Technology alone will never be enough and it will never come close to working on its own. Even the most sophisticated AI (Artificial Intelligence) based systems will make egregious mistakes that almost no human being ever would. AI is as prone to biases as humans and in the current state that technology is in, researchers have identified serious concerns about hidden biases (e.g., against women and minority groups) creeping into machine-learning based decision systems in ways that are difficult to uncover. When it comes to decisions that impact humans in crucial ways, including recruitment and career progression, we are still far away from fully automated systems that can really be trusted. On the other hand, there is no doubt that technology has made huge advances, and any HR department or organization that ignores such advances is left behind.
So what should HR professionals do? Instead of viewing technology and automation as competition, they must embrace technology and combine it with their nuanced understanding of human aspects to achieve powerful results that are not possible through purely human effort or technology alone. Not just HR, almost every function and every industry vertical requires that magical combination of technology with the understanding of human behavior to achieve truly transformational change. Furthermore, functions that intersect human behavior and technology will be much harder to automate than those that involve just the machines.
When it comes to decisions that impact humans in crucial ways, including recruitment and career progression, we are far away from fully automated systems that can really be trusted
We are also seeing a monumental impact of technology on a function that has traditionally been driven by HR – learning and development. The rapid pace of technological advances has already reduced the “half-life” of knowledge (the period of time in which existing knowledge loses half of its value) to an estimated 1.5 years, down from roughly ten years a couple of decades ago. A clear implication is that for employees to remain productive and relevant, they must pursue lifelong learning and in a continuous manner, not just occasionally sign up for a formal course. The HR function needs to be at the forefront of driving this change by facilitating a culture of continuous learning for their employees and utilize technology and automation tools together with a strong human element to guide the direction.
At VideoKen, we are helping organizations use the power of high-quality, freely available videos, to support continuous learning needs of their employees, including self-initiated and peer-to-peer learning. We are applying technology to make this content more consumable and engaging, via our AI engine that automatically creates a table of contents, phrase cloud, and a searchable transcript of videos. However, it is ultimately a combination of this system with human involvement (of instructors curating useful material as well as individual employees identifying nuggets of information using this platform) that leads to the most effective outcomes.
With the exponential growth of technology that we are witnessing, people and organizations that combine the understanding of human behavior with technological advancement will be the real winners.