AI + The New Human Frontier

CHAPTER 13From AI to IA: Intelligence Augmentation

Taking a line from Ron Livingston's character Peter Gibbons in the iconic 1999 satirical black comedy film Office Space, “We don't have a lot of time on this earth. We weren't meant to spend it this way. Human beings were not meant to sit in little cubicles staring at computer screens all day, filling out useless forms and listening to eight different bosses drone on about mission statements.” And amen to that. I must hope that Peter (and his “15 minutes of real actual work” job at Initech) was right. This is not our future. But just because this isn't our future doesn't mean that it portends the end of work. It is not the end of work…but it is the end of boring work. By automating routine, boring tasks, AI enables us to work smarter and faster. And without the drudgery that comes with tasks like number-crunching, data entry, and spreadsheet input.

This we know: generative AI will transform the economy by both dramatically boosting human workers' productivity and replacing them outright. So, where in all of this do we play? How does this impact us? One thing is clear: a powerful new narrative is emerging, one that is not humans versus robots but humans with robots. It's about the complementary, cooperative, and symbiotic relationship between humans and AI. AI will displace and augment human work. This quickly emerging ecosystem will work well only when both humans and AI systems operate together in lockstep.

The integration ...