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Part 2, Shaping Your Career in the Age of Artificial Intelligence
5 Strategies to Prepare
Tom Killen
July 01, 2023
Artificial intelligence will affect your career.
It may already have.
For example, a recent Wall Street Journal article explores how it’s already affecting coders.
We don’t know exactly how or when we’ll feel the biggest impacts, but we should all prepare.
In part 1 of this series, I shared four ways that artificial intelligence could affect your career:
➡️ Change your job
➡️ Eliminate your job
➡️ Improve your job and make you more productive
➡️ Make career choices more difficult
I also shared three mindsets you should avoid as you adapt to AI:
❌ Panicking
❌ Hoping it will go way
❌ Assuming everything will work out fine
So, how should we prepare for this evolving and uncertain future?
5 Strategies to Prepare our Careers for Artificial Intelligence
1. Improve our skills in areas where humans have a “competitive advantage”.
This is the logical approach.
What can humans do better than AI? If we focus in these areas, all will be well, but first we have to figure out what those are.
Many believe that improving interpersonal skills, like empathy, are the key. The argument is that humans have the capacity for empathy, and AI never will, so it’s reasonable to focus on building our capabilities in this area.
In a recent episode of the Future of HR Podcast, Dr. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, author of I, Human says this about what employees will need from their leaders in the age of AI.
“When they look at their bosses - their leaders, they’re going to want somebody who actually gives a damn about them. And AI will never give a damn.”
He shares that strengthening interpersonal skills could help leaders differentiate themselves from AI.
According to Dr. Chamorro-Premuzic, experts, going forward, will stand out by developing knowledge that goes beyond the “wisdom of the crowds”. This is how they will differentiate themselves from tools such as ChatGPT.
These are excellent strategies, but the advantages could be time bound.
For example, while AI tools such as ChatGPT don’t have empathy and never will, they fake it pretty well, and I suspect their abilities will accelerate.
I also believe, in the future, AI tools will get better at staying current with emerging information. This will make it difficult to maintain an advantage with new ideas that go beyond the “wisdom of the crowds.”
The upshot - these strategies are probably a safe bet for now, but stay tuned.
2. Learn about the technology.
Early in 2023, after I first experimented with ChatGPT, I shared my perceptions of it on LinkedIn.
While it impressed me overall, the output I got from my query disappointed me. So, I shared this disappointment on LinkedIn.
What followed was several users (mostly) politely pointing out how little I knew about how to use the technology. And they were right.
This inspired me to learn more. So, I purchased a $15 course on Udemy and learned the basics of prompt engineering - a complicated sounding term for asking questions in a way that get better answers.
As I pointed out, in part 1, AI is going to have a significant impact on all jobs. Those who learn about it are going to be way ahead of the game.
Read about it, listen to podcasts, and take courses. There are lots of options for learning out there. LinkedIn Learning offers courses, as do Udemy, Maven, and many others.
3. Stay informed.
This technology will develop rapidly, so we should stay up-to-date on developments.
We stay on top of news about our favorite tv shows, sports teams, and politicians - but it’s likely that AI will have a much bigger impact on our lives than any of these topics.
Fortunately, it’s easy to stay informed right now. News stories about generative AI are everywhere.
And there are niche newsletters that focus specifically on development in AI, such as The Rundown AI.
Stay plugged in.
4. Use the technology.
According to a recent survey of 2000 people only around 1/3 have used ChatGPT or similar AI tools.
It shouldn’t be surprising that Millennials and Gen Zs are much more likely to have used the technology than Gen Xers or Boomers.
So, let me encourage you right now to get your hands dirty if you haven’t already.
Try this query for fun. Copy and paste it into ChatGPT. Insert a movie of your choosing at the end. The source for this query is here.
I want you to act as a movie critic. You will develop an engaging and creative movie review. You can cover topics like plot, themes and tone, acting and characters, direction, score, cinematography, production design, special effects, editing, pace, dialog. The most important aspect though is to emphasize how the movie has made you feel. What has really resonated with you. You can also be critical about the movie. Please avoid spoilers. My first request is "I need to write a movie review for the movie [insert a movie that came out prior to September 2021].
After it gives you an output try this:
Rewrite this in the voice of comedian Robin Williams.
Now try:
Write a sonnet about this movie.
Play with it. Have fun!
Here’s another one.
I want you to act as a food critic who is also a talking dog. Write a review of the bacon your owner gave you as a treat.
As you will see, playing with ChatGPT is highly amusing if nothing else.
5. Be agile and adapt as events unfold.
“AI is about to change the world - the problem is no one’s quite sure how.”
When challenges are straightforward and predictable, we can overcome them by responding linearly. Identify best practices. Create a plan. Implement. Rinse and repeat.
But none of us can predict with certainty how AI will develop - it could develop faster, slower, or in much different ways than expected.
Regulation could have a major impact.
We don’t know the linear approach to addressing this challenge, so, it’s important to be nimble and ready for anything. This will test those of us who prefer lots of structure in our lives. Like me.
We will need to be adaptable - learn, experiment, reflect, and experiment again in order to adjust to this advancing technology effectively.
Bonus strategy:
One more strategy that I’m exploring is investing in the technology. I believe that businesses that create and best use artificial intelligence will unlock tremendous wealth for their shareholders.
The market has already begun to reward players in the AI space.
NVIDIA, for example, is a company that designs chips that power AI technology.
During 2023, their share price has already grown from $143.15 per share to over $400 per share, as I’m writing this. Will this price appreciation continue? Who knows? But if AI delivers the benefits that it appears it will, companies like NVIDIA will do very well.
Should you invest in AI? I’m not an investment professional, so I can’t recommend an investment strategy, but I am exploring it.
Simply investing in an S&P 500 index fund gives me exposure to Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, NVIDIA, Google (Alphabet), and Facebook who are all players in AI.
Summary
Five ways to prepare our careers for AI:
Improve our skills in areas where humans have a “competitive advantage”.
Learn about the technology.
Stay informed.
Use the technology.
Be agile and adapt as events unfold.
It’s challenging and scary to face an unknown future. One way I cope is by remembering the serenity prayer:
“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
I can’t predict, or change, how the AI revolution will go. But I can control how I prepare and how I react as time goes on.
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