What if robots made us happier at work? This is the finding of one of the authors of an unprecedented study on artificial intelligence, made public at the end of April: "The tools that make people more efficient in their work make the work experience less stressful (...), better and faster work translates into happier customers, who are in turn kinder to customer service agents."

Quoted by CNBC, Lindsey Raymond is one of three scientists from Stanford University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) who followed for a year the performance of employees providing customer service to a company by phone.

For the first time, ChatGPT-like tools have left the lab and have been made available to 2,500 employees, whose company specializes in selling software.

As a result, the average productivity of agents supported by chatbots in their interactions with customers increased by 14%.

"500% productivity gains"

A leap of chip, says Fabrice Epelboin, entrepreneur teaching digital issues at Sciences Po: "We can do infinitely better," he says.

During this experiment, artificial intelligence (AI) has, according to him, only "rustinated the human", without calling into question the foundations of customer relationship management inherited from the twentieth century. But by including AI in a total overhaul of the way we work, we will soon be able to "probably reach 500% productivity gains," says the entrepreneur.

The teacher compares this transition to the leap in productivity induced by the separation of tasks in the era of Fordism and Taylorism.

While the overhaul of production methods to allow AI to reveal its potential remains to be done, the revolution has already begun, notes Fabrice Epelboin: "In a start-up like Deliveroo, the delivery driver no longer obeys a human manager, but an artificial intelligence that tells him where to deliver and rewards his performance."

How many jobs are at risk?

According to Goldman Sachs, AIs like ChatGPT already threaten 300 million jobs worldwide. But the upheaval of our production methods will be of such magnitude that we have no idea of the relevance of such figures, says Fabrice Epelboin. The only certainty for the expert: production gains.

What happens next depends on the economic situation: "For many companies, production gains are now synonymous with increased sales. Tomorrow, it may be a question of reducing labour costs in the absence of a favourable market."

The progress that AI suggests in the short term also presages the disappearance of economic actors who have not been able to engage in this technological shift. Companies that already use it, such as Uber, will change the way we think about work in the tertiary sector and become dominant players, the expert continues.

But the race for artificial intelligence will also, according to him, be played between employees. Those who learn to master tools like ChatGPT will increase their personal productivity tenfold. Slideshows, presentation plans, meeting reports and other time-consuming tasks that AI already knows how to do: "If I decided to become a consultant for McKinsey, I would already be able to increase my productivity by 500% thanks to ChatGPT," says Fabrice Epelboin.

With cognitive abilities reinforced by the mastery of AI, such a consultant will be identified as generating more added value than his colleagues, he continues: the balance of power with his employer thus upset, he will be able to evolve in his company, "sell" three times more expensive on the job market and go to Capgemeni or start his own business. However, the impact of AI will vary greatly from one person to another, predicts Fabrice Epelboin: we will see the emergence of a class of super-employees who have mastered AI, predicts the professor at Sciences Po.

The disrupted "intellectual class"

According to the study by Stanford University and MIT, the use of AI has rather leveled the skills of employees: assisted by solutions designed by robots, the most novices have equaled more experienced operators. Even better: they sometimes even exceeded their results.

Cardinal competence within a customer service: find the words and gestures that will soothe the anger of customers irritated by the disappointments related to the product or service purchased. How could a non-human intelligence impose itself in such a human sphere?

"The public is in a phase of astonishment," replies Fabrice Epelboin soberly. While he was trying these technologies himself, several years before they were put into circulation, he admits to having been dizzy. For him, this new form of intelligence disturbs even more those who thought they were immune to technical progress: the "intellectual class".

From this coming upheaval, this "elite" could learn a lesson in compassion, concludes Fabrice Epelboin. During the Industrial Revolution, the "upper class" saw mechanization dehumanize workers' labor. "This same upper class, on the other hand, fantasized as if above the machine: all wrong."

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