Intuit CEO Thinks AI Will Help Humans, Not Replace Them

Business Insider is reporting that Intuit’s CEO has a very different view of AI in the workplace from many other executives.

Many executives, business leaders and experts fear AI will result in countless lost jobs as machines replace human workers. Intuit’s CEO, Sasan Goodarzi, doesn’t share those concerns, instead believing that AI is simply another transition, such as occurred when the Internet became popular.

Goodarzi told Business Insider: “AI is going to automate a lot of what is done today, a lot of predictions that you have to make. AI can automate all of that, but then it actually elevates where people can provide value, it elevates where they can provide judgement.

“History is our best teacher. When the internet was coming around there was lots of concern that because of the internet, because of commerce, because of what you could now do that would be elimination of a lot of jobs and in fact it’s created a lot of jobs.”

This outlook on AI’s role informs the company’s approach to the emerging technology, using it to maximize available resources, including the human element.

“Machine learning at the end of the day takes input and it makes a recommendation, and if something has to rely on one hundred percent accuracy, machine learning probably wouldn’t be good for that,” Goodarzi told Business Insider. He maintains that AI is “only as good as the data that it has and it’s only as good as how it gets trained.”

For individuals worried about losing their jobs to AI and automation, Goodarzi’s comments are a welcome change of pace from the traditional outlook of many in the industry.