How might workers ‘future-proof’ themselves as AI transforms their job roles?

As AI progressively integrates into various workforce sectors, jobs likely won’t experience overnight changes. Instead, they are anticipated to adapt gradually, influenced by factors like business needs, managerial insights and worker initiative.

This perspective was featured in a discussion between Technical.ly and Alex Swartsel, managing director of insights practice at Jobs for the Future (JFF) Labs in Northwest DC. She is currently leading the launch of its Center for Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Work.

The national nonprofit aims for economic advancement as its “north star,” with a goal to help 75 million individuals facing systemic barriers get quality jobs within the next decade. In tandem with the org and new center’s overlapping foci, JFF recently collaborated with Intel Corporation on a report, ‘The AI-Ready Workforce: How Leaders and Workers Can Prepare for a Reshaped Future of Work.”

To find skills that might be essential for job resiliency, Swartsel pointed to the section titled “AI-Ready Workforce Framework,” and its accompanying rainbow-colored graphic, on page 12.

Alex Swartsel. (Courtesy Jobs for the Future)

“These [skills highlighted with dark green, or light green] include skills like interpersonal tasks, building relationship, negotiation, understanding how to staff and manage work [and] motivating teams,” said Swartsel. “Right to anything that encourages humans to work together more as humans — and to do better and better jobs as human beings — is, I think, is always going to be an in-demand skill. An AI will make you [a worker] better at those responsibilities.”

The report also proposes the possibility of industries redesigning roles by taking into account specific skills and jobs that, because of AI’s influence, may diminish in importance over time.

“So think about, for instance, a software developer that is involved in debugging or quality control of software,” Swartsel said. “That’s a lot of software developers’ day, [it] is spent a lot of time doing that. And it’s likely that that task will be displaced by AI. In fact, it’s already happening.”

Inspired by the report, Swartsel proposed a solution for workers in computer science: “future-proofing”. The report often describes AI as a tool meant to complement and enhance human capabilities — and not overshadow them.

“Build up a really foundational sense of literacy and fluency around AI technology,” Swartsel said. “And this is basically to make sure that workers especially, but also business leaders, leaders across this landscape, get a better understanding of what AI technology is.”

“The more we understand these kinds of technologies and the way they work, the more we can seek out opportunities to leverage them in a way that’s both responsible and equitable and contributes, again, to the idea of a human-centered future of work rather than one that’s purely overtaken by isolation,” she added.