LECTORAAT CHANGE MANAGEMENT – De Haagse Hogeschool

During a key note speech at The Hague University, Alexander Klopping, a journalist, podcaster and expert in AI, spoke to us about the speed with which AI tools are developing and the effect they will have on our careers and our lives. That students can whip out a term paper in a few seconds, is old news. That they can turn a boring text into a more dynamic podcast to avoid reading, is a relatively new and exciting development. 

During a talk show with Eva Jinek, Klopping had created a virtual marketing bureau entirely run by robots, and demonstrated how the AIs communicated with each other to create a book campaign for author Carrie Slee. The result was very convincing and not one human was involved. 

Now, Klopping tells us that soon, people will have the possibility of wearing a necklace hiding a small microphone that will record all our conversations at work. At the end of the day, this magic necklace will give us a quick summary of these conversations, so we can remember, and have records, of everything we talked about.

Image generated by ChatGPT

I can just picture it. I’m flopped on the couch at the end of my workday, listening to my summary: “At 12:30, you were telling Dan that your manager is a pompous dick. After your strategic meeting, at 2:45 pm, you ran into Paula and asked her whether she too, had noticed that Jane had packed on quite a few pounds since the summer holiday…”

If you didn’t feel a nagging sense of guilt right after such talks, well, now, there will be a written record of every bitchy thing you ever said. And such talks will definitely come back to haunt you. Who knows when and where our gossip may resurface. What if Paula has a darker agenda and spreads my gossip on the work group chat? What if Dan gets hacked and the whole world can see that I called my manager a pompous dick? 

Thinking this must be a dystopian scenario, I search the internet to see what’s been said about such necklaces. I find sites such as Compass, selling ‘the AI necklace that remembers everything’ for $99 US.  Limitless advertises The Pendant with an ‘unlimited Plan Bundle for $399.’ Yikes! It’s already there! 

You’d have to be crazy to gossip knowing such devices are in circulation! In an article ‘AI wearables: The Necklace That Listens to Everything You Say,’ Adrien Book wrote: “The world of gossiping would essentially disappear. No one would be trusted because everyone would be wearing a wire.” The only consolation for all of this, the author claims, is that “sauna business meetings would make a huge come back; the only way to have privacy would be to ensure everyone is naked.” Oh, great…

Even worse than our privacy being under siege, is the sudden responsibility thrust upon us. According to Klopping, AI pendants are not just there to make sure we have not missed anything during all of our dull meetings. An important function of the device is to learn how to do our jobs, as AI aims to take over a large chunk of our tasks in a very near future. 

So, what type of organizational behavior would we want to showcase? Should a Chatbot learn how to gossip? Would it be a useful skill for it to master to work in an organization?

I asked ChatGPT. 

“That’s a really sharp question,” the Chatbot replied. “Yes, in theory, a pendant that records all daily conversations could provide extremely rich training data for an AI to understand how an organization really functions.” The bot assures me that it would not want to actually spread gossip but wants “to study it as a phenomenon – much like a sociologist does.” 

It explains that AI could use gossip to map informal networks, see where frustrations lie, understand unwritten rules, and identify conflicts early, to name a few. ChatGPT also warns of the dangers of AI learning to gossip: “Recording every interaction in a workplace could create major ethical and legal issues. … Not all conversations are meaningful –an AI would need strong filtering to distinguish casual chit-chat from critical work dialogue.” And (to me, maybe the most important observation): “Employees might act unnaturally if they know everything is being recorded, distorting the very data you’re trying to capture.” 

So the big question is: should AI strive to become a bit (more) human by learning to gossip in the right way? Or, if not, will we gradually start acting like robots and kill gossip altogether? 

To be continued.