KC has work cut out for AI & people

The irony of being appointed chief people officer of OpenAI will not be lost on Arvind K C. His job will be to lead a team of highly motivated individuals with rare skills to create products that will displace workers at enterprises that AI firms see as clients. OpenAI and its rivals are working on an array of automated workflows that can be embedded in businesses, which will supplant existing employee skills, but will also create a demand for new skills. Agentic AI that can accomplish several business processes without guidance still requires human intervention to build protocols and audit systems. Friction must be deliberately introduced in automated workflows to provide human employees with context in error management. Ethical questions also need to be answered by humans, including assigning levels of delegation.

Employees in AI firms sit at the other end of the scale, where their skills, now, are irreplaceable. This makes management of such talent pools a complex undertaking. There is an element of 'flying by the seat of your pants' to this endeavour because of the lack of precedents, while the target keeps shifting. Human resources are the key variable in an industry whose energy and computation needs follow strict physical laws. And the investor frenzy over AI makes it difficult to weed out the good ideas from the bad for the industry.

AI firms will themselves be the guinea pigs for the technology they are creating. As early adopters of automated business processes, their managers will have a unique insight into the interaction of human and AI at the workplace. Some of the answers enterprises are seeking about AI will emerge from the boardrooms of companies like OpenAI. This should work both for tapping AI's potential and testing its limits. Prototypes for business management in an era of synthetic intelligence will emerge from the technology industry. KC, all the best. You've got your work cut out for you, AI and people.