AI: Learning by Doing at the Future of Work Summit
By Giulio Ratto, MA Student in International Law, Geneva Graduate Institute
I am sharing my experience from the workshops organized during the Future of Work Summit 2024. As a first-year master's student, I found the opportunity to delve deeply into the practical implications of AI alongside passionate professionals and practitioners to be invaluable. This experience provided a unique perspective on AI's societal impacts and its role in shaping the future.
The atmosphere at the table was charged with excitement and curiosity about the Summit's structure and its ambition to foster the dialogue through interactive workshops and roundtables. The systems map, central to the three workshops, immediately captured everyone's attention. In our case, we explored the map prepared related to AI. Its efficacy as a tool for visualizing and understanding the complex interrelationships within a system was evident. Questions like "What is missing?" and "What assumptions are being made?" were among the first to arise in our minds after the first look at the map. From this initial engagement with the system map, conversations flowed freely, marked by intense debates and collective "aha" moments as new ideas emerged. However, there was always a palpable sense of frustration due to the uncertainty surrounding the topic we were discussing.
From my perspective, a key takeaway from the debate was the need to embrace our evolving relationship with AI. We should be open to thinking ahead. We should learn to live with it. AI exists and once the technology is there, it is going to be used. AI is here to stay. Our society is changing and only by accepting this will we have the opportunity to learn to relate to the new entities that are shaping it.
With that in mind, the game changer is in accepting that a new, emerging entity is present. The world is not the same as it was before the internet and it will not be the same as it was before AI. We can already observe this phenomenon, along with its misuse, in sectors such as the processing of visa and asylum-related procedures and job application shortlisting. What is becoming evident is a lack of regulation. Currently, technology advances faster than our regulatory frameworks can adapt. The regulation of AI should be one step ahead of it’s adoption.
In addition, our table identified the need for an intervention in the creation of a common AI Literacy Agenda. We are missing an education on how to live with AI, on how to relate to and work with AI, and even on what AI is. This literacy must be based on heterogeneity and diversity.
Changing our mindset requires exposure to AI. We must learn to interact with and understand AI through practical experience. Learning AI by using AI.