The Summer Series - Episode 3: AI-liberated from competition and performance race at workplace

Welcome to the resonate's Summer Series again. Hope you are enjoying your personal time this summer!

This series is meant to be a series of reflections on what we do on daily basis. The reflections taken from an external, disconnected perspective, so that it influences you to improve and evolve. Please enjoy with proper mental distance and hopefully a glass of Chardonnay in your hand.

Episode 3: AI-liberated from competition and performance race at workplace

The AI influence on our lives has clearly been a subject of interest and discussions all around the globe for decades. Today I take a perspective on the AI's influence from the angle of human relations at workplace. 

As we experience it these days companies look for highly performing individuals to be able to compete with their market competitors. This leads to creation of specific work environment in which high performers contributing to the competitive race are valued over any other type of workers. Here is my hypothesis: 

Performance of individuals will no longer be the most sought trait of individuals in the AI era. Employers will be looking for purely human traits that AI cannot replicate as human relations will be even more important than today.

And here is my thinking behind the hypothesis:

In the MIT Technology Review’s article titled Elon Musk’s Neuralink says it’s nearly ready for the first human volunteers, Elon says: Even under a benign AI, we will be left behind. With a high-bandwidth brain-machine interface, we will have the option to go along for the ride.

During an event in San Francisco yesterday evening, the startup unveiled a sewing-machine-like robot used to implant ultrafine flexible electrodes deep into the brain to detect neuron activity.

Imagine the times when AI is significantly more intelligent than human. And the fact of its dominance is widely accepted by individuals, societies and governments. These will be liberating times for many - individuals will not be the highest performers in the area of executing logical tasks in the Universe. Naturally, for some individuals the declaration will be painful and will take a form of: Not that I like it but I have to accept it.

In terms of intelligence, i.e. IQ, individuals will be assessed and measured as very similar and close to each other: the variation between 50 to 150 IQ points that spans the whole range of intelligence available for human beings will simply become a single point around the value of 100 on the wider scale of intelligence available for AI. What seems to be big differences among individuals today will be neglectable when compared to AI IQ power. Imagine AI systems with IQ on the level of 10^6. The Roger Waters post-war dream that We are all equal in the end will come true in this aspect :) 

What does this IQ equality mean to relations at the workplace and to hiring preferences of companies? Clearly the competitiveness and performance will no longer be in the center HR interest as AI will be dominating in this area. Employers will be looking for purely human traits that AI cannot replicate as human relations will be even more important than today. The more human one will be, the more chances s/he will have to get a job.

In this way the two cardinal traits of individuals sought for in the "Orange" evolutionary level of the workplace, performance and competitiveness, will no longer be in the center of employers’ interest. Many people will be able to quit the exhaustive game of corporate career race and will be able to relax, and concentrate on developing their personal humanity. People will have more reasons to live in harmony, focused on the welfare of their societies, local communities and the environment they live in. As a consequence the "Orange" evolutionary level will be left behind allowing workplaces and societies to evolve beyond IQ dominance.

What a liberating thread of thought!