Since the 2000s, there has been a rapid and massive change in technology; one such significant change is the rapid growth and accessibility of AI technology, although AI was first invented in 1956 by Alan Turing and McCarthy. Nowadays, you can find AI every day around you, from automated customer service chatbots to ChatGPT, Claud, Grok, etc. With the widespread use of AI, one more thing has increased: the fear of losing their livelihoods to it. People are under constant pressure, struggle to work better than AI, and feel helpless in front of a machine that humans make for their comfort. AI may replace jobs, but it cannot replace emotional intelligence, creativity or the human need for connections.
The Rise of AI and Job Anxiety
The period between 1993 and 2011 is often referred to as the ‘AI boom’ due to increased funding, interest, and advances in AI research. There was a rise in the use of AI agents in businesses and their integration into daily life. In 2002, Roommates, a speech recognition software, was released, and in 2011, Apple released Siri, a virtual assistant. On 30 November 2022, ChatGPT (a generative AI model) was released to the public for ‘ research preview’; numerous companies have since created their own AI. This signifies the rapid rate at which AI has increased over the past few years and will continue to increase in the years ahead.
With these many generative AI bots accessible to the people, every individual started using them in their daily lives, students started doing homework using AI, legal support and writing were easily done by AI, and the generation of presentations and images using AI became popular. This gave birth to a trend called ‘Ghibli Art’ generation (AI initiating the animation style of Miyazaki, an animator), which soon became a sought-after trend across the world.
With the rise of AI usage, another thing that has proportionally increased is the fear of losing one’s livelihood to human-made software. A Goldman Sachs 2023 report stated that 300 jobs could be replaced by AI globally. Jobs that are repetitive and predictable tend to be replaced by AI. Customer service representatives, data entry clerks, telemarketers, administrative assistants, and manufacturing workers are being replaced by AI. One of the industries that has been affected the most is the teaching industry, with AI in the picture students are completing their assignments, homework with AI, they are not just using help from AI, they tend to copy paste the answers, this hampers the process of learning and also has developed this notion that now teachers are not needed. The COVID-19 pandemic led to an all-time increase in the usage of AI in the field of teaching, with students taking classes online and submitting tests virtually.
Something AI Cannot Do
AI does have a positive impact on education when we talk about access to resources and study materials. However, as study material becomes accessible to everyone at a minimal cost, school attendance is decreasing rapidly. Students prefer to study in the comfort of their homes rather than bickering and nagging at school teachers.
This reminds me of a fond story from my journey. The rapid decrease in attendance was something that wasn’t only a concern for the government but also various school teachers and institutions, including my English teacher. One day, when we had more than average attendees in class, she started explaining this poem called “My Mother at Sixty Six” by Kamala Das, in which she states her agony and hardship that her mother is ageing. She has to leave her for a job, and she might not see her again. Midway, she was swept in the flow of emotions, and she started telling us how she lost her parents and how we don’t know what will happen in the next moment. This was quite surprising for us as she is one of the most professional teachers and never goes off topic, and everyone was listening very attentively, some even shed a tear or two. When the class ended, I could not shake the feeling of how amazing that day’s class was. It was not the poem that made the class unforgettable; it was the human connections and feelings.
AI can definitely replace labour work, provide access to educational material and so forth. It can even do things that humans can possibly never do. However, one thing that AI cannot ever achieve is having the emotional intelligence or the emotional connection of a human being.
Emotional Intelligence in the Age of AI
Emotional quotient and intelligence are fairly underrated and overlooked in the present generation. We are in a constant rush to succeed and become famous, so we often never pay attention to our emotional capabilities and intelligence. Let me give you an example: in Japan, the cases of suicide started rising, and the people who were committing suicide were considered relatively successful. They were bankers in big popular banks and professionals in big firms and companies. Upon analysing this situation, psychologists noticed that all these were intellectual people. Hence, IQ (Intelligence Quotient) doesn’t guarantee happiness and satisfaction with IQ; EQ (Emotional Quotient) is equally important.
This is a clear example of how human touch is crucial; it is true in the case of AI as well. Jobs requiring a human touch are less likely to get replaced, such as teachers, counsellors, managers, artists, etc. As we observed in the above story, the experience the students brought to the English class when the teacher was swept in the flow of emotions wouldn’t have been experienced if they had gone to ChatGPT for an explanation. With AI, everything became rapid, but with this speed, we have forgotten that we are human and require empathy and connections.
AI is a tool, not a threat
We need to understand that technology is not our foe but our friend. We need to learn how to use technology to our advantage rather than working to beat the system of algorithms. We need to believe that this all was created to help us and be better.
Seeing this potential in AI, the UAE government has made a deal with OpenAI to provide ChatGPT Plus to all its citizens of Dubai, and also started AI-integrated teaching in schools. Teachers can use AI to plan and manage lessons, which normally takes a lot of time. They can use this energy to create creative teaching techniques. Doctors can use AI to detect rare diseases which are usually undetected, which will increase their credibility and also give them more time to create relationships with the patients and understand their dilemma. Artists can use AI to visualize their ideas but at the end its their own touch that matters and gives the art piece the real value. Students can personalise their learning paths, chatbots can provide feedback on their essays and create a system that will help them level up. Monotonous and repetitive tasks can be automated. AI tools like Clockwise and Gmail Smart Compose can help manage emails and calendars. Open AI’s code interpreter can assist in data entry and cleaning spreadsheets.
AI can help with social media management tasks such as generating captions, scheduling posts, and analysing social media reports. When done by AI, these tasks can free up time for people to engage in creative endeavours, hobbies, relaxing problem-solving, and innovation.
Being Human: The Real Advantage
Although the job market is changing, humans will always be humans and crave human connections, so we need to change how we present things. Information is available at one click, but emotions matter the most in today’s times. Although therapy bots like Wombat are available in the market, there is an empathy gap; real therapists can’t be replaced by chatbots. People are using AI as an emotional support to cope with loneliness, but this is not healthy.
Companies favour hiring emotionally intelligent workers, especially in the hospitality and healthcare industries. For instance, the Ritz-Carlton hotel company focuses on providing an exceptional guest experience; employees are trained to observe guest indications, resolve conflicts diplomatically, and provide a positive emotional experience. Cleveland Clinic is an American non-profit medical centre that operates globally. It is known for providing an exceptional blend of empathy and medical care through its “Empathy: The Human Connection to Patient Care” initiative. Technology can write, analyse and sort, but it can’t care, that’s a human expertise.
If technology is taking jobs, it’s creating new ones as well. We just have to see the loophole left by the machine and use it to our advantage. We need to tweak how we function and use technology to our advantage. Technology was created for us to function better, not to be crippled by it. And we should embrace our human speciality: emotions, connections, empathy, understanding, love, and morals. We have to build a future that integrates technology with human tendencies. The crime rate will reduce in such a world of proper morals and emotions, and we will level up to a new reality. We will always matter as long as we can feel, connect and share.