Productivity is driven by focused attention, but 68% of people lack adequate focus time during the workday. People are looking to AI to help ease the load, according to a new Microsoft report. But how can we ensure AI helps us instead of complicating things further? Be aware of the following traps.
TRAP #1: Resisting Adoption
The first trap is not entering the playing field at all due to various fears. The basic fear is discomfort of the unknown. But remember that everything evolves. Think of how many versions of Microsoft Word you’ve already adjusted to. Faxes evolved into emails. Data once in hardcopy form are now stored in the cloud. Programming languages evolved from Fortran, COBOL, C, BASIC, Java then Ruby. QuarkXPress was replaced by Adobe Indesign. Adobe Flash is now a legacy software. Technology advances, and we as workers grow with it, despite the pain and learning curve of adjusting to new systems.
Furthermore, AI has likely already helped you or your company become more efficient. Opening your phone with face ID, or quickly building a website with templates (like Squarespace) proves that AI is already positively impacting our daily lives behind the scenes.
In the next seven years, AI is expected to have an annual growth of over 37%. Some companies are restricting access to AI, but the purpose shouldn’t be limited to integrating it into your current job; instead, it should involve testing, playing with, and exploring it.
Holly Shipley is a Google alumni and strategic leader spearheading generative AI (genAI) efforts at a Fortune 200 tech company. She says that even if you’re still hesitant to jump into the deep end, workers should at least gain a basic knowledge of the generative AI (genAI) platforms, what they are capable of, and how they might be able to leverage it. “Employees should be focused on the basic functionality of genAI tools like ChatGPT,” Shipley said. “This will reduce the learning curve when genAI is integrated into tools employees already use.” You cannot avoid AI. It will be pervasive. So don’t be left behind by refusing to grow.
TRAP #2: Fearing AI Replacing You
Generative AI like DALL-E 2 has some graphic artists fearing obsoletion. But they could adopt another perspective which is using AI as a resource and tool to get to their outcome faster.
About half of workers fear AI will replace their jobs. But more than 70% would delegate tasks to AI to lighten their load.
“It’s fascinating that people are more excited about AI rescuing them from burnout than they are worried about it eliminating their jobs,” said author and organizational psychology professor Adam Grant, in the same Microsoft report.
AI is an easy tool to help you reclaim time spent on administrative tasks, searching for information, transcribing and summarizing meetings, editing, and analytical work. Of course, it is imperative to review the results and tweak where AI missed the boat, but if AI can create the scaffolding, you can fill in the details. Then your resources can better be spent where you are irreplaceable.
“I’ve never spoken to someone who says they’re over-resourced. Everyone has a backlog and could use resources.” Shipley said. “GenAI tools can provide resource-constrained teams some relief and breathing room so that they are able to think strategically.”
You won’t be replaced by AI; you’ll be replaced by someone who knows how to use AI.
TRAP #3: Thinking AI Can Fix Corporate Cultural Problems
One of the bigger, fundamental traps of AI is misunderstanding the role (and limitations) that technology can play in solving problems.
For example, AI can speed up your ability to respond effectively to emails, which may decrease your response time. But if companies and teammates judge how good you are at your job by how quickly you respond to emails, it may aggressively increase the volume of emails you must sift through. So we actually have to tackle the cultural problems. We can’t propagate the lie that an immediate response time is evidence of how committed and loyal you are, and how effective you are at your job.
If AI helps us with prioritizing meetings, but we don’t understand what is driving the volume of them, we won’t ever get ahead. One reason we are drowning in meetings is the false perception that being invited to the table affirms your influence and worth at the company. If we don’t address this cultural issue, we can’t hope to solve the problem of meetings with any technological tool.
TRAP #4 Backfilling Our Time
AI holds great potential to alleviate overwhelm and free up time previously spent on mundane tasks. But are we as a society so obsessed with busyness that any free time we create will immediately be backfilled with something else to do? The margins that AI could open up would be beneficially used for rest, white space, relationships, and creative brainstorming. But if we are too focused on maximizing every moment, our tendency will always be to add more to our plates. Any closet we clean out will immediately be filled with more junk. Be purposeful about what you do with the time AI saves you. Don’t waste it.
Conclusion
AI has the power to eliminate work that doesn’t require a human skill level. But if we aren’t aware of these traps, AI might add more complexity to our lives and work. We must not fear it, and it must accompany a shift in how we measure and define progress.
Uninterrupted focus time is a primary aim, but understanding what actually keeps us from focusing is not, unilaterally, a tech issue. We must value different things if we’re going to benefit from the use of AI.
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