AI in the Workplace: We're Measuring the Wrong Things

Good science fiction excels at tapping contemporary anxieties to forecast the future fate of humanity. Consider the list of workforce automation fears showcased in the recent "Kerblam" episode of the TV series Doctor Who: Robotized megacorporations, computer-controlled commerce, ubiquitous unemployment, human irrelevance and destructive despair. There's no spoiler in sharing that -- aside from some teleportation and a sonic screwdriver -- everything in the story line is already pretty plausible. The Doctor may be sci-fi fantasy, but the issues are real. Artificial intelligence (AI) technology is already reshaping many manufacturing and service industries, and it is rapidly disrupting other sectors as well -- for both good and ill.