Are humans useless in the AI workspace? | BBC News

Hello, welcome to AI decoded. We talk

about AI and how it's going to change our jobs constantly, but here's the honest truth. Most of us don't yet fully

honest truth. Most of us don't yet fully understand what that will mean to the future of work. We know it's coming,

perhaps faster than many of us expected.

The question I ask my clients is if an AI could take over all of your team's task, who would you keep and why?

That question is strategic. And the

answer matters to me not just intellectually, but because I have two daughters at home. They're five and nine. And right now, as you can see,

nine. And right now, as you can see, they feel invincible.

But I keep wondering what is the world of work they will step into.

We need to build a future where humans matter more not less.

It's not about whether AI replaces us.

Of course, there will be some jobs that do go, but how we redesign the workplace around it. What does that actually look

around it. What does that actually look like in practice? In this program, we're going to try and make sense of all that.

We brought together three guests who have talked about this subject more than most. Bernard Mah wr writes about AI and

most. Bernard Mah wr writes about AI and business for Forbes. He's advised some of the world's largest organizations on how to use AI effectively. Ella Haimaltz

is an associate professor at the Frier University in Amsterdam. She spent the last two years studying what happens when employees start using AI tools at work. and of course our very own

work. and of course our very own colleague Pria Lani, CEO of Century Tech, the AI education company. Welcome

to the three of you. Thanks for being with us. Um Pri, I'm going to start with

with us. Um Pri, I'm going to start with you. Let me put to you the premise of

you. Let me put to you the premise of our program.

Okay.

How do we create an AI workplace of the future in which humans still matter?

I love the fact that you start our program with the most profound question question just that's what we're all asking about.

Okay. Well, look the way in which we do this is I think we have to think about look if everyone has AI across the board it is going to be the humans that create

the difference and so how are we now going to upskill the people within the workforce so that they can thrive in that environment now if you think about all of the changes that are taking place

and the companies that are you know seeing changes with AI they're reporting positive changes what's really interesting is those changes take place with tasks. You know, your role and your

with tasks. You know, your role and your job, if you think about it, it's about repetitive tasks, automating tasks. But

what it's struggling with still is that sort of strategic direction and that judgment. And so, I think companies need

judgment. And so, I think companies need to be thinking about, you know, how much are we actually investing in innovation.

How much are we investing in our people to have the time to be skilled in this area so that we can then differentiate ourselves and humans will then still be able to flourish in an age where we have

this sort of AI augmented workplace.

Bernard, let's fast forward to 2030, the beginning of the next decade.

How widely do you think AI will have changed the average job? Help us

understand that first of all, and how you think it will reshape the average workplace.

Yes. So this is what I try to help companies understand. And what I'm

companies understand. And what I'm seeing is that AI will completely transform our jobs. For me, AI is a superpower that will all we we can all

use. It's almost like having a genie on

use. It's almost like having a genie on your shoulder that allows you to do pretty much anything or at least a lot of tasks that previously you needed

someone else to help you with. And for

me there are three types of AI that will transform our work in the future. The

first one is generative AI. So we are used to chatboards like chat GPT and claude and and Gemini and we use them to answer questions and if you think about

a financial advisor for example, they can now offload the data analysis to the chatbot. They can draft reports and they

chatbot. They can draft reports and they can hopefully spend a bit more time building interpersonal relationships with their clients.

Then we have agentic AI. So the AI that can do things that can operate software that can look things up on the internet, fill out forms and

do those repetitive jobs that Pria is talking about. The jobs that you do

talking about. The jobs that you do again and again and again in the same format.

Exactly. And IBM is a good example. They

have automated a lot of their HR tasks.

All the repetitive tasks. So if you work in HR today, you actually want to think about how AI is transforming the company, how we need to train, retrain

our people, rethink our jobs. And

actually you get bogged down by answering the same questions again about pension contributions, about um vacation time and so on.

So we can give AI those jobs and these AIs can now fill out forms, they can search data for you. Um, and then we have physical AI and this is another component. So, so far we've talked about

component. So, so far we've talked about all the cognitive work. Physical robots

are getting better as well. They're

starting to understand the physical world much better. We now have the emergence of world models. So,

humanoid robots, for example, they can be trained by simply watching videos of how we do things on YouTube.

They can learn from that, right? and and and all of those will

right? and and and all of those will mean that tasks will change. So,

right, but you said that if we were to look at where we are right now, it's not necessarily that AI is replacing the jobs instantly. It's that AI is

jobs instantly. It's that AI is hollowing them out in what sense?

So, what AI does it it will perform the task that we actually don't necessarily like. one part of the job

like. one part of the job the repetitive tasks is I work with a company and their chief AI officer actually went into the organization to ask everyone what are the things you

don't like in your job that you would love the AI to do for you because we in our jobs we're not running out of things to do they're not we will never run out

of questions and problems to solve what we get distracted by daytoday is all the things the form filling the the the the things that take up our time.

So in a positive sense, there could be a freedom that this creates to to focus on more creative parts of the business.

Exactly. What I believe is that it will make our work more human and actually more enjoyable because we don't get distracted by all the things that we almost shouldn't waste our amazing human

potential to to work on.

Well, that feels like a good place to bring in Ella. Um because your research, Ella, has taken you to very different companies in the Netherlands. And it

reveals that employees are already using these large language models in their work in ways that managers can't easily see. In what ways are they using them?

see. In what ways are they using them?

Yeah. So we've been studying chat since 2022. So just after it came out we

2022. So just after it came out we thought we have to look at this and we started talking to people already then about how are you using this in your work and we found out that they were playing around with it first of all at

home using it for all the silly kind of things that maybe you're familiar with you know make me look a different way write a poem etc but then they started figuring out hey this could be useful

for work and so unbeknownst to managers without kind of approval they started to use this technology for brainstorming u for search as a kind of replacement for Google for structuring information,

polishing text, all these different ways that they were just letting it creep into their everyday work. And it can sound kind of innocent in these little parts, but it has bigger consequences.

Well, like what?

Well, what we found, for example, in our interviews is people were so happy to not have to bother their colleagues with questions. So, you know, previously I'd

questions. So, you know, previously I'd have to go and ask my manager or I'd have to bring in my business partner who knows this framework, but now I don't need them. I can just ask Chachi Pitt.

need them. I can just ask Chachi Pitt.

And so, they were happy to not have to find out where their employees are or their colleagues. You know how it is

their colleagues. You know how it is with hybrid working. You're never quite sure who's where. So, easy, convenient, ask chat. So that organic self-learning

ask chat. So that organic self-learning on the job the the exchange of information between colleagues which which is creative within an industry you worry that that element is being lost.

Yeah. So we see this as a real challenge for particularly managers who might not realize that this is happening this erosion of the social ties between people and that's a lot of what

organizations are for. We're meant to share knowledge and learn from one another and also check the quality and accuracy of what's coming out of these interactions.

You see what Ella is describing there, Priya, is that this is already happening organically, one employee at a time. And

if we're to start thinking strategically about this rather than asking the question, oh, is it going to replace my job? This is the sort of thing that CEOs

job? This is the sort of thing that CEOs and managers are going to have to get a grip of. How is it working to the

grip of. How is it working to the benefit of the company? And are we all using it in the same way, in the same direction?

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think that in the last year, I've certainly seen a lot of businesses around the world talking about having some form of plan, some form some form of policy and a strategy because it's not just the sorts of ways

of just using something to maybe brainstorm instead of going to a colleague. You know, you can't be

colleague. You know, you can't be putting personal data or commercially sensitive data into tools that you have a personal account for at home. And so

there I think most CEOs over the last 12 to 18 months have said, "Right, this AI thing, we have to do something." And

what was so interesting is that because of this program actually quite a few people will reach out on LinkedIn or write to me or meet me and say Pri and they're CEOs of like Footsie 250

companies right? So they'll come up to

companies right? So they'll come up to you and they'll say Priya we're using AI and because I'm nice right I'll smile and be really encouraging and say that's amazing. So in the back of my head I'm

amazing. So in the back of my head I'm just thinking what are you talking about? And actually when you when you

about? And actually when you when you dig deeper, what you find is they've bought co-pilot licenses for all of their staff and they're just finishing

off their emails using AI. Whereas I

think what we'll start to see because you know people are savvy to this now how come and we covered this on this program Christian very deeply the MIT report that said that you know 95% of organizations aren't getting return on

investment from AI and then there was another report by McKenzie actually 1% of companies are getting return on investment companies are now desperate they're saying how can I be part of the 1%

okay two fast thoughts before we talk about how we adapt to this um if you want an example of what Pria's was talking about there, Bernard. Um, the

idea that CEOs think they're using it when really they're not. You only need to go and look at some of the job ads currently on LinkedIn.

100%. And what we are still seeing is jobs, the job descriptions almost of the last century is how we've always done jobs instead of thinking how will AI

truly change our jobs. Um

think you you talked about coding coding now anthropics claude can perform they they use they use code to automate 80% of

their coding tasks. So the jobs need to change and what we need to do is we need to fundamentally rethink our jobs and how we as humans bring the best of what

we have is the strategic thinking is the creativity and creative problem solving emotional intelligence building connections with other people. These

things AI can't do and we can bring and what humans actually need to do is they need to be able to delegate effectively to the AI. And what I'm seeing is that

jobs are being elevated and almost frontline employees are now becoming managers of a of a set of AI tools that will work for

them and they need to oversee a new layer of employees almost. Um

listen um I want to turn to how then we we train for the jobs of the future. I want to play you this clip. This is the CEO of Black Rockck massive company. Larry

Frink talking to Simon Jack, our economics editor this week. Some of the things that he says might just surprise you.

AI is going to create enormous amount of jobs. Most people are not focusing on

jobs. Most people are not focusing on part of the letter that I wrote about how many jobs he's going to be creating related to electricians and welders and and plumbers.

So, we should be telling our kids to be electricians rather than lawyers or fund managers. If you think about um

managers. If you think about um how the average worker has been portrayed on television,

generally the average plumber had their overalls or their pants, you know, hanging below their waistline,

overweight. We need to embrace that

overweight. We need to embrace that those type of jobs are just as good for many people. Post World War II, we built

many people. Post World War II, we built a foundation of education and we said to all the young people, "Go to college. Go

to college. Go to college."

And we probably overdid it. And so many people who probably should not have gone into banking or media or law probably should have been a great worker with

their hands. and and we need to now

their hands. and and we need to now rebalance that approach.

So Ella, he doesn't think that people should spend inordinate amount and inordinate amounts of money on a university degree, right? But we've

already established that there's there's not a job that is AI proof. That's a

myth. So how do you skill for a job and a future that we can't yet define?

Yeah, it's a great question. It's one

that we bring to our students. So I

teach a course within our international business administration program. And in

this course we specifically ask who am I in the age of AI? And this is really something that students also need to be engaged in this conversation. There's no

point in saying don't use AI AI it's a part of their world. What we need to help them think about it similar to what Bernard was saying is what do I bring to the table now? And these students are

working with social enterprises. They're

solving real world problems. Alongside that, they're reflecting on this question while also fine-tuning an AI model to understand how the technical side of things works. And to me, that's

what a university education is about.

It's about having critical conversations, learning the latest research on this, but also building your own opinion and your own perspective and your own path that also suits your uh your ideals towards what the future

should be.

This is your world, I think, Priya, as well at at Century Tech. you you're

training people for jobs that might not yet have been defined or even technology that's not there. So for for parents and for for young people who might be watching

how how should they think about their education and what they do?

Yeah, I think look AI has definitely shone a spotlight on education and the flaws in education and the fact that if we even talk about school education, college education, how we actually

treasure what we measure in education.

So it's the assessment process that actually I think is the is the problem right people want to uh train children and have them study and learn curricula that's very much built towards an end

sort of high stakes assessment now it used to be we take that for granted we go to university or we go to college to further education college school and it it's a currency right that certificate you end up with with those grades that's

a currency actually means something um in the real world and what Larry Frink is saying is you know does it what you need to do is think about education and what it's for right we need to foundational knowledge. I really am a

foundational knowledge. I really am a big believer in that and I just don't think we can just Google everything or search for everything because we won't be able to develop those crucial skills and build judgment. So

foundational also that's the color of life we exist so we need that foundational knowledge is number one number two then applied right how does this actually work in the real world how

do I solve problems and the third that I've sort of I like to call learning agility this ability to learn how to learn so that we don't end up with generations you know cohorts of students

leaving formal education and thinking hang on that's not what you said it would be it's not a conveyor belt to a job now what do I But but what about what about Bernard that those those

you'll hear a lot of people say oh well uh my my child is studying as an accountant and uh they're being trained on spreadsheets and profit and loss accounts but all of that can now be done

by AI but that is the stepping stone to the next level within the company. What

if we remove the jobs the lower level jobs that elevators higher up in the company?

That's a challenge. I mean I have three children. and they're all just getting

children. and they're all just getting ready for university or in university.

This is something I think about every single day. I I completely agree with

single day. I I completely agree with what you just said. I wrote a book called Future Skills in which I look at the 20 skills we will need for the future. Three of them are technically

future. Three of them are technically related. So we need to understand AI and

related. So we need to understand AI and what it can do. Beyond this is what makes us truly human is our empathy, is our critical thinking, is our strategic

problem solving and is our ability to learn and continuously relearn. These

things are absolutely vital. So what we need as companies need to understand that they need employees in the future.

So they need to create tracks into these organizations that allow young people to come in. At the moment I almost feel

come in. At the moment I almost feel that there's a wrong emphasis. So the

emphasis is on driving efficiency and cutting costs.

And that's easy. I can look at my existing processes and what I do and think okay AI can almost do the jobs of most junior roles. So I simply cut those

roles. So if I cut those roles I also

roles. So if I cut those roles I also cut off my future employees. And also

the ability to completely rethink how you work as an organization.

And this is something that I see very little happening in the real world. I

see this in a few AI native companies but most companies don't get that and there's a really good example of this Ella um in a in a very successful company called Cler uh people will be

familiar with it the CEO there replaced around 700 jobs with a chatbot powered by open AI massive cost cutting exercise and then that was sometime last year and

then by December the company announced a huge recruitment drive because the work delivered by AI was of a lower quality but more importantly ly customers wanted a human in the loop. They wanted that

empathy and that foundational knowledge that Priya talked about.

Uh that makes so much sense and these sorts of moves are motivated by all sorts of different incentives in the end. But we do need to understand that

end. But we do need to understand that the AI hype can often lead to decisions that are regretted. And that's why it's so important to have a good technical understanding. What can this stuff

understanding. What can this stuff actually do? And as Bernard's saying,

actually do? And as Bernard's saying, really think about the future. We're

hearing a lot of talk at the moment about diamond shaped organizations. So,

you've got a few people at the top, a kind of heavy middle of experienced workers, and then we don't need many entry- levelvel positions. But what does that mean in terms of a funnel? This uh

this doesn't make a whole lot of sense if you're thinking about how you're going to train newcomers.

So, what then, Ella? What if you're a CE CEO watching this and and you're you're toying with this idea of cutting your lower level, what what would be your advice to them? I think it depends on the strategy. Are you looking for a

the strategy. Are you looking for a long-term proposition or is this something that's only oriented towards the short term? So those temporal horizons make all the difference. And if

you're really looking to grow a culture and a company that's going to remain distinctive, then you do need to pay attention to those entry- level jobs.

Not just that though, how are entry- level people actually going to meaningfully interact with your more senior level management? when no one wants to bother each other because we've all been told we need to be busy and efficient for a long time then people

are not going to reach out with their silly questions but that's how you actually build relationships find mentors figure out how things work which brings us to an audience question I do I love our audience question

they do email keep coming so this one is from say al-m in Dubai um who runs operations across two organizations and I'm paraphrasing his email Ella because it's it it's quite a

long one but essentially he says AI I hasn't just made our team faster. It's

allowed a small team to produce the kind of work that they used to require external agencies and consultants to do.

So they're bringing stuff inhouse that they would have had to delegate and he calls that operating leverage. So there

is a man who has fundamentally burned reimagined how his organization works and how AI is structured within it. Are

the CEOs you speak to daytoday doing that?

No, I I think some of them do and those will be the successful CEOs of the future. Um, and I I think we need to

future. Um, and I I think we need to fundamentally rethink how we do work and how humans fit into that and what an individual can do. I even see this in my

own job in my own work. So I I used to spend the first hour of my day reading my emails. I get pictures every day from

my emails. I get pictures every day from tech companies telling me about all the latest developments and all the case studies and I get newsletters and I try to sift through this to understand what

I need to focus on. Now I have an AI to do this for me. The AI will read it. The

AI AI already knows what I know and then turns this into a podcast for me. So

when I go get up in the morning, I walk my dog, listen to the podcast, and then I can come back to my office with with a good idea of what I want to do more research on. So I then set

another AI AI agent off to do this research for me while I can think strategically when I can think about how do I develop relationships

with some of the CEOs I'm working with, that is really empowering. And in the past I would have had to employ a number of people to do this for me.

But in that in that example that that say has just given as Ella I mean his AI as as as commendable as it is is replacing the

jobs that consultants and agencies would have done. So at some position in the

have done. So at some position in the food chain we have to be pretty blunt about this. There are jobs going. One

about this. There are jobs going. One

thing in the in the interim is also to look at this and go does this have a long-term value proposition. So kind of like the cler example and here I mean

using AI can kind of cause us to overestimate what we're able to achieve.

Sometimes to our own expertise something might look like it's good quality code or a good quality image uh or a good quality website. Will that actually hold

quality website. Will that actually hold up to to the world? Benedy mentioned uh AI as a genie and you know genies are tricksters. We call it a spirited

tricksters. We call it a spirited technology. It comes at you with all

technology. It comes at you with all sorts of little quirks and random you know the the extra fingers. These things

can get solved but it takes a trained eye to actually detect the the spirited quirks of AI and we need to maintain experts at every level of this process.

So I'm I'm happy if if people are making it work for themselves but it shouldn't be seen as something that can be easily replicated.

Okay. Well, since we're talking about efficiency and we're near the end of the program, um I thought I would show you this just to lighten the mood a little which I spotted on X this week. It does

appear to me to be the most important development so far or the development with the furthest reaching consequences.

This is from a trade show in Switzerland. It's a robot that

Switzerland. It's a robot that autonomously pours, cooks, and folds the perfect crepe.

It does. It's Swiss. It's not French. In

fact, I'm surprised the French have not yet called an emergency summit on this.

Uh whether it is actually AI or whether it's just clever automation, I'm not so sure. But it has made me wonder. Pria,

sure. But it has made me wonder. Pria,

uh you're talking to the person who lives next to has befriended and like serves coffee every day to the people who run the famous crepe stand in London.

I draw a line. I'm officially drawing a line on creps. Is there nothing sacrient?

on creps. Is there nothing sacrient?

No, there is. I want my creps made by Veronica at the hamster crep sand.

I don't want Bernard I don't want Bernard's improving bot improving robot flipping my creps. I I'd love to see a robot peel it off the ceiling. Yeah.

Yeah. Best luck with that. That's where

the human comes in. Let me do that for you.

Yeah. If gets her way, it will be able to spot the crap and it will go and scrub it off for you. Spatial

intelligence.

Okay. Well, next week on AI Decoded, uh we're going to explore actually one area of work that is changing. How artificial

intelligence is transforming the world of advertising, uh from big shared campaigns to messages tailored specifically for you. Uh you might have some thoughts on that. So, if you do

want to take part, please email us at aid decodedbc.co.uk.

aid decodedbc.co.uk.

Uh and maybe we can incorporate some of those thoughts in the program. Thank you

very much to Bernard. Thank you Ella.

Thank you, Pria, uh, for your thoughts this week. That's all we have time for.

this week. That's all we have time for.

Just a reminder that you can watch this episode and all our back catalog on the AI decoded YouTube playlist. Have a look at that and also on the BBC i Player.

Thanks very much for watching. We'll see

you next week.