Amidst the rapidly increasing use of Artificial Intelligence (AI), there is a fear among the corporate world and common people whether machines will replace humans? Cisco President and Chief Product Officer Jitu Patel has completely rejected these concerns. He believes that AI will not make humans redundant, but will further enhance human potential and value.
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Synergy of AI and human understanding
According to Patel, real success comes when human understanding and decision-making capabilities are combined with AI automation. He explained that from chatbots to autonomous agents, AI systems are rapidly advancing, but they are designed to enhance human capabilities, not replace them. Giving the example of his mother being hospitalized, Patel said that no AI can replace a nurse. Humans have basic needs for love, understanding and care, which no machine can fulfill.
Impact on employment and new industries
Regarding the impact of automation on jobs, Patel admitted that the way of working will change and some old jobs may disappear. However, he assured that the nature of every job will change and entirely new industries and opportunities will arise due to AI. Machines cannot imitate the human nature of empathy, creativity and contribution to society. AI will serve as ‘digital co-workers’ at workplaces. Humans will now be able to focus more on high-level decision making, creativity and solving problems. Life will be reduced to just ‘staring at the beach’. Will challenge itself, because humans by nature have an innate desire to create something new and add value to the society.
speed of technology adoption
Currently the world has entered the second major phase of AI, while the first phase was of chatbots that answered questions intelligently and it seemed like magic. Patel said that humans very quickly accept any new and magical technology as normal. Giving the example of Waymo’s self-driving cars in San Francisco, he said that this experience for the first time is surprising. After sitting for the second time, the person gets distracted and starts emailing, and by the third time starts complaining about the car seats. This rapid pace of human adjustment will continue in the future due to technological advancements.
Costs and Economics
Talking about the expenses related to AI, Patel said that the cost of training and running it is still high, but the unit economics are improving rapidly. The cost of token generation for inferencing has reduced by 1,000 times in the last two years. Overall spending on infrastructure will increase, but the cost per query is expected to decline rapidly over time. According to a top Cisco official, the development of AI does not mean the end of human contribution to society. The workplace of the future will be one where mechanical scale will be used, but humans will remain completely at the center of it. Along with making the technology affordable, it will open new doors of growth for corporates and strongly maintain the importance of humans in the workforce.