The story of “Stop Hiring Humans” billboards popping up in San Francisco sparked outrage and debate in certain circles when it began circulating a few months ago, and we get it. AI can spark fear. Not in all people, of course, but when more than half of U.S. workers are worried about how AI will be used in the workplace—and with nearly a third saying they fear AI will lead to fewer job opportunities—it’s not hard to see how talks around AI can get heated, and quickly.
The “Stop Hiring Humans” billboards story bubbled up again over the past week, as did questions as to whether it was just an attention-grabbing marketing move or words to be heeded, or both—and something else as well, perhaps. Say, the spark for “Start Hiring Humans,” for example.
“We’ve been connecting the Right People with the right roles and the right companies for more than a quarter-century, and over that time we’ve seen any number of new technologies,” says ECLARO Co-Founder Paul Sheridan. “AI is another tool, and it can be an incredibly powerful one. There’s no denying that it can be a game-changer across industries and countless types of jobs. But there’s also no denying that its power is going to be put to its best effect, and have its greatest impact, when put to use by humans. We’re all still just scratching the surface of where we can take that combination of AI and humans, and that’s very exciting to us at ECLARO.”
And we’re not alone. The Pew Research Center study that gave us those numbers reflecting how concerned people are about Artificial Intelligence also revealed that 36% of workers say they are hopeful about AI in the workplace, and 29% are “excited” at the prospect.
“We’ve been using AI across all our departments at ECLARO, and we are continuing to make investments in that area. But nothing will ever be more important than the Right People,” adds ECLARO Co-Founder Tom Sheridan. “When we say ‘the Right People are the Answer,’ that isn’t just a tagline—it’s a philosophy. When it comes to finding our clients the right talent with the right skills, the right experience and the right soft skills, we combine the power of AI with the power of EI—ECLARO Intelligence.
“Over our 25 years we’ve developed a deep-rooted intelligence around the human factors that influence whether a person is the right fit for a role,” Tom continues. “It’s an understanding of people and behavior, of what motivates and inspired them, of how to assess their ability to not only perform in a given role, but within the culture of a given organization. This applies for staffing in the U.S. or building teams with ECLARO's custom outsourcing and offshoring in the Philippines.”
You see, it’s not just about “Start Hiring Humans,” it’s an approach to start hiring the right humans. An AI plays a role there, for recruiters and job seekers and successful employees and businesses.
“What do we say about AI to employees and job seekers, candidates and clients? We say the future lies in combining the two—the right AI and the Right People, working in concert,” Paul Sheridan says. “Don’t think about how AI could replace you, focus on how it can make you better—that can mean more efficient, more collaborative, better able to learn new skills, wherever you want to take it.”
Regardless of where that journey may lead you as an individual, there remain certain skills and capabilities that humans have that set them apart from AI counterparts:
Unique Human Capabilities: Humans possess critical thinking, creativity, emotional intelligence, and complex problem-solving skills that AI cannot fully replicate. These "soft skills" are essential for innovation, collaboration, and navigating nuanced situations.
Contextual Understanding and Adaptability: Humans excel at understanding context, adapting to new situations, and making decisions based on incomplete or ambiguous information. AI, while improving, still struggles with the unpredictable nature of the real world.
Ethical and Moral Judgment: Humans are better equipped to make ethical and moral judgments, which are crucial in many workplace scenarios. AI operates based on algorithms and data, lacking the inherent moral compass that guides human decisions.
Job Creation and Evolution: Rather than widespread job replacement, AI is more likely to change the nature of work, creating new roles and requiring humans to develop new skills. By working alongside AI, humans can focus on higher-level tasks that require uniquely human abilities.
The Importance of the Human Element: In many professions, the human touch is irreplaceable. Fields like healthcare, customer service, and leadership require empathy, compassion, and interpersonal connection, which are fundamental to building trust and strong relationships
In the spirit of this discussion and topic, we actually asked AI to join in and share what it could offer about those human-centric skills and capabilities in this brave new world, and it generated those five bullet points above.
Start Hiring Humans? Absolutely! Even AI supports the notion that the Right People are the Answer.