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The Essential AI-Ready Skills Everyone Needs
For Tomorrow’s Jobs
Bernard Marr Contributor Follow
Jul 29, 2024, 01:24am EDT
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Thanks to AI, work will look very different in the near future than it does
today. According to the World Economic Forum, 85 million jobs will be
impacted by AI by 2030, and millions of new jobs will be created that don’t yet
exist.
In a world where the pace of change is accelerating dramatically, it will be our
skills -rather than our education, work history or past achievements – that
define our value.
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In practical terms, employers will be less concerned about what we know or
have achieved in the past and more interested in how we can apply
knowledge and abilities to solving modern business challenges.
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So, what will this mean in the age of AI? How do we prepare for a world
where machines will carry out many of the tasks that humans have
traditionally had a monopoly on? And what skills will we need to ensure we
remain relevant and able to create value? Let’s take a look.
Two Core Skillsets For An AI Future
I believe the skills essential for staying relevant in the future can be divided
into two groups. Broadly speaking, we can refer to these as AI skills and
human soft skills.
Firstly, having AI skills doesn’t necessarily mean becoming an AI engineer or
data scientist.
Instead, it involves the ability to use AI effectively, augmenting our own
abilities and overseeing its output. This means becoming an effective AI
collaborator, delegator, and supervisor.
As AI becomes increasingly omnipresent, the ability to identify and use the
best tools will be crucial in virtually every profession.
Secondly, human soft skills represent abilities that AI either can't do yet or
can't do as well as humans. These skills are rooted in the qualities that have
made humans so successful as a species in evolutionary terms. They allow us
to work together, solve complex problems using diverse data, navigate social
situations, creatively solve problems, critically evaluate progress, and create
emotional connections with others.
As machines become more capable, the value of these uniquely human
abilities increases. These two skill subsets are complementary, and developing
them in tandem is key to building future-proof skills.
Let's explore each of these skill sets in more detail.
AI Skills
AI skills are a broad category encompassing everything that has to do with
working with AI effectively.
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Of course, it includes the technical data and computing skills needed to
design, build and deploy AI systems. But not everyone will need to do that.
It also covers general AI literacy, which means understanding what AI can do
and how to apply AI tools to achieving specific goals.
This involves understanding the AI landscape in terms of the available tools
and applications, and their capabilities and limitations, as well as proficiency
in using and operating these tools.
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It covers skills such as prompt engineering, which involves being able to
frame human and business problems in a way that AI can address.
A central concept is “augmented working” – a term that’s frequently used to
describe the ability to use AI to automate routine tasks, allowing a human
professional to work more efficiently.
Understanding how to use AI to aid and boost creativity is a valuable skill, too.
This could involve using it to generate ideas or create multiple iterations of
our own ideas to suit different audiences.
People with skills needed to supervise AI workforces and act as the critical
“human-in-the-loop” required to ensure accuracy, safety and fairness will be
highly valued in workforces of the future.
Crucially, so will those with an understanding of the ethical and legal
implications, such as an ability to recognize when there is a danger of bias or
breach of privacy or when an organization’s use of AI might be overstepping
the boundaries set out by regulation and legislation.
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Soft Skills
With AI taking care of much of the technical work, human soft skills – things
that machines can’t yet do – will become exponentially more valuable.
Among the most important will be the ability to strategize at a high level.
For example, ask an AI delivery optimization algorithm to plot the most
efficient route for a van driver to drop off parcels, and it will do it more
effectively than a human.
What it probably won't do is suggest exploring drone delivery. Or reducing the
weight of packaging to make deliveries more fuel-efficient. This is because
most AI applications are highly specialized and don't have the “general”
intelligence capabilities of humans.
Creative problem-solving is another vital soft skill. Humans excel at lateral
thinking, connecting disparate ideas, and imagining novel solutions to
complex problems. Our ability to envision and articulate a better future –
whether in technology, society, or the environment – is uniquely human. This
imaginative capacity, combined with the power to inspire others towards
these visions, will remain crucial in an AI-driven world, allowing us to
conceptualize and pursue innovations that AI alone cannot conceive.
Developing plans that encompass long-term goals and take into account a
multitude of factors that aren’t necessarily going to be in the training data will
be out of reach of AI for a long time.
Then there’s critical thinking, which involves objectively analyzing and
evaluating every aspect of a problem, situation or opportunity in order to
make a judgment. While AI can critically assess a plan of action or an idea,
once again, it’s limited by its training data, which may or may not contain the
specific insights required.
Teamwork, leadership and mentorship all require explicitly human skills, too,
including a high level of emotional intelligence. This is our ability to recognize
and respond appropriately to our fellow humans on an emotional level and is
essential to collaboration and relationship-building.
Partnership building, for example, is critical in modern business. An AI’s lack
of emotional intelligence means it will always be at a disadvantage when it
comes to the subtleties of negotiating, building rapport, and establishing the
alignment of mission and values, which are critical to effective partnering.
And human soft skills are still important for project management, where
there’s a need to balance resources, budgets, time constraints and any number
of unexpected factors that could emerge.
Once again, we can see that computer intelligence is still too specialized to
deal with many potential scenarios that can throw a spanner in the works of
even the most carefully laid plans.
Adaptability and Life-Long Learning
One skill, perhaps more than any other, that will determine whether we
remain relevant in the AI era will be our ability to adapt to change and
continuously learn and improve.
Technology is constantly evolving, and the AI available in ten years’ time will
most likely be far beyond anything we can imagine now. No matter how
carefully we prepare for it now, it will take us by surprise. So, the ability to
adapt and keep our knowledge and skills up-to-date is crucial.
This isn’t just about keeping pace with technology; it's about developing a
change-oriented mindset that will allow us to continue to perform as the
world becomes more complex and uncertain.
The tradition of front-loading ourselves with education in our formative years
is increasingly outdated. Seeking out roles where we will continuously learn,
as well as pursuing opportunities for self-directed learning, can all help us to
develop this mindset.
Likewise, the human skills we’ve discussed – communication, creativity,
emotional intelligence – are not innate traits that some are born with and
some aren’t. They can all be cultivated through practice and diversity of
experience!
By focusing our efforts on developing both human and AI skills and
developing the habits of embracing change and lifelong learning, we can give
ourselves the best chance of thriving in the age of AI.
Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn. Check out my website or some of my other
work here.
Bernard Marr
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Bernard Marr is a world-renowned futurist, board advisor and author... Read More
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