When your boss tells you to start incorporating artificial intelligence into your work, do you play along or resist? For one man in New Mexico, going either way could have ended the same way.
Kevin Cantera, an avid historian from Las Cruces, believed he was on the right track with his employer, who encouraged employees to adopt the benefits of AI, starting with ChatGPT.
After working with his educational technology firm for 17 years, Kevin was able to adapt, learn rapidly, and even start to enjoy working with the chatbot.
“I considered the LLM as a collaborator,” said Cantera to The Washington Post. “My productivity was off the charts.”
He told them he had learned to create tasks that would produce valuable, true information, which he then double-checked and refined.
Unfortunately, his boss seemed to agree, just not in the way that Cantera had hoped. Not long after being assured that his employment was secure, he, along with dozens of other employees, was let go.
It was discovered, however, that their jobs, much like the way he had instructed them, would be taken over by the same technology.
When “Innovation” Turns into Elimination
Such surprises are also common in businesses today. Today, with the rising popularity of AI technology, some firms are laying off employees or downsizing while relying on the rest to cover everything with the help of technology.
CEOs are boasting about the efficiency, but the truth is not always so rosy.
There is plenty of data available to support these points. One study conducted by MIT revealed that 95% of businesses that began the implementation of AI technology saw absolutely no boost to their bottom line.
There is also the report about how AI work is “sloppy, inaccurate, and riddled with typos,” with the problem being exacerbated, some are arguing, with the “workslop” epidemic that is developing in the field.
Even Cantera is concerned about the future of his old firm, because there are so many experts in the matter who are now absent, that he questions whether the automated content is even being vetted.
“I’m sure they are trying to vet the input that comes from the AI system,” he told the WaPo, “but the scary part is that the system’s outputs may be coming without any quality checks or even vetting from experts.”
Meanwhile, the bigger experiment is continuing in the world of work. Corporations are racing to automate, workers are trying to stay relevant, and “who’s next on the chopping block” is on everyone’s mind.
Well, what’s the moral here? When your employer tells you to get on the AI bandwagon, of course! Learn the technology, adapt to it, and leverage its benefits to the fullest possible extent!
However, do perhaps update your resume too, because once the machines start working together, sometimes the machines are going to be working together with the bosses!
But if that’s the future of “innovation,” then one can’t help but question who is being upgraded, the technology or the reasons used to displace the workers.
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