Career Planning

3 Human Super Talents AI

Will Not Replace
by Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic and Reece Akhtar

May 28, 2023

HBR Staff; Andriy Onufriyenko/Getty Images

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 Summary. Will the new AI tools we’ve all heard so much about eliminate your job
prospects before you even get started? Don’t worry too much. You can have a...
more

You made it through college and got your degree. Now, it’s time to
take the corporate world by storm. But wait — will the new AI
tools we’ve all heard so much about eliminate your job prospects
before you even get started?

Don’t worry too much. The AI age will actually create many new
human jobs — more so than it replaces. You can have a
meaningful, exciting, and even creative career. But in order to
succeed and stand out from your peers, you’ll need to learn how
to leverage these new tools and cultivate the skills machines can’t
replace.

As business psychologists, we spend a great deal of time studying

the attributes that help people get ahead at work. Our research
suggests that there are three critical talents AI is unlikely to
replace, and that harnessing these talents is key to thriving in the
future AI age.

Curiosity: Don’t let AI make you boring, biased,

predictable, or narrow-minded.
AI continues to influence more and more aspects of our lives. On
almost every digital platform — from social media and streaming
services to mobile apps and the sites we browse online — AI
algorithms have the capability to automate our decisions and
influence our attention, making us more predictable, less
creative, and quite simply, increasingly boring creatures.
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 You may think you’re immune to all this if you’re not seeking a
job in tech, but no matter what discipline you majored, AI is
coming to (and for) your industry. Today, historically human-
centric professions are also being impacted by smart
technologies. ChatGPT, for example, can write marketing copy,
craft poems, and provide sound business advice. Google has a tool
that generates music. Midjourney is producing award-winning
art. Some creators are even using AI to revive cult-classic sitcoms.

Instead of letting this scare you, let it inspire your curiosity. After
all, curiosity is one human trait that AI has yet to successfully
mimic. Use your naturally inquisitive nature to brainstorm how
you can benefit from these tools. If done thoughtfully, you can
leverage AI to improve your productivity and performance in any
field. This will help you stand out from your peers — especially
from those who may dismiss or ignore this technology.

Here’s how to get started.

1. Explore these new tools, ask questions, and get creative.

Brainstorm a list of tasks you’d like help with, such as some of the
more routine, uncreative, and repetitive tasks on your to-do list.
That’s exactly the work that AI is designed for. OpenAI allows
anyone to create a free account and is one way to begin
experimenting. On this platform, you can ask AI to complete
different tasks for you. For example, you can use ChatGPT to help
craft copy for newsletters, analyze data, and even write
presentations. (You may have to play around to craft the perfect
prompt, but that’s part of the learning experience.)
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 You’ll quickly realize that — although it’s not full proof — AI
often takes new approaches to solving familiar problems, and it
can help you solve problems that you have no training or
knowledge about. By getting curious and investing the time to
learn how you can offload boring tasks onto AI, you’ll be rewarded
with more time and mental energy to do the things that AI can’t
— building relationships, thinking strategically, and being truly
original.

2. Don’t fall into an AI-driven routine.

Although it’s important to explore new AI tools, be mindful of

overdoing it. The last thing you want is AI to begin automating
your entire life. While AI may temporarily satiate your intellectual
hunger, tools like ChatGPT are equivalent to fast food: They can
give you instant gratification but can also easily be misused and
addictive. It’s hard for us humans to be curious about everyday
experiences when we are immersed in routine, repetitive, and
familiar activities. Instead, think of AI tools as seeds that are
meant to sprout your more original curiosity, imagination, and
creativity. Use them to inspire you and make you more inquisitive
about the world beyond them.

To avoid falling down the rabbit hole of an AI-driven life,

intentionally pull yourself away from it. Attend a networking
event in-person, take a different route on your daily walk, or try
out a new hobby. Engage in deliberate wondering and deep
exploration. These new experiences can also stimulate your
hungry mind and increase your appetite for understanding and
learning.

Humility: Don’t let AI undermine your self-awareness.

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 The more data AI receives, the more accurate it becomes at
predicting our desires and preferences. AI lulls us into a false
sense of security by only serving us the content that we want to
see and the ideas that we already agree with — it’s classic
groupthink and confirmation bias. Left unchallenged, it can make
you stagnant and overconfident. That’s what it’s so important to
investigate the content you consume, challenge yourself to
consider different and diverse points of view, and really get to
know yourself beyond what AI is telling you.

The truth is, we are all inherently flawed — no one is perfect at

everything. For example, maybe you struggle with
communicating your ideas but don’t realize it because everyone
on your social media feed seems to “get you.” It’s okay to have
weaknesses and areas in need of improvement, but failing to
identify and manage these gaps in your skillset will lead to poor
decision-making, strained working relationships, and
unnecessary conflict. That’s why practicing humility and
expanding your self-awareness, two things AI can’t do, is so
important. Here’s how:

1. Get to know yourself.

Career success is equal parts hard work, luck, and knowing how to
apply your talents. To achieve the latter, you must develop a deep
awareness of your personality. Estimates suggest that 90% of
people lack self-awareness at work. Your goal is to be in the 10% of
people who do. Ask yourself: What behaviors come most naturally
to me? What inspires me? What gets in my way? Taking a
scientific personality assessment can also give you the data to
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 reflect on and answer these questions. You don’t necessarily need
to change your personality, but learning how to manage it is an
essential part of being a successful employee and person.

As you reflect on these answers, try to identify gaps between the

person you are on an everyday basis, the person others see you as,
and the person you would like to be. AI tools can actually help you
on your self-awareness journey. For instance, when your phone
notifies you that you haven’t gotten up in a while, or your smart
watch says you’re not getting enough sleep, you may feel a sense
of guilt. Investigate that feeling. Are you not acting according to
your own ethical or lifestyle standards? Is there anything you can
change to get closer to that version of yourself?

2. Ask for feedback.

AI is incredibly good at adapting and accepting feedback — you

should be too. Getting accurate feedback, and knowing how to act
on it, will enable you to target personal improvement areas that
will have the biggest impact on your career. Unfortunately, 83% of
young professionals never receive meaningful feedback from
their managers. That’s why you may have to take things into your
own hands. Email your closest colleagues, asking three questions:

1. What should I start doing?

2. What should I stop doing?
3. What should I keep doing?

Be clear that you’re looking for honesty — not just about yourself,
but about how you can improve your skills in relation to your
changing industry. This will help you build a strategic career plan
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 that prepares you for major job challenges and the emergence of
new AI tools.

Emotional Intelligence: Don’t forget what it means to be

human.
Just like the industrial revolution mechanized physical labor, AI
is mechanizing intellectual capital. As a result, your ability to
build connections, practice empathy, and communicate
effectively (your emotional intelligence) matters more than ever.

So much of our formal education is spent growing our knowledge

and intellectual capital, while our social and emotional
development is often overlooked. As you start out in your career,
practice these two things to give your emotional intelligence a
boost:

1. Focus on others just as much as yourself.

Think about how much time you currently spend in meetings or

communicating with others. This will only increase as AI shifts
the emphasis of work from doing to coordinating. In the age of AI,
the organizations that will be most successful will be those whose
teams can work effectively together. As you kickstart your career,
you will be tempted to put yourself first. It may seem necessary as
you attempt to grow, but remember: To get ahead, you must get
along.

Before sharing an opinion or making a decision, pause and think

about your teammates. Are you working in service of the team’s
goals, or your own? At first, you will have to remind yourself to
ask this question. But eventually, your empathy skills will become
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 second nature. As a rule of thumb, prioritizing other people’s
goals and interests is the best way to help you achieve your own,
for you will turn them into allies.

2. Learn to deal with conflict.

To be employable in the age of AI, you have to be likeable. No one

wants to work with people who are rude, untrustworthy, and
inconsiderate — and AI tools make it even easier not to. That’s
why it’s so important to learn how to handle conflict effectively,
be more cooperative, and avoid arguments when possible. One
way to do so is to be extra attentive when communicating
digitally, especially over email or messaging. So many of our
interactions with others are technologically mediated, which
leads to impulsive, cold, and antisocial exchanges whereby
conflict emerges. Even those who would naturally express
warmth and kindness to others are nudged into being aggressive
(at times passively so) when communicating digitally.

The extra shield of our devices causes us to forget our empathy for
others and unleash our uninhibited and uncensored self. So
before sending a message to your coworker, remind yourself that
you’re dealing with a human on the other side. When conflicts
emerge, try to understand their perspective so you can move
forward together. AI will only continue to make communication
among humans more detached — but people will always crave
working with others who are calm, cool-headed, and able to de-
escalate conflicts. There’s no question AI will win the IQ race, but
EQ will remain quintessentially and uniquely human, even if AI
learns to fake empathy and consideration.

...
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 As AI matches human-level intelligence, the challenge of
standing out when looking for your first big job or promotion has
never been greater. You shouldn’t ignore these advancements —
after all, there isn’t an industry that will be left untouched by AI.
Your challenge is to be proactive in investing in yourself. If you
stay curious, practice humility, and focus on others, you will be
well positioned to thrive in these exciting times.

Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic is the Chief

Innovation Officer at ManpowerGroup, a
professor of business psychology at University
College London and at Columbia University,
co-founder of deepersignals.com, and an
associate at Harvard’s Entrepreneurial Finance
Lab. He is the author of Why Do So Many
Incompetent Men Become Leaders? (and How to
Fix It), upon which his TEDx talk was based.
His latest book is I, Human: AI, Automation,
and the Quest to Reclaim What Makes Us
Unique. Find him at www.drtomas.com.

 @drtcp

Reece Akhtar, PhD. is CEO and co-founder of

Deeper Signals. He is an organizational
psychologist, data scientist, and visiting
lecturer at NYU.

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