Artificial intelligence transforms the world of work not by replacing humans, but by assistant, redefining their skills and paving the way for man-machine collaboration.
Artificial intelligence stands out as a key player in the world of work. First perceived as a threat to employment, it turns out to be a lever for assistance and innovation today. The initial fears of massive postal destruction, fed by the work of Frey and Osborne in 2013, suggested a world where machines would replace human workers. A decade later, reality turns out to be much more nuanced.
From destruction to the transformation of jobs
The rise of Deep Learning has suggested that AI would be able to assimilate the tacit dimension of work, in other words, the know-how that the professionals themselves struggle to formalize. Far from relegating the human to the background, this evolution, on the contrary, redefined the contours of essential skills. Creativity, sociability and the ability to manage uncertain situations remain properly human assets that resist automation.
Spontaneous and generalized adoption
The year 2023 marks a new era with the rise of generative AI, which is no longer limited to large companies, but infiltrates VSEs, SMEs and even local communities. This phenomenon no longer results from a descending initiative of employers, but from appropriation by the workers themselves. AI is now invited to the “coffee machine”, becoming a daily tool for many assets.
In addition, the skills highlighted by the OECD in its 2023 study – ordering of information, memorization, speed of analysis – are precisely those mobilized by high added value trades such as engineers, managers and general directors. Rather than supplanting them, AI therefore seems to strengthen their capacity for action.
To a model of assistance and collaboration
If pure and hard automation remains limited by challenges of reliability and explanability, the AI model as a “co -pilot” is generalized. Far from replacing humans, she assists it: the worker becomes prompt, verifier and editor, reducing his role as a simple performer while increasing his potential for analysis and innovation. However, this evolution raises the question of the sense of work and the risk of passivity, requiring increased effort to promote critical mind.
A future under construction: from the AI of confidence to the common sense AI
In the short term, companies invest massively in assistance AIs, integrating the “human in the loop” paradigm, where humans remain at the heart of the decision -making process. In the medium term, the emergence of confidence, supervised by strict rules and capable of automating high -risk tasks, is expected. In the longer term, the Grail lies in the “common sense”, a system capable of apprehending the world as a human, thus reducing the need for supervision.
“The path to this advanced intelligence will take at least a decade,” said Yann Le Cun, director of AI at Meta. In the meantime, the immediate challenge is to prepare workers to coexist intelligently with these tools, by promoting their skills rise and by redefining the role of human work in the AI era. Rather than a substitution, we are witnessing a deep reconfiguration of work, where humans and machine learn to collaborate for a future of reinvented work. And you, have you started to reflect on what you are going to have time that AI can free you?
