Is AI coming for your job?

AI replaced 7,000 jobs in September, and that may not even be the worst of it. Staffing firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas says technological updates including automation and possibly AI implementation may have led to 20,000 additional job cuts. All told, more than 17,000 jobs this year have been eliminated explicitly because of AI.

So, is AI coming for your job?

In early October, Formidable brought together a group of AI innovators, investors, critics and thought leaders to discuss the implications of this fast-moving new technology. During a series of wide-ranging panel discussions, we delved into trust, bias, climate change, health care and many more topics. In this four-part series, we'll feature takeaways from these discussions. To view the full panels, please visit our YouTube page. 

Today we’re covering the panel “The Race to Innovate,” a discussion around the evolving role of AI in business and its impact on jobs. You can also hear the discussion on moderator Rachel Horgan’s the weekly podcast Oct. 19. The panelists:

• Arry Yu, managing director of Yellow Umbrella Ventures, chair of the Advanced Technologies Council for the Washington Technology Industry Association.

• Ziyan Huang, applied science leader, Amazon.

• Elaine Chang, technical adviser to the chief communications officer, Microsoft.

Here are seven key takeaways from the event:

AI is not generic: AI needs direction, and the humans using and developing it must have a plan for an outcome. “You have to decide your audacious goal,” says Chang, who recently co-created a communicators guide to AI at Microsoft. “And then, only after you have clarity, you choose which AI tool can really help you.”

Think of the “Toyota Model” when using or implementing AI: The Toyota Business Model emphasizes continuous improvement; the need to observe and thoroughly understand problems before making decisions; and empowering workers to prevent problems. “In the Toyota Model, you’re the expert,” Yu says. “What do you know really well? Test it out and play with it. See what results come out and kind of learn from that process. Try it. Don’t be shy.”

AI is riddled with misconceptions: It’s easy to overestimate the short-term effects of technology. AI is still in its infancy. Its future hasn’t been written. “But just because it’s not perfect, it’s still powerful,” Chang says. “I think a misconception is to wait for different experts to figure it out, (but) everyone here has a diverse perspective. This is actually the opportunity that everyone needs to bring your expertise to help align the technology to your industry, to your problem.”

AI is understandably controversial: Yu, chair of the Cascadia Blockchain Council, compares AI to blockchain in that opinions of it run the gamut and it is ripe for exploitation. “With that power comes great responsibility,” she says. “Jobs will be completely changed. We’re going through a big change in human quality of life.” Huang adds that media hype creates myths around AI. “Why don’t we just get more understanding on exactly what AI is?”

Is AI coming for your job? Maybe, but not necessarily: “I think some of the concern is legitimate,” Huang says. “There is a lot of repetitive work that will be replaced by AI. We’ve already seen that happening.” Lots of work, however, requires critical thinking, meaning that humans must play a major role. “You can brainstorm with AI tools, but at the end of day, as a leader, you need to make the judgment call about which kind of tool I want to build and what specific area I really want to double down, and which area I want to minimize.”

People who use AI will replace those who don’t: When used properly, AI has the potential to save time and money. “Suddenly you can have that one employee able to leverage AI tool to be very good at many different things, and you no longer need to do multi months of research to just get some insights back,” Chang says. “You're able to have that intelligence right here to help you speed up making that decision.”

Let’s not forget what AI is: At its simplest, AI is a combination of math, data and engineering. “If you have a high-level understanding on how the AI works, you will actually know what's the appropriate use cases for the AI tool,” Huang says. Yu encourages people to interact and quit hiding behind screens: “The only way that you can fight against nefarious actors is by meeting people face to face and trading notes and trading ideas on what you heard in the news or what's going on in the world and what's important. That's literally it.”