Dimon expressed his belief that AI has the potential to revolutionise every aspect of JPMorgan’s operations, from trading and hedging to research and error detection. He described AI as a “living, breathing thing,” capable of transforming traditional processes and augmenting human capabilities.

Dimon’s enthusiasm for AI is grounded in its current applications within JPMorgan. He revealed that AI is already extensively used in equity hedging, idea generation, and large language models.

Despite the ongoing debate about the impact of AI on employment, Dimon remains pragmatic. He acknowledged that AI will replace certain jobs, but he emphasised that technology has historically led to job displacement and this evolution is a natural part of progress.

One of Dimon’s main concerns about AI technology revolves around its potential misuse by malicious actors, especially in cyberspace. He stressed the importance of establishing legal safeguards to prevent the misuse of AI.

Despite these concerns, Dimon remains optimistic about the positive impact of AI on the workforce and society. He highlighted the benefits of other technological breakthroughs, many of which can be further enhanced using AI.

“Your children will live to 100 and not have cancer because of technology, and they’ll probably be working three days a week. So technology’s done unbelievable things for mankind,” said Dimon.

Dimon outlined JPMorgan’s proactive approach to potential job displacement caused by AI implementation. He expressed the firm’s commitment to supporting employees who might be affected, stating that they plan to redeploy displaced workers in local branches or different functions within the company.

Dimon’s forward-thinking approach highlights the transformative power of AI in shaping the future of finance and other industries. However, it also reiterates the need for consideration of how to minimise negative impacts such as job displacement.

(Image Credit: Stuart Isett/Fortune Global Forum under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 DEED license)

See also: Cyber Security & Cloud Expo: The alarming potential of AI-powered cybercrime

Want to learn more about AI and big data from industry leaders? Check out AI & Big Data Expo taking place in Amsterdam, California, and London. The comprehensive event is co-located with Digital Transformation Week.

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Universities are increasingly recognising the importance of equipping their students and staff with AI literacy skills to leverage the opportunities presented by technological advancements in teaching and learning. 

Sheila Flavell CBE, Chief Operating Officer at FDM Group, commented: “With businesses crying out for new hires equipped with the latest tech skills and analytics capabilities, providing students with a fully rounded education and qualifications in this area is critical for building a dynamic workforce, fit for the future ahead.”

Developed in collaboration with AI and educational experts, the new principles acknowledge both the risks and opportunities associated with generative AI. The statement emphasises the role of Russell Group universities in cultivating AI leaders who can navigate an AI-enabled world effectively and responsibly.

The five principles outlined in the joint statement are as follows:

1. AI Literacy Support: Universities will support students and staff in developing AI literacy skills, enabling them to comprehend and engage with AI effectively.
2. Faculty Training: Staff members will be equipped with the necessary knowledge and skills to assist students in utilising generative AI tools appropriately and effectively within their learning experiences.
3. Ethical Integration: Universities will adapt their teaching and assessment methods to incorporate the ethical use of generative AI, ensuring equal access to its benefits.
4. Academic Rigour: Academic integrity and rigour will be upheld as universities embrace the transformative power of AI in education.
5. Collaborative Best Practices: Universities will collaborate and share best practices as the technology and its applications in education evolve.

This announcement closely follows the UK Government’s launch of a consultation on the use of generative AI in education in England. By issuing this joint statement, the Russell Group universities aim to foster a shared understanding of the values and considerations surrounding AI in education.

Ross Sleight, Chief Strategy Officer, EMEA at CI&T, said:

“Education is still yet to be transformed by AI. It’s centuries old in how it’s done, but that doesn’t mean change isn’t on the horizon.

Exams and essays can risk regurgitation over critical thinking. Institutions must ask themselves, what is the most effective way to facilitate and consolidate knowledge, and can new technology better support this?

Technology such as ChatGPT is here to stay, and while it does pose challenges for the education sector, fighting against it is a losing battle. Institutions need to work with it and use it to their advantage. Great innovation can come from it.”

Dr Tim Bradshaw, Chief Executive of the Russell Group, highlighted the significance of AI breakthroughs in reshaping work dynamics and stressed the importance of preparing students with the skills required for successful careers. Furthermore, he emphasised the need to support university staff as they explore the potential of AI to enhance teaching methods and engage students effectively.

As the field of AI continues to advance rapidly, the joint statement of principles serves as a testament to the commitment of Russell Group universities to harnessing the transformative opportunities presented by AI.

John Kirk, Group Deputy CEO at ITG, commented: “The reality is that this technology is here to stay and deployed correctly can enhance our creative industries and help businesses transform marketing and customer interactions for the long term.

“With the digital skills shortfall still causing headaches for many companies, having systems in place to better understand such a high-impact technology is a step in the right direction.”

By prioritising the welfare of students and staff and safeguarding the integrity of education, the principles will help to ensure that AI adoption in universities is guided by clear and understood values.

Prof Michael Grove, deputy pro-vice chancellor (education policy and standards) at the University of Birmingham, said: “The rapid rise of generative AI will mean we need to continually review and re-evaluate our assessment practices, but we should view this as an opportunity rather than a threat.

You can find the full principles on the use of AI in education here (PDF)

(Photo by Suad Kamardeen on Unsplash)

See also: UK will host global AI summit to address potential risks

Want to learn more about AI and big data from industry leaders? Check out AI & Big Data Expo taking place in Amsterdam, California, and London. The event is co-located with Digital Transformation Week.

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Faethm’s mission is to prepare the world “for the future of work” by using an AI engine – trained on billions of workforce data points – to predict what jobs need reskilling versus upskilling.

James McLeod, VP of the EMEA region at Faethm, said

“Employers and employees alike need to change their perspective. The future of work is already here and the introduction of technology does not affect work in a uniform way.

We must acknowledge where it supplements existing work and invest in a targeted reskilling approach that recognises the new roles technology is creating and ensures human and machine labour complement one another.

Doing so will not only help businesses add capacity and increase productivity, but also ensure they are looking after employees—making financially beneficial and morally responsible decisions and creating a digitally-adept workforce for the future.”

In its latest UK Workforce Forecast report (registration required), Faethm expects 4.8 percent of work – equivalent to 1.4 million full-time roles – to be automated over the next 12 months. A further 2.9 percent is predicted to be augmented by AI.

Adjusted for population, Wales (5.3%), Northern Ireland (5.2%), and the North of England (5.1%) have the highest proportions of jobs at risk of automation.

Nan Craig, Data Analyst at Faethm, commented:

“Even ordinary downturns tend to increase automation, as companies are tempted to replace expensive labour with cheaper automated systems. However, the new conditions created by COVID-19 – and the need to reduce human interaction in public places – are making automation more attractive than in an ordinary recession. 

In-person human labour is becoming more expensive, due to safety considerations around space, PPE, and the ability to take time off to self-isolate, whereas machines and automated systems, in comparison, can be added without increasing infection risks, at a comparatively lower cost.

Longer-term changes in consumer behaviour could make a difference too, as more interactions shift online, meaning businesses are more likely to be considering automation than without the COVID-19 crisis.”

Jobs in the wholesale, retail, and financial sectors are most at-risk. These sectors represent nine percent of the workforce – around five million people – and Faethm estimates that the equivalent of 932,000 full-time roles in these sectors could be automated.

Faethm’s research finds that many staple UK jobs are at risk from automation and may cease to exist in the future. However, around 382,000 jobs could be created by the introduction of new technologies.

As the country rebuilds from the pandemic, Faethm wants to see a focus on where AI can augment human jobs rather than replace them. Automation can handle more of the routine, mundane, and less enjoyable daily tasks while humans can focus on areas machines struggle with such as creativity, compassion, and interpersonal skills.

(Photo by Lyman Gerona on Unsplash)

Interested in hearing industry leaders discuss subjects like this? Attend the co-located 5G Expo, IoT Tech Expo, Blockchain Expo, AI & Big Data Expo, and Cyber Security & Cloud Expo World Series with upcoming events in Silicon Valley, London, and Amsterdam.

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Thus far in modern British history, there have been three industrial revolutions. The first, in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, is synonymous with the onset of coal and steam power and the widespread economic migration of the workforce from the countryside to the city in pursuit of jobs. The second witnessed the widespread adoption of electric power and steel to facilitate mass production. And the most recent of the three, the third industrial revolution, brought with it the power of the internet and the socio-economic repercussions of rapid globalisation at the turn of the 21^st century.

Each of these defining periods in our history was marked by technological upheaval and huge societal change, and they are all defined as revolutions because they shared a common characteristic: they accelerated the rise and fall of demand for specific skills. So as we return our thoughts to the present, it quickly becomes clear to us that the modern era shares these very characteristics. Only this time, it’s the increasing influence of AI/automation and the decentralisation of labour that is pushing the world toward what is now commonly known as the fourth industrial revolution. 

Despite the obvious parallels with the past, one thing about industrial revolutions has changed. Over the past 100 years or more, the length of these cycles has dropped from decades to a matter of years. Today this is creating one of the biggest employability challenges for businesses and individuals alike moving forward, as they both seek to ensure they are attuned to the demands of today’s work. 

Companies must fundamentally change the way they view skills, training and career development so they are positioned to maximise the opportunity presented by this change. This isn’t just another story about technology creating as many jobs as it invalidates: they must consider how existing roles will evolve and how people in at-risk jobs can transition into roles where they work alongside technology and continue to add value on top of it.

Re-envisaging education

For almost half a century, it has made sense for careers to follow a linear path. From early to later education, skills are gradually narrowed down and refined to serve a particular niche, with a particular job role serving as the end objective. The reason this particular ‘pyramid’ style of education has worked is because it could be mapped out to longer cycles in the demand for specific roles, which may have lasted for a generation or more. 

Today, the demand for – and turnover of – skills is cycling faster than ever before and will continue accelerating in the years ahead. This not only poses a problem for linear structures of education and career development but, on an individual level, challenges the long-held association between our jobs and our identities. Jobs give us purpose, and job roles provide a pathway for us to achieve that purpose. So what happens when skills fall out of demand, and we fall short of fulfilling that very purpose? 

The evolution of professional identity

In their indispensable guidebook, The Adaptation Advantage, Heather E. McGowan and Chris Shipley take on this topic head-on. The authors describe how identities typically carry a permanent professional stamp, i.e., ‘teacher’, ‘plumber’ or ‘politician’. This, they argue, “is the barrier to making the crossing from the past of work to the future of work. But cross we must because the future is coming at us faster than we can understand it.” 

The first step toward overcoming this barrier is to direct our educational and professional development away from specific roles and instead focus our efforts on improving our overall adaptability. Of course, each role will have a set of transferable and non-transferable skills, but there is little precedent today for knowing which is which. Identifying skills which sit across different roles means employees can more easily move laterally into new roles as and when it is necessary for them to do so. 

Socially responsible employers, not just employees

Adaptability may be perceived as an attribute that employees must possess but, in reality, it’s an attribute that is equally (if not more) essential for employers. Having the right skilled employees working in-house will still contribute significantly to a company’s competitiveness, but keeping abreast of demand for new skills by constantly hiring new talent is both a costly and unsustainable strategy. Instead, companies must look inward to retain, retrain and redeploy existing employees in those in-demand roles. 

An effective method of identifying which employees should be reskilled is by creating an inventory of skills, taking into account those which are most valuable and those which sit across multiple roles. This not only effectively eliminates the unpleasant nature and cost of employee redundancies, but by looking at how individual processes translate to value, helps companies eliminate bloated processes and release capacity, simultaneously making roles both more relevant and more efficient. 

Adapting our understanding of ‘work’

Change can often be met with resistance, particularly during periods of uncertainty. But we cannot sit back in our comfortable status quo position when we know that doing so could block the path to a more prosperous future. 

We should instead focus on enhancing a very different human instinct – adaptation – to move forward. It is a constant trait of humankind that allows us to thrive and remain resilient, even in the event of sudden changes in the environment. 

Employers and employees alike must revise their understanding of what a ‘job’ entails, and prioritise both enhancing and encouraging adaptability. Reskilling is essential to realise the immense potential of the future of work. All it requires is a willingness to do things differently.

Interested in hearing industry leaders discuss subjects like this? Attend the co-located 5G Expo, IoT Tech Expo, Blockchain Expo, AI & Big Data Expo, and Cyber Security & Cloud Expo World Series with upcoming events in Silicon Valley, London, and Amsterdam.

The post Learning the lessons of the past to fast-forward to the future of work appeared first on AI News.

The use of AI to increase productivity rather than replace human workers will help to quell some fears around the adoption of artificial intelligence.

Svetlana Sicular, Research Vice President at Gartner, said:

“Augmented intelligence is all about people taking advantage of AI.

As AI technology evolves, the combined human and AI capabilities that augmented intelligence allows will deliver the greatest benefits to enterprises.”

Gartner is predicting the adoption of AI will generate $2.9 trillion in business value in 2021. Furthermore, it will deliver the equivalent of 6.2 billion hours of worker productivity over the same timeframe.

Currently, the leading business value of AI is decision support/augmentation, followed by agents. By 2030, Gartner predicts this overall ranking will remain the same but the gap between will grow significantly with decision support/augmentation accounting for 44 percent of business value, and agents representing 24 percent.

“The excitement about AI tools, services and algorithms misses a crucial point: The goal of AI should be to empower humans to be better, smarter and happier, not to create a ‘machine world’ for its own sake,” added Sicular. “Augmented intelligence is a design approach to winning with AI, and it assists machines and people alike to perform at their best.”

Decision support/augmentation will have little impact on the workforce, but that doesn’t mean workers have nothing to fear. Agents, the second biggest expected driver of business value, will inevitably cause some job losses.

Interested in hearing industry leaders discuss subjects like this and their use cases? Attend the co-located AI & Big Data Expo events with upcoming shows in Silicon Valley, London, and Amsterdam to learn more. Co-located with the IoT Tech Expo, Blockchain Expo, and Cyber Security & Cloud Expo.

The post Gartner: AI will drive business value by supporting human decisions appeared first on AI News.