UiPath’s Dines says people must steer AI and answer for what it does

UiPath founder and CEO Daniel Dines told customers at FUSION in Dubai on Monday that companies will hand more and more work to AI. People, he said, will have to steer it and answer for what it does. He spoke at the Museum of the Future.

“We need to educate our people to take a lot more initiatives, because we’ll delegate a lot of the work to AI, and I think this is inevitable. But for people, people will have to steer all this AI.” Daniel Dines, UiPath CEO

Dines said today’s education system dates from the industrial revolution, about 200 years ago. Its job was to produce disciplined factory workers who followed orders from the top.

“This is not going to work in the world of AI.” Daniel Dines, UiPath CEO

Companies will need fewer narrow specialists and more people who understand whole systems, he said. He gave lawyers as an example. An AI agent can learn the law from the books, but not how it applies inside a particular company.

Accountability stays with people

Accountability is one of three limits of AI that Dines set out in Las Vegas in September, when UiPath launched Cartographer. The other two are that AI does not learn on the job and that it is not exact.

In Dubai he said that once a company gives AI the autonomy to act, those actions have consequences. Even an email an AI agent sends to a customer can commit the company to something, he said.

“So someone has to bear the consequences.” Daniel Dines, UiPath CEO

He also told companies not to use AI for work that ordinary software can do reliably. Software can be tested, he said, and it gives the same answer every time.

“If AI can do something, it doesn’t mean you have to.” Daniel Dines, UiPath CEO

AI should build that software instead, with people reviewing and testing it before it runs. He drew on the experience of writing his book, The Work That Remains, with AI, where he rarely edited the text himself.

“Believe me, guys, nobody is ever touching the code again.” Daniel Dines, UiPath CEO

Juniors and the Gulf

Dines repeated that companies should keep hiring juniors. They now need to work closely with senior staff from day one and see how decisions are made, he said.

“We have a responsibility for the young generation.” Daniel Dines, UiPath CEO

He called the UAE government “one of the most progressive” he works with on adopting AI and software, and one of UiPath’s best partners.

Karl Crowther, who leads UiPath in the Middle East and Africa, opened the day. He has lived in the UAE for almost 20 years and called its people resilient. The companies that kept core processes running through this year’s disruption were the ones that automated first, he said.

“Automation is almost like a shock absorber for what we’ve experienced.” Karl Crowther, UiPath

Banks, government entities, retailers and oil and gas companies in the UAE are already discussing advanced agentic automation with UiPath, he said.