Gen AI Is Changing Work, but It Can’t Replace Workers, This HR Expert Says
Generated AI tools are replacing some of the tasks historically as entry-level employees to learn their positions at the beginning of their careers. This doesn’t necessarily mean those jobs are gone, a HR head of a large tech company told a South audience on Monday.
“I think we have to make a difference in those entry-level jobs,” said Nickle Lamoreaux, chief human resources officer at IBM.
Artificial intelligence is a big topic on SXSW in Austin, Texas this week, including conversations around accountability, creativity, trust, and the use of synthetic data. A glimpse of the SXSW program, if not, this technology may one day seep into our lives.
A big way: AI is changing our work, it is changing the way we get those work. Lamoreaux said companies will have to look for different qualities of their employees – qualities that cannot be found in machines.
AI as hiring manager?
Lamoreaux said many companies are already using AI to screen resumes or otherwise filter job seekers, but IBM has not. The decision depends on how comfortable the company is with the tool for that purpose, and whether it fits the company’s culture and goals. The goal is to use these tools to reduce bias, but sometimes they can strengthen or amplify it, she said.
IBM is a “skill-first” company, she said, meaning they focus on the candidate’s technical skills, not where those skills come from. Lamoreaux said she was worried that the algorithm would reject candidates from non-traditional backgrounds but with job skills.
The main way AI will change the recruitment process for the next job is how the company wants to affect the skills. The job itself will change.
“I actually think you’re going to see the choice method to try to master this unique talent acquisition part,” Lamoreaux said.
One thing you shouldn’t expect is the idea of applying for a job with a “digital twin” AI agent. These agents may be developed by your employer to handle that employer’s job – and a company won’t let you bring all the information to your competitors or other businesses.
“If you leave the job, you won’t go to your next job with you,” Lamoreaux said. “It will fit in that role.”
Focus on human skills
If LinkedIn influencers can be trusted, the hot new job to develop over the past few years is the generation of AI timely engineers, someone with expertise in obtaining AI models to produce the best output. But Lamoreaux says AI tools are quickly becoming so user-friendly that timely engineering is not as important as before. “‘Cue engineer’ is the same thing as ’email drafter’,” she said.
The future workforce will require more workers with domain expertise: people who can look at the output of AI models and determine what works, what doesn’t work, what is right, what is not. Expertise in this field will also help beyond decision-making capabilities that machines can handle.
“With AI and generative AI, expertise in the field becomes more important than important,” Lamoreaux said.
She said that judgment and communication – the ability to make the right decision and effectively explain that decision – will become the most important skill that employers seek.
New entry-level jobs
Lamoreaux expects AI tools to handle some more basic work, but they can’t handle everything. They will make employees more efficient by reducing low-level work, but humans are still needed to handle advanced decision-making.
“Think about it, like email, cell phone or the internet,” she said. “AI is a tool. AI is a platform. Every job is changed by this.”
If digital tools take over more work that workers who are learning to work and build experience deal with, how should these workers learn the skills required for higher levels of performance?
Lamoreaux said employers need to rethink the role of fledgling workers. These efforts require skills specifically to develop things that AI cannot do, including solving complex problems and making complex decisions.
“When I say AI is changing all the jobs, I’m talking about all the job redesign,” she said. If an employer doesn’t look closely at how to change their entry-level roles to support the growth of employees, it could result in a generation of workers not mastering the skills they need to do the available jobs.
