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investments in people on a similar scale.
We visualize the human capitalization of
the AI workplace beginning with the
introduction of workplace protocols or
standards — mandated by law, if
necessary — to establish the human
values and effects that will govern the
entry of AI into the workplace.
In fact, it is clear that the AI revolution
is not just a technology event, it is a
human event. Surely, it can be leveraged
to generate transformative, "new job"
opportunities and "new career" paths for
people who otherwise are written off as
short-term pain.
Key to this will be a major transition
from an economy where employees are
generally seen as a cost to be cut rather
than an investment to be made.
Government tax policy changes and
financial accounting reforms are needed
to give businesses the incentives to
invest in their people the same way that
they invest in things — as a capital cost
for tax and accounting purposes.
Seeing the value in people
Today, employees represent a lot more than
costs to be chopped. In fact, so-called
intangible assets — tied one way or another
to human effort — represent 84 per cent of
the asset value of publicly traded
companies, according to Aon Management
Consulting and Ponemon Institute.
Investments in human capital will
prepare people — through their skills,
health and well-being — to do innovative
work, a key to corporate success.
On top of that, governments in Europe
and the United States are in the early
stages of requiring public corporations
to report on their management of
human capital. There's also this: 75
per cent or more of all new jobs in
the digital economy will demand
cerebral, not manual skills, according
to McKinsey & Company, Global
Management Consulting.
Ir o n i c a l l y, m a c h i n e i n t e l l i ge n c e
w i l l h e l p e q u i p c o r p o r a t i o n s ,
governments and financial planners
with knowledge and insights so as to
valuate human beings as assets of the
business in the same way that they
valuate plant and equipment as assets
of the business.
Business must learn to see people
as an asset — and they must learn to
appreciate waste that they incur by
leaving them idle, without any return on
the investment that they made on their
employees up to that point.
More fruitfully, investments in human
capital will prepare people — through
their skills, health and well-being — to
do innovative work, a key to corporate
success in this day and age.
In order to produce the economic
and societal benefits expected of it, the
revolution in artificial intelligence must
be matched by a revolution in the way
that we value human intelligence and
the way that we invest in the asset value
of people.
We visualize a formula where brain
health plus brain skills equals brain
capital to guide this new revolution
that will create — in the words of Henry
Jaffe, principal of Periculum Labs in
Ottawa — "new forms of value on the
balance sheet."
CHRR
Bill Wilkerson is the executive
chairman of Mental Health
International in Port Hope,
Ont. He is a former senior
executive and adviser in
business, government, health,
arts, broadcasting and major league
sports. For more information, visit www.
mentalhealthinternational.ca.
