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Key Takeaways
- Leaders should focus on using AI to increase productivity and address workforce shrinkage due to an aging population, rather than succumbing to fear-driven narratives about its dangers.
- AI cannot replace our unique human qualities; the key is to integrate AI in a way that improves our humanity and quality of life.
- Companies should adopt AI-focused strategies such as creating digital alter egos for CEOs, retaining institutional knowledge, and encouraging AI innovation among employees.
Much of the AI discourse among business leaders revolves around fear. There are legitimate concerns about the way we use AI and its consequences, such as mass layoffs or the erosion of our humanity. However, we have no choice whether to use AI.
The real challenge for leaders is not whether AI is safe to use, but how it can be used wisely and urgently to support growth, productivity and human well-being in a rapidly changing world. From an aging population and talent shortages to the need for smarter education and innovation, AI offers the most powerful tool we have to increase productivity, preserve institutional knowledge, and expand human potential.
Rather than focusing on questions rooted in fear, let’s explore strategic and priority-oriented questions that leaders should consider regarding the benefits of AI.
Related: Does AI Actually Increase Productivity? These Ivy League researchers came to a surprising conclusion.
How can economies and businesses grow if the population decreases?
The declining and aging population poses a greater risk to prosperity and well-being than the loss or misuse of AI jobs. However, elected officials, education, and most business leaders have largely ignored the consequences of declining birth rates and an aging population for fifty years.
Population stability is the basis of economic vitality. In the developed world, birth rates have fallen below the level needed to sustain current populations, meaning the labor force is shrinking and the consumer base is shrinking. For any economy, long-term growth depends on a stable supply of productive workers and robust consumer spending. This means that maintaining public health is not just a demographic issue, but a business, quality of life and economic imperative.
National and global economies risk stagnation, rising unemployment and deterioration in living standards, similar to the Great Depression of the 20th century, when The US GDP shrank by almost 30% between 1929 and 1933. Japan provides a current example of the stagnant economic consequences of a declining and aging population. Another example is the US healthcare system, which is experiencing an acute workforce shortage of doctors, nurses, other physicians and health care providers, and a shortage of properly trained professionals to replace them. Make no mistake: other industries will follow.
Fortunately, the solution is simple: leverage AI to increase productivity faster than population decline, while accelerating replacement education and training.
How can we implement AI to increase our humanity and quality of life instead of decreasing it?
We face a huge challenge: how to integrate AI into education, work and life without demeaning humanity, while at the same time avoiding regulations that could hinder honorable activities and enable the malicious takeover of AI leadership. This Razor is a mid-21st century existential wisdom challenge for every leader, organization, institution, and individual.
The wisest decision starts with considering and thoroughly understanding a question that can easily guide integration with the power of AI: “What makes us human?” While the answers to this question are within reach, based on both science and our experiences, they are often overlooked amid the rapid pace of technological change. Wise decisions can be lost in the distortions of our ego, which seeks perfection and security.
History offers contradictory guidance. Innovation has improved society and quality of life since its inception. Each innovation had its detractors and “doomsday” scenarios, including fire, literacy, electricity, nuclear power, computers, television, the Internet and smartphones.
Every breakthrough attracts both visionaries and those who abuse its power. Innovation never runs smoothly from the start. It is an ongoing process of refinement, as society and leadership work to channel new possibilities toward progress while mitigating the risks of abuse. And what defines true leaders in times of rapid change and innovation is the ability to not only create what is possible, but also guide it toward results that enhance the greater good.
AI and robotics mimic human behavior and excel at certain tasks. Crucially, however, they cannot share human capacities such as intuition, intimacy, self-awareness, moral reasoning and free will. We blind ourselves to serious problems when we believe otherwise.
Once we understand our humanity, and AI’s lack thereof, our AI integration “North Star” becomes an amplification of our humanity.
Related: 3 Ways AI Can Make People Better (and How It Can Hurt Us)
What are constructive priorities for leaders, companies and individuals implementing AI and robotics?
Intelligent automation will soon change the way we learn, work, live and adapt to accelerating change and complexity. Leaders are ready to guide stakeholders, especially employees, to adapt enthusiastically rather than anxiously resist the inevitable.
1. Use breakthrough stakeholder communications to demonstrate the value of AI and improve organizational agility
Every CEO should create their own mission- and data-driven AI alter ego – a digital version of themselves – curated to engage in personalized one-on-one communications with every stakeholder, including employees, customers, suppliers and shareholders. This practice is expected to become the norm within a few years. By showing your own AI alter ego, you demonstrate leadership and confidence in controlled AI applications. The virtual CEO’s first mission should be to explain how and why each stakeholder can thrive in the emerging new reality.
2. Preserve institutional knowledge to fill talent and productivity gaps as valuable employees retire
Every business leader knows that a small percentage of employees have an outsized effect on the company’s success and are virtually irreplaceable. Historically, population growth has provided a steady supply of younger talent to replace retiring veterans; however, this is no longer the case. By 2035 adults over 65 years old will be greater than the number under 18 years old. To make matters worse, young people grow up more slowly as longevity increases, making young incumbents less willing to replace retirees. For the first time, AI can capture institutional knowledge and expertise quickly and cheaply to teach and coach young replacements from the group that previously ran the company.
3. Create a voluntary retirement extension plan
Few people today retire according to the industrial age model. Many are healthy, active and want to continue contributing, but with less intensity and time commitment. Some companies are experimenting with expanded retirement-friendly employment options, but a portable, scalable model has yet to emerge. Retired talent will be invaluable for the foreseeable future.
4. Create an AI competition
Some of your employees are likely already ahead of the company’s leaders and technology staff in AI knowledge. An idea to consider that also encourages potential collaboration and business involvement is to create a competition for 5-10 AI ideas with meaningful incentives and a set of stringent requirements (such as bounded, auditable, secure models; ROI in 12 months or less; improved productivity, products or services without replacing humans, and scalable or replicable in other parts of the business).
Related: How to prepare employees to work with AI
Not embracing innovation means we’re not making progress
Great innovations always carry both promise and risk. There is no safe, stationary path, only a sensible path that amplifies what makes us uniquely human while harnessing the potential of integrated intelligent automation. Hesitation is the greatest danger; Slow or uncertain adoption threatens economic stagnation, loss of competitiveness and deeper demographic decline.
Now is the time for decisive leadership. Those who move forward with clarity and confidence, unafraid to admit what they don’t know while acting on what they do, will define the next era of growth and human progress.