Repeat after me: Your AI agent is not a worker

We’re seeing increasing interest in incorporating artificial intelligence (AI) agents in the flow of work. While things like conversational chatbots have been around for ages in technical terms (you know, the 2010s!), the rise of large language models (LLMs) has people using computing in entirely new and creative ways. Whether in our personal or professional lives, people are automating tasks, personalising every aspect of their experience, speeding up research, and bolstering their creativity. 

There are so many reasons to be optimistic about the potential positive impact of AI: it can free humans to do more strategic and creative tasks when deployed well. 

But there are also major drawbacks that often don’t get as much airtime: lowering the overall quality of work output, embedded and exacerbated bias, and the threat of mass unemployment, to name a few. 

Business leaders are increasingly pushing to adopt these technologies, but often lack the people, ethics, and legal expertise to fully consider all aspects of deployment.