Tina Huang is the founder and CTO of Transposit, a platform that provides collaborative workflow for the digital enterprise.
The potential of artificial intelligence (AI) to displace jobs and reshape our daily routines has spurred widespread concern. Despite this apprehension, a novel perspective is taking root, one that calls for a more nuanced and strategic understanding of AI’s role: the “human-in-the-loop” approach.
Rather than perceiving AI as a wholly autonomous force, it’s time for those using this technology to envision it as a capable teammate. Just as physical and digital tools have augmented our abilities for generations, AI that is armed with the ability to use reasoning and logic has the potential to assist and guide us in unprecedented ways.
This symbiotic partnership not only empowers us to harness AI’s analytical might but also underscores the importance of our uniquely human qualities: creativity, empathy and contextual understanding. As we collaborate with AI, we can unlock new heights of productivity, innovation and problem-solving—ultimately shaping a future that blends the best of human ingenuity and AI.
This perspective holds particular relevance for operations teams and incident management. Rather than replacing human involvement, AI stands to be an ally in these mission-critical domains. Analogous to how automation streamlines repetitive tasks, AI can enhance the problem-solving capacity of operations teams.
Imagine AI rapidly analyzing complex datasets during critical incidents, providing real-time insights that empower humans to make informed decisions swiftly—or a world where teams don’t need to learn or remember to follow arcane and complex processes. AI could intuitively guide teams through each step of any operational process, using context to offer the right suggestions at the right time. Other time-consuming, resource-intensive tasks—like building automation and teaching team members how and when to use it—can also be offloaded onto AI.
When approached strategically, there is great real-world potential for AI to guide teams through incidents and operational tasks, freeing humans to focus on more high-value work.
AI As Your Operations Teammate
AI isn’t intended to be the end-to-end solution that replaces human involvement but rather a collaborative teammate that complements our skills. AI helps accelerate tasks in our daily lives, from complex data analysis to language translation, allowing us to invest our energy into the creative aspects of problem-solving and evaluating net-new scenarios. Calculators enhance our mathematical capabilities; AI can elevate our cognitive prowess.
AI possesses a remarkable capacity for contextual understanding. Its power lies not only in navigating processes but in comprehending the nuances of context itself. Through its inherent reasoning abilities, AI excels at presenting pertinent information precisely when it’s needed, offering insightful suggestions and conducting comprehensive analyses of vast datasets.
For operations teams, AI’s role as a collaborative teammate can become even more powerful. Envision a scenario where your AI partner seamlessly integrates into your operational workflows, becoming a trusted assistant capable of handling tasks that would typically be time-consuming and labor-intensive for humans.
Your AI teammate could collect and analyze a plethora of logs, condensing them into concise summaries. Moreover, this teammate has an innate ability to grasp the intricate context of your operations, providing you with precisely the metrics, graphs or insights you need, precisely when you need them.
This synergistic relationship between human expertise and AI capabilities can accelerate operational tasks and empower operations teams to make informed decisions swiftly and efficiently.
Human-In-The-Loop AI As A Strategic Approach
It’s important to acknowledge that AI is still in its early days—still known to “hallucinate” or misinterpret commands. Entrusting AI with complete autonomy would be akin to steering a car using voice commands and hoping it understands our intentions correctly. We wouldn’t take the risk. For an operations team, this would be similar to deploying AI-generated automations without human oversight—the risk is too high. By using a human-in-the-loop approach, we harness AI’s power while maintaining control and direction.
To ensure that AI is viewed as a teammate in this sense, there are a few key steps to consider. First, it’s critical to foster a culture of collaboration and transparency. This should include open communication channels where human team members can understand the AI’s capabilities and limitations. It’s also worth investing in training to upskill employees in AI-related competencies so they feel confident working effectively alongside AI systems. Finally, and perhaps most central to the point of this article, always involve human experts in critical decision-making processes. This ensures that AI is viewed as an augmentative tool rather than a replacement.
I believe that AI and humans will always be more powerful together. We simply have different skills. Humans are innately good at collaboration, problem-solving and using judgment. AI is innately good at analyzing large amounts of data, finding patterns and providing contextual analyses.
Human-in-the-loop AI is not about replacing humans; it’s about elevating our capabilities. By embracing AI as a teammate, a thinking tool and a collaborative partner, we can offload mundane tasks and focus on what truly defines us: innovation, creativity and the human touch. While we should tread cautiously through AI’s current phases, its potential is immense and already at our fingertips.
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