How AI is impacting the workplace

Artificial intelligence is a hot topic these days. Headlines touting its use in everything from drug discovery to the integration of voice-activated virtual assistants into the workplace seem to pop up daily. Along with these headlines comes no small amount of concern that this technology is on the verge of displacing millions of workers. While fears of being replaced by a machine are understandable based on history--according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are 7.5 million fewer manufacturing jobs in the US today than in 1980, and automation (along with China) is often blamed--the reality is, AI is being introduced into the workplace to augment and help existing employees do their jobs better, not replace them. The reason for this may be very straightforward: as impressive as it is (think self-driving cars or Google's DeepMind beating human Go champions) the technology just isn't capable of doing what humans can do.