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- In The Age of AI, Major In Being Human
Image credit: Adria Malcolm for The New York Times
The title of this week’s issue comes from an article David Brooks wrote for The New York Times. Brooks asserts that there is something humanistic missing from art or prose generated by AI. Because there is no human imagination behind AI-generated content, we get a sense that there is something lacking. Something that triggers emotion, something that makes us feel a connection to a piece of art.
What is undeniable is the fact that AI systems are superior to humans in many ways. They can compute faster. They do not let emotions get in the way of decision making. They do not get tired. They can combine far-flung concepts in unexpected ways. In short, AI systems can be fantastic tools that perform computations and menial tasks, giving us more time and energy to focus on higher order thinking.
Higher order thinking is the product of skills that make us uniquely human. Skills that bots do not possess. This issue dives into six distinctly human skills Brooks believes we should hone in the age of AI.
A Distinct Personal Voice
Steer away from the generic, bureaucratic language often produced by AI. Invest in developing a voice as distinct as that of writers like George Orwell and Tom Wolfe.
Writing a weekly newsletter is a pretty good way to develop that distinct personal voice. It takes pages and pages of bad writing to find your voice. There is no short cut.
Presentation Skills
The prior generation of information technology favoured the introverts, whereas the new A.I. bots are more likely to favour the extroverts. You will need to be showing off all the time that you are more than ‘one of them.’
There is no point developing a distinct personal voice if you are not going to use that voice. Barack Obama is probably the most accomplished orator of our time. That voice carried him to the White House. Delivering compelling speeches, connecting with the audience, organising fun and meaningful activities are all skills that AI systems lack.
A Childlike Talent For Creativity
Somehow children find the creative sweet spot between the obvious and the crazy.
I run a curiosity school that offers both coding classes and unplugged outdoor experiences. Because we offer activities that are at different ends of the analog/digital spectrum, we have a tagline at Saturday Kids that serves as our north star.
Curious, Inventive, Resourceful
In other words, be relentlessly creative.
Unusual Worldviews
At my other education company Doyobi, we help kids learn how to enjoy writing, speak confidently and articulate thoughts clearly through online quests based on real world issues. Issues like sustainable tourism, universal access to clean water, digital addiction etc. We design every quest based on a real world theme because we believe it is important for kids to learn about what is going on in the world, synthesise information, and form their own views.
People with contrarian mentalities and idiosyncratic worldviews will be valuable in an age when conventional thinking is turbo powered.
Empathy
Machines are not sentient, nor do they have feelings. The ability to perceive or feel things is uniquely human. In the last decade, empathy has been in the spotlight, from design thinking as a way to make better products to awareness of mental health issues.
If you can understand another person’s perspective, you have a more valuable skill than the skill possessed by some machine vacuuming up vast masses of data about no one in particular.
Situational Awareness
Brooks describes this as an intuitive awareness of when to follow the rules and when to break the rules. I call it street smarts. It’s one of the most important skills I see in the best founders. Over the last 12 years I’ve invested in about a hundred early stage startups. The best founders have an instinct for making the right calls, getting themselves out of sticky situations, saying what the other party wants to hear to get the deal done. It’s an instinct best developed by getting out of your comfort zone, being out in the wild, navigating different circumstances.
There are things bots cannot do (at least not yet). They cannot deal with concepts they have never seen before. They cannot take an idea and test it out in the physical world. They have no imagination.
It is up to us to figure out ways to harness the capabilities of AI systems to augment skills that are uniquely human. Just keep in mind that AI systems come with biases and flaws.
Some degree of skepticism is what separates sentient (human) beings from non-sentient machines.
If you enjoyed this week’s issue, you may want to check out issue 42 of Education & Catastrophe ‘Thoughtful Pieces on Generative AI and ChatGPT’.
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Till the next issue!