Aric Sleeper, once again pondering the role of AI in the grand scheme of human evolution after attending a symposium yesterday, Oct. 28, on the relationship between artificial intelligence and human resources presented by the Monterey Bay AI Association and Central Coast Human Resources Association.
Yes, you read that right: AI and HR, which is a combination of topics I’d never thought I’d be covering in tandem, but I walked away from the day-long event with a different outlook on both. In fact, I even began to think that large language learning models like ChatGPT and others might have some use in the world aside from generating skin-crawling slop and poorly worded copy.
Although I still can't look past the elephant in the room: the massive amounts of land, energy and water the technology needs to function. According to an article published in 2025 by the Environmental and Energy Study Institute, “Larger data centers can each ‘drink’ up to 5 million gallons per day, or about 1.8 billion annually, usage equivalent to a town of 10,000 to 50,000 people.”
At the event, the founder of the MBAIA, Jen Seregos, said that people’s fear and distrust of AI drove her to create the organization.
“Fear comes from not knowing,” Seregos said. “That’s why I started MBAIA. I started it because I was hearing a lot of fear around the technology and because I understood it, I wanted to be a voice in our community, in the Monterey Bay, to help people understand how this technology works, what it is and what it is not so that we can stop having fear drive our decision-making process.”
MBAIA focuses on workforce AI literacy and education. Seregos divides AI literacy into five categories: AI prompt specialist, context specialist, automation practitioner, integration architect and agentic architect.
“You only need to be really good at one and two to be extremely proficient with AI,” Seregos said. “You’re all here because you’re experts in something that you do and that’s the value: AI is going to make it faster for you and make you more efficient…we want to use it to enhance our work, make our work more efficient and make it better, not take away our expertise or our thinking.”
The difference between AI automation and augmentation, or replacing humans with AI versus integrating the technology into the workflow of a human, was a topic discussed by Seregos and other speakers at the event, stressing that the latter is better in the long run than the former.
“When you get your time back, you can focus more on the human part,” Seregos said.
After listening to the panel of speakers, I was convinced that large language learning models can be useful, especially in the realm of human resources. However, when the technology consumes so many of the natural resources humans need to survive, it’s hard to justify the means.