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72% of Top CHROs See AI Replacing Jobs — And Workers Aren't Ready

Also: Singapore workers adopting AI skills at the fastest pace

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AI KATANA
August 21, 2023

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In today's AI-focused digest, a majority of Fortune 500 CHROs foresee AI reshaping jobs in their organizations within three years, yet many U.S. employees feel ill-equipped for this AI-driven future. Meanwhile, Khan Academy introduces its AI tutor, Khanmigo, in classrooms, leveraging GPT-4's capabilities to foster interactive learning. South Korea's KT Corp expands its AI coding platform, AI Codiny, to universities, targeting broader AI literacy. Singapore stands out with its workforce adopting AI skills at a staggering pace, 20 times since 2016, surpassing the global average. On the innovation front, startup Writer aims to perfect generative AI models by emphasizing factual accuracy. In investment news, SK Telecom has invested in AI assistant developer, Persona AI, fortifying its stance in the AI customer service sector.

Sliced:

  • 👨🏻‍💻 72% of Top CHROs See AI Replacing Jobs — And Workers Aren't Ready

  • 🤖 Meet Khan Academy's AI tutor

  • 👩🏻‍🏫 KT to hold AI coding lectures at universities

  • 🇸🇬 Singapore workers adopting AI skills at the fastest pace

A recent survey reveals that 72% of Fortune 500 Chief Human Resource Officers (CHROs) predict AI will replace jobs within their organizations in the next three years, and 65% believe AI can enhance the performance of many roles. They envision improvements in efficiency, effectiveness, speed, decision-making, and strategic thinking. In contrast, U.S. employees feel ill-prepared for the AI shift: only 10% use AI regularly, over half feel unready for AI integration, and merely 14% foresee job threats from tech advancements. Despite leaders recognizing AI's business potential and its likely impact on jobs, there's a crucial gap in communication and preparation. To navigate this transition, leaders must proactively provide development resources and reskilling opportunities to ensure their workforce isn't caught off guard.

Khan Academy is piloting an AI tutor, named Khanmigo, in classrooms to aid individualized learning. Despite concerns about the use of AI tools like ChatGPT for academic dishonesty, Khan Academy believes in harnessing the potential of AI for constructive educational purposes. Khanmigo, powered by OpenAI's GPT-4, assists students with subjects such as math, science, and humanities. It also introduces students to AI-generated conversations with historical figures and literary characters, from George Washington to Hamlet. This interactive tool aims to engage students more actively than traditional passive learning methods. Khanmigo also provides tools for educators, such as creating lesson plans. While the system shows promise, it is still in its beta phase and occasionally produces errors, especially in math, highlighting the challenges and nuances of integrating AI into the classroom.

South Korea's KT Corp. is extending the use of its AI coding education platform, AI Codiny, from schools to universities due to the increasing integration of AI in daily life. The platform, which presents coding principles in a block format, allows even beginners to grasp AI coding concepts without prior knowledge. To make the learning experience more engaging, KT plans to introduce new tools like drones and game engines for AI Codiny. Since its launch, AI Codiny has been implemented in 2,500 classrooms across the country, and there's an ambition to expand it to all colleges. The platform also assists in the preparation for the AI Certificate for Everyone (AICE), an educational and evaluation tool co-developed by The Korea Economic Daily and KT, which now includes elementary and middle school students through the newly introduced AICE Future.

Singaporean workers are the fastest globally in adopting AI skills, with a growth rate 20 times since January 2016, as revealed by LinkedIn's Future of Work report. This rate surpasses the global average of eight times. Factors attributed to Singapore's leading position include its strong digital infrastructure, robust intellectual property protection, and a flourishing ecosystem of venture capital and investors. Generative AI has been increasingly integrated into various sectors, with tools like ChatGPT sparking interest. This AI evolution has raised concerns about job displacement, with a Goldman Sachs report indicating 300 million jobs could be impacted. The study from LinkedIn further suggests that while roles like software engineering might see up to 96% of their tasks augmentable by AI, roles like teaching retain a majority human-centric component. As AI continues to progress, soft skills such as flexibility, professional ethics, and emotional intelligence are becoming more crucial.

🛠️ AI tools updates

The startup, Writer, co-founded by May Habib and Waseem Alshikh, claims to have developed generative AI models that prioritize factual accuracy over creativity. Using their unique language models named Palmyra, Writer offers businesses the ability to create and edit text-based content adhering to company guidelines without generating false information. Distinct from many AI models which occasionally produce incorrect or "hallucinated" information, Writer's architecture aims for precision, using an encoder-decoder system. In the rare instance when the model does produce inaccuracies, it highlights the unsourced text. Their models are trained on both public information and company-specific data, and each client gets a customized model stored on their cloud. Notable clients include Uber, Deloitte, Spotify, and Accenture, with applications ranging from writing product descriptions to transforming podcasts into written content. The San Francisco-based firm is valued at $155 million and is expected to achieve $20 million in 2023 revenue.

💵 Venture Capital updates

SK Telecom (SKT) has announced its investment in AI assistant developer, Persona AI, intending to co-develop products that enhance automated customer service for businesses. Persona AI, recognized as South Korea's top developer for AI tools in automated call centers, employs its proprietary natural language processing technology to create AI assistants with voice recognition and sentence analysis capabilities. Although the exact financial details remain undisclosed, this investment positions SKT as the third-largest shareholder in Persona AI. This move aligns with SKT's ambition to consolidate its position in the AI-powered customer service market and follows its recent $100 million investment in the US-based AI developer, Anthropic.

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