Summary.
As with many new technologies, the potential impact of generative AI on society is polarizing. There is a fear that this technology will replace human workers, leading to mass de-skilling and widespread unemployment. And there is a hope that generative AI will instead supercharge human capabilities, leading to unprecedented boosts in individual and collective innovation and productivity. In our work at Microsoft Research on augmenting human cognition and decision-making with AI, we have come to think about these scenarios as points on a spectrum and have created a sports analogy to help think about it: AI tools can range from steroids, to sneakers, to a coach, each representing a different relationship between human users and the technology.