The temptation for businesses to use artificial intelligence and other technology to improve performance, drive down labor costs, and better the bottom line is understandable. But before pursuing automation that could put the jobs of human employees at risk, it is important that business owners take careful stock of their operations.

AI should not be applied to every business in the same manner, according to Chris Meyer, professor of practice and the director of undergraduate education at the Lally School of Management at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He details his research on the subject in a new conceptual paper published today in a special issue of the Journal of Service Management on "AI and Machine Learning in Service Management."

"AI has the potential to upend our ideas about what tasks are uniquely suited to humans, but poorly implemented or strategically inappropriate service automation can alienate customers, and that will hurt businesses in the long term," Meyer said. (1)

Business.

Business.

It is all business.

Forgotten tales.

Tales of people crying.

Stories of children laughing.

Trade was once considered evil.

Now we measure everything by it.

And the humans have risen.

And the gods have died.

And the sea swells.

Waves storming.

It is all death.

Death.

Life.

Oh, life.

Do you remember me?

For I have forgotten your face…