Artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, and other emergent
technologies stand to profoundly impact employers and, indeed,
society itself. According to some estimates, by 2025, half of all
U.S. jobs will either be automated or augmented by AI, or will have
initiated steps to move in that direction. As AI becomes infused in
workplaces, there is the potential for AI to re-define what
"work" means. Since the "work" each of us
performs helps inform the social order, this means AI may well be
poised to transform society.
AI today is actually relatively modest, and it is rife with
apparent contradictions. AI is anticipated to cause economies to
grow and simultaneously cause jobs that are ubiquitous today to
disappear. Not unlike humans, AI can be brilliant one moment, such
as recognizing new galaxies in deep space, yet terribly inept the
next, such as its inability in one experiment to distinguish
between a turtle from a rifle.
