This video is first and originally published by TalkTV on Youtube.
In a recent interview, Tony Nash, the founder of Complete Intelligence, discussed the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on jobs and society.
He highlighted that while AI and automation may lead to the loss of certain jobs, it also presents an opportunity for individuals to engage in more interesting and problem-solving tasks.
Nash emphasized that white-collar professionals will need to learn new skills and adapt to the changing workforce.
He also expressed concerns about the data collected by AI tools and how it may be used, noting that the profiling capabilities of AI can be unsettling.
Overall, Nash believes that AI is transforming the workforce by automating mundane tasks and allowing individuals to focus on more meaningful and engaging work.
Transcript
Rosanna Lockwood
Well, this morning, Rishi Sunak sought to reassure us, the public, about the risks posed by artificial intelligence. His speech came with the release of a government paper into the capabilities and risks from AI, with increased unemployment and poverty being highlighted as possible consequences by 2030.
Rosanna Lockwood
Ahead of next week’s AI Safety Summit at Bletchley Park, you’re going to hear a lot about that. Trust me, Sunak said, quote, AI will bring a transformation as far reaching as the Industrial Revolution, the coming of electricity, or the birth of the Internet. But with more than 10,000 jobs to be replaced by new tech, including AI, what could this new world look like? That’s what we’re asking this evening.
Rosanna Lockwood
Joining me to discuss this found of Complete Intelligence, Tony Nash. Tony, thanks for making time. Look, starting with Sunak’s speech this morning, if the aim was to reassure the public about the risk being posed by AI, this is our British Prime Minister saying, Look, you just got to work with it and it will be okay. Do you think we should feel reassured?
Tony Nash
I don’t know if it’s a matter of feeling reassured or just becoming more educated about what AI is. Ai is really just processing more information and completing tasks. It’s synthesizing the information you’re putting in, and it’s completing tasks on your behalf. I think the bigger issue… your report said that we’d be losing 10,000 jobs or the UK would be losing 10,000 jobs by 2030. The UK lost 11,000 jobs just in the month of September. In context, that 10,000 jobs really isn’t that much.
Tony Nash
We’ve seen a lot of technology change over the last 150 years or something, and we don’t have things like typing pools in companies anymore. Some of the low-level analytical work that say AI would be doing, or maybe some of the low-level creative work that AI would be doing. I think that stuff is going to be changed by automation, regardless whether this technology is called AI or something else.
Rosanna Lockwood
Remind us… Our view is what Complete Intelligence does, because you’re working with AI already. We are. Yeah. Tell us about what it is you do.
Tony Nash
Yes. We work with corporate finance, and we take the annual budgeting process and the monthly re-budgeting process that people do in finance, in supply chain, and other things, and we forecast that.
We take over that automation. So everyone hates the annual budget process. We take that off of people’s hands and we automate it. We are in some cases, nine times more accurate than companies can do it themselves. Companies have hundreds of people involved in these processes, and it takes months. We take it down to less than a day with zero people involved.
Tony Nash
And then the experts within those companies can validate what we do. I think that’s the key part about AI that really helps people is the mundane work is taken off of them, and then people can use their expertise to validate what the AI does.
Rosanna Lockwood
A lot of people can get on board the efficiency of that and the accuracy. It’s sometimes called the new Industrial Revolution, and we hear these claims that we need to be working with AI to get forward. But in terms of the jobs that have been taken out by those processes, and this isn’t I’m not levying this at you and your company because this is what it’s all about. What do you think society is going to be like without those jobs? You mentioned there it’s a low rate of loss, but ultimately people are going to not have that work.
Tony Nash
I think what’s interesting about the AI discussion is when we talk about, say, automation of, say, warehouse jobs or something, it’s seen as a technological marvel. But when we talk about AI and it’s the automation of white-collar jobs or professional jobs, then it’s a tragedy. I think AI and automation is hitting across the workforce. And like those warehouse workers have had to learn new skills, white-collar professionals are going to have to learn new skills as well. And it’s not a learn to code, lame response. You actually get to do the things that are more interesting. So when we work with companies, their staff love us because they get to do more interesting things to solve company problems. Rather than sitting in data, rather than sitting in Excel, these sorts of things, sitting in budget meetings, they actually get to engage and solve company problems, which is a lot more interesting. Again, I think at this phase of AI, what’s really happening is those lower-level boring jobs are being taken away.
Tony Nash
So with this consumer AI that people are seeing on their social media or with, say, ChatGPT, the worry that I would have about that manifestation of AI is what data are those tools collecting and how are they using it?
Tony Nash
So this goes back to internet stuff, where how much data is your social media taking from you? With AI, they’ll actually profile you more specifically and more precisely. And that itself, to be honest, is a little bit scarier than, say, the job loss we’ll see from AI.
Rosanna Lockwood
Yeah, those questions about the data being used and how it can be manipulated as well by humans, it must be said, are all going to be addressed next week. There’s AI Summit here in the UK. Tony Nash, founder of Complete Intelligence. Thank you.
Tony Nash
Thank you.