I'm not convinced we are at a problem point yet.
But we are also not that far away.
For AI to be a real problem, you have to actually implement it in such a way that it makes direct decisions over things.
Right now those types of implementations are pretty rare and subtle, but not for long.
AI can be a great tool, but we need to have a requirement of inserting a human in between the analysis and the action, and never link the two.
The human then must have the task of only implementing the action if they completely understand it.
Black box models which cannot be explained must never be implemented such that they take any action directly without human input.
Issue that I see coming up first. Customer service AI. This will replace... A LOT of humans working today. Especially lower level or 'differently skilled' employees who today answer calls for customer service issues in less complicated environments. Then expanding ever more to the more complicated environments. AI will offer options in a human way and even make a recommendation to the end user for action to take. End user will accept an action or request a person or whatever. Mostly it will train people to make decisions with AI guidance.
Give that a few years of being the norm then those decision trees will expand to more technical areas... with actual technical troubleshooting taking place with AI 'guidance' over the phone.
After that some systems will be in place for troubleshooters instead of needing a knowledge base that they have to manually search as they are on the call monitoring of the AI will start providing suggested articles and solutions live while on the call with the customer and expedite the solutions. Again with human interface.
Where things will fall down is when we have another pandemic level staffing event for services that need to run but no people are available. Then we will have a rule that allows the AI to actually prompt the end user with tasks to undertake before getting to a person or make full on decisions for the end user to solve problems.
Not long after that there will be automated services like self driving cars that normally require input, and drones used for all sorts of tasks that have a 'no pilot response' option.... with a 'reach destination' or 'complete mission' objectives based on some pre defined set of criteria.
With enough successes of that running because of 'exigent' circumstances we will see the embracing of AI to do more tasks without human interaction... until no human interaction is the norm outside of programming... even AI's programming other AI's to be more efficient.
Once we cross that barrier into AI's being able to initiate and complete actions independently is when we are at the 'slippery slope' time. I give that... 15 years on the outside. Your kids today will bare witness to the big shift. Many of us in IT should be planning on integrating AI into our work flow now to be prepared for what's coming.
That or it's all hot air and will dissolve because it is prohibitively expensive to use and will never see the light of day for lower level work.
