he said. “Never let an engineer name something.”
Source link
