6 skills that will be key in the age of artificial intelligence
Miscellaneous / / November 15, 2021
From the ability to concentrate to the ability to rest.
Although the capabilities of computers are still far from desired, the tasks of people at work are changing, and with it the requirements for employees. The skills that will definitely come in handy in the future are trying to identify Kevin Roose, a famous journalist and columnist for The New York Times.
His book “Resilient to the Future. 9 Rules for People in the Age of Machines ”was published in Russian by the publishing house“ MIF ”. With his permission, Lifehacker publishes an excerpt from the second part.
I recently decided to compile my list of skills that will start to be highly valued in the future. I call them the "human qualities of the machine age." On the one hand, these are not entirely technical skills, and on the other hand, they are not the same as those acquired when studying classical humanitarian subjects like philosophy or Russian literature.
These are practical skills that, in my opinion, will help anyone - young children and adults alike - maximize their advantage over machines.
1. Attention guard
Daniel Goleman, the psychologist who popularized the term "emotional intelligence," says Goleman D. Focus. About attention, distraction and success in life. M.: Corpus, 2017. that one of the key skills of the future will be the ability to concentrate - to manage your attention.
He writes that the ability to concentration and disconnecting from external distractions will help navigate a rapidly changing future and adapt to the ups and downs that we are most likely to experience in the conditions of technological change.
According to Goleman, those who are good at focus are less prone to confusion, better able to show composure in crisis situations and maintain balance despite emotional outbursts life. “Concentration” I prefer the term “attention protection” - it reflects the fact that today, when most of us are trying not to succumb to distractions, we are exactly protecting our attention from the attack of various external forces: social networking applications, notifications of breaking news, a cavalcade of messages and emails that try to distract us and knock us off course.
There are proven ways to train your mind to teach it to guard your attention more carefully. One of them is meditation; studies show Xu M. et al. Mindfulness and Mind Wandering: The Protective Effects of Brief Meditation in Anxious Individuals // Consciousness and Cognition, 2017. that even a short, eight-minute session can reduce distraction. Breathing exercises, walks in nature, and prayer also help.
For me, the best ritual of protecting attention turned out to be reading: putting the phone away, I sit down and for a long time, without interruption, I read real, printed books. But it would not hurt if scientists got more involved in the tactics of protecting attention, given the enormous amount of mental energy and money spent in order to distract us.
The ability to guard your attention is usually referred to as life hacks for enhancements Productivity: It's a way to get more done with less distraction. But learning to protect oneself from the influence of forces striving to seize it and direct it in the other direction is necessary not only for economic reasons.
Prolonged concentration is a prerequisite for acquiring new skills and full communication with people.
It is necessary to explore yourself and develop a positive self-awareness that will withstand the effects of machines. After all, as claims Harari Yu N. 21 lessons for the 21st century. Moscow: Sinbad, 2019. historian Yuval Noah Harari, if the algorithms are better than you yourself, to understand what is happening inside you, then the power will pass to them.
2. Assessment of the situation
Recently, I was listening to a lecture by Indeed.com chief economist Jed Kolko, and he made an unexpected suggestion about which group of people is well prepared for the future. For people belonging to the LGBTQ community who have had to hide their orientation, things may go especially well in the age of AI and automation, since many of them have a history of subtle social maneuvering that requires a high level of emotional intelligence.
“The skill that is acquired due to the need to hide one's orientation - the ability to soberly assess the situation - does not apply to those which can be found in some skill list, but it can serve well in any workplace, ”said Kolko.
Developing Kolko's thought, I will assume that women and representatives of racial minorities, many of whom are forced to switch from one language to another day after day and change behavior in the workplace, where prevail white men, too, will be in an advantageous position in the future.
The same instinct that makes a woman leader soften her tone so that she is not considered aggressive, and tells a black employee that, when giving a report before the group, you should switch from African American vernacular to literate English, it can be very useful in areas where a subtle social flair.
Of course, it would be much more enjoyable to live in a more just society, where women and minorities do not have to look after themselves so carefully. But for those who get the hang of quickly calculating the bias and prejudices of others, the machine age may turn its good side. And for those of us who don't have to switch from one language to another and constantly assess the situation, we need to try to develop these skills in other ways, because we will need them.
3. The ability to rest
One of my favorite places on social networks is an Instagram page called "Shepherds of the Sleepers" (The Nap Ministry).
She is guided by Hersey T. Listen: You Are Worthy of Sleep // Social Distance podcast, April 30, 2020. Tricia Hersey, black performance artist and poet from Atlanta. A few years ago, when Hersey was studying in the theology department at the university (it was around this time that the Black Lives Matter movement was born), she realized she was exhausted and exhausted by her studies and the widespread videotaping of police brutally suppressing performances dark-skinned.
And Hersey decided to try a little sleep during the day. After evaluating the effect of daytime rest on her state of mind, she appropriated herself the title of "Bishop of Dreams" and started a page Slumber Shepherds to teach others, especially emotionally drained blacks, about the transformative impact brief breaks to sleep.
“Rest is productive,” Hersey said in an interview. - When you are resting, you are productive. I'm trying to rethink vacation and dissuade people that if you are not 'busy with something' in the conventional sense, then you are worth nothing. "
Hersey believes sleep and rest breaks are more than just self-care, but an act of resisting pressure. dominant white race and capitalism and a step towards recapturing black people from culture haste. Her Instagram page is full of inspirational quotes such as “Relaxation is the practice of liberation” and “You are not a machine. Stop plowing. "
Although I do not belong to Hersey's target audience, I am deeply grateful to her for helping to reimagine the rest and see: this is the question social justice and the skill needed for those who need the energy to resist oppression and fight for a more just future.
Our education system does not provide daytime sleep for those who have emerged from early childhood. However, the ability to rest - to turn off the head, to recharge the body - is a skill that is becoming more and more important for people of all ages. It helps prevent burnout and exhaustion, allows you to look at the problem from the outside and see the whole picture, makes it possible to get out of the wheel in which we spin like squirrels, and reunite with our true, human "I am". And for many of us, including me, it would not hurt to come to grips with developing this skill.
In previous economic conditions, when the value of a person was determined primarily by physical labor, daytime rest was usually considered an unaffordable luxury. But in a new economy, where we will be different from machines, we will be creative, human skills, you need to reconsider your attitude to the ability to rest, to understand that this skill is necessary for survival.
Science unambiguously confirms the connection between recreation and various human activities. Research conducted by neurospecialists of the Army Research Institute. Walter Reed and other leading institutions have shown Killgore W. D. S. et al. The Effects of 53 Hours of Sleep Deprivation on Moral Judgment // Sleep, 2007; Killgore W. D. S. et al. Sleep Deprivation Reduces Perceived Emotional Intelligence and Constructive Th inking Skills // Sleep Medicine, 2007; Harrison Y., Horne J. A. Sleep Deprivation Affects Speech // Sleep, 2010. that with chronic lack of sleep the ability to make correct ethical judgments is impaired, the level of emotional intelligence decreases, and it becomes more difficult for a person to communicate with others. (And that's not talking about the effects of sleep deprivation on physical health.)
In addition to learning the art of relaxation, structural change must be sought to limit burnout and overwork on a wider scale.
Such measures are already being taken in other countries. In Japan, in 2019, they legally limited Tanaka A., Sutton T. Significant Changes to Japan's Labor Laws Will Take Effect in April 2019: Are You Prepared? // Littler, February 12, 2019. overtime work of up to forty-five hours a month and introduced fines for companies that do not comply with the restrictions. In France, a law that came into force in 2017 establishes Petroff A., Cornevin O. France Gives Workers 'Right to Disconnect' from Office Email // CNN, January 2, 2017. for workers "the right to disconnect" and protects them from the requirement to respond to emails after six in the evening. In the United States, some companies began to introduce mandatory leave and turn off general emails on weekends.
Some universities are introducing pilot courses on the benefits of recreation for students. At Harvard, freshmen are now only admitted to campus if they have completed an online course called Dream 101, based on a popular seminar taught by Baglione J. M. Countering College's Culture of Sleeplessness // Harvard Gazette, August 24, 2018. renowned sleep researcher Charles Chaisler. Brown Universities, Stanford Universities, and New York Universities offer their own optional sleep courses for students.
But such courses cannot be reserved only for students of elite universities. In an automated future where our contributions will increasingly be driven by major breakthroughs, inspirational ideas and emotional stability, good rest will become even more important role.
4. Digital discernment
Since I'm a tech columnist and social media columnist in particular, I've had to write a lot in recent years about disinformation and conspiracy theories. And I noticed, as you must have noticed, that nowadays even very intelligent people sometimes find it difficult to determine where the truth is and where the lie.
And this is no coincidence. Billions of people receive news and information from social networks like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, using algorithms for which the main thing in the information is whether it clings or not, and its veracity is not so really important. Advertising banners on these platforms are made to resemble regular posts as much as possible, therefore, most users, quickly scrolling through the feed, cannot distinguish a paid message from simple.
And in those rare cases when the information is examined for reliability, for example, next to the post of an ardent anti-vaccine a link is placed to the page of the World Health Organization with information on vaccine safety, the very fact of verification becomes material for new conspiracy theories, since social networks have already taught users not to trust the main authorities.
I do not like the buzzword "media literacy" because it implies that people can be trained in the only correct way to synthesize and interpret information from news and information sources, many of which contradict and resist each other, and some are deliberately created by malicious media hackers to fool audiences and manipulate public opinion.
I prefer to talk about "digital insight," and this term reflects the fact that orientation learning in the hazy, messy online information space is an endless process that changes every time technological shifts occur, and media manipulators master new tools and platforms.
Lack of digital discernment is turning into a real social problem.
In 2015, a group of Stanford scientists decided to evaluate McGrew S. et al. Can Students Evaluate Online Sources? Learning from Assessments of Civic Online Reasoning // Theory & Research in Social Education, 2018. The "online logic of the population": more than seven thousand middle and high school students and students were asked to take simple tests on literacy in news evaluation.
One test was this: Participants were shown an article on financial planning sponsored by a bank and written by the CFO and asked if they believe this information is from an objective and reliable source.
Another test was that participants were asked to read two similar posts from Facebook - the first was taken from the official Fox News page, and the second from a fake one - and determine which one is genuine.
The results were disappointing. More than 80% of attendees accepted the ad copy — a note paid for by an advertiser labeled “sponsored material” —for a real news article. And over 30% thought the fake Fox News Twitter account was more credible than the official page.
“In every case and at every level, we were amazed at the unpreparedness of schoolchildren and students,” the researchers wrote.
Lack of digital discernment is not just a problem for young people. One study showed Chokshi N. Older People Shared Fake News on Facebook More Than Others in 2016 Race, Study Says // The New York Times, January 10, 2019. that during the 2016 elections, people 65 and older were seven times more likely than younger people to share false information from the Internet on social media.
It is really difficult to recognize lies on the Internet, but in the future it will become even more difficult when algorithmically generated texts, realistic audio recordings generated by speech AI, and fake video material ("deepfake") created using machine algorithms learning.
There is no perfect solution for the problem of recognizing false information on the Internet, but experts have already achieved some success. In a 2018 report by the nonprofit Data & Society, Monica Bulger and Patrick Davison wrote Bulger M., Davison P. The Promises, Challenges, and Futures of Media Literacy // Journal of Media Literacy Education, 2018. that, despite certain shortcomings of existing media literacy programs, some measures have shown their effectiveness.
For example, they talk about the hashtag #CharlottesvilleCurriculum, which became trending on Twitter after the hateful action of white nationalists Unite the Right in Charlottesville in 2017. After this rally, when the Internet was teeming with highly biased and false information, educators and organizations like the Anti-Defamation League published their recommendations under this hashtag in order to establish a constructive dialogue in educational institutions about racism, prejudice and tolerance.
This is a good start. But we desperately need to assess possible measures and understand which ones actually work: not only help people ceased to take false information on trust, but they also return to reality those who believed in conspiracy theories or fell for fake.
In a chaotic information environment, where everything is turned upside down, a person's ability to separate facts from fiction will become a superpower.
Digital discernment will enable people to better filter information, not be fooled by deceivers and charlatans and see clearly through the fog of modern information warfare.
5. Analog ethics
Frank Chen, a venture capitalist investing in AI startups, recommends that people who ask him what skills will be valued in the future read an unusual book. This work, titled All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, was written by in 1986 by Priest Robert Fulgam, and it contains many simple life tips such as “share everything you have,” “play by the rules,” and “clean up after yourself.”
Chen thinks Chen F. Humanity + AI: Better Together // Andreessen Horowitz (blog), February 22, 2019. that the basic skills that the child acquires before learning to read and write, and which boil down to treating people well, acting ethically, and taking into account the interests of others (all of this I call "Analog "Analog" is used here as an opposition to "digital" - outdated, but, it turns out, not outdated. - Approx. transl. ethics "), we will need it very much at a time when a person's significance will be determined by his ability to interact with others.
Frank Chen
Venture investor.
I understand that this foundation needs to be layered with a whole set of practical and technical skills, but I agree with [Fulgam] that a foundation that has many EI [emotional intelligence] and compassion and imagination and creativity is an excellent springboard for training people: doctors who know how to find the best approach to sick; sales representatives who solve my problems, and not someone else's; crisis consultants who understand exactly when the situation becomes critical - to the future, in where machine learning will be the main driving force and people with algorithms are better off acting together.
Research shows Jones D. E., Greenberg M., Crowley M. Early Social-Emotional Functioning and Public Health: Th e Relationship Between Kindergarten Social Competence and Future Wellness // American Journal of Public Health, 2015. that the assimilation of the principles of analogue ethics can have a positive effect on a person's life.
In 2015, the results of a study were published, which tracked participants from kindergarten to early adulthood. Those with well-developed prosocial, non-cognitive skills such as positivity, empathy, and the ability to manage their emotions were more likely to achieve success in adulthood.
Another 2017 study found Taylor R. D., Oberle E., Durlak J. A., Weissberg R. P. Promoting Positive Youth Development Through School-Based Social and Emotional Learning Interventions: A Meta-Analysis of Follow-Up Effects // Child Development, 2017. that people who in childhood studied according to programs of "social and emotional" development, more often received higher education, were less likely to be arrested in adulthood, less often diagnosed disorders mental health, even taking into account such indicators as race, socioeconomic status and location of educational institution.
Young children, of course, have always been taught the foundational skills of being taught to share, to play by the rules, to apologize. But now schools have begun to develop detailed programs, the main purpose of which is to cultivate kindness.
The Good Program - a set of training materials from the Center for Healthy Mind at the University of Wisconsin at Madison - develops important mindfulness skills in preschoolers that help them notice their own emotions and emotions others.
And the program "Origins of Empathy", developed by the Canadian educator Mary Gordon and develops the ability of schoolchildren to empathy and emotional literacy, applied in fourteen countries, including the United States, South Korea and Germany.
Students also recall the basics of analog ethics. For example, at Stanford University, you can enroll in the Become Kinder seminar and study the psychology of altruistic behavior.
At New York University, students in the Real World course develop an important skill for the future - the ability to adapt to changes - performing special exercises: looking for a way out of the simulated complex situations.
At Duke and Pittsburgh Universities and other leading medical schools, oncology fellows can enroll in the Onco Conversation course and learn to handle difficult conversations with cancer patients.
This is a good start, and it is imperative that opportunities for teaching analogue ethics are expanded beyond just improving lives. people, but also in order to prepare them for a future where communication and emotional skills will become one of the main values.
6. The ability to foresee the consequences
In the future, the most valuable skills will be the ability to think about what the implementation of systems can lead to. AI and machine learning, and anticipate how these systems might affect society when given "free rein."
We are now faced with the unintended consequences of the introduction of planetary AI systems such as Facebook and YouTube, and we see that the developers and directors who conceived them did not take into account that they can be used for other purposes, used in selfish interests and cheat.
I am convinced that most of these systems were not designed to cause harm.
Their creators and developers were idealists, it seemed to them that good intentions are more important than good results.
In part because of these omissions and billions in spending on companies fixing their own mistakes there is now a growing demand for people who can spot a flaw in a technological system before it will lead to disaster.
Large tech companies are hiring specialists in areas such as law enforcement, cybersecurity and public policy, have practical experience and are able to foresee the possible consequences so that they evaluate new products and calculate how much harm they can apply.
In the future, the need for such people will increase significantly, and not only developers will be needed. You may also need specialists who understand human psychology and know how to assess risks and probabilities. (As admitted The Daily podcast. Jack Dorsey on Twitter's Mistakes // The New York Times, August 7, 2020. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, he regrets not hiring a specialist in Twitter in the early days of Twitter. game theory and a behavioral economist to help the company understand how malicious people can harm Twitter systems.)
The ability to predict the consequences will be needed in other, non-technological areas as well, as AI is being implemented in more and more industries and creates more opportunities for error.
Physicians and nurses will need to understand the advantages and disadvantages of medical imaging tools and understand why they are drawing the wrong conclusions. Lawyers will have to learn to look into the depths of algorithms used in courts and law enforcement agencies, and take into account that they can make biased judgments. Human rights defenders will need to understand how tools like facial recognition systems can be used to spy on and target vulnerable populations.
To train prospective professionals to calculate the consequences, for example, you can introduce special subjects into STEM programs or come up with special rituals for initiation ceremonies.
In Canada, engineering graduates take Hudson E. An Inside Look at the 'Not Secretive but Modestly Discrete' Iron Ring Ritual for Canadian Trained-Engineers // Th e Sheaf, January 10, 2013. an engineering initiation ceremony from the 1920s. Each of them is given an iron ring, which is worn on the little finger and reminds of the duty to work for the good of society. Then the graduates take an oath and, above all, undertake "from now on, not to endure and not to assert, not to be involved in the approval of poor work and low-quality materials."
Imagine that Facebook and YouTube programmers go through a ceremony like this before they release their first software component or train their first neural network.
Would this allow to solve all the problems of society? Of course not. But maybe it would remind them that the stakes are high and they need to remember how vulnerable users are? Quite possible.
"Resilient to the future" will appeal to those who are interested in the development of technology and the future of mankind. Kevin Roose draws on scientific research and studies the latest discoveries in AI.
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