Let me be straight forward at the beginning: I continue to be very excited about AI and especially about the race we are currently seeing around conversational AI between Microsoft/ OpenAI and Google (and others). This will truly revolutionise the way we operate and interact with technology. As I have written here, I immediately see two very interesting and beneficial use cases that I am actively pursuing (and there are many more).
But the more I dive into AI, the more I am wondering which year we have and if we are going back to “the good old days” of Taylorism and Fordism? – just a short recap “[…] the task of factory management was to determine the best way for the worker to do the job, to provide the proper tools and training, and to provide incentives for good performance.” Taylorism or Scientific Management did see the employee as a work tool to be optimised, as an anonymous body, not an individual – and was often criticised for that (afterwards). And I believe that this criticism was and is right. What we need and what we should strive for at work are individuals, is diversity – not only of backgrounds, gender, race, but also diversity of thinking and working and leading.
Now, when I then read about additional “interesting” applications of AI as a coach to employees, or even further, see the application of it – may it be in MS Teams or in Apps like Humu – or read articles like this, I am left speechless, truly. It seems to come down to a blind believe that technology and AI will make us all better at work because it can analyse “us” and propose “better” behaviours, more effective and efficient behaviours. Am I the only one who is shocked and scared?
We basically propose to go back more than hundred years to improve workers behaviours and outputs – with the only difference that a hundred years ago we at least had the decency to have humans improve humans – where as now we leave this to machines. I see where this is better?! I am not sure I agree with the ethics around this. Just imagine how far this could be driven? If you mix this with Neuro-Science you very quickly go from “suggestions to improve your work” to “manipulation to increase your output”. And because it all comes somehow through the back-door as “new and shiny” AI, we don’t recognise that this brings us back to dark times that we all believed we had left behind. Of course it is just one article, but read this one here and enjoy the sentence of “Enable technology to work on the worker (and the team)” – I am still speechless. Am I the only one?
AI is the new breakthrough technology, there is no doubt about that. It will radically change the way we work, we interact with technology, we search for answers, we analyse data and we hypothesize. A new, not yet elegant, but very powerful tool is been given to us and we need to see how we use it best, where and which use-cases have the best payback and how we bring it from investment to return (of investment). But with any tool, with any new approach, we must be careful and not forget that there is always a downside. We must invest as much research in the downside as in the upside and we must be careful to not use AI in any use case there is, but only where also from an ethical perspective, it is the right thing to do (not to mention that in any case it needs to be cost efficient – don’t forget how much power and energy-consumption these large language models still require).
And to close my post for this week, let me ask you to go out there and test & learn with AI and don’t forget to jump on this train as it is a radical and fundamental enabler for so much of our work – but to also make sure you have your ethics straight and your ideas and solutions maybe independently reviewed. AI is truly the future also of HR and Employee Experience.
Chief HR Officer 