The healthiest relationships are often reciprocal. If we can agree on that statement, then any conversation about the benefits of artificial intelligence ought to reverse the arrow and consider AI as a beneficiary. From my vantage point in human resources, much has been said about the ways in which our portfolios (e.g., recruitment, selection, training, performance management) can benefit from incorporating various forms of artificial intelligence. Meanwhile, the emergence of AI agents and supervisors of AI agents in government job posts has begged the question for me: How can artificial intelligence benefit from the collective wisdom of HR practitioners?
One opportunity to consider is Non-Human Resources (NHR), which I invite you to imagine with me for a moment.
Consider these questions, which are HR questions directed toward non-human actors:
- Who determines which AI agents or applications are best-suited to accomplish a mission (and how)? What would job definition and analysis look like in terms of what we’re asking AI to assist us with? What does the selection process look like? And what should be selected for when it comes to AI agents? The quality or quantity of the data they were trained with? Failure rates? Learning agility?
- How are AI Agents trained and developed? It’s safe to say that humans and AI agents share a vast learning marketplace and multiple training modalities where quality and impact can differ greatly. Who curates this material and creates an environment that optimizes learning outcomes?
- How does accountability work for AI agents? What does performance management look like? What standards is an AI agent held to and what happens if the agent fails to meet those standards or becomes less effective over time?
- What happens when AI agents and human supervisors aren’t working well together? Much is written about human-AI interactions, but many agencies lack a means of applying these insights, which would seem to follow a similar rubric to employee relations.
- And what about these domains? Can we recruit for top-notch AI agents? How are agents “exited” from an agency without creating risk or knowledge loss? Should succession and workforce planning be introduced as safeguards to promote continuity of operations? What unique workplace safety hazards exist for AI Agents and how can they be mitigated? How should suitability and fitness be evaluated?
Let me be clear in saying that I would imagine NHR as a supplement to — and not a replacement for — the human side of HR. After all, conventional HR has the monumental task of reconfiguring how humans can thrive in a workforce that is AI-enabled, which is not unlike a time when we were tasked with helping humans to thrive in the midst of machines and production automation.
Perhaps it is not too soon to start developing the onboarding plan, the AI agent “employee lifecycle”, and all the supporting functions that are needed to ensure that humans and non-humans alike find themselves in a work environment where they can thrive.
Ernest currently serves as a Personnel Research Psychologist within the Chief Human Capital Office of the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). He earned his Ph.D. in industrial-organizational psychology from the University of Akron in 2016. Over the last 20 years, he has worked in for-profit, non-profit, and government settings while holding a variety of individual contributor and leadership roles. His areas of expertise and experience include assessment for hire and development, leadership development, employee engagement, performance management, and organizational change and transformation.
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