The critical component that makes a business successful is its people, from leadership all the way down the ranks. How people analyze, react, and interact with coworkers and customers is vital to the overall operation. However, it is human creativity and the ability to develop new ideas and overcome obstacles that keep a business moving forward.
But that creativity is waning, and one of the big reasons is the development and increased use of Artificial Intelligence (AI).
New research conducted by Cint, a global leader in research technology, in collaboration with Advertising Week New York, revealed that the respondents’ top two concerns were AI’s potential to reduce human creativity and workers becoming dependent on AI, losing the ability to apply human judgment to decision-making.
The study surveyed 1000 respondents in various market sectors across the U.S., and 64% were concerned about the use of AI, primarily noting the loss of human creativity, loss of human judgment and decision-making, and loss of social interaction.
The research also mapped managers’ vs. non-managers sentiment towards AI, finding that managers are nearly 4x as likely to have used AI (47%) vs. only 13 % of non-managers, as well as twice as likely to want to use AI to improve productivity (67% vs. 33%). This was supported by the finding that 65% of U.S. managers think more people at their company should use AI.
This loss of human creativity is a bit of a conundrum because, according to the survey, 29% of U.S. respondents who were implementing AI at work (primarily for creative generation, content creation, and brainstorming), over a quarter of them are using it frequently, with the majority using AI a few times a week (35%), or a few times a month (31%), or daily (13%).
However, AI programs such as Chat GPT are not really generating original-thinking, creative ideas; they are simply scanning the internet and regurgitating bits and pieces of work created by humans who researched, analyzed, and wrote fact-based articles. At least, you hope that your AI-generated selection used credible documentation as its base. Today, the internet is full of false information and deep fake imagery used to promote untrue ideas, and it takes the critical thinking of the human mind to decipher truth from fiction.
Difficulties in finding creative employees?
After the COVID layoffs and the remote work mandate, thousands of employees started the search for new jobs or change jobs for a better position. As a result, companies became inundated with applications and installed Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS), which are specialized artificial intelligence programs, to review and create shortlists of applicants.
However, ATS programs can only review resumes that are formatted in a way that optical character readers can decipher the words. Formatting for optical character readers means no columns, text boxes, tables, colored text, icons, or graphics such as personal logos or headers. Just straight paragraph formatting with limited bullet items.
ATSs are pre-programmed to look for keywords, meaning applicants must customize their resume to fit a specific job description. Applicants should do this as much as possible anyway, but AI programs have even tighter tolerances. The programs are even stricter when it comes to sentence structure and don’t recognize personal pronouns and first-person references using “I.” Indeed.com recommends starting sentences with verbs or statements such as ‘Highly skilled at…’ or ‘Expertise in…’ and delivering just the facts. It also suggests using the ‘WHO’ method to create strong, concise bullet points that show, What you did, How you did it, and the Outcome of your work. Resumes should also have labeled sections for experience, skills, and education.
While ATS programs can reduce the task of wading through dozens of resumes, they lack the ability to discern nuances. This is a considerable drawback to identifying a person with creative skills. How a person presents themselves on paper can say a lot about how they approach their work. ATS programs also have difficulty recognizing the crossover capability of a person who has never worked in the position advertised but has acquired other skills in unaffiliated industries and jobs that can easily be converted to a new position. Of course, there are a lot of HR managers that lack that same cognitive ability.
As a result of the preponderance of ATS programs in use today, a high percentage of applicants who may be very qualified for positions are having their applications rejected. And even more importantly, candidates with an aptitude for creativity are being stifled and overlooked because of constraints placed on the application process.
At Business Finance Corporation (BFC), we use human intelligence, not artificial, to solve clients’ problems. We analyze Accounts Receivables based on past payment performance and then calculate how to advance your payments. By factoring your accounts receivables, you can put cash in your account up to 90 days faster than your clients pay. To learn more about BFC’s services, go to www.BFC.vegas or call 702-947-3800.
Your partner in success,
David Cabral