Person sitting on bench with briefcase at side and devil drawn over one shoulder, angel over other
Management Prof. Scott Latham is “morbidly fascinated” with dying businesses. So he’s keenly interested in how AI will affect organizations—and what it means for people’s jobs.
“If your job is data-heavy, numbers-heavy, AI is coming for you,” Latham warns. “If you’re in a job that requires a high level of critical thinking, one that deals with complex human relations, AI will certainly be involved, but I think the human will be OK.”
Latham, who teaches a course called The Future of Work, has been studying how technology affects organizations ever since his dissertation on the dot-com bust 25 years ago. He sees AI as the latest in a long line of technologies (computers, robots, the internet) that have changed the nature of work, but adds that it’s difficult to tell the hype from the reality. He subscribes to Amara’s law (named after the late futurist Roy Amara), which states that “We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run.”
“If you look at AI, it’s a very simple model,” Latham says. “You have a data set, and you have algorithms that run on that data. And with AI, you’re actually empowering it to make decisions.”
In the short term, Latham sees humans collaborating with AI in the workplace because “no one is going to trust AI” to make decisions. But human decision-making is limited by time, information and cognitive abilities, which behavioral economists call “bounded rationality,” so people tend to make “incredibly irrational decisions,” Latham says. He predicts a “huge shift” in companies’ decision-making processes a decade from now.
“At some point, the human will be replaced because the AI will be able to make a better rational decision. I’m not saying a better decision, but a more rational decision,” he says. “You will have AI in charge of critical decisions in an organization around supply chain, around sales, around layoffs.”  
Latham and Assoc. Prof. of Management Beth Humberd co-authored a research article for the MIT Sloan Management Review in 2018 that looked at “Four Ways Jobs Will Respond to Automation.” They evaluated professions according to the type of value delivered and skills required and created a framework to help workers assess the threat level posed by automation. 
While data-intensive industries such as pharmaceuticals, radiology and computer coding are ripe for AI disruption, Latham says jobs that have a high variability of tasks—think skilled trades like a plumber or electrician—are safest. So are jobs that require a lot of human interaction.
“AI is going to affect human resources around hiring, but the tough stuff—dealing with a conflict at work or a toxic employee—AI can’t deal with that,” he says. “Even the biggest AI proponents have doubts about its ability to deal with emotions and relationships.”
‘Every company is an AI company’ Vala Afshar ’94, ’96, chief digital evangelist at customer relationship management software giant Salesforce, also spends much time thinking about what AI means for workers.
“The future is ‘every company is an AI company,’ ” says Afshar, who recently co-authored “Boundless: A New Mindset for Unlimited Business Success,” a book that explores how companies can make the most of technologies such as AI, blockchain and cloud computing.
Afshar, an electrical engineering alum, says AI is “electricity for the 21st century.”
“AI should be a human right—and I haven’t said that about the internet,” he says. “If you don’t have access to AI, you’re not going to be able to compete and win. You’re not going to be healthy or prosperous.”
Afshar notes that new research by consultant Accenture shows that more than $10.3 trillion in additional economic value can be unlocked by 2038 if organizations adopt AI “responsibly and at scale.” The same research shows that 95% of employees see value in working with AI, but their top concern is that they don’t trust organizations to ensure positive outcomes for everyone.
During a fireside chat at UML’s Innovation Hub in December, Afshar told students that every field—from engineering and marketing to service and health care—will be disrupted by AI. The key to staying employable, he said, is to learn how to use the technology.
“The likelihood of job risk is not because of machines and algorithms. You’re likely to lose your job to a human who’s comfortable with technologies like AI,” he says. Afshar says generative AI tools like ChatGPT are evolving into digital assistants that will anticipate people’s needs at work.
“No matter what type of work you do, you’ll speak to an app on this device and it will guide you. One hundred per-cent, this is reality,” he says. “It will grow into a concierge service that not only answers directly what you ask, but anticipates your needs without you asking.”
More than half of the companies in the Fortune 500 list in 2003 no longer exist today, according to research from WatchMyCompetitor, a (you guessed it) AI-powered research platform. While the pace of change can be unsettling, Afshar sees the future as half-full.
“I’m not worried about jobs. I’m an optimist,” says Afshar, who encourages students to be optimistic, too. “Sometimes, you sound smarter when you’re a pessimist and cynical, but in the long run, optimists create the future.”—EB