How to feel hopeful and empowered about AI

Annabel Gillard, AI ethics lead at Co-Labs Global

Annabel Gillard advises clients on ethics and organisational culture in an AI-driven future workplace. Here, she shares her views on how we can engage positively with AI.  

It’s not artificial or intelligent - it is an increasingly accurate prediction generator. It trains on large amounts of data to find patterns and then applies these patterns to new data to offer the most likely answer. Chat GPT and other large language models (LLMs) predict the next word while medical tools might predict a diagnosis. It is now incredibly good at crunching through data and finding patterns, reviewing in seconds an amount of information that would take a person several lifetimes to absorb. 

It is important to remember that however compelling the answer it gives you – it is still, always, a guess. It can produce text that seems more ‘intelligent’ than a human, but it doesn’t understand the data it is processing. It does not ‘think’ or ‘know’. It lacks several aspects of human intelligence which will not feature in any AI response, such as awareness of meaning and context, intention, emotion, moral responsibility, imagination and judgement.   

AI does not have valuable human characteristics - so combining human with artificial intelligence offers the greatest opportunity. The incredibly impressive answers that can emerge from AI are only as relevant as the question a human asked to produce them, only as good as the data it was trained on and only as useful as what a human then does with them. Against a backdrop of media hype about job losses or super intelligent AI – it’s really important for us to keep perspective and remember that technology is here to serve humanity, not the other way around.

AI isn’t going to happen to us – it is humans who make the decision about when and how to use it.

Headlines that ‘AI will reduce jobs’ obscure the fact that it is humans who decide whether to replace workers with AI. Increasingly, business leaders recognise that the real potential for AI isn’t in replacing existing workers but empowering them -and isn’t in investing in AI out of FOMO but in using it selectively, where it’s best placed to deliver strategic objectives. In the week of writing, Heads of AI at two high street banks have publicly stated that they don’t see AI as being about cutting jobs, but in enabling existing workers to do more interesting things. Their intent is to retain and reskill rather than reduce and replace. We collectively have choices about the sort of AI-enabled future we want and can ensure “AI benefits 8 billion of us not 8 billionaires” as the technology expert, Rachel Coldicutt said.

Technology could herald a more human future. The most exciting opportunity this offers is the chance to do things better – to simplify and humanise. When business transformations fail it is usually because the human-side of change has not been handled well. Companies that are best able to achieve the returns on their AI investments will be those that take their people with them and combine them effectively in a way that motivates and empowers.  

Don’t worry If you’re not using AI yet (around 10% are using it weekly) or if you don’t trust it (only 42% do). AI has developed faster than the guidance and standards that enable us to know that it’s safe and well governed. But there has been dramatic progress on that front over the last 12 months. It is the equivalent to the early stages of the internet - we can see that this new technology will bring about huge change – but not exactly what that will look like, or which companies will see the biggest benefits or difficulties.

AI is developing faster and with greater impact than the internet, but it is a marathon, not a sprint. You still have time to familiarise yourself.

If concerns over bias or sustainability are holding you back – know that AI needs you! AI works like a mirror and it will be more accurately reflective if more of us get involved.  

If you haven’t already, give it a go with a sense of curiosity and playfulness - try with a friend or family member if you’re nervous. AI adoption is a key part of the growth agenda in both government and the private sector, so AI literacy training is likely to be coming to a company or community space near you. Take up such opportunities when they present themselves and try LLMs like Claude or Perplexity if you’re not sure where to start. My 3 simple rules for using AI are 1) don’t put anything confidential in it 2) check what you get out 3) remember what its good and bad at – and that its not human!  

Our adoption and integration of AI will bring about major change at a corporate, economic and social level. Although this might feel uncomfortable at first, adaptability is one of humanity’s greatest strengths. Critical thinking and curious questioning will be more important than knowledge, the courage to try new things will enable us to best harness this opportunity, while empathy and connection will help us sustain each other through this change. By embracing curiosity, courage, compassion and community we can feel more hopeful and empowered about AI.