Embracing a Human-Centered Approach (7)

The real opportunity in this moment in AI is discovering how our human brain and the new AI capabilities that we now have can best work together. While this is an individual journey, it also gives us an opportunity for collective impact. Each of us has the potential to uncover how AI can compensate for our weaknesses, help us amplify our strengths, and help us with our unique needs. But collectively we also have the opportunity to discover how AI could help us drive meaningful progress on the most urgent issues our world faces. Of course, to seize this opportunity, we must first learn how to harness AI effectively.

iRates vary, but adult readers typically read between 200 and 300 words per minute (wpm). Reading 100 million books, each averaging 80,000 words, amounts to a total of eight trillion words. At a reading speed of 250 wpm and dedicating eight hours a day to reading, it would take a human approximately 182,648 years to read this many words. This equates to about 2,283 lifetimes, based on an average human lifespan of 80 years.

Notes

1 Mustafa Suleyman, “What is an AI anyway?” [Video], TED Conferences, April 2024, https://www.ted.com/talks/mustafa_suleyman_what_is_an_ai_anyway. 2 David Brooks, “A.I.’s Benefits Outweigh the Risks,” New York Times, July 31, 2024, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/07/31/opinion/ai-fears.html. 3 Vijay Balasubramanian, “Brain Power,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 118, no. 32, August 10, 2021, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8364152/. 4 N. M. Daumeyer, I. N. Onyeador, X. Brown, and J. A. Richeson, “Implicit-Bias Remedies: Treating Discriminatory Bias as a Public Health Problem,” Policy Insights from the Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 2019, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9121529/. 5 Miguel Fernández-Armesto, “Cognitive Short-Sightedness, Biases and Survival,” CCCB LAB, Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona, February 8, 2019, https://lab.cccb.org/en/cognitive-short-sightedness-biases-and-survival/. 6 R. Hanson, “How Your Thinking Affects Your Brain Chemistry,” Psychology Today, January 31, 2023, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-courage-happiness/202301/how-your-thinking-affects-your-brain-chemistry. 7 J. Taylor, “Neither Fight nor Flight Helps Us ‘Survive’ in Modern Times,” Psychology Today, March 14, 2022, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-power-prime/202203/neither-fight-nor-flight-helps-us-survive-in-modern-times. 8 T. H. Harvard Chan School of Public Health, “Stress and Health,” The Nutrition Source, October 2021, https://nutritionsource.hsph.harvard.edu/stress-and-health/. 9 National Institute of Mental Health, Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/attention-deficit-hyperactivity-disorder-adhd. 10 E. Kerr, “What Is Dyslexia?” U.S. News & World Report, April 17, 2023, https://www.usnews.com/education/k12/articles/what-is-dyslexia. 11 Michael Ignatieff, “Epistemological Panic, or Thinking for Yourself,” Liberties 3, no. 2, Winter 2023. 12 A. Humlum and E. Vestergaard, “The Adoption of ChatGPT,” July 9, 2024, https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5d35e72fcff15f0001b48fc2/t/668d08608a0d4574b039bdea/1720518756159/chatgpt-full.pdf. 13 Google. “This is changing the way scientists research | Gemini,” YouTube video, 10:15, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPiOP_CB54A.

6. Engage with Intent: Mindful Use of AI

The conversation was familiar. As we caught up over dinner, my friend confessed his own hesitation to Think with AI in his day-to-day work, even though his job is helping companies to streamline operations.

He writes beautifully and masterfully synthesizes complex strategic information. He’s proud of this, and it has given him an edge. He was worried his work would be dumbed down or even that his skills could atrophy if he began to rely on AI. He was wary of losing his sharpness.

I told him he was right to worry. Effectively boosting our brains with AI is a balance that’s both art and science.

Don’t Short-Circuit Your Brain

The last thing we want to do is override our natural cognitive systems by turning to AI. If we truly want to optimize our performance, we must be thoughtful about when and where we integrate AI tools into our work. The key is to find our sweet spot where we are fully mining our own mental resources, extracting all the insights we can on our own, while strategically leveraging AI to enhance our capabilities.

As AI gets “smarter,” there may be an increased risk of what Fabrizio Dell’Acqua of Harvard Business School calls “falling asleep at the wheel.” Dell’Acqua found that workers using high-quality AI were more likely to follow its recommendations mindlessly, without critical evaluation, and as a result were less accurate in their work, while those with low-quality AI exerted more effort and exhibited better performance.

We’re also getting some evidence that if we turn to AI at the wrong time, it has a negative impact on our decision-making. Research has found that when we see AI’s answer before forming our own opinion, we’re more likely to accept its response—even when it’s wrong —and this interaction can impact all our subsequent judgments.1

We need to discover when to rely on our own cognitive processes and when to leverage AI as a thinking partner and collaborator.

When used at the right moment, AI can supercharge our thinking and spark new directions of thought. How do we discover what is “right”? The first step is understanding more about how our brains process information.

Let Your Own Brain Take the Lead

Our brains naturally have powerful ways to process information, solve problems, and drive insight. Meanwhile, as author and journalist David Brooks describes, “The AI ‘mind’ lacks consciousness, understanding, biology, self-awareness, emotions, moral sentiments, agency, a unique worldview based on a lifetime of distinct and never to be repeated experiences.”2 So how do we use AI in a way that amplifies our natural human strengths and prevents us from being overly influenced by AI’s blind spots?

Lean into Creative Discomfort

With challenging strategic or creative work, particularly tasks that demand novel connections or breaking new ground, we can often discover sparks of inspiration in the depths of the creative struggle.

This process can be exquisitely painful—a frustrating, maddening dance with our own thoughts, peppered with false starts and dead ends. As we push the boundaries of our thinking, we will stumble. Professor and author Brené Brown captures this perfectly: “There is no innovation and creativity without failure.”3 Ouch.

Yet this discomfort is a crucial element of our human creative process. Henri Matisse observed, “Don’t wait for inspiration. It comes while working,” to describe how engaging with the creative process, even when it feels difficult, often triggers breakthroughs.