Will your job still exist in the future? Perhaps artificial intelligence will soon be able to take over essential elements of management knowledge today ...
According to IBM, 40 percent of people will have to be retrained in the next three years because AI (artificial intelligence) will change their jobs. Because people will have to learn how to deal with AI, how to use AI sensibly - or because people will have to learn to concentrate more on those areas in which AI does not take over their tasks.
Our world, our working world, our private lives will change radically. In a very short space of time. A major challenge. A great danger. A great opportunity for you, me and all those who want to approach and shape it instead of being overrun.
Learning faster than humans allow
I believe that in future we will have even less time to adapt to change, to learn to use change for ourselves - or to learn to tackle it for the benefit of others, for the benefit of all.
In the past, we humans were the crown jewel of learning creation - today, with AI, there is something that learns faster than us. And is therefore capable of making us superfluous in our traditional areas (you can find an overview here in the ZDF compilation "Which jobs are threatened by AI" from April 2023. Among other things, you will learn there that, according to a study by Goldman Sachs "The Potentially Large Effects of Artificial Intelligence on Economic Growth", we can expect the following: "If our estimates are extrapolated to the whole world, generative AI could replace the equivalent of 300 million full-time jobs in automation."
Pessimists only see the danger in such forecasts, they want to slow down the development and learning curve of AI so that we humans can keep up. However, I believe that the future of our economy and society has always been technology-driven, technology has always been the catalyst for change only with AI it is much, much faster, for us within a moment, not from generation to generation. But: we as humans have the skills to use technology for our purpose. We just have to embrace it instead of remaining paralyzed or simply and unfortunately naively opposing it. Because just as the automotive industry refused to accept the switch to electric at the time, the whole of society is now facing disruptive changes. And society, as abstract as it sounds, means each and every one of us.
But when we approach it, we no longer learn as we did yesterday, but acquire knowledge about the future.
Learning future knowledge
In the past, we were able to acquire a wealth of knowledge in a certain period of time, for example through a sound education, with which we could navigate successfully for a lifetime. Those days are over. We need a different kind of compass to navigate this world and live our lives.
Complexity has exploded, evolution is driven by technology in such a way that we humans perceive it as a revolution that makes us superfluous.
But we are not. Nor will we be. If we learn future knowledge. If we no longer focus on content-based learning, the content-based skills that AI can already provide faster and better than we can.
But if we focus on personal growth instead: on the one hand, recognizing our own compass that shows us the path we want to take. As a person, as part of a community, as part of a company, a team, a family. And on the other hand, we understand how we can use technology for this path - to better follow our path, our personal path, the path together with other people.
Knowledge of the future is knowledge that gives you clarity about where you currently stand, where your learning potential lies and where the levers are for you to set yourself or other people and organizations in motion. And it is this clarity that ensures that we experience the future as an opportunity.