Feeling Replaceable?

Humans have proven time and time again that creativity and originality, in their real sense, cannot be exhausted or replicated.

Something stops being a sci-fi trope or a Reddit conspiracy theory and joins the ranks of credible possibility when its magnitude and repercussions get anatomised in The Atlantic, Forbes, Al Jazeera, and other globally reputable publications. That ‘something’ here is AI takeover. There are those who might argue that the possibility stage has phased out and the reality stage is upon us—and they wouldn’t be completely wrong, because AI is contending with human capability in multiple scenarios. Of all the ways AI could make us redundant, we chose to look at two and examine how they inform our perception of what it means to be human in a time of quicksilver definitions. Could AI Replace the Human Workforce?

Given the qualitative and quantitative proof, the widespread fear among professionals is not because of the possibility of AI taking away their jobs but because of the actual occurrence of the same. SEO.ai reports that 3,900 workers lost their jobs due to AI, while Fortune claims this number is no less than 4,600. Note that certain jobs are more vulnerable than others. The loss of jobs in one area might become proportionate to a gain of jobs in another area. There will be a demand for people who can create, deploy, and improve AI tools.

It’s not uncommon to see LinkedIn posts from users soliciting referrals, connections, and job leads because they have been struggling for a long time or unexpectedly laid off. An increasing number of creatives (mostly content writers, copywriters, and designers) lament that they were dismissed because the higher-ups reckoned AI tools like ChatGPT and Midjourney could do their jobs at a fraction of the cost to the company. Sadly, a lot of the time, people who manage creatives aren’t creatives themselves. Being more technically minded, they home in on the technical capabilities of AI. They lack the wherewithal to distinguish between human and AI output and even if they could, they couldn’t care less. And while they won’t admit it, the ugly truth is that a lot of managers prefer to work with something that doesn’t demand 20% annual raises, overtime, ergonomic chairs, midweek holidays, or vegan milk options for the coffee machine. Another hard pill to swallow is that business is all about making money and cutting costs. By that logic, managers might only hold on to those creatives they consider absolutely essential. What these ‘AI evangelists’ always miss is that AI assistants are only good as tools, not replacements. Sure, human beings are messy and hard to deal with, but there’s nothing quite like the slightly unhinged, potent mind of a creative.

Take this alongside the fact that technology isn’t always foolproof. Humans are necessary to programme and update tools and devices that cannot update themselves on their own. For example, our phone’s operating systems require the human owner’s permission to update. Even if it can auto-update, someone has to enable the option first. Gemini, Google’s AI assistant, has a disclaimer that reads: ‘Gemini may display inaccurate info, including about people, so double-check its responses.’ It’s a no-brainer that the entity capable of double-checking these responses is a mouth-breather, not a machine.

Course peddlers with the chutzpah to declare that certain jobs are going to become AI- exclusive or heavily AI-dependent are spreading misleading ads across social media like the plague. According to them, the world needs less of certain job titles and more savvy ‘prompt engineers’. Of course, five seconds in and anyone with a half-good brain can tell they are operating on a scanty perception of the nature of the jobs they are disrespecting. When we asked ChatGPT what jobs it could take on if we wanted to scale down a company, it suggested ‘several job titles [we] might consider replacing with automated solutions or combining roles’. Of course, content creators, social media managers, and language translators made the cut.

Despite the proliferation of barefaced, audacious claims that AI will elbow creatives out of their jobs, we just don’t think it’s possible. Humans have proven time and time again that creativity and originality, in their real sense, cannot be exhausted or replicated, whereas AI has shown its predilection for predictable syntax and eye-roll-inducing clichés. It can only draw limited inspiration from what is existing while generating content and needs someone to instruct it and give it feedback. In the 90s, Kerala witnessed communist protests and strikes when computers entered the market because the gadget was perceived as a threat to many livelihoods. As a result, government offices remained computerless for some years, but they eventually yielded. While the threat of replacement prevails, AI will never be in the same league as writers and designers. While individuals and the collective may grow insecure in the face of AI’s growing capabilities, they cannot be overthrown. What they can expect, and should prepare for, is a change in their scope of work. Just like the 90s needed professionals skilled at their jobs as well as computer use, the 2020s needs professionals who can ace their jobs and intelligently use AI tools.

Could AI Replace Human Companionship?
The very fact that we have asked such a question hints at the growing scarcity of human connection and companionship in the world. To answer that question, let’s ask another question: What are the definitions and expectations of ‘human’ and ‘companionship’ from people today and in the future? Some have a selfish understanding of what it means to be human. These people expect others to comply with their every whim and wish and support them emotionally without a sense of mutuality. Even before AI, the expectation of what it meant to be human differed among people. These differences are the reasons for conflict at the familial, societal, national, and international level. In a family, for instance, each member expects the other members to be human in a certain way, and when one doesn’t humanise themselves according to the other’s ideas, it leads to quarrels. The husband usually defines his humanity by his ability to fulfil the duties of working, earning, and providing for his wife and children. The wife and children, on the other hand, may associate his humanity with his ability for companionship, characterised by giving love, being present, and having conversations. AI only makes things more complicated. When people feel unhappy with their companions, they could turn to AI for compensation, which can reduce the level of commitment between people. AI dependence is not as extreme, but is analogous to pornography addictions, where people experiencing a lack of sexual and emotional fulfilment in their relationships get hooked on pornography.

Now, let’s meander for a little bit. Not all those who wander are lost and all that. (Typical INFx style.)

In many countries, but most prominently in Japan, there are arrangements wherein you can hire people to act as a friend, lover, or even a family. An elderly lady hired a daughter and granddaughter for a day. A young man got hired by a woman leaving the city because she had lost her boyfriend and wanted distance from the memories. Whenever this woman would take the train, her boyfriend would stand on the platform and wave to her while wearing a particular cap. She wanted this hired companion to help her relive that experience. This friend-for-hire is a self-proclaimed ‘good-for-nothing guy’, but the comment section begs to differ. The viewers said he was far from that description because he was offering lonely people the service of companionship.

We were left wondering how relationships have been commercialised. Humans have come to the point where we can rent someone to listen to us and be our ‘friend’ or someone we want them to be for a few hours. While there’s no denying that people can find solace in such interactions, it’s shocking to see how familiarity and socialising with one’s known circle seems to be dwindling.

When I (Susanna) applied to my current company, they asked me to write a 100-word piece on the use of AI. Instead of taking the beaten path, I wrote about how I sometimes strike up a conversation with ChatGPT in the still of night, when it’s outside the boundaries of etiquette to rouse a slumbering human friend.

Still, if you asked all three of us if AI can substitute for human companionship, the answer would be a hard, resounding no. None of us want friends who talk in buzzwords and stilted sentences. Not to mention ChatGPT and its kith do not have the emotional complexity of a human being, or even an animal. They cannot offer you the comfort of touch or speak to you in a familiar voice. You can’t discuss anything sensitive or scandalous with it in brutal honesty like you do with a friend because you will violate its content policy. Human beings don’t come with mile-long content policies demanding you sign them, do they? Shutting real people out and creating a dependency on AI tools can lead to severe social maladjustment. Given the breakneck speed at which life moves and the demands of survival, people find themselves hard-pressed for time.

As a result, more and more people are unable to adjust with society or build interpersonal bonds and close relationships. When there’s the possibility of having an AI companion, even those who want to have human relationships might find the slightest excuse to give up. If the idea of renting a stranger doesn’t sit well with certain folks, or if they want to skip the difficulty of mingling, they might have recourse to AI, whether as a first choice or a last resort, we’ll never know. Extroverts have more of a natural ability to find companionship and be companions, but introverts can be companions only to a few people with whom they are comfortable. If they don’t find suitable people, they might turn to AI companions. If someone harvests data, it will show that more introverts seek such companionship.

To some extent, AI could be useful for persons with a weakness adjusting to social situations. But even in the case of introverts, we feel it’s healthy to have at least a few close relationships with human beings because while AI can mimic a conversation, it lacks EQ and cannot satisfy when the seeker wants something capable of nuanced facial expressions and spontaneous physical gestures. Just like with hired friends, the scope of companionship with AI is limited. The relationship assumes a transactional character; it’s just temporary role-play that blocks natural companionship that would develop between two people. With AI, it’s worse because for all its intelligence, it is mindless.

When someone looks for a companion in AI, their expectations are connected to their needs. Perhaps it is to relieve loneliness, feel happy, pass time in a lighthearted way, crack jokes, or experience catharsis. Human–human companionship is a mystery; you don’t know and can’t control where exactly it will lead and you don’t restrict the other person’s role to fulfilling a need. (While need fulfilment does take place in companionship, it is not the primary purpose.) An AI user might not have a sense of commitment, but human companionship has the possibility of commitment. People just ‘use’ AI. Not that people can’t use people, but with AI, the original intention is to have a companion to use. If the AI tool doesn’t fulfil expectations, the user will simply leave it and move on to another without any remorse or heartbreak.

If people find a safe haven in AI, they might feed it more and more details about themselves, which is risky because if you divulge too much, your information could fall into the wrong hands. As for who can misuse it, it depends on who is behind it. Let’s just hope for the common good that it’s not a sociopath. Even though ChatGPT told us, ‘I don’t store personal data shared during our conversation, and I’m designed to forget information once the chat ends’, it’s better to err on the side of caution.

Concluding Thoughts
The way we see it, AI and humans have to coexist. Humans have an edge over AI in terms of our ability to innovate. While the interaction with AI may bear some semblance to companionship, human-machine relationships cannot measure up to authentic human connection that is the core of life. The human race has always found ways to overcome setbacks and threats, and it will be the same this time around.