Column: AI: Boss or assistant?
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This column, written by Sandra van den Poll, partnership manager at JADS, was published before in the Food+Agribusiness magazine.
While artificial intelligence (AI) offers new opportunities, there are also questions about its impact on the job market. The vision of robots stealing our jobs and making us obsolete is a recurring theme in movies and discussions. I also meet many foodagri entrepreneurs who actually see potential in autonomous driving harvest robots and Dark Factories as a solution to the growing labor shortage.
Of course, AI has made huge strides in recent years. Computers can now perform complex tasks such as recognizing faces, translating between languages and writing texts. But does this mean AI is also capable of fully imitating human behavior? I don’t think so. Human behavior is complex and full of nuances. We are affected by emotions, intuition and social context. We can adapt to unexpected situations and come up with creative solutions. A computer, no matter how advanced, cannot fully imitate this.
We can adapt to unexpected situations and come up with creative solutions. A computer, no matter how advanced, cannot fully imitate this.
Take, for example, a self-driving car at a chaotic intersection in the center of Amsterdam. A situation full of unpredictable factors: cyclists cycling through red lights, pedestrians suddenly crossing the street, and cars changing direction unexpectedly. A computer would struggle to predict all the possible scenarios and make the right decisions. Also, AI is good at analyzing large amounts of data and finding patterns. But true creativity, coming up with new ideas and solving problems in an original way, remains reserved for humans. Also, many decisions involve ethical considerations. While a computer can make the best choice based on the information given, it cannot decide for itself what is right or wrong. Rather than taking over our work, AI is more likely to become a tool that makes our work more efficient and productive. For example, AI can take over routine tasks that are already understaffed.
It is important to emphasize that AI and humans complement each other. By combining the strengths of both, we can achieve innovative solutions to complex problems.
