GenAI Ethics for Leaders #5: The Duality of Deskilling and Upskilling in the Age of Agentic AI

The Dual Forces of Deskilling and Upskilling: Why Leaders Must Strike a Balance

Introduction

The rise of Generative AI agents, such as OpenAI’s new Operator, which was launched at the end of January 2025, highlights the evolving role of GenAI. Its YouTube launch was viewed by over seven hundred thousands of viewers in a week. Operator is an Agentic AI system that actively executes tasks for users, controlling a user’s keyboard and mouse to perform real-world actions. While OpenAI’s demonstrations focused on non-mission-critical applications—ordering food, making reservations—its potential in regulated industries like healthcare and higher-education raises pressing ethical and strategic concerns for leaders.

Some critical issues include Deskilling—a phenomenon where users, whether students, educators, patients, nurses, doctors or staff – your organizations critical stakeholders- may lose critical competencies due to over-reliance on automation. On the other hand, Upskilling is the proactive effort to train and equip your stakeholders with new skills that complement technology-driven tasks or workflows. This with the goal to enhance their skills, productivity, performance and satisfaction. Leaders should make GenAI agents, centered around their organization’s robust GenAI ethics frameworks, an enhancer of their stakeholders, not their competitors or replacements. This provides them with more agency.

I am pleased to learn that OpenAI’s Operator includes Human-in-the-Loop (HITL) safeguards, ensuring that their GenAI Agent does not fully replace human judgment, especially in critical decisions. In future articles, we will explore in greater detail about Human-in-the-Loop opportunities and challenges in greater detail. For now, let’s focus on upskilling and deskilling, centering on productivity, mission alignment, and GenAI ethics frameworks for successful leaders.

Recap of Previous Articles in the GenAI Ethics for Leaders Series

In previous articles, we examined:

  1. Algorithmic Bias and Inaccuracies – How biases in AI models impact decision-making and fairness.
  2. Privacy and Security Concerns – The risks AI poses to sensitive data, including breaches and misuse.
  3. Intellectual Property and Compliance Risks – The legal and ethical challenges of AI-generated content.
  4. Traceability and Accountability – The importance of making AI decisions explainable and ensuring responsibility in deployment and regulatory compliance.

Each of these articles underscored the need for strong GenAI ethics frameworks to align technological advancements, growth and profitability with organizational ethics, mission, and stakeholder trust. Now, in this article we touch on the issue of deskilling and how leaders can counterbalance it when embracing GenAI ethics frameworks and best practices.

The Risks of Deskilling and the Need for Upskilling in the Age of Agentic AI

1. The Hidden Risks of GenAI-Driven Deskilling

GenAI promises enhanced efficiency and productivity, but without robust GenAI ethics frameworks and check and balances, can lead to wholesale adoption with grave unintended consequences for your organization, stakeholders and society. Some of these challenges include the following:

  • Skill Erosion – Students, educators, nurses or doctors who rely heavily on GenAI for decision-making face the risk of losing critical thinking and domain expertise. It is like a muscle that does not get exercised which weakens overtime in detriment of your body.
  • Cognitive Stagnation – Overdependence on GenAI solutions, specifically AI agents, may hinder creativity and reduce critical thinking
  • Intuition Reduction– Delegating intuition to nascent technologies which we do not fully understand yet can impact wisdom and decision making in fluid scenarios, which are critical for complex problem-solving.

Leaders must reflect on how to nourish, cultivate and develop their stakeholders capacities to keep their organizations thriving in the AI era. While aligning their strategies with their mission, goals and continuing enhancing human expertise.

2. GenAI Impact in Critical Sectors

GenAI poses great risk on highly regulated industries such as healthcare and education. These elevated concerns are due to their mission-critical nature and stringent regulatory frameworks (such as HIPAA in healthcare and FERPA in education). For example,

  • In healthcare, GenAI agents might erode clinicians’ diagnostic and decision-making capacities, compromising patient safety and healthcare outcomes.
  • In education, GenAI-generated homework may hinder students’ learning process and their ability to acquire the necessary skills to cultivate critical thinking and thrive in the marketplace. 

3. Use Cases in Healthcare & Education

In both industries, human capital in the form of expertise, intuition, discernment, and ethical decision-making must ground Leadrship’s strategies to thrive in the era of AI. Examples of Deskilling and Upskilling in Healthcare and Education may include:

Healthcare

  • Impact on Doctors:  Upskilling through AI-integrated medical practice ensures that doctors retain expertise while leveraging GenAI for improved decision-making and health outcomes.
  • Impact on Nurses: Upskilling training that incorporates GenAI literacy and agentic AI solutions, with human-in-the- loop safeguards can improve healthcare delivery and reduce burnout.
  • Impact on Patients: Upskilling literacy programs which empower patients, in partnership with doctors and nurses, to keep human oversight, to improve health care outcomes and agency.

Higher Education

  • Impact on Students: Upskilling with ethically and mission aligned GenAI agents can help students engage with challenging content while cultivating critical thinking.
  • Impact on Educators: Upskilling that included the interrogation of GenAI agents capabilities and challenges to allow enhanced teaching grounded on robust pedagogies rather than disintermediating or diminishing educator’s role and agency.
  • Impact on Institutions: Upskilling universities and colleges staff to design and deploy GenAI agents which can handle routine administrative tasks while ensuring critical decision-making stays human and ethically centered.

Strategies for Leaders: Mitigating Deskilling While Harnessing AI’s Potential

Building GenAI-enhanced and thriving students, educators, patients, doctors, nurses and staff.To mitigate deskilling challenges of AI agents, leaders must develop and continually update their GenAI ethics frameworks to reskill, upskill, and redefine human-AI collaboration and partnership :

– Reskilling Programs: Develop initiatives to provide stakeholders with AI literacy, ensuring they understand both capabilities and challenges of GenAI agents.-Upskilling for AI Collaboration – Encourage critical thinking  and creativity that complement GenAI-lead efficiencies, versus compete or replace.-Multidisciplinary Training – Provide students, educators, patients, nurses, doctors and stall with multi-functional frameworks to endure flexibility and future ready skills

-Maintaining Proper Human Oversight: Ensure GenAI operates within your GenAI ethics frameworks where humans review and validate critical decisions.

-Integrate Ethical GenAI Frameworks into your Strategy: Embed AI ethics and governance, fostering effective and mission aligned deployments.– Strive for GenAI for Enhancement, Not Replacement – Redesign workflows where AI enables professionals to focus on high-value tasks.

– Promote Human-Centered GenAI Design: Embrace GenAI solutions that augment rather than replace humans.

Leadership Reflection: Key Questions to Consider

  • How has previous task automation technologies impacted your stakeholders skills? Can some of the learning be applied to GenAI?
  • What reskilling programs have been effective in your organization and industry?
  • How can your organization integrate GenAI agents while preserving human expertise and dignity?
  • What GenAI ethical frameworks and considerations should guide your new transformative technology strategy?

Conclusion: Why Leaders Must Strike a Balance Between GenAI Deskilling and Upskilling Forces

Leaders should be proactive about thinking about how GenAI Agents will reshape their organizations and stakeholders. Mitigating deskilling challenges call for intentional strategies that mix technology and human expertise. By creating and continually deploying reskilling programs centered on your organization’s mission and goals, will help your organization to thrive in a GenAI-driven era, grounded in humans.

The present and future of effective leadership is about embracing GenAI solutions that help you achieve your goals and shaping AI to empower humans.

About the Author
Freddie Seba is a distinguished thought leader and educator specializing in Generative AI ethics. He holds an MBA from Yale and an MA from Stanford and is pursuing a Doctorate in Education at the University of San Francisco (USF), focusing on GenAI Ethics. Since 2017, Freddie has served as a faculty at the Masters of Science in Digital Health Informatics at USF’s School of Nursing and Health Professions (SONHP). He teaches and mentors graduate students in this program and collaborates closely with the healthcare ecosystem. He developed and taught a course on Generative AI Ethics in Education and Healthcare Ecosystems. Freddie is a seasoned Silicon Valley entrepreneur, co-founding and working with innovative startups in financial services,  healthcare, and education. As a speaker, faculty, and writer, Freddie inspires others to navigate GenAI ethics complexities with purpose. You can find more information at www.freddieseba.com

About the Project

This article is part of a continuous exploration – a joint journey to share insights, foster discussions, and empower leaders with the frameworks they need to navigate the complex ethical landscape of Generative AI (GenAI). I want this series to be a space to critically interrogate, question, and leverage GenAI to drive the best possible societal impact together and shape our organizations and ecosystems as a conscious, intentional set of choices – not something we just fall into because we fail to see the new opportunity space. We can all be agents of change in our organizations, communities, homes, and professional networks. Hence, I see this as a joint exploration with fellow travelers. GenAI tools are utilized for this series, including ChatGPT, Grammarly, Speechify and ZoomAI, among others.

Mentions

University of San Francisco • University of San Francisco School of Nursing and Health Professions • AMIA (American Medical Informatics Association) • American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) • Coalition for Health AI (CHAI)
#GenAIEthics, #DigitalHealthInformatics, #AIAccountability, #Traceability, #ResponsibleAI, #HumanCenteredTech, #Leadership, #TechnologyEthics #GenAI #AIethics #Leadership #ResponsibleAI #DigitalTransformation #FutureOfWork

Useful Information & References

© 2025 Freddie Seba. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the author, except for brief quotations in critical reviews or noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.