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DUBAI, United Arab Emirates, December 4, 2018 — CIOs need to prepare workers for a future in which people do more creative and impactful work because they no longer have to perform many routine and repetitive tasks, according to Gartner, Inc. People and machines are entering a new era of learning in which artificial intelligence (AI) augments ordinary intelligence and helps people realize their full potential. “Pairing AI with a human creates a new decision-making model in which AI offers new facts and options, but the head remains human, as does the heart,” said Svetlana Sicular, research vice president at Gartner. “Let people identify the most suitable answers among the different ones that AI offers, and use the time freed by AI to create new things.” Gartner analysts discussed how CIOs should support their organizations as they navigate the transition to an AI-enabled workforce during Gartner Symposium/ITxpo, which is taking place here until Thursday. Survey Finds AI Eliminates Fewer Jobs Than Expected — and Can Create Them AI will change the workforce, but its impact will not be detrimental to all workers. According to a Gartner survey conducted in the first quarter of 2018 among 4,019 consumers in the U.K. and U.S., 77 percent of employees whose employers have yet to launch an AI initiative expect AI to eliminate jobs. But the same survey found that only 16 percent of employees whose employers have actually adopted AI technologies saw job reductions, and 26 percent of respondents reported job increases after adopting AI. People will learn how to do less routine work. They will be trained in new tasks, while old tasks that have become routine will be done by machines. “The human is the strongest element in AI,” explained Ms. Sicular. “Newborns need an adult human to survive. AI is no different. The strongest component of AI is the human touch. AI serves human purposes and is developed by people.” There are, for example, cases in which consulting an AI system has saved money, time and distress. Not consulting an AI system may actually become unethical in the future — in the field of medicine, for example. “The future lies not in a battle between people and machines, but in a synthesis of their capabilities, of humans and AI working together,” said Helen Poitevin, research senior director at Gartner. People and Machines: A New Era of Learning Although AI will give employees the time to do more, organizations will need to train and retrain their employees in anticipation of AI investments. “We are entering an era of continuous learning,” said Ms. Sicular. “People will have to learn how to live with AI-enabled machines. When machines take away routine tasks, people will have the time to do more new tasks, so they will need to constantly learn.” People will also need to learn how to train AI systems to be useful, clear and trustworthy, in order to work alongside them cooperatively. “It’s about trust and engagement. People need to trust machines — this is the ultimate condition of AI adoption and success,” said Ms. Sicular. Choose Your AI Teacher Well CIOs are likely to be the leader or instigator of AI initiatives in their organization. While machine learning focuses on creating new algorithms and improving the accuracy of “learners”, the machine teaching discipline focuses on the efficacy of “teachers.” The role of teacher is to transfer knowledge to the learning machine, so that it can generate a useful model that can approximate a concept. Machine learning models and AI applications derive intelligence from the available data in ways that people direct them to do. “These technologies learn from teachers, so it is essential to choose your teachers well,” said Ms. Sicular. “While some may think AI is hard for people, we can also ask ourselves ‘Are people easy for AI?’” “As a CIO, you will shape the future of work by how you invest in technology and people,” said Ms. Poitevin. “Today, the majority of the CIOs we speak to find themselves amid a proliferation of “bots” (physical robots and software virtual assistants). Adoption of bots in the workplace is rising as workers become increasingly comfortable working with machines and grow more supportive of them.” CIOs believe bots will be integral to our daily lives, wherever we would ‘rather have a bot do it. “By 2020, AI technologies will pervade almost every new software product and service,” said Ms. Poitevin. “Well-designed robots and virtual assistants will be embraced and seen as helping employees focus on their best work by relieving them of a mountain of mundane work.” About Gartner Symposium/ITxpo Gartner Symposium/ITxpo is the world’s most important gathering of CIOs and senior IT leaders, uniting a global community of CIOs with the tools and strategies to help them lead the next generation of IT and achieve business outcomes. More than 20,000 CIOs, senior business and IT leaders worldwide will gather for the insights they need to ensure that their IT initiatives are key contributors to, and drivers of, their enterprise’s success. Follow news, photos and video from Gartner Symposium/ITxpo on Smarter With Gartner, on Twitter using #GartnerSYM, Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn. Upcoming dates and locations for Gartner Symposium/ITxpo include: About Gartner Gartner, Inc. (NYSE: IT) is the world’s leading research and advisory company and a member of the S&P 500. We equip business leaders with indispensable insights, advice and tools to achieve their mission-critical priorities and build the successful organizations of tomorrow. Our unmatched combination of expert-led, practitioner-sourced and data-driven research steers clients toward the right decisions on the issues that matter most. We are a trusted advisor and objective resource for more than 15,000 organizations in more than 100 countries — across all major functions, in every industry and organization size. To learn more about how we help decision makers fuel the future of business, visit www.gartner.com. |
Gartner Identifies the Human Touch as the Strongest Element in AI At the Gartner Symposium/ITxpo 2019, March 4-8 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates Analysts Explore How People and Machines Are Working in Unison
