06-03-2025
Tracey Franklin, Moderna’s Chief People and Digital Technology Officer, publicly shared how she likes to use AI. Franklin told the Fortune Workplace Innovation Summit audience that she views AI as a coach, therapist, and teammate and uses it “all the time.” She created profiles of her executive committee and uploaded the profiles to an AI model. With that information, she fed it scenarios of possible conflicts and circumstances when she needs to give an opinion. She then asked AI to anticipate how her staff might respond. AI provided her with different perspectives on why people have conflicts and how she can best coach them through it. Franklin stated that she sees herself as good at understanding people, but she believes that AI has increased her ability to understand people’s perspectives when issues arise.
In April, scientists at Johns Hopkins released research concluding that humans are better than current AI models at describing and interpreting social interactions. The researchers used dynamic scenarios, such as self-driving cars and their anticipation of human choices, because AI must “recognize the intentions, goals, and actions of human drivers and pedestrians.” The Johns Hopkins researchers showed three-second video clips to humans and 350 AI models to conduct their research. These videos showed people interacting with one another, working side-by-side, or doing independent activities. AI failed to understand “social dynamics and context necessary for interacting with people,” causing the researchers to conclude that there might be a “blind spot” in AI model development.
There is no question that AI is reshaping HR. IBM’s CEO, Arvind Krishna, told the Wall Street Journal that AI has taken over for several hundred of its human resources employees, causing IBM to lay off those employees. The company used the savings to hire more programmers and salespeople. Krishna stated that these other areas focus more on “critical thinking,” where employees “face up or against other humans, as opposed to just doing rote process work.”