The Human Edge in an AI World

Artificial intelligence may be rewriting workplace rules, but humans still hold the advantage if they embrace the right skills

- BY Jaspreet Bindra

BY FAR, THE biggest concern around AI is how it might impact jobs. “Is my job safe?” and “Will my children find jobs in the age of AI?” are common refrains today. This is not surprising, since AI is a cognitive technology, perhaps the first tool we have invented that mimics our brain. Thus, it has abilities and expertise that we consider uniquely human—creativity, art, writing, mathematics and coding. Thus, it ignites a primal fear of loss of livelihood, relevance and one’s place in society. These questions are certainly not being asked for the first time. Every time a revolutionary new technology is unleashed, the same thought fearfully raises its head. It bothered Ned Ludd in 1779 when the spinning jenny was invented, as it threatened to take his job as a textile factory apprentice. He went and smashed a machine or two, catalysing a campaign against textile technology, and started the Luddite movement. New-age Luddites worried about PCs and their job-destroying potential; this movement was particularly strident in India with computers being smashed by workers' unions. We were apprehensive that computers would replace accountants, clerks, secretaries, teachers, consultants and scores of others. The reality, as it turned out, was quite different: the PC and the Internet did destroy a few jobs, but created millions more, and today we cannot imagine our life without them; the IT revolution not only created new jobs, but also catapulted India into a tech superpower.

As the GenAI tidal wave sweeps across industries and offices, we strongly believe that it will affect corporate work more than anything else. We often do not consider work an industry—though it is a several trillion dollar one—and confuse work with jobs. We are rightly worried about how AI will impact jobs, but tend to neglect how AI will impact work. But we need to look at AI and jobs in a nuanced way, and we do so through four lenses:

AI will indeed eliminate some jobs