How AI is Disrupting the Current Workplace for Better Productivity?

Artificial Intelligence has emerged out as a boon for modern-day workplaces. It is making mundane and dull office work more interesting and productive. AI also enables workers to focus on the most engaging jobs while making them more effective and efficient.

Soon, even those who don't happen to work for technology companies (although as every company moves towards becoming a tech company, that will be increasingly few) will find AI-enabled machines increasingly present as they go about their day-to-day activities.

From how people are recruited and on-boarded to how they go about on-the-job training, personal development and eventually passing on their skills and experience to those who follow in their footsteps, AI technology will play an increasingly prominent role.

The technology in the workplace has eventually been better for higher-skilled workers than for the lower-skilled, said Mark Muro, an expert from Brookings Instiution. "Artificial intelligence could play out just the opposite."

As noted by Livemint, while machines have long been able to perform repetitive physical tasks or complex mathematical calculations, AI enables computers to analyze data, predict outcomes, learn from experience by recognizing patterns and make decisions. Such tasks are currently done by professional workers, many with college degrees.

Examples:

A financial adviser analyzes a client's economic circumstances, income prospects and personal goals to guide retirement planning. With AI, an algorithm could use the same information to make recommendations.

The market research analyst analyzes consumer spending trends and patterns to recommend an advertising strategy for a new movie or automobile. With AI, a computer could do the same thing.

Medical facilities have started using computers to read X-rays and determine whether images are consistent with a disease such as pneumonia, a task previously performed by radiologists.

AI will replace the jobs?

"AI will substitute for a set of tasks, but there's no reason it would have to be a total displacement," said Stanford University economist Michael Webb. "The only thing you can say for sure is that the job will change."

Artificial intelligence may allow some workers to dispense with time-consuming tasks such as data analysis, and focus on potentially more profitable activities, such as meeting clients. Those workers could become more productive and command higher wages.

Other workers could find their jobs simplified and more easily filled by someone with less education, which could drive down wages in the process. And in other cases, jobs could be replaced entirely by technology.

To be sure, experts in the past have incorrectly predicted that other major shifts in the economy—including the mechanization of agriculture, automation of factories and outsourcing of labor to foreign countries—would cause mass unemployment. While these trends did eliminate many US jobs, many others were created over time. And the unemployment rate was near a 50-year low in January, at 3.6 percent.

"Expanded use of artificial intelligence is necessary given the labor shortage that is happening," said Irina Novoselsky, chief executive of job-search site CareerBuilder.com.

The company is tapping AI to help fill some job openings. It uses technology to scan resumes and job descriptions, matching workers who might have the right skills for a job but not the specific experience. Such matching wasn't possible a few years ago, Ms. Novoselsky said.

The company uses AI to read resumes and make sense of jargon the same way a human can, but without the pesky constraints of sleeping or eating.

Top executives are likely less exposed to potential displacement by AI than lower-level professionals. A Brookings study found that exposure to artificial intelligence falls for the top 10% of earners.

"CEOs are largely exempt from this," Mr. Muro said. "They're not the ones doing the number crunching and making the PowerPoints."