The Machines Haven't Won Yet!

Good afternoon, LinkedIn.

STEM is all the rage, right now. People are rightly concerned about AI coming to take their knowledge jobs. It seems nothing cerebral is safe. Even the trades may see encroachment as the incredible hands of tradespeople, empowered by well-trained minds, may have competition within the next two decades. With AI peppering everything, many folks feel a sense of dread as to what will become of their livelihoods.

But, we humans have superpowers the machines haven't yet matched.

As my colleague, Byron Spires, and I discussed recently on a business call about his growing enterprise, Olokun Consulting, we humans can still learn and adapt to this new environment if we lean on our most valuable toolkit: humanity itself. You see, to be very blunt, the machines cannot and will not human very well in the near future. They may yet get the programming, but if they do it will be humans teaching machines.

"Technical Prowess Will Not Be Enough"!

Quite frankly, many of the technical and computer engineers, software developers, and programmers have been relatively untouchable. For certain, they've been through boom and bust, hiring and firing cycles, but their skills haven't been easily replaced. Now with Devin, Cody, Devika, and others, their skills are being automated. Thus, the human being needs to keep their competitive edge. As the AIs learn to code for themselves, then code themselves, then improve themselves, humans will not be able to keep up - not in speed of development, not in development of new languages, not in the number and type of iterations and testing necessary with all of this development happening at once. Being technically savvy won't cut it.

We gotta get back to human beings.

This is going to hurt some, it even hurts me a little. I am an introvert at core. Yes, I am gregarious and outgoing when we meet in person, but I had to learn those skills, just like I had to learn to type or learn to read. I am good at both of those because of practice, and I am good at being extroverted for the same reason. So a lot of my introvert friends and colleagues will have to learn "soft skills" for the same reason I did - to expand my marketability and opportunity to generate business and serve more clients. We're all going to have to leverage soft skills in new and better ways, becoming better at building bridges with each other.

Can you see what's right in front of you?

According to Talia Fox, CEO of KUSI Global, observation is a human trait that can make anyone more highly employable. "Most people only pay attention if they have a pre-meditated reason. [For example], if I'm talking to you, in order for me to really observe and watch you, I have to feel like there's something in it for me," she says. "A lot of people just observe the things that they feel are going to benefit them. You should observe because you have a genuine curiosity about what's going on around you, not just because you want to benefit from a person or situation, that's what separates highly intelligent people from others."

We will have to solve this problem - fast!

Our greatest minds might be outpaced by machines but we aren't simply squishy hardware, we're full of emotions, contradictions, hunches, and ingenuity. Not everything we do is based on statistical probability. And that's what makes us powerful, when we decide to take advantage of our ability to learn, practice, and use wisely our soft skills. We can learn one or more than one. We can focus on observation, as mentioned above, or the other top soft skills, time management, critical thinking, and professionalism. Or we can develop our own, unique perspective that combines the best of who we are with the best that machines and people have to offer. In any case, the technical side of things will diminish, although not disappear entirely. And it is up to us, especially knowledge workers, to expand beyond the skills that got us stable lives and incomes, and into the softer, more difficult to master skills of our near future.

Peace and Purpose,

Emille