The impact of Generative AI on the future of work | Webinar summary and recording

‘The impact of Generative AI on the future of work’ webinar summary

jobs.ac.uk collaborated with David Cummins, CEO of The Virtulab, Tiffany St James, Founder and CEO of Transmute, Tyler Hakes, Strategy Director at Optimist and Anne Wilson, Head of Careers at the University of Warwick, to present a 45-minute online webinar ‘The impact of Generative AI on the future of work’ to share the influence Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) is having in the workplace, how it can be utilised, whether it should be embraced and best practice in AI policy. You can now view the full webinar recording or read on for a summary of the main points exploring the topics:

1. Should Generative AI be embraced in the workforce? 

How can humans still be relevant in the advent of Generative AI? How can the two
collaborate?

Anne Wilson makes the point that people’s identify can be associated with their work and the absence of workers who are replaced by AI might make the workplace unfulfilling. Preparation is key to the impact on workers, whether the effect of bringing in AI is welcomed and beneficial or rejected and detrimental. Using AI for repetitive tasks allows workers to focus their time on more meaningful tasks, especially in recruitment as workers are often overwhelmed by amount of inquiries and responses and the ability to utilise AI in these situations can improve wellbeing by reducing workload and in turn burnout.

Tyler Hakes recognises the limitations of AI, it sometimes lacks depth and understanding in particular with creative tasks but echoes Anne’s point of the benefits of assisting in monotonous tacks and data analysis.

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What is the potential of Generative AI in the future?

Tyler Hakes believes AI has great potential, stating it is a transformational foundational technology that is only going to improve. AI will get better at dealing with creative tasks, for better or worse, and creative workers with have to elevate their work to compete with the standard AI is setting but this is an opportunity for creatives to innovate. Further, Tyler envisions that generative AI will divide into specific industries and purposes and there won’t just be one platform like ChatGPT.

Reaffirming this thought, David Cummins states how the versions of ChatGPT are continuously improving on the past iteration and this technology is forecast to exceed the human brain.

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2. Generative AI within recruitment, employability, and skill development

Within recruitment there is potential but there are steps that must be taken to ensure that is it used ethically and within policy. Tiffany St James gives the example of how people can use AI to enforce bias in the recruitment process, AI itself is not bias but the way it was used by these recruiters. David Cummins makes the point that AI responds according to the information it is provided, whether politically inclined or specific biases. According to Anne Wilson, looking at the big picture before utilising AI in recruitment is key, setting up policy and strategy, and recognising its limitations. Looking at who is population the content for the AI and their internal biases.

What are the future skills that professionals need to be trained from learning and development perspective?

Both technical and interpersonal skills. Anne Wilson highlights there is a broad consensus in reports that people need to be skilled in creative, analytical and critical thinking, emotional intelligence, interpersonal communication, flexibility, self-confidence, self-motivation and wellness. From a technical aspect, digital literacy, data literacy, linguistic literacy are vital. As well as the ability to customise your own learning experience using AI tools, voice text interaction and ethical awareness and knowledge of AI prompts. Familiarity with things like programming languages, machine learning algorithms, deep learning in neural networks, and data engineering. So a combination of technological and interpersonal skills will enhance employability. AI will not replace human workers, but they will be replaced by AI literate people.

Could AI help in detecting the actual skills of a person, and thus help in matching with the perfect role?

Tiffany St James makes her point by using the example of a scenario where you have an overwhelming amount of responses for a role and how AI like ChatGPT can be used to interrogate a spreadsheet for certain skills or markers, streamlining the process and saving time. It is important to note you should always anonymise data before it is inputted into ChatGPT. Navigating GDPR in normal circumstances is difficult and David Cummins can only imagine the hurdles we will have to overcome with AI and personal data.

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3. How can generative AI be utilised within the workforce? Will it replace jobs or enhance productivity?

Will it replace jobs or enhance productivity?

David Cummins sees endless potential in AI and not that it is something to fear will replace human workers, using the example of the promising benefits in healthcare and economically. Tyler Hakes continues AI right now is it is bolstering human workers, augmenting abilities, and we are not at the point where we are using AI over hiring people like writers but there is an expectation that AI can enable these people to be more creative, productive and efficient.  The reality that we’re entering into right now is that using AI has its impact on your personal productivity and your personal skill set. Which will be a fundamental component for those who are looking for careers and jobs in the future. There is potential for some displacement or rescaling as AI could mean there is less work to be done but in the current situation he don’t see that to be happening.

How can we ensure that generative AI technologies are harnessed to augment human creativity and productivity in the workforce?

Tiffany St James urges organisations to have an AI policy, structure and boundaries. Set clear lines of what workers can and cannot use AI for, and that it is well-defined for employees so the policy is there to support them rather than police them. Training is vital to get the most out of this tool, and with that it should free people to delve into deeper problem solving, to create and develop critical skills that are needed to drive businesses forward.

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4. Best practices and Generative AI policy making

So apart from all the excitement and potential generative AI can bring, what would happen about moral aspects of making decisions, for instance medical decisions?

It is a fundamental barrier we have not yet solved. Tyler Hakes recalls Tiffany St James’ point many companies are backing away from using AI for critical decisions as there is lots of ambiguity around legality and morality. Again, with the role AI is playing currently as more of a supporting role and not taking over decision making humans still need to be responsible for those judgement calls. We cannot say where we will be in the future, but a framework needs to be established for those challenges.

There are many opposing perspectives on AI, especially AI legislation and depending on where we get our information AI is either painted in a very bleak or rosy view and we may have missed the opportunity to effectively legislation on some of the aspects of AI but sometimes we have to embrace change quickly.

In what ways do you think AI will impact on certain jobs?

Learning to use this technology will be fundamental on future workers in almost every career path, Tyler Hakes’ advice would be to embrace AI and learn how to use it as part of your skill set and workflow.

Highlighted by Tiffany St James, The World Economic Forum did a report recently and stated that there’ll be 25% of job loss due to AI. Goldman Sachs said that the same thing, but also that there will be a 22% job creation. So if there’s going to be a shift, maybe not be what we expect, perhaps more administration roles to be supported by AI and not eliminated. There will be more careers more brittle than others, Tiffany used the example of her daughter going to study game development, which she would consider a brittle career, but she is not going to discourage her as the human understanding will always be needed.

Anne Wilson wouldn’t discourage anyone from pursuing a particular course but to suggest that they go into higher education with their eyes open. AI probably will impact more on professional level roles, and that’s perhaps something we didn’t expect as it’s been typically manufacturing and more practical roles that have been affected.

Takeaways and conclusions

Tiffany St James

Use it, play with it, understand it. Play with these tools and start to use and utilise them and understand how they will help you.

Anne Wilson

Roll your sleeves up and get stuck and don’t get left behind. Be one of those people who was able to adapt. Be curious and keep learning as AI continually evolve because it’s going at such a pace, we can’t afford to ignore it.

Tyler Hakes

ChatGPT is a fundamental skill but taking it further it opens a world of opportunities for those who are passionate or interested in AI because as discussed in this webinar AI has a sort of endless potential so for those who learn how to master AI there is a very lucrative path there with the many careers that are going to be developed around AI.

David Cummins

From starting on a training course and now using AI 100 times a day and constantly discovering new things find David believes in the importance of AI. Thinking on the significance of AI on the world, everyone needs to get involved and play their part. Keep pushing boundaries and stay curious!

Panellists:

Tiffany St James, Founder and CEO, Transmute

Tiffany is an award-winning Global Digital Strategist and Transformation Consultant helping organisations transform and compete digitally, globally. Tiffany founded, and manages, the digital management consultancy Transmute, helping large organisations and governments to embrace digital change through the smart use of digital strategy and cultural innovation using psychology and behaviour change.

David Cummins, CEO, The Virtulab

David is currently Executive Director at The Virtulab, using his passion for technology with strategic foresight, steering his team towards the creation of cutting-edge products and solutions. David is frequent speaker on platforms where technology meets innovation, David shares insights that resonate with professionals and enthusiasts alike.

Tyler Hakes, Strategy Director, Optimist

Tyler Hakes is the founder of the content marketing agency Optimist. He’s worked for nearly 15 years in content marketing, SEO, and growth. He’s worked with dozens of large and small technology companies including brands like Gusto, ZoomInfo, DreamHost, Semrush, and many more.

Anne Wilson, Head of Careers, University of Warwick

Anne is a qualified careers consultant and coach. She runs leadership training for career professionals. Anne is a qualified Strengths practitioner and designs and delivers strengths leadership and team-building training.

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