Artificial Intelligence, Human Expertise, and the Role of HRD: A Time for a Reset?

Human expertise development is a key concern of the HRD profession. When employees operate at higher levels of expertise, not only is their job performance superior, but their overall well-being is also higher. The rapid expansion of AI use in the workplace puts our assumptions about the role of HRD in expertise development under serious test. How can expertise be developed when increasingly large chunks of work are offloaded to AI, and humans no longer get a chance to learn from tackling complex problems, making mistakes, and experimenting with new approaches? In all knowledge work, there are specific core activities that are key to expertise development. These activities require prolonged periods of concentrated and challenging intellectual work. They cannot be outsourced to AI and need to be retained and cultivated as part of the developmental process.