Founder & Managing Director of Fusion Business Solution (P) Limited (FBSPL)
AI is having a banner year. According to a report released by McKinsey in early August, 55% of survey respondents noted that their organizations have increased AI adoption. However, there remain concerns about many aspects of AI, including the extent to which AI tools—particularly generative AI—may be riddled with errors or incomplete information. When businesses worldwide rely on these tools in high-stakes decision-making without leveraging the benefit of human judgment alongside them, a range of adverse outcomes can occur.
A Qualified Boon
Working professionals are increasingly dependent on AI for small tasks, from writing emails to developing code. There is no doubt that AI and automation are helping to increase efficiency across every industry, particularly in reducing tasks that are repetitive, tedious, and distract complex knowledge workers from their KRAs (the functions that utilize their best skills).
Nevertheless, there are limits to what AI can be “trusted” to accomplish without human supervision.
Much of the problem lies in the fact that AI is fundamentally only as good as the data it is given to work with. Many generative AI tools are “trained” on data sets that are limited: ChatGPT, for instance, has incomplete knowledge of information and events past 2021. Other tools may have been trained on data that contains biases.
Here are some examples of situations in which AI use, unchecked, can lead to poor outcomes:
• Incorrect medical diagnoses.
• Hiring decisions with data biased against certain groups of people.
• Control of an autonomous vehicle.
These examples are not intended to imply that AI is inapplicable or insufficient for the vast majority of situations in which it is being utilized. Rather, they make a case for the importance of human judgment in combination with AI. These potential catastrophes can be alleviated by human review of high-level decisions before implementation. Generative AI simply cannot operate completely independent of human oversight.
The Optimal Relationship
Both scientists and regular users of AI speculate about the optimal relationship between these new tools and the humans who work with them. Obviously, there is no one-size-fits-all approach for using AI, or for the level of supervision that must be leveraged when implementing generative AI tools in business. As a rule, different industries will have different use cases and best practices to optimize what AI can do for them.
Broadly, we believe that a state of “perfect harmony” exists when humans and AI team up or collaborate to improve products, services and decisions in a way that would not have been possible if either operated alone.
There are certain things AI is great at: It can work on repetitive tasks, share insights and spot patterns like a champ. It can summarize huge gobs of information and regurgitate that information into more useful, condensed or digestible formats. Then, humans can review the experience or output to make sense of it all and determine how it can be best applied to whatever they’re trying to accomplish.
Our advice for leveraging AI:
• Let AI handle repetitive tasks.
• Tap into AI’s “brain” to crack data puzzles too complex or time-intensive for humans alone.
• Let AI reveal hidden patterns that humans might miss.
• Let humans shine by interpreting information generated by AI and. Once that information is fully verified, apply it to situations where it can enhance decision-making and understanding.
Looking Ahead
There is a lot of hand-wringing about what happens when AI gets super smart and eventually overpowers humans, rendering certain types of professions or workers obsolete or, worse, taking over the world, as in some science-fiction novel.
We think the real dangers are more quotidian: With advances in AI and over-reliance on these tools, we’ll become AI-dependent and forget how to think for ourselves. This will lead to
less imagination and innovation, a loss of critical thinking, and a general feeling of malaise, as our lives become more and more on autopilot. Therefore, it’s the responsibility of all AI users to be careful about its usage to ensure we don’t become lazy, complacent and overly dependent on these technologies.
It is correct for people to be circumspect about AI, or at least curious about where it’s headed—these technologies are poised to shake up all of our lives. AI is a powerful tool, and we’ve got to handle it with care. The key is finding the right balance between letting AI do the things it does best while combining its powers with our human smarts in ways that improve products, services, experiences and lives.
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