I’ve just read three highly recommendable articles: “Don’t be fooled. This is the calm before the AI storm”, by Megan McArdle on The Washington Post; “How AI is changing American jobs from teachers to nurses”, on Bloomberg, and “It pays to use AI on the sly at work”, on the Financial Times. I would highly recommend them to anybody interested in where AI is going.
Quite simply, we are not using AI at anything like the pace of its technological development. As McArdle points out, we are in a kind of phoney war, analogous to the period between September 1939 and May 1940, when everybody knew something huge was about to happen, but wasn’t prepared for it. In this case, a combination of cultural resistance, lack of understanding, and powerful organizational inertia is slowing down AI’s full integration into our daily lives.
The Bloomberg article highlights how AI is already impacting professions such as teaching, nursing and even stock market analysts, improving personalization and efficiency. However, these applications are still limited, and haven’t completely replaced human functions, nor is it clear what the ultimate goal is.
The Financial Times reveals that many employees use AI tools such as ChatGPT covertly, due to their organization’s lack of clear policies and the fear of being “found out”. This phenomenon, known as shadow AI, which I’ve already discussed, carries the risk of data breaches, misuse, or over-reliance on still-imperfect technologies.
As AI is increasingly integrated into complete robotic systems, anthropomorphic or not, its impact will extend to manual and operational jobs, traditionally more difficult to automate. This poses significant challenges for a workforce that has much fewer defenses, and will require proactive adaptation by both organizations and workers.
The spread of AI is limited not by the technology itself, which is evolving very quickly, but by society’s ability to assimilate it. It is essential to foster a culture of continuous learning, establish clear policies and promote a transparent and ethical adoption of AI from the earliest stages of education, as is already happening in some countries, if we are to fully reap its benefits and mitigate its risks. Given the experience with previous technologies such as smartphones, I have to admit that I’m not optimistic.
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This post was previously published on Enrique Dans’ blog.
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