By Ursula Fear, Senior Talent Programme Manager at Salesforce South Africa
Since the dawn of the computational age, human beings have pursued the creation of machine intelligence. In fact, the question of what that artificial intelligence (AI) would look like and how it would impact our lives and the world around us has even been explored in our entertainment media.
However, the reality of AI doesn’t live at either of those extremes and it’s certainly not as scary as many might think. Artificial Intelligence systems rather consist of software that is able to analyse datasets and make decisions or recommendations based on that information which would otherwise require a “human level of expertise”.
For today’s workforce, AI presents a new era of anxiety and concern as a means for employers to replace their positions with the autonomous work of machines. According to a recent Microsoft survey, 49% of employees are afraid of losing their jobs to AI.
In reality, I believe the workforce has much more to gain than to fear from AI. As a matter of fact, AI has the potential to enable positive transformation in the workplace at scale that drives up productivity, making it easier to transfer skills while also facilitating an environment conducive to creativity and innovation.
It’s also clear that the capability of AI to drive the development of both global and local economies in a digital future, with the potential to contribute more than $15 trillion to the global economy by 2030 and give local economies a boost of up to 26% in GDP, means that the technology is simply here to stay. It’s just too beneficial for stimulating productivity growth and value creation.