AI will replace you, but only if you let it

Here's the thing—AI will only replace us if we let it. For what it’s worth, I’m seeing a bunch of folks out there letting AI do just that. (Hint: We can still tell when the content is AI-generated 🤖.) Honestly, if that’s what you want to do, that’s just fine. But that's exactly what I mean when I say it's up to us whether AI is going to replace us. 

Let’s take a step back for a minute. Before I could decide if I could live with AI taking over my job, I needed to figure out what that would look like. So, in order to help me think through this concept, I first asked myself two questions: 

1. 1. How do I even know what an AI takeover might look like?
   2. Once I know what it might look like, could I live with it? 

I needed to see what the outcome would be for myself before I started passing judgment. So, I started with having it do one aspect of my job: writing this blog post. I pumped a bunch of information into various AI tools, got some outlines and notes, cut out some junk, combined what was left, and then asked it to produce a post. And, if I’m being honest, it did a pretty good job and I could have just published it. But I didn't. Why? Because it's up to me to use my own voice. 

She gets it. | Source: Disney’s The Little Mermaid via Giphy.com

Let’s take a look at some of the things I learned and what AI can inform us about its ability to take over the world (or more acutely, our jobs)…

🧹 First, a little housekeeping: “Use of AI” can mean different things to different people in different industries. For this post, I’ve decided to generalize and consider a holistic view of the conversation happening in our community around the use of these powerful tools.

What does AI do really well? 

Think about all the busy work that you probably don’t like to do. 😩 No more slogging through a million RSS feeds from various sources to try to find patterns. No more analyzing crazy pivot tables and trying to look for trends across data sets. No more spending wasted hours synthesizing proposed rules only to have the final rule be completely different—or never published at all! 

AI can truly enhance compliance teams’ planning abilities because it can:

• • Move at speed and scale
  • Detect and predict risk
  • Monitor changes and flag legal or operational gaps
  • Standardize and routinize rule-based processes 
  • Analyze large datasets for patterns or anomalies
  • Personalize education or communication tracks based on unique characteristics 
  • Generate briefs and drafts of a variety of documents 

Delegating these types of job functions to AI frees up our time and brain power for truly critical thinking. 

We can also establish automation and process improvements that mitigate risk down to levels we simply cannot achieve when a human has to touch every piece of information. In other words, AI can create highly granular, customized, and personalized content. For me, the most exciting of these opportunities double down on our core principle here at Broadcat: When you frame training around specific behavior, provide it to the relevant audience, and deliver it in real-time, it connects directly to what employees are doing—and that’s truly effective compliance!

So, what can’t AI do? 

Before we get too excited or nervous about it, let’s consider the things AI really isn’t cut out for…

AI isn’t human: Despite its power, AI can’t replicate human expertise. Here are some of the areas my research identified as limitations for these tools (at least as they are configured today):

• • AI may miss subtleties in organizational culture and ethical nuances
  • AI can reinforce biases in data, and its decision-making can be hard to explain
  • AI lacks moral reasoning, empathy, and accountability

Quite simply, being a human still matters. 🤩 

Good job, humans! 🥂 | Source: TBS’ The Big Bang Theory via Giphy.com

Our capacity to think critically, problem-solve, and apply ethical judgment is crucial to our ability to navigate complex situations, build trust, and manage relationships. We adapt more seamlessly (if not always perfectly) to change, ambiguity, and novel situations—which is good because those things come up a lot in our jobs! 

Where do we go from here and how do we find a balance? 

Because AI enhances our capabilities and frees our time for strategic work, we can and should partner with it to make our programs even more effective. Decide which tasks you could automate and which ones need to stay in human hands. Here are some examples that highlight a human-AI partnership:

• • Use AI tools to improve anti-money laundering detection, but have an analyst critically think through why a false positive was included in the data set. 💸
  • Ensure a member of your team personally handles complex whistleblower complaints, but let AI sort through the data to find patterns or red flags. 🚩
  • Let AI draft a new policy that aligns with the latest regulatory issuance, but pressure test it first with reviews from your managers and the teams directly impacted by the rule. 📋

Here’s another cool idea. One of my new favorite vlog/blog hosts is Gini Dietrich and her company, Spin Sucks. She encourages and helps marketing pros to “redefine the work you do and prove that marketing and communications are mission-critical business functions, not just a required afterthought.” (Swap out “mar/com” for “compliance” and that sounds a little similar to another disrupter we know 😉). She encourages her listeners to use AI as their “first-draft machine,” and then ask themselves:

• • Does this consider all stakeholders?
  • Is this culturally sensitive?
  • Would a real person actually say this?
  • Does this align with our values?

So, will AI replace you? Yes, if you let it. So don't let it. Unless, of course, you want it to. The decision is up to you.

Bob can attest: Just because it's a replacement, doesn't mean it's a good one. | Source: Alllrecipes.com via ThunderDungeon.com

As for me, I’ve decided to embrace this brand-new resource to help me flesh out my blog posts while keeping Gini’s checklist in mind as I edit and rewrite. At the end of the day, I need to stand behind what I put out into the world, so I’ll use AI to get my ideas on paper, and then edit and rewrite in my own voice. Hopefully, the time saved by leveraging AI will allow me to do my job better each day. 

What do you think you’re going to do? I’d love to hear your thoughts and keep the conversation going!