When the artificial intelligence research lab OpenAI made ChatGPT publicly available last November, it immediately became a global sensation. The platform's ability to provide creative and seemingly organic answers to a vast array of questions has captivated millions of users and raised questions about the implications of the technology for a wide range of industries – particularly those that employ knowledge workers. And, recruiting is no exception – from creating interview questions and job ad templates to following up with candidates, ChatGPT has many potential applications in the field. However, it would be a mistake to treat the technology as a silver bullet. ChatGPT is undeniably impressive as a dynamic language model, but it also has a habit of getting basic questions wrong, providing nonsensical interpretations, and presenting these mistakes in a convincing way to users who aren't familiar with the subject matter at all.

"companies need to both embrace new technology and retain talented recruiters" AI may have only recently emerged into the popular consciousness, but it is certainly not new. People have been researching AI since the 1950s with famous AI systems making headlines in the decades since, including IBM's Watson, which famously won the TV quiz show Jeopardy! in 2011. But AI technology is now cheaper than ever to develop, opening it up to more businesses. And thanks to its ubiquity, AI is slowly becoming a more recognizable part of our daily lives. This proliferation has inspired scare stories about AI taking work away from humans.

Often managers assume that because the software is devoid of emotions (unlike humans), using them would mean the complete removal of personally-motivated bias from the hiring process. Any application of AI (Artificial Intelligence) or Machine Learning (ML) learns from the existing data fed to it. This raises concerns such as an amplification of pre-existing bias in the data that have made hiring managers approach them with caution. Amazon's experiment into an AI-based recruiting system was scrapped after it started penalizing resumes that included the term "women's" or names of women's colleges. Essentially, the software taught itself to prefer resumes of male candidates over those of female candidates.

According to Deloitte's second State of the AI in the Enterprise report, one of the greatest concerns about artificial intelligence, a technology that is dominating hiring processes for 32 percent of responding firms, is the difficulty in hiring qualified staff to manage it. Of the 1,100 AI-early-adopter executives who participated in the just-released survey, 69 percent were facing an AI skills gap either moderate, major or extreme. Where staff was most lacking were for the roles of AI researchers to create algorithms, software developers to creates systems, and data scientists to manage and analyze the information that fuels the entire AI process. Most agreed that job descriptions will be significantly altered by the growth of AI. In fact, 72 percent had already seen substantial changes in skills and job roles.

Adam Rogers is the CTO of Ultimate Software, where he began his career in 1997 as Ultimate Software's very first intern and quickly became a leading innovator in the field. In 2002, Adam led his team to deliver the very first Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) cloud Enterprise solution, redefining industry standards by bringing HCM to the cloud. Today, he serves Ultimate as CTO and holds the unique distinction of leading both product innovation and corporate IT strategy. Adam's teams are routinely recognized for their industry-leading innovations and Adam's thought leadership work is regularly published in Forbes, InformationWeek, and a variety of online blogs and publications. You can follow Adam on Twitter @adamr or connect with him on LinkedIn.

Call this the "clear the air" opening line for what otherwise is an informative article, at least that is the goal around the judgement that has most likely, and for good reason clouded your thoughts after your read the title but before you clicked in to read this master piece. Let's get cliché for a moment Will Recruiters have a job in the next 10 years? Will machine learning and artificial intelligence replace recruiters? No, but it will have a huge impact on all areas of business. Do you want to be a Google hacker scripting Boolean searches to make yourself feel like a word class sleuth or do you want to make great placements and land the best talent for your organization?

It's becoming a trend in itself to predict trends this time of year. One that has come up a lot more often lately has been the prediction that recruiting itself will die in the coming years. This specific trend has some recruiters panicked but others scoffing at the possibilities and angrily commenting on these Nostradamus style posts. Mostly because the people who have been in recruiting for awhile know that this is a human to human business where people must have the guts to fight for the right people despite their non-traditional backgrounds. They also know that to truly recruit and source efficiently, you must be a forever student.