The JUST Report: How Can AI Benefit Workers?
(Getty Images/Maskot)
At a private JUST webinar this week, Brookings Institution’s Xavier de Souza Briggs (also a JUST Board member) and Molly Kinder (read her latest article on how Hollywood writers went to war on Gen AI here) joined MIT’s Tom Kochan and Stephanie Bell from Partnership on AI to expound on the impacts of Gen AI on America’s workers.
The central question? How companies can think about their human capital as a value creator in the implementation and deployment of generative AI technologies. The discussion highlighted the importance of deliberate implementation strategies and highlighted the potential for empowering workers by incentivizing their engagement with AI in their respective roles.
We often dwell on the possible negative societal impacts of AI when we contemplate its future – instinctive fear of the unknown perhaps – but there are also some clear and very immediate positive applications.
The mission of Karya, for example, is bold and simple: they are tackling poverty in India by working with big tech companies (who spend billions of dollars to collect training data for their LL models) to bring that digital work to local communities. Their partnerships with Google, Microsoft, The Gates Foundation, and the Government of India will help bring digital employment to 100,000 low-income Indians this year.
Humanitas.ai, led by Bay Area tech leader Phil Chow, is exploring the application of Gen AI in America to create personalized support for frontline workers and their families in accessing benefits, emergency needs (such as food), and other forms of urgent care. Turnover and unused benefits cost employers hundreds of billions of dollars every year; Humanitas.ai’s concept could help corporations improve efficiency and directly benefit the lives of millions of their workers.
These are just two examples of how companies could find alignment between driving business value and deploying worker-centric AI. JUST’s work will help make sure the issue remains a priority.
Be well,
Martin
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Quote of the Week
“Technology fosters jobs. It fosters opportunity. I think gen AI is the biggest opportunity. It is the iPhone moment for enterprise for sure. In terms of reskilling and retooling people, that will have to happen. Six out of 10 people will need to be retrained for this new economy, but it is a great opportunity. Most of the jobs they’re doing right now are soul crushing.”
- Bill McDermott, CEO of ServiceNow, discussing how he thinks Gen AI will affect his workforce in this Fortune piece.
JUST In the News
CNBC covers the leaders in our Top 5 Companies for Parents list and explores some of the policies each company has on top of parental benefits, including specific pay equity initiatives.
JUST Board Member Dan Hesse interviews Ambassador John Negroponte as he shares life and business lessons from four decades of diplomacy.
JUST AI
Fortune examines how the AI data center revolution is happening in people’s backyards, as major server farms are being installed in the same areas where enormous shipping warehouses were erected over the past two decades.
Fast Company sits down with four CEOs of publicly traded companies to hear their vastly different ideas of how AI will impact their business and their workers.
Must Reads
The New York Times takes a closer look at the growing trend of CEOS staying longer than a decade at their company and the hidden downsides–like becoming more risk-averse–this can have on corporations.
Impact Alpha covers the latest report by WORC (Workforce & Organizational Research Center), “Thinking Beyond the C-Suite Pays Off”, which examines the role of human capital management in value creation at private equity firms with more than $5 billion in assets.
Fortune chronicles the uphill battle facing Nasdaq’s diversity rule, where every company listed must list and meet certain representational quotes in the boardroom, and why its greatest legal challenges are coming up.
Fast Company explains why, on average, most workers want a boring boss.
Chart of the Week
This chart comes from Axios, and shows the stock market hitting a new record high, something almost unthinkable two years ago, despite general economic pessimism from workers and a divisive election later this year. Learn more inside.
