Discernment: The human advantage… until AI took over…

What has always defined us, Sapien, is our ability to discern. The ability to analyze complexity, weigh truths and make decisions. But now, even that’s being outsourced to AI.

In seconds, AI delivers strategies that would take us days, weeks, even years to formulate… with precision and scale.

Remember when calculators first emerged…? Skeptics worried humans would lose the ability to do math. And when computers became mainstream, people said we’d forget how to solve problems.

Now, with the rise of AI, we worry that it will soon take over our jobs and lead us into a future where employees are reduced to mere button-pushers, and leaders no longer knowing how to think critically.

It’s a real possibility. But it’s not the only possible future.

Lucky for us, we’re not too far into the AI revolution yet to lose our power to shape it.

A career extinction-level event

"What should I advise my kids to study…?"

This question echoes through every Q&A session I do on AI's seismic impact on business and society. It comes from parents, mostly across Asia Pacific, who just watched me dismantle their career aspirations for their children.

Lawyer…? AI drafts contracts in seconds.

Accountant…? AI audits faster, cheaper and error-free.

Even doctors are facing AI diagnostics that outperform humans in speed and precision.

In a region where academic success has been the golden ticket to upward mobility, this shift is unsettling...

The changing face of career success

Across Asia Pacific, there’s a palpable sense of optimism about AI’s potential.

A survey done on over 15,000 adults from 17 countries showed that workers in China, India and Vietnam see AI as their ticket to global tech leadership, a leapfrog opportunity. But at the family dinner table, it’s a growing source of anxiety.

For some parents, the rise of AI threatens the very career paths they’ve worked so hard to navigate.

Particularly in Asia, career success has always been about stability and prestige. And the formula was simple: ace your academics, get into a “big name” profession, climb the ladder and secure your family’s future.

Now…? The ladder is missing steps, and everyone’s scrambling to figure out what “prestige” even means in a world where machines can outperform humans at many of these jobs.

And this cultural tension between stability and disruption is creating a stark generational divide in how we approach AI itself.

The generational AI divide

What we’re seeing today is an older generation stuck in a loop, trying to preserve a status quo that may no longer exist.

The familiar script of academic excellence, a prestigious job and steady career advancement no longer holds the same weight in a world where machines are increasingly outpacing humans in many roles.

But while the older generation wants to “protect” human expertise, the younger generation is figuring out how to enhance it through AI.

PwC’s Global NextGen Survey 2024 shows that 70% of Gen Z aren’t sitting around waiting for the AI revolution. They’re living it.

From AI and AR virtual try-ons, making “try before you buy” the norm, to AI-powered personalized learning in schools, Gen Z’s are embracing AI as their co-pilot for life.

Parents may be panicking, but their kids are adapting.

And that, right there, is the gap we need to bridge.

Crumbling career hierarchies

This brings us to the problem of: the slow death of grunt work.

When I started in marketing, I spent hours clipping media reports, analyzing trends and writing summaries. It wasn’t glamorous, but it was foundational. That grunt work taught me how industries operate, how to spot patterns, how to think strategically.

Today, AI has already obliterated these entry-level tasks.

In PR, interns no longer sift through mountains of articles or draft press releases from scratch… ChatGPT can generate summaries and polished drafts in seconds.

Good for efficiency, bad for expertise development.

If junior roles disappear, where do people learn the basics…? Do we create “AI-free internships” just to simulate the grind…? Well, that’s not just impractical… it’s ridiculous.

We’re staring down an “expertise development paradox”: the better AI gets at handling the basics, the harder it becomes to organically grow human expertise.

A new blueprint for AI education

We need to blow up the old education model.

AI fluency has to become a core skill, right up there with reading, writing and math.

And no, this isn’t about turning kids into little armies of coders.

Andrew Ng , co-founder of Coursera and DeepLearning.AI, argues it’s time to ditch outdated classroom practices like memorizing facts or regurgitating formulas (tasks AI already does better), and instead embed AI into every subject, from history to art, teaching students to collaborate with AI, not compete against it.

And governments and organizations worldwide are starting to respond.

The WISE initiative by Qatar Foundation , in partnership with the Institute of International Education (IIE) and universities across seven countries, is exploring AI’s role in higher education and workforce preparation. Their focus: “How can academia and industry collaborate to upskill educators who are responsible for teaching AI to the next generation of workers…?”

Their findings, which will be presented in 2025 at Doha, will set the stage for the next generation of AI-driven education. But even today, we’re already seeing practical applications emerge.

BYJU'S is pioneering a new culture of adaptive learning by encouraging students to learn with AI, not simply from it. In 2024, BYJU'S launched BYJU'S WIZ, a suite of AI models reshaping education:

• BADRI: an AI progress tracker for students, pinpointing their strengths and weaknesses with laser precision
• MathGPT: a math-solving AI agent that breaks problems into bite-sized steps tailored to each student’s level of understanding
• TeacherGPT: a virtual tutor on call 24/7, offering personalized guidance when students need it most

Fei-Fei Li , a pioneer in AI education and co-director of Stanford’s Institute for Human-Centered AI, takes AI education even further. For her, students need to learn the risks of bias, misinformation, and over-reliance before they’re even handed the keys to an AI-driven world.

This will be critical to keeping their thinking sharp and their decision-making grounded. And eventually, businesses will need to build on these foundations, creating lifelong learning programs that ensure employees remain adaptable in this ever-evolving tech landscape.

Ultimately, this new way of learning will lead to a total reboot of how we assess skills.

Schools and universities will need to ditch the outdated obsession with rote memorization and standardized tests. The future demands dynamic, tech-powered environments where students work alongside AI to solve real-world problems.

Forget cramming for exams... project-based learning that values practical application over theoretical recall should become the priority.

And as academia evolves… the workplace will too.

Hiring will shift from checking boxes on degrees and diplomas to looking for what really matters: the ability to lead with AI.

Again, these upgrades are only blueprints for the future. The real challenge lies in implementing them on a global scale… reimagining both curricula and culture.

So, are we truly ready to overhaul education as we know it…?

The existential crossroads of Humans and AI

As we prepare the next generation for an AI-augmented world, maybe it’s time to abandon the illusion that we can preserve traditional professional skills. Maybe we’ve become too fixated on how we can outperform AI, that we may be overlooking something crucial at this turning point of innovation: the possibility that we never will.

Now we must confront a stark reality.

If the wealth gap once concerned us, we now stand at the edge of a potential global AI gap. With over 1 billion people still offline, how can we realistically overhaul education to include AI fluency when entire regions lack the basics…?

Accessibility needs to be the starting point.

Without a focus on it, the promise of AI education will remain an exclusive privilege rather than a global equalizer. And as the boundaries between human and machine intelligence blur at breakneck speed…

Only time will tell how this story unfolds.

Our most vital task might not be teaching the next generation to keep pace with machines but to deeply understand, embrace and value their humanity.

In the end, it may be this very ability: the courage to confront complex questions and wrestle with uncertainty, that becomes our most enduring strength.

The human advantage AI can’t take over: our resilience to evolve.