AI-driven workforce changes create anxiety but may offer opportunities

From mathematicians to grocery workers, people across industries are questioning how artificial intelligence will impact their futures. Some companies have announced cuts in the workforce claiming they are AI related. And so forgive all the rest of us for looking behind our backs wondering if we are next. Nidhi Khan has been taking a very close look at AI and jobs and is joining us now with some more insight. This is a really important discussion to have because there's so much fear out there about the unknown. Many people are worried and for good reason. However, according to just released McKinsey research, AI and automation could actually create more jobs in the next decade than they replace. But we are embarking on what is likely the largest long-term workforce transformation in our history, requiring millions to transition to something new. Over the next five years, we will see more change than we've ever faced before. Cassandra Worthy founded her consulting firm Change Enthusiasm Global in March of 2020. To grow through all of this change. But the impacts of a pandemic will pale in comparison to the ultimate impacts of AI. Oh, AI anxiety is so real and so many of us are feeling it. The jobs that we've known for so long just won't exist in five years because of the advent of AI. AI will change most jobs, but not overnight. Rob Price is building businesses to help harness the power of AI for profits and for people. I help people put AI to work. From WorkDog. So startups and small businesses can run like big ones for next to nothing. To Ragu, which helps established companies use AI to grow. To leverage their human workforce, to do better work, to provide better customer service, to take out the drudgery and the work that people don't really like to do. There must be people, though, who see you coming and feel scared for their jobs. What do you tell those people? In our experience, we haven't found a single company that has replaced employees because of any tool that we've supplied. But Price does warn eventually no job will be AI-proof. Knowing the technology and how to deploy it is an unbelievable advantage. To manage AI anxiety, Price and Worthy say it's imperative to embrace AI. What you do with it is up to you. You can start a new business for a fraction of the cost it used to. You can excel at a job without having all the expertise you used to require. Worthy also says it's critical to be curious and view change as opportunity. She now uses AI to manage emails and schedules and create proposals and pricing. It helps me free up time so that I can ideate, I can create, I can do the things that I think was born to do and to really fully live in my purpose. And there is something AI can never replace. And that, of course, is human connection, human responsibility and liability. Price is launching a platform called Frontier Table to bring people together to make sense of what's next with AI. A link to that is on 6abc.com slash AI. I mean, this is good. This human thing we're doing right now. There's a good saying, if you can do your job all by yourself in a closet with a computer, you're probably going to be replaced. What other things should people be thinking about? So I asked Price and Worthy that exact thing. And they both say we should be asking questions like, what do I love to do? How can I make money doing that? How can I be better suited for my job or further improve the company? How can I be better? That's the question that we should be asking ourselves. And you know who can help you answer some of those questions? You. No, your AI assistant. We thought we were going to ask a human. But really, you can use AI to help you answer some of these questions, to do some of this soul searching and investigating. So, you know, how you use AI is up to you at this point. So it needs to be an enhancement, not a replacement. I don't know how you guys feel, but I'm kind of torn in this place of like feeling like I need to get on board with it or still feeling a little like, I'm a little leery about it. I'm still kind of stuck in the middle. I do think you have to get on board with it and lean into it. Again, how you use it is up to you, but I do think that you should be using it because this is the future. The future is here. And this conversation continues. You're going to do more stuff on this right yeah great thanks so much