‘AI is a skill amplifier’: Why AI is a ‘powerful productivity booster’ for experts but a ‘threat’ to young workers

One can quickly produce something with artificial intelligence (AI), but whether it’s any good is another conversation.

As Western University’s Ivey Business School associate professors Tony Frost and Christian Dippel put it, “AI is a skill amplifier, not a skill creator” — meaning it can be a “powerful productivity booster” for experts, but a “threat” to the young still trying to build their skills.

Mr Frost and Mr Dippel wrote in a guest column for The Globe and Mail that they have seen the contrast firsthand.

While the tool has helped boost productivity for companies and mid-career professionals with stronger judgement and subject-area expertise, the opposite is happening with their students in university classrooms, where tasks like first drafts, initial analysis, basic coding and spreadsheet work are already being overtaken by AI — threatening to “wipe out the entry-level rungs they need to build those very skills”.

They said there are three advantages experienced professionals hold over early-career workers: knowing which questions to ask, spotting whether an output has gone off track, and knowing how to pull everything together into something that actually makes sense.

These three help with effective prompting, spotting AI hallucinations, and transforming components into integrated, meaningful wholes, which are only possible through practice and accumulated understanding.

Ten years ago, new graduates learned by doing the work senior colleagues did not have time for, including drafting reports, coding basic functions and conducting research, tasks that were imperfect, messy and slow but essential, they added.

Still, they noted that no one should resist AI. Instead, universities and employers should work on rebuilding early-career pathways to cultivate skills AI can’t replicate, while exposing young workers to higher-judgment tasks early on — with proper feedback and supervision, of course. /TISG

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