Embracing generative AI capabilities may yield greater skills and better employment possibilities
One of the first PC classes I took around 1980 was dedicated to learning how to use Visicalc, the first spreadsheet that helped launch the PC revolution. At that time, it worked on an Apple II and had become the darling of CFOs, accountants, and people tasked with the financial duties of their companies.
It allowed them to ask the important "what if" question when crunching financial data for their companies and was revolutionary in automating financial processes.
From a historical standpoint, this is the software that convinced IBM to enter the PC business. IBM was founded to build massive computer systems to initially crunch the numbers for counting voting ballots and then applied their systems to big business.
When Visicalc emerged, IBM was among the most prominent players in providing mainframes and mini-computers to Wall Street, governments, and businesses. They saw the potential of a PC impacting their current business model.
While Visicalc was mainly targeted at financial firms, it soon found its way into areas like inventory management, small accounting firms, and any company that had to manage their finances and could afford an Apple II and Visicalc.
Soon after IBM entered the PC market in 1981, Lotus 1-2-3 came to market and spurred huge demand for IBM PC's out of the gate. Soon, all big businesses could afford an IBM PC, which initially cost $1596.00.
Add Lotus 1-2-3, which was priced at $495 when it debuted in 1983, and businesses that could afford it could have an automated accounting system in their company.
At first, there was a lot of fear about spreadsheets killing accounting jobs. Still, it became an essential tool for accounting professionals, and the need for spreadsheet-trained knowledge workers was in high demand.
Indeed, when workers were trained to use spreadsheets effectively, they rated higher than their counterparts, which often led to better jobs and promotions.
Interestingly, history repeated itself when Desktop Publishing came to market in 1985. One piece of software tied to the Mac called Pagemaker, created by Aldus, launched the DTP revolution. There were also fears of DTP killing publishing jobs when it came out. But instead, it became an important tool for publishing professionals, and those with skills using Pagemaker and other DTP software soon were in demand within graphic departments, marketing, and promotions. If a person had skills with DTP software, they also found themselves in high demand, and many were promoted up the chain to better jobs with better pay.
Another example of specialty software skills emerged when Apple began promoting CD ROMs and multimedia computing in 1989. CD ROMs and multimedia computing integrated graphics and video into this new format, and special software skills also became in high demand.
At first, there was fear that this technology could dramatically impact libraries and library professionals.
Instead, it gave them new tools to do their jobs more efficiently and effectively. And those with skills for creating CD ROM and multimedia programs were in high demand, leading to promotions and higher wages.
We are now in another era where a new technology, AI, is being talked about and its impact on jobs of the future. Robotics will change the dynamics of some manufacturing and automated processes, but that is not new. Automating manufacturing has gone on for over a century.
But generative AI, as it is being tested in areas such as art, writing, and many other industries and disciplines, is bringing new challenges and opportunities to our current workforce.
But if history is our guide, workers, especially knowledge workers, should not be afraid of losing their jobs to AI but rather to colleagues who embrace generative AI to do their jobs better and more efficiently with potentially mind-boggling creativity.
I recently used ChatGPT to describe a particular technology I was viewing. It responded with such accuracy and grammatical correctness that I could have used it if I wanted to in a column on the subject. However, like most professional writers, I prefer to look at that ChatGPT content and learn from it instead of just copying it verbatim.
The idea that generative AI is a tool to help people do their jobs better and more efficiently was underscored by Google's Jack Krawczyk, who heads up the Bard development team. He answered questions from Google's internal forum. One of them centered on Bard, saying, "Why do we think the big first application should be Search, which at its heart is about finding true information?"
Krawczyk reportedly answered by saying. "I just want to be very clear: Bard is not search." He noted that Bard is supposed to be used as a "creative companion." However, he did admit that Google could not stop users from accessing Bard as a search program.
The operative term here is "creative companion." If workers look at generative AI as a creative companion and master its use in their jobs, as those who learned spreadsheets, DTP, multimedia, etc., they have less to fear about AI impacting their careers. Moreover, by embracing AI and its capabilities applied to their jobs, it too should give them a leg up on their colleagues and be rewarded with better pay and better jobs in the future.
