Role of human intent in AI-future workplace

A SCULPTOR'S chisel and an artificial intelligence (AI) model walk into a bar ... I don’t know how the rest of the joke should go, but an AI model may have some clever answers.

- SIMON SPRECKLEY

What I do know is that the chisel and the AI model have more in common than we may realise. That’s because the value of both tools is guided by human intent. On its own, the chisel cannot turn a block of marble into a masterpiece — and likewise, the AI model can’t conjure up something of meaning, purpose or relevance from a void.

Within nearly every industry there is concern about, or at the very least interest in, the impact AI is having on how we understand the value of work. Across the full gambit of sectors and businesses, AI in the workplace is presenting professionals with an important opportunity to interrogate their role, and the evolution of that role, at a time when the machine can do so much of the “making”.

Never before have the tools with which to create and generate been so accessible and so powerful. And that’s a good thing because it means creativity — craft in the most fundamental sense of the word — does not have to be hampered by technical proficiency. The machine allows for the democratisation of the skills needed to do the making, which in turn calls for the human to be the master of empathy - an expert in understanding and unpacking what people need, desire, feel and want.