Cisco-led consortium to spread AI expertise in the workforce

“One of the things we can assume is that skills that are more rote in nature, more repetitive in nature, are going to lend themselves to AI,” he said. “Those skills that require a lot of creative thinking, a lot of problem-solving are going to emerge as the ones that are critical for companies moving forward.”

“Those are the roles that will define how AI is used going forward,” Diedrich said.

Understanding the state of AI knowledge in the enterprise is also critical for addressing one of the most glaring concerns posed by AI systems: bias. Part of the idea for the consortium, and its mission of disseminating information about AI, is to bring a more diverse set of stakeholders into the AI world, according to Diedrich.

“If we don’t, then we’re just going to be taking our biases and we’re going to be perpetuating them more efficiently through AI,” he said. “And we just can’t do that. We need to have diverse people around the table, which starts with skilling.”

According to Nicole Helmer, SAP vice president and global head of development learning, the consortium will consolidate existing efforts among the member companies, some of which are already proceeding at speed.

“Inside [SAP], we already have a lot of learning on AI, but we also have a digital skills initiative which includes a free course on AI,” she said, noting that 96,000 people had already begun to participate in that course.