Maria Grazia Pecorari, Chief Strategy and Digital Officer at BT Global Services, a division of the British telecommunications operator BT, made an interesting presentation on the topic of artificial intelligence.
Pecorari pointed out that we have already started living in an age when artificial intelligence works independently alongside people. World leaders should therefore focus on ways to use artificial intelligence ethically. She sees the following three steps as the correct way forward.
1. Retraining workers
Computers are already able to make better decisions than humans. Not only manual workers but also educated knowledge workers, such as journalists, lawyers, marketers and even doctors, are in danger of losing their jobs. At the same time, however, other roles are more in demand than ever before and these are the roles you should focus on. Retraining existing employees is more efficient than looking for new ones.
2. Customer service
The development of artificial intelligence brings new ways to improve customer service. Support systems based on artificial intelligence can push workers into the roles of customer service experts. While AI is able to handle simple requests, human workers can solve the more complex ones and come up with suggestions for improvement.
3. Performance management
Given the fact that technology can already handle about 45% of what people are being paid to do, the content of work performed by humans has to change. Performance measures, based on which people are paid, should become more creative and more critical than today. Then people can add value where machines are unable to do so.
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