Handling Pervasive Change In the Artificial Intelligence World

Things are changing quickly. Technology is rapidly reformatting expectations in work. Changes in work are reshaping expectations in life. We live in a time that evokes fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) about what the future will hold. The FUD is pervasive.

Icky stuff, this FUD, and it is everywhere.

We like the warm, comfortable predictability of certainty. Knowing what is coming and knowing we’re ready for it.

For that reason, many of us resist change. We’d prefer that the world not change because if it changes, we must change with it. That is the nature of environmental change. When the environment changes, the organisms in it must also change.

Evolve — or Die

It takes a new state of mind to embrace new tools.

To abandon the oxen and move to the tractor. To abandon the carriage and try the car. To put down the bow and take up the gun.

At each one of these forks in our proverbial road as a species we found progress opposed by people clinging to the carriage and scoffing at the car. Pointing out the shortcomings of the gun and extolling the virtues of the bow.

None of these guys look very smart in hindsight.

It takes courage to embrace the new and move away from the old, which is a difficult step for us. This is somewhat complicated by the nature of these new tools. We’re talking about tools that we cannot see or touch, which make no noise, and which are awfully difficult to compare with the tools of previous generations.

Artificial intelligence

The world is undergoing such an upheaval that our lives will be changed. Sure, jobs will go away. I’m putting a lot of energy into writing narrative non-fiction, and the capabilities represented by artificial intelligence are not lost on me. Many things written by people, personally and professionally, will no longer be written by people.

In these times, we tend to be biased toward the negative. To look at the bad things that come from all of this change, to lament our discomfort and hope the change comes slowly. Preferring anything that forestalls the inevitable to embracing the change with wild abandon, adopting a sense of adventure, and encouraging the change to come faster still.

I think the hard part about a change like this is that artificial intelligence is going to change our lives in so many ways that, when you add them all up, it looks like a different life.

Skills For the AI Age

In times like these people have a tendency to spend a lot of time talking about skills. Asking questions like:

• What are we going to do with the workforce displaced by the technology?
• How are we going to prepare our children with job skills for a work environment we cannot see clearly?

We tend to focus on teaching specific, tangible skills. These are nice because the outcomes are measurable, and we can easily see our progress. Degrees and certificates passed out and counted up, reassuring us that we’re responding adequately to the world’s changes.

Unfortunately, it is the frustratingly intangible that is critical for the world that is coming. Industrialization propagated a wave of change through society, reformatting the world. Our contributions transformed from physical to mental. Labors transitioning from brawn to brain.

We Automated Brawn, Now We Are Automating Brain

Our insecurities about the reality of this change are significant. For most of us, it isn’t immediately apparent where the next wave of our development goes. How does one succeed in a world in which the brainy stuff we used to do is done cheaper / faster / better by a machine?

What skills do I need to develop? Where can I get them?

The first wave of change with industrialization required us to transition from brawn to brain. Our skills transitioning from physical to mental.

This new wave requires that we transition from brain to heart.

From mental to emotional.

One thing is for sure — the world we are leaving and the one into which we will transition in my life are both filled with people. Artificial intelligence will not replace us; we’ll still be here.

The most important parts of our lives have never been our work. They have always been our relationships. Now, the skills related to people, both personally and professionally, are going to be the most important skills for us to develop in the new age. Both skills that serve ourselves and skills that serve others.

These skills include things like knowing how to be well. Not just physically — but mentally and emotionally. How to see yourself clearly and, with that clarity, to change who you are into who you need to be to adapt with the changing world. How to establish and maintain deep connections with the people in your life — personally and professionally.

It means learning to be grateful. To forgive easer, to love more. To be capable of having truly great conversations, with a friend or a stranger. To learn to establish and maintain boundaries. To understand how to be a good friend. A better father. A great spouse.

To handle tragedy.

I cannot tell you what the world will look like in five years or ten years. But I can tell you that in five or ten years, the people living in it will be struggling unless we get better and work on ourselves. Without these skills, change will make the world harder, not easier.

I can tell you that mental and physical health epidemics don’t improve without us taking steps to change them. The steps are not legislative. We cannot fix a collective bucket of 300 million personal problems in this country with a policy solution. In this and so many other areas of your life, the government cannot (and should not) be your deliverance.

We must each decide to become a better version of ourselves and undertake the effort to build him or her. We must put the same kind of energy we put into being better professionals into being better people. Every great thing ever done started with a few motivated people with a vision for a better world.

Let’s Chose To Help Ourselves

In the face of this change, we must dig down to the bedrock of our soul and build something better on top of that solid ground. We must take developing our emotional and mental skills seriously.

Many of us put far less energy into developing ourselves to be better people than we do into becoming better professionals.

We need to change that.

To create a better balance in prioritizing our spiritual, mental, emotional, and physical health. Not to make it possible for us to contribute more at work, but because doing so makes our contributions more significant. That improving these areas of our lives makes connections with people, at work and at home, deeper, and our lives richer, more significant, and longer lasting.

In the world that is coming, we need to grow as fast, or faster, as people than we do as professionals.

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