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CREATIVITY AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
Artificial intelligence (AI) is making a greater impact than any aspect of business today. Digital technologies are transforming how we work, play, think, and relate to each other.
There is no doubt in my mind that AI is going to play a major role in our life and our thinking process. In fact, countries across the globe are putting AI as one of their top strategic goals. In 2017, for example, UAE appointed His Excellency Omar Bin Sultan Al Olama as the country’s first Minister of State for Artificial Intelligence. At only 27, his responsibilities include investing in the latest technologies and tools of artificial intelligence and applying them in various sectors to enhance government performance.
Yet I always say that AI may give you everything except the human heart and feelings. Don’t mistake me, I’m not suggesting that AI is not worth investing in. Of course not. Without a doubt, AI has benefitted millions of people all sorts of ways and touches virtually every facet of their lives. It would be ridiculous to suggest otherwise. But whatever advancements and technological solutions AI helps bring to the world, we still need the human mind, heart, and soul. People are special!
So it didn’t surprise me to see Jeff Weiner, the CEO at LinkedIn, share a post on LinkedIn on October 27, 2018, declaring that the jobs of the future require two major attributes: soft skills and empathy. He argued that AI can accomplish everything that humans can do (including coding), but robots can’t equip themselves with team synthesizing qualities or communication skills.
Machines and computers will always be our tools. They will do our orders, as and when we tell them. Ultimately, a computer lacks imagination or creativity to dream up a vision for the future. It lacks the emotional competent that a human being has. The computer is helpful in editing your idea, but it’s not really good at generating ideas. That is the main difference in a human’s brain and a computer’s brain. Thus, creativity will be the soft skill of the future. The cartoonist Tom Gauld says he stays away from the computer until he’s done brainstorming his comic strips because once the computer is involved, “things are on an inevitable path to being finished. Whereas in my sketchbook the possibilities are endless.”
