The collision fo Artificial & Human Intelligence: Are we preparing correctly?
Paul Miser
EVP, Group Director at HOW // Author: Digital Transformation: The Infinite Loop
As part of my evolution in 2018, I’m trying to expand my horizons in what I read. It’s usually a combination of metaphysical self-realization or business books. I know… a bit boring. I came across a podcast last year with Chris Sacca and Tim Ferriss where Sacca referenced a book called “I seem to be a verb,” by Buckminster Fuller. It sounded like a great intersection of metaphysical thinking, business, politics and evolution. So, I snatched it up off Amazon and have been giving it a spin.
So far, I find it to be an amazing parallel in what we’re currently experiencing in business and politics, even though it was written nearly 50 years ago. I find myself getting lost in Fuller’s view on the evolution of the future of automation, globalization, and human’s role in the evolving landscape of the universe. I’m sure it’ll take 2 or 3 times through the book to grasp the depth of the thinking and the complexity of its funkiness.
As I was reading last night, a quote stuck out to me as something that is extremely profound and more pertinent today than ever (remember the book was written in 1970):
“We are educating our computers faster than we are educating our young people… we are still not doing enough to prepare our youth to do what computers can never learn to do.” - Sol Linowitz
As technology keeps blasting into the future, there is an active dialog on how the Human Intelligence fits into the artificially driven future. I mean, Alibaba just built an AI that beat humans in a reading and comprehension test. Personally, I try to have a more Utopian view than Dystopian, but think this is an interesting challenge that we are up against in the coming decades.
I don’t have the answers or enough knowledge to begin asking the right questions, but I think it’s not a topic that should be left to someone else. Rather, something we should all have an active role in defining and implementing. The collision of Artificial and Human Intelligence isn’t a novel concept. It’s been happening for quite sometime. Only, now I feel that we’re nearing a tipping point and we should begin to prepare for that point. This type of divergence creates a foundational element in everything we do from education to talent resourcing to running our businesses. As automation continues to permeate our daily activities in business, our job as its leaders is to reposition our human resources to do the things that AI cannot, while positioning AI resources to do things that humans cannot.
As we build our organizations of the future, we should begin asking ourselves how do we best use the talents of both Artificial and Human Intelligence?