Artificial Intelligence vs. Authentic Intelligence
The robots are coming for us, they say. Programmers, data processors and loan adjusters beware: in a few years A.I. or “Artificial Intelligence” may completely disrupt your industry, leaving you under-qualified and unemployed. Truly in many industries, computers can do jobs just as well if not better than humans. We already trust Siri and Alexa with so many important aspects of our lives… soon they may be doing our taxes and refinancing our mortgages as well.
So where does that leave us? We, simple humans without the accelerated brainpower of a Google-powered device or the ability to work 24/7 without rest or a reboot? What skills, traits and resume builders must we have to remain valuable and with a roof over our heads? What qualities do we possess that A.I. can’t do better and more expediently?
Authenticity. Literally, the “human touch”. In the Hospitality industry where I’ve spent the last 12 years of my career, bright-eyed entrepreneurs are always coming along with new apps, widgets and websites that seek to streamline and simplify our daily workload. Sometimes they are useful but rarely are they enough. Sure, these digital platforms make certain aspects of our lives easier but they do not replace the nuanced expertise of a real live person. They don’t offer thoughtful suggestions or anecdotes from past experiences. They can’t give an honest opinion or reassure you that the choices you are making are good ones. An app isn’t giving you a firm handshake at the culmination of a big deal or raising a glass to toast a new business relationship.
In other words to stay relevant, we as gainfully employed human beings need to stop relying so exclusively on artificial solutions. Pick up the phone. Meet for coffee. Crack a smile or tell a joke for goodness sake! If a client, customer, or prospect is getting nothing more from you than a canned, copied + pasted, emailed response, what actually DOES make you different or better than an app or a bot? How can you seek to make your professional interactions more authentic, more personal, and less automated? Where can you sacrifice efficiency to increase your authenticity?
This will be the mission for all of us cubicle-dwelling mammals looking to survive the dawning of the A.I. era.
