Living in the world of Artificial Intelligence

Observer

27-01-2025

Would AI take jobs?
That has been the question that pondered many minds. But AI can find you jobs. That's what I found at the exhibition at the Oman Convention and Exhibition Centre, which is part of the Oman AI Summit.
The AI system that supports recruitment and can even do a personality analysis while a video interview is being conducted. So today individuals who are scanning the job market for an opening must prepare themselves in communication and non-communication skills. It is not just a written resume that matters.
A potential company can ask as many questions as needed, and they will feed in the model answers, explained the representative from Elevatus. The AI will compare the given answer by the candidate with the model answer given by the company and grade accordingly. The personality report, on the other hand, grades on openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and emotional stability. In fact, there is lot more because just under general function comes intuition, patience, flexibility, outcome orientation, analytical thinking, active listening, working underpressure, results orientation, interpersonal skills, attention to detail, compliance, communication, teamwork, resourcefulness, discipline, budgeting, work ethic, delegation, dependability, decision making, time management and the list goes on.
There are more than 1,800 psychometric assessments to assess top talent. The AI can screen 10,000 resumes instantly, at the same time job boards are integrated. No one can be perfect, but with the right attitude, organisations might be willing to provide the training.
According to Opendatasoft, "Artificial intelligence (AI) is the simulation of human intelligence processes by machines, especially computer systems. Essentially it involves computer programs to reason on the same model as a human brain, by focusing on three cognitive skills - reasoning, learning, and self-correction."
So where does it leave human intelligence? The eight types of intelligence described by Howard Gardner include musical-rhythmic, visual-spatial, verbal-linguistic, logical-mathematical, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and naturalistic. Of course this can expand further.
Emotional intelligence is gaining importance more than ever before. We can imagine how much emotions influence decision-making. With artificial intelligence, emotions will be very much under control. But we all know the world needs a lot more empathy as well as acceptance and understanding.
What will matter is who will write the model answer.
As generations evolve, it might be easier to adapt to the transformative process. There is one aspect that will be a permanent feature, and that is continuous learning and upskilling.
At the Oman AI Summit, I came across faculty and students from a vocational training college in Saudi Arabia. Students were eager to volunteer and participate. They wanted to learn more. They said the whole experience was different. At the same time they were enchanted with Oman and wanted to experience more. They had two questions for the writer: Which is the best place to have dinner, and where can we buy gifts from Oman? Cannot mention the first answer because it would be promotional, and the second answer you would know - my all-time favourite place, Muttrah Souq.
These students too, by the time they are ready to graduate, could be answering questions that could be analyzed by AI using psychometric measures. It won't be long before guides come up teaching us the ideal answers in line with the potential model answers.
But the beauty of the human mind is its feelings and emotions. We are definitely going through an interesting period. It is not just a generation gap. It is a continuous evolution moving from voice to text to data and so much more.
This is an era where your search engine knows what you need to read and your social media prompts whom you might want to follow.
An era where data rules.