AI has made significant steps in recent years. It is now even able to generate information in a more conversational manner. In fact, some of the AI-generated chat programs that you will find out there are incredibly good at what they do. In some cases, it is often impossible to work out if you are speaking to a real person of not. When it comes to business, this offers fantastic potential. However, it also invites some difficult questions. Is AI also capable of replacing social institutions, friendships or peer-to-peer interactions? Worse still is, it possible that it could be used to replace mentorship?
There are certainly many things that AI can do but it cannot yet replace the more intangible aspects that are associated with human interaction. With this in mind, we explore why AI fails at mentoring.
What AI is good at
Before we consider why AI fails at mentoring lets take a very brief look at what it is really good at:
· Finding patterns – AI can sort through large amounts of information and data and find patterns to make predictions.
· Automating lists that are repetitive – Because it’s good at finding patterns, it is also great when it comes to creating commands for repetitive activities.
What can’t AI do?
AI is however not very good when it comes to generating new information. When it comes to interacting with humans it can really struggle. Furthermore, it can’t really respond all that well to a prompt where it simply doesn’t have the information necessary to hand.
The lack of human element
To put it simply, if you were looking for advice from a mentor in areas which you were struggling in and wanted advice, support and a little guidance, AI simply doesn’t have the capacity to give you this. It would be more likely to give you some random information that it was able to find that it believed would fit what you were looking for. Unfortunately, this usually would be way off the mark.
A mentor is there to guide you and no matter what the problem send you in the right direction. It may not be with the full answer that you need but rather the right guidance to find that answer or the information that would lead you to the solutions. This requires a significant amount of knowledge and often the ability to think outside the box. Essentially this is something that AI has yet to master.
When you choose a mentor, you do so for many reasons. One of these is that you want someone you can learn from, who has been in the position you are in themselves, and so understands. This is simply not something that AI will have any knowledge of. Therefore, any answers that it gives you will be based on guess work and probability.
A mentor is also someone who can help you when it comes to networking. Again, this is something that AI simply has no real knowledge of. It might be able to suggest ways in which you can network, but it does not have the human connections to help you.
There are many ways in which AI is a great and incredibly valuable tool. However, when it comes to mentoring, the human touch is essential and this is not a bad thing.
