As we enter an era in which artificial intelligence is embedded in our everyday lives, and as we are amazed at the speed and sophistication of platforms such as OpenAI’s GPT-4, we must remember that the creative human’s ultimate superpower is intuition. It is the final word in this arms race between humans and computers.
Creativity is stimulated by intuition, the very thing that happens only deep in the human heart and that will always be beyond the reach of any artificial intelligence no matter how clever its algorithms. Algorithms can’t, and aren’t expected to, replace human creativity. AI can help to automate some of the tasks that humans do, and it can augment human creativity in certain ways. But it’s intuition, emotion, empathy and other uniquely human instincts that spark the leap outside of the box to make the new connections, the new ideas, the new inventions.
Take leadership and business strategy, for example, both of which are crucial for decision-making but rely heavily on intuition to where what is happening is harder to put into words. A leader’s role involves tapping into complex environments, foreseeing the future, and motivating people to collectively achieve their goals. Often, a leader is simply intuitively aware of a course of action from a place of connection and unity with others; this sense of unity, intelligence and good feeling, however, is not something that the AI’s data can replace.
For all the success that AI is achieving in acting out these behaviours, it isn’t going to be able to master the nuances of human empathy and the way that intuition comes together with social conditions to achieve the kind of group harmony that enables visceral, co-created achievements to become a reality. Intuitive leaders, who are in sympathetic resonance with their followers, will be far better equipped to deliver this kind of collaborative environment than anyone who has to go through the machinery of rational thought.
Intuition allows a human CEO to add a moral dimension to weigh complex decisions, where AI’s binary approach fails. Intuition guides the thought process through these gray areas, where the right path lies on the edge between raw data and human conscience.
Complementing such systems will be the need to develop a confluence of other capacities: systems of critical thinking, emotional intelligence, creative problem-solving and self-learning, complemented by intuition. How to cultivate these capacities for flourishing in the context of an ever-changing technological landscape is the pressing question of our times.
Intuition, therefore, works to complement all the learning that always continues in a world of change as fast as this, helping us to identify what will be most valuable and generative to learning for us, both personally and professionally. If we keep learning, and keep our intuition working, we’ll be more reflective, resilient and ready for the future.
Thinking of AI not as a rival but as someone with whom you might collaborate shifts the paradigm from combat to collaboration. It leads to us prioritising how to build on the strengths of the ‘soft attributes’ that humans naturally excel at over how to find substitutes. Far from spelling our demise, this shift marks what it means to be human and places us in the position of innovators and empathisers rather than spectators.
As we move deeper into what I call the Artificial Intelligence era, we will need to know not only how to survive with AI, but how to thrive with it. It is intuition – that subtle, often overlooked ‘sixth sense’ – that is the fuel that powers Creativity, the undersong and guiding light of Ethical Behaviour, the motor of Leadership, and the true magic ingredient in any form of Authentic Human Relations. We need to remember that, in a world increasingly engineered by algorithms, it is our ancient, pre-tech intuition that will lead us to a future where technology is humanity’s servant, not its master.
the dawn of AI tools such as GPT-40 is only the latest step in tech evolution that will, in many ways, enhance our lives through the machines that augment us. And while Marina Minnikova is correct when she says that success, happiness and growth in our future will depend on what we can do that machines can’t, it won’t be through competition. Intuition, creativity and compassion are not vestiges of our pre-digital past. Instead, they are our roadmap to the future, one where in a world of machines, humans still reign.
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