Humans vs. Robots

Recently I was on the phone with the customer service department at a large technology company.  Despite several conversations, the customer service team was unable to solve my issue.  The individuals I spoke with were slow to listen, quick to solve, and it appeared that they were reading from a script, following a process without much thought.

It seemed like the customer service team was participating in a process that expected them to act like robots.

Of course, humans and robots are not the same.

Generally speaking, robots are especially good at completing clear, explicit tasks or solving well-defined problems, especially those that are repetitive and numerically complex.

Humans are better than robots at tasks that are ambiguous and require empathy, creative thinking, collaboration, understanding another person’s perspective, persuasion, artistic design and more.

This leads to 3 inevitable outcomes:

1. The more we (as humans) try to do the tasks that are well-suited for robots, the more likely we are to be frustrated or bored.
2. The more we ask other humans (employees, students, etc.) to do work that is meant for robots, the more likely we are to be disappointed with the results.
3. And the more we ask robots to do work that’s well-suited for humans, the more disappointed we’ll be with their limitations, too.

As artificial intelligence and machine learning continue to improve, nearly every organization (commercial or otherwise) is likely to face challenging questions about how to use technology to improve performance and reduce costs.

Making more distinctions about what humans do well vs. what robots do well will probably help to improve those decisions. And it might help today’s students and professionals develop the skills they’ll need tomorrow to thrive in a world full of highly capable machines.