One of our career coaches, Maria Mann, was in correspondence with a contact who attended an AI conference in Chicago. We were particularly interested in an issue he highlighted.
“Trust and authenticity will be what saves businesses in the next 3-10 years. Deepfake videos, synthetic voices and machine generated text (Chat GPT, Perplexity, Jasper) mean that soon few people will trust what they see, hear and read. They will home in on people they know and trust in the age of AI. ‘In person’ events (trade shows, seminars, lunches) will see a huge resurgence in popularity. Meeting customers in person will become popular again, because when we are online we won’t know whether we are conversing with a human or a bot.”
It’s difficult for the average person to distinguish between real and fake information. The ease with which AI can create a convincing narrative has the potential to erode trust in information and compromise the authenticity of content. As AI becomes more sophisticated, it’s increasingly used to manipulate opinions, narratives, beliefs and to influence our decision-making.
The value of personal connection
From an HR viewpoint, I’d suggest that the importance of truth and trust in communication are factors that may encourage people to seek more in-person interactions with their colleagues. We’re a social animal and value personal connection, so it seems quite likely that the prevalence of AI generated content may result in a resurgence of face-to-face interactions in the workplace.
We know that there are fakes out there, scammers and conmen; some are using AI to answer interview questions and some are using it to build their online persona while others have nefarious or criminal intent in mind. The chatbots, the customer service avatars who may or may not “help” resolve your query without recourse to human intervention are going to improve. AI-driven chatbots will perform most retailer customer service and sales information functions in the foreseeable future. The nature of the retail sector is changing and jobs in retail will change tool.
The criticism often thrown at AI is that machine learning and the predictions and decisions generated will only be as good as the quality of the data. That’s true of humans too, of course. AI technologies will begin displacing humans from certain roles within the next few years. The Economist says that more than half of executives also believe that machines “will never be able to make the types of intelligent business decisions that managers make.” They may be fooling themselves.
Real relationships
Keeping current with new technology and tracking changes in the environment are crucial, especially in competitive markets. It’s important to ensure that the increasing use of AI doesn’t mean we neglect our personal approach to building relationships with our target audience especially when trying to attract new talent to the organisation.
We will learn to use and work with AI and find a huge range of brilliant ways to use this new technology, but we already know there are limitations to virtual communication. Since lockdown, we’ve done more online via Zoom and Teams and other platforms and decry the inability to read body language, subtle cues, or engage in spontaneous interactions. It makes us appreciate in-person connection all the more.
In the real world, when we are hiring for the team, we chose candidates based on their ability to engage, to perform, to connect with others at an emotional level, and to understand people on a human and humane level.
