Algemeen·NRC·1 jun

How should bosses talk about AI?

If you are a bank boss and in the headlines, you are either Jamie Dimon or you have screwed up. Bill Winters, the chief executive of Standard Chartered, an emerging-markets bank headquartered in Britain, made waves recently when he talked about a planned 15% reduction in back-office jobs over the next four years. Four words in particular landed him in trouble: a reference to the replacement of „lower-value human capital” by financial capital invested in automation. The kerfuffle provides an instructive case study in a problem now faced by almost every manager: how to talk about the effect of artificial intelligence on jobs.