Almost everywhere, the hottest topic for debate seems to be artificial intelligence (AI) replacing human kind and taking our jobs.
While it makes sense for some professionals to consider adapting and learning different skills or just extrapolating on their existing ones, most of the others are just scared without a base for their fear.
I believe the idea of feeling useful in our jobs, in our families, amongst our friends is the base for most of the fear induced by AI rapid development.
Now if AI could replace me in my job, could test systems better and faster than I could, could develop systems to test better and faster than I could, does it make sense to keep me employed? At some stage, I would definitely be more expensive, more prone to error just myself.
Not to mention the costs of managers, office admin, cleaning, etc which would make me even more expensive and difficult to support as an employee instead of using a piece of AI. Expensive becomes not just a matter of actual costs but of energy invested in keeping me motivated, happy and performant.
Looking at things from this perspective, both my role as well as my managers roles, office admin staff, cleaning staff, parking management and so on would become all obsolete. You definitely need to dust those machines every once in a while but not as often and definitely not include the kitchen and the bathroom. This means, having AI replacing my role would be definitely cheaper.
And let’s extend this further, my friends who need a shoulder to cry on, a listening year or a person to bounce ideas off of, they could definitely be able to use AI for all this. I’m oversimplifying relationships, both professionally and personally just to make a point. The same point we are scared of – we will be replaced by AI.
But now, let’s look at things in a more profound way. AI can and it is already used to perform repetitive tasks. Can analyze more data faster than any human being. Even before AI, we are still using automation to handle the repeating tests every day. It does a better job and I, personally, find it tedious and the place where brain cells go to die. So yeah, I prefer developing automation to take my tedious tasks.
Can AI be the one who develops AI or automation to replace me? Of course it can. But can AI interact the way I can to get answers from different teams? Not yet. Can AI create and leverage human relationships to get the delivery sooner? Not yet. Can AI replace me completely? Not yet, not ever.
But it still threatens the utility of me being on Earth. If various pieces of software can replace each task I perform, then why am I here? I doubt being useful is the answer and while I don’t want to get into what might be the answer, I want to leave you with this though.
AI can already be used to perform some tasks better than any human being. But nothing can actually replace any human being. Why not focus on how we can expand our skill sets to leverage AI in our jobs and personal lives? Why keep focusing on what AI takes from us instead of what AI brings to improve our lives? Is being useful the only purpose in our lives? We can still be of service with AI by our side.
