The rapid emergence of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) is profoundly transforming the nature of work and organizations, challenging prevalent views of AI as primarily enabling prediction and optimization. This paper argues that GenAI represents a qualitative shift that necessitates a fundamental reassessment of AI's role in management and organizations. By identifying and analyzing four critical dimensions (i) GenAI's broad applicability as a general-purpose technology; (ii) its ability to catalyze exploratory and combinatorial innovation; (iii) its capacity to enhance cognitive diversity and decision-making; and (iv) its democratizing effect on AI adoption and value creation the paper highlights GenAI's potential to augment and scale human creativity, learning, and innovation. Building on insights from the AI and management literature, as well as on theory of human-AI agency, the paper develops a novel perspective that challenges the dominant efficiency-oriented narrative. It proposes that a human-complementary approach to GenAI development and implementation, leveraging it as a generative catalyst for exploration, can enable radically increased creativity, innovation, and growth. GenAI's democratizing aspects can amplify these mechanisms, promoting widely shared growth when combined with appropriate policy and managerial choices. Implications for theory, practice, and future research directions are discussed, drawing attention to the need for approaches in GenAI development and deployment that are complementary rather than competitive to human beings. The paper concludes by discussing the theoretical, practical, and policy implications of this transformative technology. It outlines future research directions, emphasizing the critical role of human agency in determining the organizational, societal, and ethical outcomes associated with AI adoption and implementation.

中文翻译：

---

生成式 AI 时代的人类 AI 代理


生成式人工智能 （GenAI） 的迅速出现正在深刻改变工作和组织的性质，挑战了 AI 主要支持预测和优化的普遍观点。本文认为，GenAI 代表了一种质的转变，需要从根本上重新评估 AI 在管理和组织中的角色。通过识别和分析四个关键维度：（i） GenAI 作为通用技术的广泛适用性;（ii） 它催化探索性和组合性创新的能力;（iii） 其增强认知多样性和决策的能力;（iv） 它对 AI 采用和价值创造的民主化影响，该论文强调了 GenAI 在增强和扩展人类创造力、学习和创新方面的潜力。基于人工智能和管理文献以及人类-人工智能能动性理论的见解，本文提出了一种新的视角，挑战了主流的效率导向叙事。它提出，GenAI 开发和实施的人类互补方法，将其用作探索的生成催化剂，可以从根本上提高创造力、创新和增长。GenAI 的民主化方面可以放大这些机制，当与适当的政策和管理选择相结合时，可以促进广泛共享的增长。讨论了对理论、实践和未来研究方向的影响，提请注意 GenAI 开发和部署方法的必要性，这些方法对人类来说是互补的，而不是竞争性的。本文最后讨论了这项变革性技术的理论、实践和政策影响。 它概述了未来的研究方向，强调了人类能动性在决定与 AI 采用和实施相关的组织、社会和道德结果方面的关键作用。