AI Is Taking On New Work. But Change Will Be Hard—and Expensive.


许多企业高管还在研究如何和以多快的速度把AI技术付诸应用。


许多公司仍在努力了解人工智能除了能做呼叫中心和程序员的工作外，还能做些什么。

思科系统(Cisco Systems, 简称：思科)近期遇到一个问题：公司的一名经理和一名新员工合作得很不顺畅。两个人都感到很沮丧。怎么办呢？ 6park.com
Cisco Systems recently had a problem: A manager and a new employee at the technology giant struggled to work together. Both people felt frustrated. What to do?  6park.com
   
正如美国大公司内部越来越普遍的解决办法一样，思科的领导人也向生成式AI寻求了帮助。该公司的人力资源团队上传了员工和经理之间的聊天记录，希望找出紧张关系的根源。(思科表示，两人都同意这样做）。 6park.com
As is increasingly the answer inside large U.S. companies, leaders turned to generative AI for help. Cisco’s human-resources team uploaded chat logs between the employee and manager, hoping to suss out the source of the tension. (Both people consented to this, Cisco says.)  6park.com
    
在快速浏览上述经理和员工之间长达数页的讨论记录后，AI软件给出了一个答案： 由于员工反复问了一些同样的问题，经理感觉员工没有倾听自己说的话。而这名只是希望了解得更清楚一些，因而可能感受到了很大的挫败感。思科表示，了解这些细节帮助双方改善了关系。 6park.com
After quickly sifting through pages of discussions, the software came up with an answer: The manager didn’t feel heard as the employee asked some of the same questions over and over. The employee, seeking as much clarity as possible, could sense a high degree of frustration. The company says knowing the details helped the relationship improve.  6park.com
    
思科公司人力资源部高级主管Francine Katsoudas说：“当时大家就说‘原来如此！’”。 6park.com
“There was just this ‘Aha!’ ” says Francine Katsoudas, Cisco’s top human-resources executive. 

担心与乐观看法

企业正在将生成式AI应用于越来越复杂的任务中，包括分析思科雇员之间的摩擦等工作，而这些曾经是经验丰富的高薪员工的专属领域。这种变化引发了对工作场所转型的预测——既有令人担忧的预测，也有乐观的预测。 6park.com
Companies are turning to generative AI for ever more sophisticated tasks—including work such as deciphering friction between colleagues at Cisco, once exclusively the domain of well-paid knowledge workers. This change is fueling predictions of workplace transformation—both ominous and optimistic. 6park.com
     
一些人担心，鉴于AI能够更好地替代长期以来由经验丰富的员工从事的工作，就可能出现一波破坏性的失业潮。他们的想法是：如果软件能以更低的成本、更快的速度完成工作，人力资源部门还需要那么多人吗？ 6park.com
Some fear a wave of disruptive job losses, as AI becomes better able to take over the work long done by knowledge workers. The thinking goes: Do you really need so many people in the HR department if the software can do it cheaper and more quickly? 6park.com
   
但也有人说，这种担忧被夸大了。相比之下，他们预计AI将开启创新并带来更高的生活质量。 6park.com
But others say such concerns are overblown. By contrast, they anticipate that AI will unlock innovations and usher in a higher quality of life.  6park.com
    
例如，摩根大通(JPMorgan Chase)首席执行官戴蒙(Jamie Dimon)已表示，AI可能只需要未来的企业雇员每周工作三天半。戴蒙去年表示，科技将发明癌症的治疗方法，并通过找到仅靠人脑无法实现的突破，让更多人活到100岁。 6park.com
JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon has said, for instance, that AI might require future generations to work only 3½ days a week. Technology will invent cures for cancer, Dimon said last year, and allow more people to live to 100 by finding breakthroughs impossible to achieve through the mind alone. 6park.com
    
其他一些人士表示，AI将让人们能够多做自己感兴趣的事情。风投公司Khosla Ventures创始人Vinod Khosla去年秋天接受《华尔街日报》(The Wall Street Journal)采访时说，不出10年，AI将入驻“现有工作岗位的80%”。 6park.com
Others say AI will free people to do more of what interests them. Within 10 years, AI will take on “80% of 80% of the jobs that exist today,” said Vinod Khosla, founder of venture-capital firm Khosla Ventures, in a Wall Street Journal interview last fall. 6park.com
   
Khosla说：“对于那些适用这些技术的国家来说，在社会上工作的需要将在25年内消失。” 6park.com
“The need to work in society will disappear within 25 years for those countries that adapt these technologies,” Khosla said. 6park.com
   
然而，在面对实际工作的高管们看来，情况更为不明朗。很多人都表示，他们正试图分析这些预测，并把炒作与现实区分开来，以便回答一个基本问题： AI在公司活动中将会得到多大程度的普及，我在自己的公司采用AI的步伐应该有多快？ 6park.com
Among executives on the ground, however, the situation is more murky. Many say they are now trying to parse the predictions, and to separate hype from reality to come up with their own answer to a fundamental question: How pervasive will AI become in corporate life, and how quickly should I adopt it in my own company? 6park.com
    
生命科学公司赛默飞世尔科技(Thermo Fisher Scientific)首席执行官Marc Casper说：“归根结底，人类与AI技术的互动将是决定其影响的关键。” 6park.com
“At the end of the day, it’s the human interaction with the technology that’s going to make or break the impact,” says Marc Casper, CEO of life-sciences company Thermo Fisher Scientific, which is using generative AI in corporate functions such as marketing to help write advertising content. 

一系列障碍

毫无疑问，有些角色将发生重大变化。麦肯锡全球研究院(Research by the McKinsey Global Institute)的研究已发现，借助生成式AI和其他工具，当前工作时数的30%最晚到2030年或可实现自动化。 6park.com
Some roles no doubt will significantly change. Research by the McKinsey Global Institute has found that, with generative AI and other tools, 30% of the hours worked today could be automated by 2030. 6park.com
    
即便如此，广泛采用AI的障碍仍有很多。监管规定仍在不断变化。采用AI意味着额外的成本。OpenAI等销售AI工具的公司面临法律挑战，包括来自马斯克(Elon Musk)等知名高管的挑战。在许多公司内部，数据往往杂乱无章、缺乏条理，令使用AI的难度加大。一些高管对于把专有信息放进大型语言模型也存在担忧。 6park.com
Even so, the hurdles to broad AI adoption are many. Regulations remain in flux. Adopting AI means added costs. Companies selling AI tools, including OpenAI, face legal challenges, including from prominent executives like Elon Musk. Within many companies, data is often messy and unorganized, making it harder to use AI. Some executives also fear putting proprietary information inside large language models.  6park.com
    
还有人类自身的问题。工会已在抵制AI；好莱坞代表演员和编剧的工会去年组织的罢工，核心议题就是AI的使用。 6park.com
Then there is the human issue. Labor unions have pushed back against AI; in Hollywood, the use of AI was a central issue in strikes last year among unions representing actors and writers. 6park.com
    
让人们改变工作方式并采用AI工具也需要时间。 6park.com
Getting people to change how they do their jobs and to adopt AI tools also takes time.  6park.com
     
Salesforce负责督导AI事宜的Clara Shih说：“CEO、董事会和管理团队了解AI是一回事。但要想真正取得成功，得让每个人都参与进来，这才是最难的部分。” 6park.com
“It’s one thing for the CEO and the board and the management team to understand AI. But to really succeed you have to bring everybody along, and so that’s actually the hardest part,” says Clara Shih, who oversees artificial intelligence at Salesforce.

并非就业杀手，现在还不是

在最近几周对二十多位高管的采访中，许多高管表示，他们还没有看到证据表明AI是就业杀手——至少在未来几年还不是；一年多前OpenAI的ChatGPT出现时，一些人最初怀疑AI会是就业杀手。部分原因在于，许多公司仍在努力了解AI在呼叫中心和软件编程员工作之外的所有功能；在上述两个领域，许多雇主优先考虑早期AI项目。 6park.com
In interviews with more than two dozen executives in recent weeks, many executives say they haven’t seen evidence yet that artificial intelligence is the job-killer—at least in the next few years—that some initially suspected when OpenAI’s ChatGPT emerged more than a year ago. This is partly because many companies are still working to understand all that AI can do beyond work in call centers and among software coders, where many employers gave priority to early AI projects. 6park.com
    
各种实验正在进行中。一些公司正在推出AI工具，为营销项目制作图片或分析合同。还有一些公司希望能用它来更快地制作培训视频。保险公司好事达(Allstate)的首席人力资源官Bob Toohey最近试用了一种AI工具，它可以让公司根据文字提示，用他或其他人的声音制作内部视频，从而加快在岗学习的速度。 6park.com
A variety of experiments are under way. Some companies are now rolling out AI tools to create photos for marketing projects or to analyze contracts. Others hope it can be used to produce training videos more quickly. Bob Toohey, chief human resources officer at the insurer Allstate, recently experimented with an AI tool that could allow the company to create internal videos in his voice or others from text prompts to allow for faster on-the-job learning. 6park.com
    
在水管理及感染预防公司艺康集团(Ecolab)，高管们正在测试生成式AI，以分析竞争对手的盈利报告，并帮助准备与投资者的财报电话会议。 6park.com
At Ecolab, a water-management and infection-prevention company, executives are testing generative AI to analyze earnings reports from rivals and to help in preparing for its own calls with investors.  6park.com
    
艺康首席执行官Christophe Beck说，公司的财务团队正在使用生成式AI来分析竞争对手的财报电话会议记录，并提出以下这样的问题：“CEO分享的重点是什么？”以及 “CEO感到最有把握的点在哪里？CEO感到最没有把握的点在哪里？” 6park.com
Christophe Beck, Ecolab’s chief executive officer, says the company’s finance team is using generative AI to parse earnings-call transcripts from competitors, asking questions such as: “What were the highlights that the CEO shared?” and “Where was the CEO the most secure? Where was the CEO least secure?” 6park.com
   
对于自己公司的业绩，艺康正在尝试使用生成式AI来分析一年前的财报电话会议中强调的内容，这对各团队编制新财报可能是一个有益的提醒。Beck说，分析结果虽说不是完全靠谱，但基本上是正确的。AI的一项分析混淆了艺康的首席执行官，把Beck的前任塞进了这个角色，尽管此人三年多前就卸任了。 6park.com
For its own results, Ecolab is experimenting in using generative AI to analyze what it emphasized in its quarterly earnings call a year ago, a potentially helpful reminder as teams craft a new earnings script. The results have been largely correct, if not fully trustworthy, Beck says. One generative AI analysis mixed up the CEO of Ecolab, inserting Beck’s predecessor in the role even though he stepped down more than three years ago.  6park.com
    
Beck在读这份分析的时候开玩笑说：“我都不知道自己被降职了。”但他表示，这些工具确实有助于节省一部分时间。他说：“60%是对的，40%不对。”Beck已经强调，要在整个公司使用AI工具来改进服务。 6park.com
Reading the analysis, Beck joked: “I don’t know if I’ve been demoted,” but said the tools do help in saving some time. “It’s 60% right, 40% wrong,” he says. Beck has emphasized that AI tools be used throughout the company to improve its services.

成本问题

一些AI软件的价格为每名员工每月30美元，一些高管对这样的价格提出了质疑。波士顿谘询公司(Boston Consulting Group)首席执行官Christoph Schweizer说，许多雇主发现，他们在AI上的花销是要高于生产率的提高实现的价值的。他鼓励企业不要采取观望态度，而是应该现在就尝试AI工具，以获得优势。 6park.com
With some AI software priced at $30 per employee a month, a number of executives have questioned the price tag. Many employers are finding that they are spending more money on AI than they are realizing in productivity improvements, says Christoph Schweizer, CEO of Boston Consulting Group. He encourages companies not to take a wait-and-see approach, saying they should try AI tools now to gain an edge. 6park.com
    
对劳动力规模的影响仍然是个问题。一些公司表示，他们不会解雇现有员工，但如果软件可以承担更多工作， 他们将来可能不需要招聘大量员工。结果是一样的：工作岗位减少。 6park.com
The impact on the size of the workforce remains a question. Some companies say they won’t fire existing employees, but they may not need to hire as significantly in the future if software can take on more work. The result is the same: fewer jobs.  6park.com
    
咨询巨头埃森哲(Accenture)今年1月发布的一项调查显示，约有60%的工人担心AI会取代他们的工作。埃森哲北美首席执行官Manish Sharma称，根据他与客户的交流，他相信AI创造的岗位将多于取代的岗位。不过，这些岗位可能会是不同的工作。 6park.com
A survey released by the consulting giant Accenture in January found that roughly 60% of workers fear AI could eliminate their jobs. Manish Sharma, CEO of North America for Accenture, says that, based on his interactions with clients, he is convinced that AI will create more roles than it replaces. The jobs, though, might be different.  6park.com
    
雇主们说，AI早期让人惊喜的一个效果是，它能让员工更快地上手新任务。这反过来也将影响公司的招聘方式。 6park.com
One of the early revelations of AI, employers say, is that it is enabling workers to get up to speed on new tasks more quickly. That, in turn, also affects how companies hire.  6park.com
    
在旧金山的一家由生成式AI支持的讲故事和演示平台公司Tome，首席执行官Keith Peiris说，他已经开始寻求招聘他所谓的“足智多谋的全才”，而不是掌握他可能需要的确切经验的专家，他知道聪明的专业人士可以利用AI软件来放大他们的知识，解决出现的新问题。 6park.com
At the San Francisco company Tome, a generative AI storytelling and presentation platform, CEO Keith Peiris says he has begun looking to hire what he calls “resourceful generalists,” versus specialists with the exact experience he may need, knowing smart professionals can use AI software to amplify their knowledge and solve new problems that emerge. 6park.com
    
芯片制造商高通公司(Qualcomm)正寻求为TikTok等社交媒体平台创造更多营销内容。该公司的首席营销官Don McGuire说，完成这样的工作需要再雇佣一大批视频剪辑师和其他人，但他可能永远都无法获得预算批准。他说：“我不可能雇佣足够多的人来实现如此快速的发展。” 6park.com
Chip maker Qualcomm is looking to create more marketing content for social-media platforms like TikTok. Don McGuire, the company’s chief marketing officer, says he’d likely never get budget approval to hire an army of additional video editors and others needed for such an effort. “I can’t hire enough people to move that fast,” he says. 6park.com
   
因此，他决定在墨西哥城建立一个新的生成式AI创意工作室，墨西哥城距离高通公司位于圣迭戈的总部坐飞机只有很短的航程，但生活成本更低，而且创意人才众多。McGuire说，公司计划在那里招聘最多12个人；Adobe和其他供应商提供的新AI工具将使营销人员的工作效率能够提高25%-50%，从而减少大量招聘的必要性。 6park.com
So instead, he has decided to build a new generative-AI creative studio in Mexico City, which is a short flight from Qualcomm’s headquarters in San Diego, but that has a lower cost of living and widespread availability of creative talent. The company plans to hire up to a dozen people there; new AI tools from Adobe and other vendors will allow the marketers to work with 25%-50% greater productivity, reducing the need for massive hiring, McGuire said.  6park.com
    
“这会强化我现有的资源，”他说。“它将由人来构建，但使用基于生成式AI的工具。” 6park.com
“It would be to augment my current set of resources,” he says. “It will be built with people, but with tools that are rooted in Gen AI.”