“Wait, I have a silly, newbie question: Are you talking about bots or people?!!” 

I had to ask this during a coffee meeting with Kevin Gilbert, an AI & Healthcare Solutions leader, last spring. He was describing how far AI had come and how he had one “agent” that would do some research, and send it over to another “agent” who would review the research and write a short snippet about it, or maybe send it back and ask for different research. 

He confirmed that he was, indeed, talking about AI. I have to tell you: it blew my mind. I have yet to use ChatGPT, and I just “tried” AI for the first time last month to help with creating a logo for a project. 

Twenty years ago, I was an early adopter. I was one of the first people to have the Blackberry pager (before they were phones). I used to feel the need to be connected to email ALL the time back in those days so I was always looking for the newest gadget that would help me do that. Now – and I’m going to blame aging on this – I’m reluctant to change my technology. I got a new cell phone over the summer and I dreaded it. I still can’t figure out all the cool tricks I could probably use it for. I just found out that the car I had for 3 years had a remote start, which would have come in handy on those days when my dog couldn’t travel with me because it was too hot outside. I don’t want to upgrade my Mac’s software for fear of having to learn something new. I’ve become stuck in my ways. 

But, like it or not, AI is here and it is going to be part of our lives. Many of us are still figuring out what that looks like. Admittedly, I was surprised to read, “AI won’t replace managers — managers who use AI will replace managers who don’t use AI” in the recent Harvard Business Journal article, “How the Next Generation of Managers Is Using Gen AI.” What is important is for us to all determine how we can best integrate AI into our professional lives and what the parameters are. Personally, I’ve already put parameters on AI in my personal life: I only ask Alexa to play music or set a timer. I will use the microphone on my phone to ask Google a question. I rarely ever read or rely on the “AI generated responses” when I Google something; I just don’t trust it yet. 

I also acknowledge that I have to work on giving up some control if I want to work smarter. AI can assist with reviewing my inbox and highlighting the critical emails for me to review. It can schedule meetings. It can help me think of creative solutions. I could even let it do some research for me (although I’d feel the need to verify whatever it generated for me). Now, if only AI could produce a few more hours in the day, I could take the time to figure out how to do all of that!  

We are going to have to evolve with technology. Let’s figure out how we utilize this new technology to help our communities while not losing sight of so many things that are important to us: compassion, attention, equity, inclusion, and – most importantly – humanity.