Humans and Machines: Hand in Hand We Stand
"We're moving from an age of efficiency focus and automation to an age of imagination."
- James Wilson
While artificial intelligence (AI) is changing the way work is done and who performs it, the technology's greatest influence will be in augmenting rather than replacing human talents.
In fact, according to a Harvard Business Review report, when humans and machines collaborate, businesses make the greatest gains in performance. After all, what comes naturally to humans—for example, interpersonal communication—can be difficult for AI, but simple AI activities like data transcription remain difficult for humans.
Humans and AI should collaborate to double-check for faults and supplement each other's strengths. Companies in a variety of industries can profit from AI by combining human expertise with AI-driven operations.
There is a type of task that is best performed by humans and AI working together. In many cases, AI can assist in getting work done, but it still requires a human to finish the job by validating accuracy or adding more context. Services like accuracy checks and human involvement are examples of grey areas.
While AI may not be able to execute such jobs properly on its own, it is nevertheless beneficial to include AI in the process. The ideal AI-human collaboration is one in which AI technology handles the lower-level, repetitive procedures of completing a task, while human monitoring ensures that the activity is completed on time and accurately.
One example is the voice transcription industry: The deaf and hard of hearing communities and higher education and the legal industry all benefit from quick and accurate voice-to-text technology. AI can transcribe human speech considerably faster than humans can in a controlled context.
However, the requirement for speech transcription daily does not necessarily manifest itself in a controlled environment. When the speech mirrors the type it was trained on, AI reaches its peak accuracy. When the speaker’s accent, speed, diction, and tone vary, or if background noise is present, we can't rely on AI alone to transcribe voice accurately.
However, it's more economical to give AI a shot first and then rely on humans to double-check accuracy and correct faults as needed. Adopting this strategy has resulted in faster access to high-quality voice transcription than ever.
Teams that rely on quick speech transcription are reaping the benefits of AI and humans working together to perfect the process.
One more example is that of GE. For instance, while working on industrial equipment, GE uses intelligent agents to empower its maintenance staff to make multimillion-dollar operational choices. Workers can interact with AI agents to acquire machine performance recommendations, confidence levels based on machine data, and estimated expenses based on data from the machines. 2
Workers, on the other hand, make these decisions over the phone.
1Entrepreneur, 27 Feb 2019, Tom Livne, Why AI and Humans are stronger together than Apart?, Accessed 5 Mar 2022, https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/329099
2Wharton University, 12 Jul 2018, Paul R. Daugherty and James Wilson, Humans Plus Robots: Why the Two Are Better Than Either One Alone, Accessed 5 Mar 2022, https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/reimagining-work-age-ai/
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