When The Machine Is Smarter Than You, What’s Your Role?

Artificial intelligence is expected to soon outperform people in almost every way. What does that mean for human potential?

Here’s a fun fact: In 2020, our planet had more connected devices than humans — around 30.73 billion smartphones, laptops, TV’s, along with security cameras, refrigerators, traffic lights, electricity meters and more. All of these ‘communicate’ with each other, part of the Internet of Things (IoT). In four years, by 2025, that figure will more than double, over 75 billion; 11 devices for every human being on the planet.

We are surrounded by and dependent on machines that have integrated into our daily lives. With the latest AI evolution, those machines learn on their own, autonomously. By interacting with humans and the environment, they now recognise words, images and gestures, make thousands of PowerPoint presentations in hundreds of languages, take orders, educate or placate customers, drive cars, deliver packages, recognise faces, identify fraudsters, track down criminals, compose music, write sports reports, and defeat the greatest chess and Go players.

What’s left for humans?

The rise of the machines, fascinating or disturbing?

Depends on where you are and who you ask. In Japan there’s a far more positive view on automation. In the US 70% of the workforce fear the rise of robots. In the UK, roughly 50% expressed concern on robots driving unemployment. On the face of it, AI is great news for the economy. A recent report published by PwC estimates that artificial intelligence will add a US$15.7 trillion windfall to the global economy by 2030, boosting local GDP’s as much as 26 percent. AI will also radically transform our societies (potentially for the better). Imagine how many lives could be saved through continuous monitoring of digital patient data, or how much more efficiently food can be grown, whether farming or in a lab. In Japan, there’s a more positive perspective on about automation. In the US and UK, therfear robots: it’s deeply embedded in Western culture.

So why is there such worry about the defining technology of our age?

Hacking and privacy concerns aside, the biggest fear is the replacement of the human to the machine. According to a McKinsey study, automation could reduce as many as 73 million jobs in the U.S. by 2030. Globally, robots may put 800 million jobs on the line by same time frame. The dark side of this study, “160m women could lose their current jobs to automation” in less than a decade.

Automation no longer impacts jobs you thought would be hit, like machine operators or production-line workers. As machines effectively learn and think for themselves, any task that can be learned will potentially replace or disrupt workers.

“Smart machines are becoming autonomous and able to tackle non-routine cognitive tasks previously the exclusive purview of people,” write Hess and Ludwig, authors of Humility Is the New Smart: Rethinking Human Excellence in the Smart Machine Age. Tasks carried out by accountants, paralegals, traders, bank employees, real-estate agents, secretaries and customer relationship managers could simply disappear.

In their book The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies, MIT’s Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee issue a stark warning, “.. there’s never been a worse time to be a worker with only ‘ordinary’ skills and abilities to offer, because computers, robots, and other digital technologies are acquiring these skills and abilities at an extraordinary rate.”

What can people do?

Because we tend to anthropomorphize machines, we often project capabilities on them which they do not have. For instance, a machine is much faster than any human at doing mathematical calculations, or can hear infra-sound beyond the human ear.

But (and this is an important ‘but’) a machine can never know the taste of an apple, and never have ‘human skills’; asking questions, listening, creating, inventing something truly original, communicating with empathy and compassion.

Here’s an example. Playing chess is easy for a computer to learn because there’s a finite (though extremely large) number of moves to be studied, and winning is about calculating probabilities.

The job of a bartender, on the other hand, is incredibly difficult for AI. It requires abstract, soft and interpersonal skills, all of which have to be linked together in real time, with on-going noise or distractions. A machine can make a drink and open a tab, but it cannot create an atmosphere, chat with customers, help fit the pieces of life’s puzzle together, or pick out a cocktail to your exact preference. We’re still far from ‘The Terminator’, where the survival of mankind is at stake and machines have the power to take over the planet.

Looking forward, it’s likely that some part of your job will be impacted by AI. But not every part.

Jobs that require human interaction, adaptability and creativity will surely remain the purview of humans, even as the arduous and repetitive part of work is handed off to the machine.

For us to thrive and stay relevant in the forthcoming AI era, we have to focus on the critical and inter-relational skills which a machine can’t do well. It is then, and only then, that we will be able to deliver the highest levels of social and creative intelligence.

Coaching for human intelligence

Like AI, we must learn through trial and error. But unlike a machine, at a certain point in our development, our learning incorporates emotion. We naturally solve problems through awareness, intuition, empathy and foresight. In the range of what people can do, in flexibility, creativity and human connection — AI doesn’t come close.

And that’s exciting. We know exactly what will mean to be ‘smart’ in this new, digitized world of work. It also means that the extent to which you will be impacted (or replaced) by machines is entirely up to you.

How do you plan for this shift? Concentrate less on the practical, technical skills, and more on those skills which make you uniquely human:

● Creativity

● Situational awareness

● Intuitive insights into others’ motivations

● Making connections across complex ideas

● Empathic Accuracy

● Leading with purpose

If you’re lacking in some of these areas, make time for some coaching. Coaching is a space to talk about the challenges you can solve and what’s unique about the way you solve them. How can you tap into your specific strengths to achieve success for yourself and your organisation? What qualities do you already possess which can help? What do you stand for? How do you use those values to advocate your life’s purpose?

Embracing an agile mindset is key in the new AI era. When you know your strengths and can consistently flex and build value from those strengths, AI will less likely be a threat and more an opportunity. You’ll be ready for the next phase of work, machine and human working side by side, using their respective strengths in the best possible way.