How Are Advances In Artificial Intelligence Impacting Your Job?

By Noel J. Guillama-Alvarez

I recently had the honor and privilege of discussing Artificial Intelligence (AI) with the Wellington Rotary Club. Going beyond the headlines and hype, my objective was to portray what is happening with not only today’s AI but also this hour’s AI. Yes, it’s moving that fast.

A technological advancement unlike any we have witnessed in our lifetime, AI is not a fad and not going away. Growing at an extraordinary rate, AI is making it impossible for most people to grasp. At its core, AI is mathematical and can trace its roots to formulas used at the beginning of the electronic database era.

Significant differences are seen in part through innovations applied to video games. Moreover, graphic processing units (GPUs), processing speed, segmentation and predictive functions are allowing for transitions from formula, algorithm, machine learning and neural networks to what we label today as Artificial Intelligence or AI.

What I told my Rotary Club was that nearly every job in our community is going to be changed by AI, with some expansion and lower costs, as well as some significant dislocation of jobs.

A series of reports on AI by the World Economic Forum has stressed a few key factors for the future.

Worldwide, 170 million new jobs will be created by AI with 92 million being “displaced.” In fact, let’s just call it what it is: eliminated.

If your job involves sports (such as playing polo or servicing horses here in Wellington), AI will likely not impact you very much. However, the World Economic Forum predicts that 86 percent of all businesses will be affected by AI. In fact, Goldman Sachs has identified these top industry segments as most likely to experience disruption: office and administration support, legal, architecture, engineering, social services, business and financial operations, community and social services, management, sales and computers/mathematics.

In a 1995 interview, Apple co-founder Steve Jobs told us, “Everyone should learn to program a computer because it teaches you how to think.”

Today, he or someone like him might say the same about Artificial Intelligence, with a warning that, “AI will not replace you, but someone using AI may.”

Anyone reading this has been through at least three of the last five technological waves. Recall the development of the personal computer (PC) by IBM in the 1980s, followed by Internet access in the 1990s. Following this, the 2000s saw mobile computing, the arrival of the cloud in the 2010s and the release of ChatGPT in November 2022. Now, with hundreds of billions of dollars in new investments in this year alone, growth of AI systems is expected to be exponentially larger than most of these innovations combined by 2030, if not sooner.

What can we do?

First, you can’t afford to ignore AI. Don’t use it to avoid critical thinking; use it to enhance all you do. I can’t use it to write this article or hundreds of my corporate blogs. Why? AI changes my tone, adds irrelevant information and doesn’t accurately represent how I think. In short, I don’t recognize it as my own.

Essentially, the lesson is to learn AI prompting and even how to have a conversation with AI. Natural Language Processing (NLP) makes this easy to do. Still, I warn you. Don’t trust AI. Using it as a reference tool may deliver information from sources with which you may not know or agree.

Recently, the Holy See (the Vatican) distributed a paper, recognizing the incredible potential of Artificial Intelligence in what it called Antiqua et Nova (Ancient and New). While noting that AI is a tool of human ingenuity, it also expressed the need to use it wisely.

Noel J. Guillama, a 25-year resident of Wellington, previously served on Wellington’s Education Advisory Board, the Palm Beach Education Commission and the FIU Foundation. He is an executive committee member of the NOVA MD College of Medicine and vice chair of the Palm Beach State College Foundation. Guillama has been issued more than 30 patents in the use of technology, software and blockchain.