As AI companies get bigger in valuation and usage, there is a constant debate about how AI is replacing humans in various jobs. Studies suggest that roles where AI can automate most tasks will be impacted, though some analysts believe that AI may also create jobs, with the displacement effect only transitional.
David Shim, CEO of meeting notetaker and intelligence company Read AI, told TechCrunch at Web Summit Qatar earlier this month that even with the rise of AI tools, it will ultimately be humans who decide the course of action, and their job will be important. He equated the technology with using maps in a car.
“I think there’s always going to be a human in the middle,” Shim said. “I think the job is going to get easier over time. But a good example would be like driving a car. When we first started, you used to have a map. And you’d pull out the map. And you’d go in and say okay I’m driving. I’m deciding what happens. Now everyone uses Waze or Google Maps, and the map is telling you where to go. And you’re just following that order. But you’re the human in the middle who can decide what happens.”
Shim acknowledged that AI would affect jobs, noting that advertising agencies may lose human roles in favor of automated tools. However, he noted that tech platforms would need jobs to oversee the automation process.
Abdullah Asiri, founder of AI-powered consumer support tooling startup Lucidya, said that he believes that AI will replace tasks but not roles. He said that when his company’s clients use Lucidya, customer support agents often take up different roles and responsibilities. He noted that some become supervisors who guide other humans and AI, while some take up relationship-building and business development responsibilities using the time they saved.
Read AI’s Shim noted that meeting notetakers have freed up humans from taking notes manually.
“Nobody here wants to sit down and take meeting notes, but as you start to take away that job, you have a little bit more time to do other things that you can go and focus on. You can send that report a little bit faster, or you can respond back to a customer and actually have better context to make better decisions, versus spending a bunch of time gathering all the information and having little time to make a decision,” he said.
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