BACK in 1992 Bruce Springsteen wrote a song called 'Human Touch' and I had cause to link this song to the endless articles I’ve been reading on artificial intelligence in recent months.
Some of these articles ranged from ‘amazing and impressive’ through to ‘worrying and scary’, but here’s the thing, none of the articles talked in balanced terms nor did they make provision for that ‘human touch’.
Artificial intelligence (as my computer autofills the word intelligence for me) and relationships at work are not comfortable bedfellows for a variety of reasons, including:
- The empathy deficit: One thing is for sure that synthetic empathy is no substitute for the real emotional content and interaction. The human condition has the inbuilt ability to relate and in working relationships that cannot, nor should it be, artificially replicated.
- The pre-programmed sub-conscious bias: Lots of ink has been spilled regarding how the bias of programmers can reveal itself once an AI programme has been operationalised, by which time it’s too late to stop the lawyers coming knocking. Indeed, there is now an industry within an industry claiming programmes to be “bias free” as it were some form of diet or aspartame version.
- The assumption that transactional encounters in work are purely transactional: Even the most perfunctory of engagements, such as requesting a form from HR, can and often does require a personal interaction. Why? because applicants do not simply want the form, they want to engage with an existing employee to get a human sense of what the organisation is about before they apply to join them.
- The value proposition around efficiency perceptions: In these days of efficiencies it is all too easy to dispense with human level engagement in favour of a measurable KPI on the basis that it 'saves time' or because 'customers don’t really care how it’s done'. In reality, when you’re dealing with relationships in work quality human interaction will often trump bean counting efficiency preferences.
- The simple 'trend' towards all things AI. Like the Cranberries album entitled 'Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can't We?' currently there seems to be an AI discussion at every watercooler or teams chat function but with not much sense of direction beyond the notion that 'we should be doing something using AI'.
I’m not saying that we will wake tomorrow to find our line manager is an algorithm, but I strongly believe that relationships cannot be replicated.
As Bruce said, we are just looking for the human touch and with the best will in the world AI should never be seen as an efficient replacement.
Put simply, people need people at work. And yes, people often do leave jobs because of people, quite often the boss.
Hold on... is that not what we call Bruce Springsteen? Is anyone seeing a pattern here? What would ChatGPT have to say?
Hello?, Hello? Is there anyone (of flesh and blood) there?
Mark McAllister is director of employment relations services at the Labour Relations Agency NI
