AI in the Workplace: A Complicated Outlook
Tools like ChatGPT offer a glimpse into the opportunities (and concerns) of AI in the workplace
Originally published on Dec 8, 2022 on my Substack
If the statement “AI is coming for our jobs” means saving me hours and countless brain cells from having to write long emails, corral meeting availability and dig up important information, then AI is hired. Can it start right away?
Last week, OpenAI released ChatGPT, a conversational AI tool that lets you ask all kinds of questions and receive quick, articulate responses, as if you were chatting with a human. The tool reached 1 million users within its first week; people have used it to write code, marketing content and academic essays with eye-opening proficiency. The buzz has reignited a conversation about AI’s growing role in the human experience and the impacts it could have on jobs, creativity and our overall sense of reality.
As someone who researches the future of work, ChatGPT got me thinking about how it and other AI technologies could be applied in the workplace. I think there are incredible opportunities to make knowledge work (ironically) more human. However, we must acknowledge the risks AI brings, consider both use cases and misuse cases, and put up the appropriate ethical and technical guardrails.
AI Chief of Staff
ChatGPT is an example of “generative AI”, where you feed a prompt (e.g. “Write 5 marketing taglines promoting the rich history of Ford” or “A photo of an astronaut riding a horse”) and a model returns an output (in just seconds) based on its interpretation and the trove of historical data with which it has been trained.
I wanted to test if ChatGPT could draft messages to address common situations we come across in the workplace. It did a damn good job.
I started by asking it to help me dodge a meeting:
I asked it to help me schedule a meeting:
I asked it to help tell people I’ll be late to a meeting:
My mind was sufficiently blown. And once I retrieved my jaw from the center of the Earth, I considered the benefits this technology could bring to our future workplaces. Imagine an “AI Chief of Staff” that learns about your unique styles and preferences to serve as a virtual assistant, saving you significant time and intellectual muscle that could be redirected to deep focused work, collaborating with colleagues or (my favorite) rest.
Some use cases:
A scheduling tool that learns your preference for meeting-free mornings and automatically blocks off your calendar, marks you unavailable and negotiates with colleagues about alternate meeting times
An email assistant that learns your tendency to send late-night messages and prompts you about delaying delivery until your recipients’ designated working hours
A tool that will DO YOUR EXPENSE REPORTS FOR YOU
To be fair, AI in the workplace is nothing new. We already have tools for robotic process automation in manufacturing, customer service chatbots and a plethora of smart data analytics tools.
But this one feels different. More fundamental. More universal. The sheer amount of time and headache we could save by automating our daily minutiae should not be discounted; we could reorient that time and energy to doing what humans need and do best: build meaningful connections, focus on things we enjoy, rest.
The Risks
A cybersecurity leader I used to work for once said something that has stuck with me: For every use case, there is a misuse case. Being a technology optimist, I chose to see the wonders and the possibilities of tech innovations. But with AI, I don’t think we can afford to get hypnotized by the shininess while it quietly alters our society and our ability to discern real from artificial.
AI’s reach in the workplace is still pretty nascent, but I think it raises some questions to reflect upon:
What are the consequences of AI-infused candidate screening tools that have been shown to improperly filter candidates because of bias in the underlying model? What happens when a company’s recruiters lean on these screening tools with no human oversight? How do they impact strong candidates with non-traditional experiences?
What are the effects of generative AI on internships and entry-level positions? People are already comparing ChatGPT’s skills to those of human employees. Would companies use AI as a proxy for headcount? How would this impact their talent pipeline?
What does the future look like for arts + creative jobs in graphic design, photography, copywriting, journalism, etc.? In the future, what will it mean to “create”? Will simply having an idea and using AI to bring it to life be enough?
These are just a few of the many complex, nuanced questions that will require thought and consideration to address, by organizational leaders, researchers and lawmakers. But they’re worth asking now. We’ve seen what can happen when tech companies, incentivized by money, build tools that violate our privacy, corrode our attention spans and destroy civil discourse. If AI is left unchecked, the unforeseen consequences to how we work and connect with each other could be significant.
The conversation this week around AI’s permeation into our society has been understandably mixed. I think it’s okay to be both excited about its capabilities and concerned about its risks, particularly as it impacts our ability to make a living. To me, any technology that saves time and helps create better boundaries with work is worth getting excited about.
For now, at least it can help me with one thing…
“Give me 5 good excuses to get out of meetings”