What if AI doesn’t take your job, but makes you love it?

John Kenneth Gailbraith once said that the only function of economic forecasting was to make astrology look respectable. But recent bold predictions over Artificial Intelligence is giving astrology a run for its money.

A few weeks back the CEO of Anthropic, Dario Amodei, said AI could send unemployment as high as 20 per cent. Elon Musk went so far as to say that AI will take all our jobs.   

Calm must prevail. As the saying goes, predications are hard – especially about the future. Even John Maynard Keynes predicted his generation’s grandchildren would work only 15 hours a week. If only!

There is no sign of an apocalypse in the data. Yes, graduate hires have eased, but they have come off the highs of an employment boom. More young Australians are employed today than at the start of the pandemic. And there is no clear sign of Australian translators – said to be among the most vulnerable to the AI revolution – losing their jobs en masse.

There is no sign of an apocalypse in the data… More young Australians are employed today than at the start of the pandemic.

Progress has always required both technology and humans. The move from ledgers to mainframes did not limit the need for workers, it only opened up possibilities. As Australia’s former Chief Scientist, Cathy Foley, has explained, “any new technology [that has] come on board, [has] never led to reduce jobs. It’s meant a change in jobs and more jobs”.

For most organisations, AI will be a substitute for tasks, not people. An early 2023 MIT study found that ChatGPT reduced time spent on writing tasks by 40% while increasing quality by allowing more time for idea generation and editing.

This isn’t just good news for employers. Survey after survey shows that for the average office worker, a significant portion of the day is taken up with manual and repetitive tasks. AI shifts the balance of what you can and must do.

The tedious is out. Get AI to link your processes and write your code. Creativity and emotional intelligence are in. Many roles will shift from the banal to the strategic. This technology will upgrade you, not replace you.

Businesses have a once in a generation opportunity to eliminate wasteful processes with AI.

There will, no doubt, be painful adjustments to roles required as some organisations plug cash losses. However, as The Economist has pointed out, even when businesses do adopt AI, it doesn’t always lead to redundancies. Economics tells an alternative story: the more productive your employees are, the more it makes sense to hire them!

Economics tells an alternative story: the more productive your employees are, the more it makes sense to hire them!

And so, organisations must start by considering their strategy, not their head count. 

Tech, HR and Strategy leaders will need to consider the bundle of AI tools that balance their strategic needs with risk and productivity. They’ll also have to consider the notoriously difficult task of tech implementation. Barriers to embedding new AI tools will be one of the greatest obstacles to boosting Australian productivity. I rarely meet an organisation which does not lament the slow pace of tech implementation and the constraint that places on business performance.

But even as AI is successfully implemented, the ways of working will need to change. Organisations will need to find ways to reprioritise and allocate work more fluidly. This can’t just mean more frequent organisational restructures. No one likes a restructure. Alternatives will need to be found. The focus must shift from what people do – coding, analysis, writing – and which team they do it in – engineering, strategy, communications – to the capabilities they bring to solve problems – logic, problem solving, storytelling.

For employees, the opportunities are endless.

There will be more time for the kind of abstract thinking and organisational fluency once reserved only for the most senior leaders. Gone are the days of smart university graduates confined to a basement doing manual tasks. 

There will be more time for the kind of abstract thinking and organisational fluency once reserved only for the most senior leaders.

More than ever, employees must be open to learning and embrace ambiguity. They must lean into discovery and trial and error with AI. They must be open with their employers, highlighting missing tools, sharing knowledge gaps and hurdles. But they must also focus on their fullest capabilities, not clinging to the lower expectations of yesteryear.

For many the initial transition will not be easy. But the change we have ahead of us is a once in a generation opportunity. We must not let our fear stifle our ability to flourish.