As AI Reshapes Work, How Can We Adapt

As AI Reshapes Work, How Can We Adapt?

As artificial intelligence continues to reshape workplaces and change the skills expected of new employees, we face new questions about how to prepare for the future that is changing rapidly every year. These questions were discussed during a special lecture by SK Telecom CEO Jung Jaihun, titled "The Choices and Opportunities during the Age of AI," held at Building 301 to mark the 10th anniversary of an AI education partnership between Seoul National University (SNU) and SK Telecom. Students and faculty members attended the event to look back on a decade of university-industry cooperation and consider how education could respond to changes already taking place in the workplace.

CEO Jung delivering his lecture on AI

The program began with welcoming remarks from Professor Kim Young-Oh (Dean of the College of Engineering) and Professor Hong Yongtaek (Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering). Professor Kim reflected on the long-running partnership between the university and SK Telecom. He said productive university-industry cooperation depends on continuous exchange between the classroom and the workplace. "Successful industry-academia cooperation comes from companies bringing feedback from the field, and professors and researchers suggesting different directions in return," Professor Kim said. Following this, Professor Hong pointed out how the partnership created a model for incorporating SK Telecom's field experience into graduate school curricula. He expressed hope that the relationship would eventually extend further into undergraduate education.

CEO Jung followed with a lecture addressing the question of AI in workplaces, describing how quickly AI was changing the conditions under which people, companies, and countries operated. At the beginning of his talk, Jung explained how AI was currently changing work inside companies. He argued that AI would not only work as a tool for reducing labor, but would also change how tasks are organized, how productivity is measured, and how companies decide which work people should continue to perform. The latter half of the lecture focused more directly on students and the future of work. Jung discussed changes in hiring and early-career training, especially focusing on how higher productivity from AI could also create work that companies previously lacked the time or resources to pursue.

Crossing the AX J Curve

Throughout his lecture, Jung cautioned students against assuming that AI produced immediate gains once a company began using it. He described the process of using AI through what he called the "AX J Curve."

The AX J Curve showing how AI transformation grows after the tipping point

In order to experience true, innovative convenience through this newly implemented technology, companies must endure the stage called the "valley of discomfort." This stage occurs as new approaches require spending more time changing how people have originally been working and sometimes add new work. Employees might need to organize data, build AI agents, redesign workflows and test systems repeatedly before productivity begins to improve. Jung pointed out how SK Telecom itself is still working through this stage of inconvenience.

CEO Jung explaining the AX J Curve

To change how a company operates within this complicated stage, Jung proposed three approaches. Employees first have to look differently at familiar work and question assumptions they have taken for granted. They also must confront difficult constraints rather than avoid them. Finally, they must simply accept the inconvenience involved in building new systems, preparing data and repeatedly checking whether the results turned out as expected. This early stage of AI adoption could therefore feel less efficient before the benefits appear.

When the First Step of a Career Begins to Disappear

One of the concepts Jung raised was what he called the "junior paradox." The use of AI allows companies to achieve higher productivity while hiring fewer entry-level workers, he said. AI is particularly capable of performing routine work, much of which had traditionally been assigned to junior employees. In the long term, these types of assignments serve as a form of training. New employees learn by performing basic tasks, observing senior colleagues and gradually understanding the context behind professional decisions. Over time, they accumulate the tacit knowledge needed to take on more responsibility. Jung said AI could weaken that process by removing some of the work that had allowed junior employees to learn.

Jung warned that the consequences of hiring fewer young employees might not become apparent immediately. Companies could reduce costs in the short term, but in less than ten years they are at risk of finding that too few employees have developed the experience needed to fill senior positions. He also connected the problem to Korea's demographic decline, which could further reduce the future labor supply.

Despite the hardships within the current transition period, history has shown that technological shifts, from the Industrial Revolution to the digital age, create far more opportunities than they displace. Technology has always helped mankind reduce the time and effort required in work, but hasn't reduced jobs entirely. In light of this, Jung elaborated on the expectations of how AI can create new work positions and reduce the redundant labor that creates little value.

Essential Human Capabilities in the Age of AI

With the increasing use of AI in workplaces, Jung described a shift in the skills required, emphasizing a transition of focus from "What do you know?" to "How do you think?" As AI is becoming better at producing information, code and analysis, the ability to ask the right question has become much more valuable than providing the correct answer. The idea touched on how students are evaluated at universities. Exams and assignments often reward students for arriving at the correct answer. AI, however, can now produce many such answers within seconds. Jung explained how evaluation based on students' approach to a problem and how they reached a judgement may be more appropriate.

One of the most important human qualities Jung emphasized was empathy, a trait that AI cannot fully imitate. Technical ability was only part of Jung's answer to what students should prepare for. As AI increased the amount of work that people can perform, differences in technical ability between individuals could become smaller. Rather, the way people communicate, understand others and work with colleagues is becoming a clearer source of distinction. People may place greater value on colleagues who are trustworthy and enjoyable to work with than on those who are only highly skilled. Within a company, Jung said, empathy could make one employee stand out more clearly as other abilities became easier to reproduce.

Questions for the Future: Higher Productivity and New Kinds of Work

During the Q&A session, one student asked Jung how SK Telecom viewed employment as AI changed the work performed inside companies.

CEO Jung listening to students asking questions

Jung said greater productivity did not necessarily mean that workers would simply become unnecessary. He offered the example of a task that once required ten people. If five employees could perform the same work with AI, the remaining capacity could be used for work the company previously lacked the time or resources to pursue. In other words, employees could carry out more detailed analysis or develop strategies for narrower customer groups. Tasks that had once been too expensive could become possible when AI reduced the amount of labor required. Jung's answer described a workplace in which the kinds of jobs available could change alongside AI, even when the overall amount of work did not decline.

Near the end of his lecture, Jung described the next decade as one of the most difficult periods to predict. Because of the immensely uncertain and constantly changing future, no one is yet ahead of another, and no one can be clearly better prepared than someone else. Jung therefore highlighted the importance of having the traits that AI cannot overtake. Students must be able to ask better questions, retain their individuality, and build the empathy and communication skills needed to work with others. "The future has not yet been written," Jung said. The question left for students and the future education is simple. If no one can know exactly what skills the next decade will demand, how should education prepare students to keep learning when the answers keep changing?

Written by Suh Jeemin,
SNU English Editor,
[email protected]