Stop saying AI

Stop saying AI and start using the tools because you'll start to see how it folds into your life.

Forbes - "Start using AI tools. The biggest thing that's holding people back is that it's this great unknown."  Aneesh Raman, Chief Economic Opportunity Officer at @LinkedIn, spoke about how humans and AI work together at the 2024 #ForbesFutureOfWork Summit.

[00:00:00.00] - Speaker 1

I think it's a really important point because I think we are entering a new era for our economy. These moments happen few and far between across human history and the history of work. When you're in them, it's really hard to understand how to situate yourself because you're in the old and new at once. I think there was a rush to come up with this term AI skills to give us all a thing we had to go learn, and then everything would be okay. It made sense for that moment a few years ago. I would encourage everyone to stop doing one thing and start doing one thing. The stop, Stop saying AI. You're going to have to, it's in the zeitgeist, but in your head, try to stop saying AI. Just skills. Well, not even that. Okay. I'll give you a story about what I mean by that. I'll date myself in 2000. I was an intern at NBC News. We were out in LA covering the convention. I got a hotel room with some college buddies. I think it was days in. We booked it on the internet, one of the early use cases of the internet.

[00:00:53.06] - Speaker 1

We show up at the days in, we go to the guy who's at the front desk, we say, We have a reservation. He says, You don't have one. I don't see it. We said, We booked it on the internet. He says, Who's the internet? They don't work here. We laugh about that now. But at the time, that was the term. When's the last time you use the term internet? We talk about all the things we do because of the internet, e-commerce, hybrid work. We shop online. We do work online. We are much more quickly than was true with the Internet, going to be at a place, I think as early as next year, where people won't get what you mean when you say AI or AI skills. Push yourself to move beyond that. Ai My skills, I'm not going to say it, what do I actually mean? It's about I know what AI is. I know how to think about it for my job, whatever that is. Then start. Start using AI tools. The biggest thing that's holding people back is it's this great unknown that is impossible to define, so they're just waiting. When I talk to see HROs, there's three groups.

[00:01:49.16] - Speaker 1

There's the nickels who are out there innovating, get it, and are now in a very nuanced place on it. There's a group that's anxious about it, and so avoiding it, and that's a very human impulse. If I'm anxious, I'm going to avoid. They're just by the day in ways they don't realize, falling further behind. Then there's a group that are intellectually curious and engaged but are uncertain about productivity, ROI. They're just like, I'll wait till it's told to me that I have to do it. Those two groups totally make sense why they're in them. They don't realize by the day they're falling behind. That truth is true for us as individuals, not just organizations. Stop saying AI and start using the tools because you'll start to see how it folds into your life. The biggest gap we're seeing right now is leaders are lagging. 75% of workers are using AI at work. Only 39% have been trained at work. Part of that is leadership coming up with a point of view, but part of it is the C-suite needs to use AI.