Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

AI, as we have it today, is a software tool. Like all software tools, it should aid persons in their jobs, not replace persons.

We have all these artificial intelligence programs everywhere. At least some persons claim such. What we have are software tools. The software can find some images that maybe have a rose in them or steer a car down a well-defined and lighted roadway. Artificially intelligent? I don’t think so.

Regardless of definitions, AI is replacing persons and taking their jobs. Any manager that replaces a person with a piece of software is taking huge risks. I strongly advise against such.

Despite all the excitement, our AI software today is merely a tool. Tools aid persons in jobs. Open a million jpg files and copy the one hundred that might have a rose to a directory for a person to examine. That is helpful. That doesn’t replace the person.

Open a million social media posts and copy the one hundred that might be hate speech to a place for a person to read. That is helpful. That doesn’t replace the person.

Depend on the software to do the job start to finish without a person. That is foolish and takes on unacceptable risk. Now your CEO is sitting before Congress with two dozen lawyers charging $1,000 an hour to keep the CEO out of jail.

What we have done is replace the analyst with two dozen lawyers. The AI software didn’t save anything.