Don’t worry if you’re worrying about being made obsolete. Your job isn’t being automated tomorrow by artificial intelligence. However, a new future of work is being re-shaped faster than most of us can search for “Is ChatGPT replacing me?”.
You’re in good company with people fearing this change. But there’s a catch. Automation and extinction aren’t necessarily the same thing. Possessing the right knowledge about what skills to learn will render you relevant and crucial.
AI is Your Competition, not Your Replacement
Goldman Sachs estimated that AI can potentially automate 300 million full-time jobs across the globe.
Let’s be real. AI can write an email, run numbers, and even make a disease diagnosis. But it hasn’t yet learned what human beings do best: connect on an emotional level, think creatively, or find solutions to fuzzy, gray-area challenges.
A report by McKinsey & Company confirms what many already know: While generative AI will make work more automated, it will also heighten the demand for social, emotional, and cognitive skills.
In other words, the competition isn’t to outcode machines but to out-human them. Let’s see what you can do to combat this problem.
1. Emotional Intelligence (EQ) Is Your Strength in a Robot Age
AI may be able to replicate empathy in customer service scripts, but it will never truly empathize. Emotional intelligence leads every list of future-proof skills because of this.
Dr. Travis Bradberry, co-author of Emotional Intelligence 2.0, cites the following:
“People with high EQ make an average of $29,000 more per year than those with low EQ.”
How to Sharpen it?
Start with the exercise of active listening, really listening and not just impatiently waiting to say your say. During conflict, attempt to settle it by focusing on what another person requires and not solely on what you need.
To be empathetic, try writing in a diary for a week as another person.
It’s oddly useful. Read novels or biographies that place you in other people’s inner lives. The more variety of perspectives you read, the more instinctive your empathy will be.
2. AI Is Unable to Manage the Gray Areas
AI excels at number crunching but falters when there is no definitive solution to a problem. Complex problem solving requires juggling several moving parts, conflicting priorities, and human dynamics, all of which machines can’t quite get their digital hands on.
A 2020 report from the World Economic Forum included complex problem-solving in the top 10 future skills.
How can I improve?
You start with cross-functional projects that will engage your brain and challenge you out of your comfort zone. Learn to be comfortable being in a state of ambiguity and deciding with incomplete data, and reversing decisions when new data comes in as and when.
Playing chess or other stimulating games will work your logical muscles. Or choose a business, medical, or public policy case study and jot down a few ways things might end up. The exercise here is to get used to thinking in terms of layers rather than straight lines.
3. Creativity and Innovation: The Human’s Ultimate Stronghold
AI may be able to rework existing ideas, but originality? That’s a human gift. The greatest algorithms cannot come anywhere close to matching your ability to think outside the box laterally, to connect dots in new ways, or write in metaphors.
Adobe’s Future of Creativity study revealed that 82% of companies associate creativity with increased revenues.
How to Level Up Your Creativity?
Take an improv class and develop your sense of spontaneity and comfort with risk. Create a low-stakes side project with which to play without fear of consequences, so creativity has some room to breathe.
Reading fiction works wonders for your imagination and empathetic skills, specifically fiction that tests boundaries or meanders into the surreal. Try to shake your surroundings or routine because creativity happens after you step out of your comfort zone.
Curiosity propels you, so cultivate following after it.
4. Critical Thinking: AI can Analyze but Lacks Judgment
AI may be able to give you a million data points. But AI cannot weigh context, pose what-if questions, or eliminate bad assumptions. That’s where critical thinking happens.
Linda Elder, president of the Foundation for Critical Thinking, has this to say regarding the issue
“In a world of accelerating change and complexity, we must learn to think critically to make sense of it all.”
How to Develop Your Critical Thinking
Apply Socratic questioning to daily life by simply asking “why” repeatedly until you arrive at the root cause of a problem. If you are ever confronted with a major decision, break it down into smaller components using tools such as flowcharts or even simple pros and cons lists.
Reading conflicting opinions, and especially conflicting opinions to your own, will challenge assumptions and hone your logic. Go over decisions made periodically and figure out what you overlooked or calculated wrongly. Half the battle is figuring out how to critique your own thinking.
5. Leadership and Influence: AI Can’t Inspire People
People follow leaders, not platforms. Leadership is founded on trust, inspiration, and vision. Whether one leads a project or a team, one’s ability to inspire action brings a benefit that AI systems don’t.
According to a study by Gallup, 70% of the variance in work team engagement can be attributed to the manager.
How to Boost Your Influence
Work on public speaking so you can rally other people to support your cause with enthusiasm and a level head. Use conflict resolution with an eye toward bridging gaps, not widening them.
Mentoring another person informally also hones your own ability to lead ahead and with compassion. Observe great leaders who’ve succeeded and study how they managed to resonate with people.
Influence isn’t a thing of charisma. It’s a result of consistency and credibility.
6. Adapting Technology and Cyber Literacy: Work with AI and Not Fear It
Knowing how to work with AI is as crucial as knowing what AI cannot do. Being digitally literate isn’t simply utilizing tools like ChatGPT, data dashboards, and collaboration tools, but also challenging them.
How to Upskill
Start by taking an AI course like Elements of AI and learn the fundamentals without getting mired in the terminology. Try out automated workflow tools like Zapier or Notion AI and experiment with them on real work.
Stay reading blogs or listening to podcasts on technology in order not to get blindsided by the next great overhaul. Join online forums where users share tips and tricks, and frustrations with technology tools.
Knowledge shared is knowledge learned rather than learning in a vacuum. Pilot new tools on a small task before rolling them out across your workflow when in doubt. The goal? To be the human-AI hybrid that companies desire to have on board.
7. Adaptability and Lifelong Learning: The One Skill Which Keeps Everything Together
If there’s one skill greater than any other skill, it’s adaptability. The world of work changes on a daily basis, and how you reskill, change direction, and develop will keep you in front.
LinkedIn’s 2024 Workplace Learning Report concluded that 94% of workers would work at a company for a longer amount of time if the company invested in employee learning and development.
How to Remain Nimble
Create a personal development plan tied to your long-term career goals. Allocate a weekly time slot on a constant basis to do online tutorials or courses. Stay on top in your sector. Tomorrow’s most meaningful transformations will be hidden in today’s LinkedIn updates and podcasts.
Get constructive critique on a constant basis from your mentors and peers so you don’t learn in solitude. Your will to learn will be greater than your natural ability.
Make AI Work for You and Not Instead of You
Let’s stop freaking out and level up. The machines may be coming, but you’re going nowhere. Double down on finding skills to learn the machines can’t do, not only will you survive, but thrive.
If you choose to reskill, upskill, or even a little bit of a combination of the two, your career growth trajectory isn’t going to be derailed by AI. It’s open-ended if you’d like to choose to go after it.
Want to future-proof your career? Become curious. Become human. Get moving.
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