The more things change the more they stay the same.

Work Smart Not Hard Tip No. 39 in a series written for Indie Cambs.

One of the basic Work Smart Not Hard skills is to figure out what is likely to help you achieve your goals, what fits into your strategy and what doesn’t. It’s easy to get sucked into trying whatever new shiny thing is being touted as the answer to all your problems.

A.I. is the latest in a long line of tech developments that is seen by some as a great tool that can streamline business processes and act as an assistant, but many people see it as something that doesn’t fit with how they want to run their business.

Weighing up the many ethical issues of using A.I. has to include the effect on the environment, water and electrical consumption, carbon production and huge servers being built in many parts of the world where the locals have no say.

How to work out if this is something you want to adopt?

What would the Amish do?

One answer might be to take the same approach as the Amish who ask first whether a specific technology seems likely to serve their highest values and only embrace it if it does. One of those values is their commitment to their community.

The huge B2B tech company, Salesforce, recently  said that the company likely won’t hire software engineers this year since AI is making its existing workers more productive. Shopify told managers to assess whether AI can fill a position before hiring humans, and Duolingo outright said it’s automating the work of contractors. A World Economic Forum survey of companies in January showed that 41% of employers plan to slash head count due to automation. Microsoft is reportedly preparing to lay off thousands of workers amid its AI spending push and Tesla is testing driverless taxis (which are unlikely to be wheelchair accessible but that’s another story).

If your aim is to eliminate as many human interactions as possible, AI can probably help do the basics better, just as other automated systems have. If you run your business because you value the connections you have with staff, suppliers and customers, maybe not.

When you’re being urged to adopt any new technology, ask first whether it seems likely to serve your reasons for being in business, and will genuinely give your customers a better service – “better” being a very subjective judgement! That way, if you proactively choose to integrate AI tools into your work you won’t be doing so in some default assumption that they’re automatically a good thing.

In a world where tech bros confidently declare that we haven’t even begun to get our heads around what’s going to happen, maybe it’s good to stay fully committed to the idea that humans doing human things, with other humans, is and will remain at the heart of human existence.

Because otherwise what’s the point?

Our power as small, independent businesses is to choose only to do things that match our values and to hold on to the thought that “just because we can, doesn’t mean we should”.

Let me know what you think – are you all in, all out or conflicted?