Artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots have grabbed headlines in recent months for their rapid advances and apparent sophistication. For example, ChatGPT, one of the better-known AI chatbots, recently made waves by successfully completing a number of law and business exams at top U.S. universities.
There’s a vigorous, ongoing debate over the implications of the sophistication and continued development of AI chatbots. Will they replace human workers? Will they render human-created art in all its forms obsolete? Will they destroy or enslave mankind?
While more philosophically minded observers wrestle with these monumental questions, a more practical and immediate question many businesses around the world are asking themselves is: “How can I use these tools to make my business more profitable?” Of course, the way to boost profits is to boost productivity and reduce costs. AI chatbots may be a great tool to achieve both these aims through improved and more efficient employee training. AI and AI chatbots can improve the delivery and content of training materials, thereby making training both more cost-effective and more effective at boosting staff productivity.
That’s in theory, at least. But we wanted to know how AI chatbots are faring in the learning and development (L&D) context in the real world, so we reached out to industry experts and those with firsthand experience in using AI chatbots for training.
Don’t Buy Into the Sensationalism
AI is a powerful tool and one most Americans aren’t intimately familiar with. Most have heard the term and probably used a few AI tools themselves, including consumer-focused chatbots, but that doesn’t mean the average consumer or employee understands the abilities and limitations of AI. This has led to a considerable amount of fear, hyperbole, and catastrophizing in some corners.
“At University of Phoenix, we see AI like any other new tool that has entered the arena of learning that enhances a student’s access to data and information to process and consumer knowledge more quickly,” says Marc Booker, PhD, Vice Provost for strategy at the University of Phoenix. “Whether it be the internet, the calculator, or even the printing press – all have entered social consciousness as disruptors with some wariness and skepticism, but were ultimately used to change how fast we can learn and share information to enhance the depth of information we pass on to future generations. One must be careful in its use and administration, but definitely not fearful, as it has the potential to do great good in the realm of practical distance education and online learning.”
AI Chatbots as a Complement to Human Training Efforts
One of the most common assumptions about AI—and computers and automation more generally—is it’ll ultimately replace human workers. While technology can and often has replaced workers, there’s also great potential for such tools to complement human labor rather than replace it entirely, making the work of humans much more easy, efficient, and effective.
“Current AI as a linguistic tool and model can actually help curriculum designers enhance the framing around the tone and positioning of their messages or lessons,” says Booker—for example, if an instructional designer wants to take verbiage about nuclear fission that’s very technical in nature and have it presented in a more conversational tone within the classroom for first-year students by asking AI to adjust the verbiage or tone to fit the learners’ needs and levels.
In addition, he says, from a corporate training perspective, AI models could even be asked to take important concepts like workplace diversity and frame these concepts at an executive or a new hire level to build curriculum or quiz questions that feed the outcomes for the learning being created.
“Using AI in this manner can help save time with the creation of more personalized learning materials and can allow instructional designers to do more with their content to serve different parties and their learning needs,” Booker adds. “So far, our experience using AI in curriculum development has been more akin to having another partner to review your work to give you suggestions or different ideas to ponder, rather than a replacement for human capital.”
Drawbacks to AI Chatbots for Training
Just as AI chatbots can do many things better and more efficiently than humans, there are also many tasks for which such tools aren’t yet a match for humankind. Much of that has to do with the difficulty in programming a computer with inherently human characteristics like empathy and lived experiences. This means AI tools may need the human touch to help with things like supporting diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts or understanding the subtleties of human communication.
“ChatGPT can’t be considered a single source of truth. It lacks empathy and should be used with caution when it comes to communicating authentically, creating equitable and diverse programs, and using inclusive language, being wary that ChatGPT may still be seeped with bias and potentially harmful rhetoric in its beginning stages,” cautions Ioana Ellis, Senior Director of People Operations at Marqeta.
“ChatGPT is unable to keep things like privacy/confidentiality, nuance and historical context in mind, and doesn’t provide responses that consistently align with a company’s beliefs, models or best practices,” Ellis cautions. “Every company has a unique vision and set of goals and ChatGPT doesn’t understand the nuances or have the deep institutional knowledge that employees do about their company, and how this knowledge is applied when creating L&D activities.”
There are many fears and apprehensions about AI, and any powerful tool should be treated with caution and care. However, the fact remains that AI and AI chatbots in particular have great potential to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of employee training. As businesses continue to experiment with AI chatbots’ potential for employee training, best practices and informative data are sure to emerge, allowing companies that have chosen to hold off on their AI chatbot training efforts to learn from the bold first-movers.
Lin Grensing-Pophal is a Contributing Editor at HR Daily Advisor.