Skills to cultivate in the age of AI and New Technologies
I’ve recently been invited to speak about the future of our careers at the conference titled ” The Future of AI & Emerging Technologies In Education” at the “Dubai Future Foundation”.
As much as we need to address what the education system covers in their curricula to tackle massive changes in the skills demand, this is a broader challenge that we are facing when it comes to our future careers, how we upskill, re-skill, and develop a right mindset to thrive in the Era of AI
We have to remember that AI automation and new technologies, won’t just create or destroy jobs, they will transform them and create many new human jobs.
There’s no sense in fighting against it. We need to embrace AI, the new technologies, and what comes with it.
Re-skilling, Upskilling and different skills needed
We are now facing an unprecedented situation where we need to shift and pivot very quickly and be agile to understand what skills we need to teach younger generations so that they can be prepared for jobs in 20 and 30 years. But, given the speed of technological change, this can be tricky since we may not know what the jobs in 20 or 30 years will look like.
We know the massive benefits that AI is bringing to Education system, from personalised training, to intelligent tutoring systems, to automated grading, NLP - chatbots interacting with students, and massive benefits of augmented reality and immersive learning.
Overall, AI in education has the capacity to enhance learning outcomes, improve teaching efficiency, and create more inclusive and personalised learning experiences for students, ultimately shaping the future of education for generations to come.
This is, however, not only about developing the younger generation and addressing the educational system. This is also about reskilling and upskilling people now so they can not only respond to the AI revolution, operate in it successfully, without a fear that their jobs will be replaced, but thrive in it.
Tech and Non-Tech skills for our careers in the age of AI
For us to thrive in our careers in the new world, we need to look at it from two aspects: upskilling from the technology side but, increasingly important, from the non-technology side - the Human Side.
There is no doubt that AI is going to change the way many of us work and some technologies will only accelerate the pace of workforce transformation. In the coming decade, 20% to 30% of the time that people do at work could be transformed by automation, leading to significant shifts in the skills required.
PwC Global estimates that AI will contribute $15.7 trillion to the global economy by 2030. Which only shows the potential of change.
The most recent research by McKinsey on the Technology Trends 2023*, identified 15 most significant technology trends unfolding today.
These trends are creating a significant shift in demand for different and new skills across all industries.
Technology Trends and shift in demand for different and new skills
The 15 New Technology Trends, bucketed into 5 broader categories (AI Revolution, Building Digital Future, Cutting-edge engineering, The Sustainable Future, Compute & Connectivity Frontiers) will create a need for re-skilling and upskilling and we need to pay attention to what skills we now need to thrive in this new AI world.
We can’t overstate the importance of talent as a key source of growth and we see a huge shortage of qualified talent has been a persistent limiting factor in the growth of many high- tech fields. There’s a wide gap between the demand for people with the skills needed in the tech trends and available talent.
We see a high increase of 15% in job posting for Technology Jobs between 2021 to 2022, only in one year. Applied AI and Next-Gen Software development together posted almost 1 Million jobs between 2018 and 2022. Generative AI saw the most significant and fastest growth of 44% with 400,000 jobs created between 2021 and 2022. The skills gaps and increase in jobs* posting we also see in:
Electrification and Renewable +27% increase
Machine Learning +23%
Trust Architectures and Digital Identity, +16% growth
Future of mobility 15%
Cloud and Edge Computing+12%
Immersive Reality Tech +10%
Advanced Connectivity +7%
But also Space Technologies +16%
Web3 +40%
Quantum Technologies +12%
With this, we see talent crunch across most industries - it is a challenge.
The Human Skills To Thrive in AI World
As much as learning the technical skills required to work in the era of AI, no matter what industry is probably a good idea, it is not the only area to upskill.
As I said before, AI and new technologies won’t just create or destroy jobs, they will transform jobs and will create many new human jobs.
But, the half-life for hard skills or technical skills is getting shorter as technology rapidly changes.
What this means is that the technical skills are changing faster than ever - to the point where it’s likely that what students learn in their first year of Computer Science degree could be obsolete soon after they graduate. The same applies to the workplaces.
And AI will only accelerate the pace of technology and even automate some of the hard skills that IT professionals have to offer. Just a few years ago there was a big push to have everyone learn to code. While we still need people who can code, the growth of low-code or no-code platforms now reduces the need for coding skills. Now AI can develop AI, Intelligence can develop Intelligence.
This, in turn, creates a space to focus on different aspects of work and cultivating skills like creativity and strategic thinking. This also means that soft skills will only become more important.
And this brings me to the second aspect which is the non-technology side of upskilling in the AI world - the HUMAN SIDE.
The skills that we will have to develop and cultivate are the skills that machines can’t do or replicate. And these are the ‘soft skills’ - the ‘GPSs - General Purpose Skills'.
Underlying that is to develop the right mindset to be able to thrive and cope in a world where change. This mindset is critical for any human being now and covers the following:
Mental resilience
Emotional flexibility
And most importantly, ability to constantly change, evolve, and reinvent ourselves
Overall: developing a mindset of Life-Long Learning.
6 SUPERHUMAN SKILLS THAT AI WON’T REPLACE
I identified 6 superhuman skills that we need to now embrace, develop more, and cultivate that will prepare us for fulfilling careers in the age of AI:
Critical thinking
Flexibility
Emotional Intelligence
Intellectual Curiosity
Leadership Skills
Humility
Plus, AI Ethics.
Critical Thinking - this is going to be an indispensable skill - the purposeful, reasonable, forward-looking, and reflective thinking when you are faced with complex situations and issues. Sometimes asking the right questions is more important than answers themselve. E.g. “What should we be doing now when we created all these technologies that can do all these things?”
Flexibility - developing a mindset of resilience and flexibility, embracing continuous change and adapting to it.
We need to be learning, exploring, adding new skills to our portfolios, changing careers, changing jobs. Our education and professional development needs to embrace it and coach for that mindset.
And what I coach on my clients for career management is that now we don’t have the career ladders anymore, we have a career lattice meaning that we have to develop a variety of different types of skills and capabilities to navigate through our career, rather than just having one direct career roadmap. It is about developing the career portfolio rather than just the career path.
Emotional Intelligence - Let’s not forget what it means to be human. Just like the industrial revolution mechanised physical labour, the AI is mechanising intellectual capital.
What it means is that your ability to build connections, practise empathy, and communicate effectively which starts with, what I call ‘olympic-style’ listening, dealing with conflicts, managing diverse teams, collaborating - the EQ - matters more than ever now. And often social and emotional education is overlooked as we focus on building intellectual capital BUT it is critical for any manager and leader.
Intellectual curiosity - let not allow AI to make you boring, biassed, predictable, or narrow-minded. AI continues to influence more aspects of our lives and AI algorithms have the ability to automate our decisions and influence our attention - making us more predictable, less creative, and to some extent, boring creatures.
Instead, let’s be curious to learn how you can use AI tools to boost your productivity, creativity, and performance, not replace it.Humility - let’s not let AI undermine your self-awareness.
AI is becoming better in predicting our preferences and desires. To the point it will tell us who we are and what we are supposed to like and do. It serves us content that we like to see. It will know us more than we know ourselves and it is becoming more powerful in particular in combination with Biological Knowledge - when Biological Knowledge is combined with Data and Computing Power it may have the ability to Hack humans. Let’s not fall for it.
Investigate and pay attention to the content you consume and what is being fed to you, challenge yourself, explore different points of view. Expand your awareness and practise humility - that’s something that AI cannot replace.
Leadership Skills - at the core of leadership is to empower others, to motivate them, to make them better versions of themselves, to show them a vision and inspire them to follow that vision with you - so these are the skills of 21st century that education institutions must have to prepare their students for the world of AI
And lastly, AI Ethics - the moral principles and guidelines that govern the development, deployment, and use of artificial intelligence systems. We must ensure that AI is used responsibly, fairly, in unbiased ways, with data privacy, inclusivity, accessibility - in ways that benefit society as a whole.
AI IS MATCHING HUMAN-LEVEL INTELLIGENCE
I want to leave you with this as my final remarks:
The IQ of ChatGPT 4 is estimated now at 155, and Einstein's is 165 - so the current ChatGPT is almost as intelligent as Einstein….
We clearly see that AI is matching human-level intelligence. We shouldn't ignore these advancements as there won’t be an industry untouched by AI.
Our challenge is to provide the right education, upskill in the right skills, provide platforms and ecosystems where those skills can be accessed and cultivated.
But also to be proactive in investing in ourselves, staying curious, keep developing leadership skills, EQ, being flexible, keep learning new skills and adopt the LIFE-LONG LEARNING MINDSET.
* McKinsey & Company Digital, Technology Trends Outlook 2023
