Compassionate Accountability In An A.I. World

In the past, jobs were about muscles. Now they’re about brains, but in the future, they’ll be about the heart.

As A.I. increasingly finds its place in our world, the big question becomes, what role will human skills play? The authors of this NYT piece, Aneesh Raman and Maria Flynn, argue that in an AI world, building interpersonal relationships, negotiating between parties, and guiding and motivating teams will become the most critical skills that only humans can perform. I can’t think of a better description of what we call Compassionate Accountability®.

Here’s what’s happening. Right now, software engineers are in extremely high demand. However, research by Linkedin estimates that 96 percent of a software engineer’s current skills — mainly proficiency in programming languages — can eventually be replicated by A.I. Raman and Flynn believe there will be engineers in the future, but they will most likely spend less time coding and more time on tasks like collaboration and communication.

Despite the race toward A.I., CEOs still value people skills the most. Over 70 percent of executives surveyed by LinkedIn last year said soft skills were more important to their organizations than highly technical A.I. skills.

As A.I. quickly takes over any task that requires analysis of data, our human skills to communicate effectively through diversity, practice compassion with each other, think critically, collaborate, innovate, and adapt to change will only increase in value.

The article concludes with this powerful prediction:

“The knowledge economy that we have lived in for decades emerged out of a goods economy that we lived in for millenniums, fueled by agriculture and manufacturing. Today the knowledge economy is giving way to a relationship economy, in which people skills and social abilities are going to become even more core to success than ever before.”

Never before in our history has the need for compassion and accountability been greater. With so many tasks being delegated to A.I., what’s needed now are humans who can build relationships while getting results. We need leaders who can deftly navigate the nuance of human experience, leverage diversity toward a shared goal, and turn conflict into creative potential. That’s Compassionate Accountability.

What are you experiencing?

What are your predictions?

What are you doing to prepare?

Copyright Next Element Consulting, LLC, 2024