In March 2018 I wrote an article on LinkedIn about AI.
Yes, this was 6 years ago.
Perhaps this was too soon to share this information and so it mostly fell on deaf ears (eyes?).
This information couldn't be anymore relevant.
Here is the post, with some very minor tweaks for 2024.
.
.
.
.
One of the biggest challenges we face in the future is uncertainty. We know this.
We have an idea of where all of this technology is going, but we have no clue how it will actually affect the human race.
Sure, we’ll be more efficient, things will get done faster and there will be fewer errors, but how will it actually affect our mental health and wellbeing? Will it bring us closer together or farther apart?
With the way things are going now, and how loneliness is essentially an epidemic, seeing most faces buried in smart phones, my hypothesis is that it will be even more challenging to connect. Our best friends will be Siri and Alexa, if they aren’t already.
Take the movie HER for example with Joaquin Phoenix. It's the story of a lonely writer who develops an unlikely relationship with an operating system designed to meet his every need (IMDB). When Samantha, the system, has to leave, Theodore (Phoenix), he is devastated. Is real love possible between a human and an operating system? Can AI develop empathy?
Here is the trailer if you’ve never seen the film.
I believe humans are more magnificent than any machine will ever be, because we hold the power of empathy and creativity.
The probability of robots having the capacity for either, the way we do, is slim to none, especially not in our lifetime.
First, let’s explore empathy.
Empathy is the ability to put ourselves in someone else’s shoes. We recognise emotions in another, because we have once felt them ourselves.
Here is a blurb from a Big Think article on robots and empathy:
For such emotions to take root, robots will have to have experiences like growing up, and succeeding and failing. They will need to feel emotions like attachment, desire, accomplishment, love, anger, worry, fear, perhaps even jealousy. Robots will need to take part in meta-cognition too, which is thinking about one’s own thinking and emotions.
Robots who can recognize and respond to human emotion are already on the market. A new model, Pepper, by Aldebaran Robotics can recognize not only words, but facial expressions and body language, and responds appropriately in kind. But here, the robot itself isn’t feeling. For that, it would need self-awareness, which requires the ability to feel what others are feeling and to think about those feelings (1).
To reiterate, what separates us from the most sophisticated AI?
Empathy and creativity.
How do we develop these skills?
Play.
Play is a basic biological need and allows us to explore our surroundings and interactions with next to no consequence.
In his book, Play: How it Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination and Invigorates the Soul, Dr Stuart Brown explains,
Throughout life, imagination remains a key to emotional resilience and creativity. Deprivation studies demonstrate that fantasizing – imagining the inner life of others and comparing it to one’s own – is one of the keys to developing empathy, understanding, and trust of others, as well as personal coping skills.
Empathy and creativity are at the core of problem solving.
For all human-centred designers out there, you know that empathy is crucial to get the best intel to develop the most possibility and, therefore, be in the position to make the most informed decisions for your client or business.
And if you aren’t having fun with a problem, you’ll never solve it.
Einstein said, “Creativity is intelligence having fun.”
Creativity can be defined as seeing the world in different ways and connecting patterns to find solutions (2).
A Forbes article entitled, Will AI Replace Creative Jobs explains:
Although humans have barely scratched the surface of AI, computer algorithms are not going to replace our unique capacities for creativity and emotional expression anytime soon…. AI cannot replace human creativity and idea generation, but it may be the greatest supplement to the human brain ever discovered(2).
The article also touches on empathy:
AI does not have cognition, consciousness or the ability to make decisions based on empathy(2).
After hearing Emmy Award winning creative director, Gwen Gordon’s talk at Pause Fest, The Future of Work is Play, there is one powerful message fundamental to our future and current challenges:
Play teaches us connection and adaptability.
Connection deeply supports our mental health and wellbeing, it makes us feel part of something and also connects us to ourselves.
Adaptability prepares us for all of the craziness of the future (edit: this is actually now).
If we’re connected we feel safer, which is a basic human need, and no matter how hectic the outside world is, we find some level of certainty by being connected to each other and ourselves.
If we sprinkle some adaptability on top of that, we are FUTURE READY (edit: ready now)!
Gwen also explained that play generates possibilities, creativity takes those possibilities and makes them actual, and innovation makes them useful.
Steven Johnson, author of the book Wonderland: How Play Made the Modern World explains, “If necessity is the mother of invention, than play is its father.” He believes the joy and delight found in play is the seed for groundbreaking inventions. For example, the first music box laid the foundation for computers.
Our future (edit: now) is play.
If we want to continue to innovate and create to stay relevant, we must cultivate a playful mindset.
The more creative, empathic, adaptive and connected we are, the more we will thrive.
A 2016 World Economic Forum report has predicted that more than five million jobs will be lost to automation and robots by 2020.
Edit: 14% of workers have experienced job displacement due to AI, suggesting that the present impact is somewhat more restrained than the anticipation.
With projections that AI could potentially replace around 800 million jobs worldwide by 2030, it's no wonder the world is brimming with anticipation. The economic forecast is equally staggering, with AI's estimated economic impact reaching a colossal $15.7 trillion by the same year (3).
How do we protect our future ourselves? We become more human.
I’m open to hearing other ways on how we can become more connected, adaptive, empathic and creative.
I challenge you to find another way, outside of the transformative power of play, that will give us the tools we need to make sense of the chaos, bring us closer together and make us relevant in a future full of robots.
Until then, let’s play.
Here are five quick tips on how to invite more play into your life:
1. Put your phone down, try seeing the world through child-like eyes
2. Try on new thing
3. Think of what you loved doing as a kid, and do that thing
4. Invite a friend to go on an adventure with you
5. Spark up a conversation with a stranger
Resources:
Comments