Artificial intelligence in the workplace

In tomorrow's workplace, many routine jobs now performed by workers will increasingly be assumed by machines, leaving more complicated tasks to humans who see the big picture and possess interpersonal skills, a Stanford scholar says. Visiting scholar James Timbie says that the artificial intelligence revolution will involve humans and machines working together, with the best results coming from humans supported by intelligent machines. Artificial intelligence and other advancing technologies promise advances in health, safety and productivity, but large-scale economic disruptions are inevitable, said James Timbie, an Annenberg Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution. He trained at Stanford as a physicist, served as a senior advisor at the State Department from 1983 to 2016 where he played a key role in arms control and disarmament, and now studies the impact of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence. Timbie discussed what the future may hold for workers in a chapter in the new book, Beyond Disruption: Technology's Challenge to Governance, which he co-edited with Hoover's George P. Shultz and Jim Hoagland.