Are You Ensuring That You Are NOT Future Shocked by AI?

As we’ve covered before: AI creates the potential for massive upsides AND massive downsides. But everybody’s pointing at someone else to solve for the downsides.

Those are the current rules of the game: Some of us will be much more creative than ever with AI’s help... And... We’re also co-authoring difficult-to-face downsides. You don’t get one without the other.

First, the Heavenly Bliss…

 Thanks to Linearity for compiling these creativity stats…

• 95% of creators take action to support causes that are important to them
• 94% of hiring managers consider creativity important when hiring candidates
• 90% of business leaders believe creativity is essential to compete in their markets

And some AI creativity stats…

• Humans still outperform AI in creative divergent thinking
• About 90% of people improved creative performance with GenAI
• Creative pros already see GenAI as an important part of their future
• There are gazllions of AI Cheat Sheets out there, including one that will turn your presentation slides into an instructional cheat sheet

Clearly, your creative future is so bright, you gotta wear sunglasses 24x7!

Wooohoo! Bring on the AI future!

Ooops… Wait…

Then There’s the Dark Side…

Pre-ChatGPT days, my research on disruption uncovered…

As you can see in my TED talk: “The Disruptive Law of 1-to-1 states that, for every person who is empowered, uplifted, and gloriously giddy because of what we do in disruptive technologies… There is also an equal, and opposite impact. Somebody else’s life just got a whole lot harder, more complicated, uncertain, and possibly perilous.”

Tristan Harris and Aza Raskin echoed this 1:1 law in their powerful talk, The AI Dilemma: “When you invent a new technology, you uncover a new species of responsibilities. For example, we didn’t need The Right to be Forgotten to be written into law until the Internet could remember us forever. And lurking behind the joys of our first contact with AI, using social media — Give everyone a voice… Connect with your friends… Join like-minded communities — came online addictions, harmful disinformation, increasing mental health crises, and impacts on children’s identities and self-worth. … The race to create AI programs is causing companies to do things that are fundamentally unsafe.”

Welcome to the Future Shock Zone, which is inseparable from your sunny creative future…

Via Linearity: Our future of work already has many built-in creative downsides…

• 75% of us are pressured to be productive rather than be creative
• Only 25% of us feel our creative potential is maximized at work

… And those downsides are now being thrown into overdrive by our Robot Overlords…

• AI has already taken over resume searches, throwing more and more of us into a job-seeking black hole. Robot recruiters are making it harder to get noticed. (Companies SAY they value creativity, but their robot recruiting processes SUCK at screening for creativity! Mainly they’re searching for checked-boxes: Bachelor degree? Certification in this-or-that? How many years have you done the exact same job as what’s posted? What results did you generate for the company?)
• ChatGPT scores better than 99% of the human population in tests of both how many different ideas it can produce and the originality of these ideas
• ChatGPT generated 7 times more top-rated product ideas than elite business school students
• Wealth inequality — the gap between rich and poor — will be widened by AI

What Can You Do Now? What Must You Do Now?

Here are the three steps outlined in that TED talk:

• Take Personal Accountability: We need your help. You don’t need to solve for global AI Armageddon. Start local, act local, and act up… Your voice matters. Diversity and inclusion in companies didn’t happen on its own: Bottom-up pressures created that. Women’s powerful roles in business didn’t happen from Y-chromosome generosity:  Bottom-up pressures created that.
• Change the Conversation: Your voice can do that! Below are some specific talking points. Be sure that if you’re not struggling, you talk to someone who is. Understand their 1:1, Future Shock struggles. That understanding becomes part of the changed conversation.
• Create New Measures: That will happen as a direct result on you changing the conversation!

We need your help changing the conversation…

Ask… Push publicly, loudly…

• Has your company done a formal all-employee AI Readiness Assessment?
• Has it used that assessment to design AI Era training and development programs?
• Has it evaluated its employees and new hires for the seven non-technical skills that are needed to thrive in the AI Era?
• Does your company know which employees’ jobs, roles, and functions are likely to be eliminated by its use of AI? (At least 20% of the workforce.)
• Has it created support, coaching, mentoring, and training for those at-risk employees? Or is it just planning on tossing them aside as part of cost-cutting initiatives?
• Share this post or these questions with your peers and directly with your CEO, CIO, CHRO, COO, heads Training and Development, Change Management, User-Centered Designs, Productivity, and Recruiting… And/or ask them in public forums like town hall meetings. And don’t stop until changes happen.

Most importantly… Ask yourself…

• Are you doing all you can right now to ensure YOUR future is not Future Shocked?
• And look around… We’re all in this together… Are you doing what you can to ensure someone you know and care about is not Future Shocked? Help others!

Bill Jensen is a seasoned strategy and transformation executive, advisor to C-suite execs, globally-known keynote speaker, and author of nine best-selling leadership and change books, including Simplicity, Disrupt, Future Strong, and The Day Tomorrow Said No. Reach him at bill@simplerwork.com.