It is time that we stop considering Artificial Intelligence as a competitor to human intelligence or human existence per se. The world needs to look at the two as a synergy of co-existence. The new normal is about integration and collaboration, about ‘and’, about evolving together as superlative forms of intelligence. This is something the human race should immediately adopt as there seem to be not so promising signs in the use of human cognitive abilities off late due to careless dependency on AI.

How Intelligence works – The way intelligence should work is that it should learn through theory and its practical implication in real life, comprehend on the experience and be able to solve a crisis at hand. In the human context, it should be a mix of rancho and chatur.

That is what Artificial Intelligence intends to do. It learns through what we ask and feed it with. It is an aggregation of the patterns of the human knowledge and intelligence spread over thousands of years in the way data was fed into it.

Ask AI about the interpretation of the teachings of Vedas and Bhagwad Gita or Quran or Bible or any other religious philosophy or about Plato and Aristotle or about Dhirubhai Ambani and Steve Jobs, it will have much to say about any of these at the theoretical and implementable level.

The human aspect – But this throws the ball in our court and puts the human competency to test. So, when AI provides something to us from its large knowledge bank what do we do with it. Do we tailor make the data given for our subjective use or use it as was given to us without applying the situational perspective?

Human intelligence is subjective; it varies contextually as well as from the individual’s standpoint. As the famous psychologist Kurt Lewin said – behaviour is a function of individual characteristic and the environment one has been and is a part of. This environment is known as conditioning.

AI in the workplace – It is critical as corporate leaders that we understand where we can draw a clear line between both forms of intelligence in our personal area of decision making while leading human and AI teams.

• AI will go ahead based on how it has been coded but humans have emotions, ethics and wisdom coupled with the contextual awareness
• AI does not possess shame or guilt and doesn’t have a moral compass but human decision making must be significantly influenced by these
• AI is not going to be put under the legal scanner due to its judgments; rather humans will have to face the brunt because of their carelessness and lack of accountability in accepting and implementing AI suggestions as it is

For example, AI can suggest you the plan for market penetration within minutes with detailed reporting structure but humans will need to further add on the practical applicability in that.

Similarly, AI can provide performance reviews based on the data fed into it but humans can add a dash of empathy and ground knowledge and make it more relevant.

Many examples like that exist in hiring, policy making, business growth strategy, crisis management, or even in as mundane things like writing emails. But humans cannot let go of their most powerful cognitive abilities – critical and creative thinking. There can be so many more areas where the sum of all human theory and experience should be smartly utilised at the workplace and the AI perspective will be a significant value add for that task in hand.

AI taking over humans – AI needs to be seen more as an asset or even an efficient, non-complaining employee and its services must be utilised to the fullest. The question of takeover becomes relevant only when we are not intelligent enough to take the best from AI. AI is not replacing human intelligence, it is rather testing whether humans are using it still. It is almost as –

‘either we know how to use AI or be ready to be used by AI’

Humans have discovered and invented everything within the scope of microscope to telescope and the internet because of their cognitive abilities like curiosity, imagination, introspection, comprehending, reasoning and the innate desire to improvise on the best that has been produced. These unique abilities will always keep us above AI which doesn’t possess the subjectivity in these abilities.

But if humans are so dependent on AI for daily chores, then quite certainly it is going to be dangerous. Laziness to apply our mind in the name of efficiency is foolish because efficiency is more about applicability and not just time and money saved. Having said that, to use an intelligence which goes beyond the individual ability is certainly a smart way to use the available resources to make things even better and ourselves learn from it. Can we think of learning from the patterns of AI’s expression? I do!

So finally –AI Is Not the Threat. Complacency Is! By Anurag Mehta