Is thinking a uniquely human skill?

Work Smart Not Hard Tip No. 42 in a series written for Indie Cambs

We’re entering an interesting time. With the help of  AI anyone can create almost anything in seconds with barely a thought, so it’s going to take the thinkers, the people who know how to think, and understand how other people think, to create work that has meaning.

“AI slop” has become part of our everyday existence. With infinite text, image and video generation available on demand, pretty much anyone can handle the work that is done by managing AI tools, but the adoption of Generative AI within businesses represents the most fundamental change to cognitive work since the Internet became widely available.

Working smart, not hard used to be a simple equation between time and money: how you spend you time as efficiently as possible to create money, so that you can use the money to create the life you want, which usually means spending time doing things other than making money!

Technology has always been part of the equation, promising freedom from boring repetitive tasks, economies of scale and other benefits. Somehow, the promise of freeing up more time rarely gets fulfilled because much of the technology we use is also designed to be addictive and is deliberately downgraded once we’re locked in – but that’s a conversation for another time.

Let’s get back to how important thinking and feeling is, and why AI will never be as good as we are at doing it.

Every business is about people. Small independent businesses have a higher human to tech ratio than most, and more importantly, are run by people who are more freethinking than corporate enterprises. People are unpredictable. They’re influenced by many things and however much AI is hailed as an always available “companion” “friend” or even “therapist” the majority of people still prefer real human interaction.

A lot of time is being spent just managing AI tools, but we still need to use our thinking skills when we are theorising, predicting, evaluating, remembering and making connections – when we solve problems, make decisions, organize things and process information. These skills are a glorious jumble of thoughts that are all effected by our feelings – and by the thoughts and feelings of those people around us.

AI is programmed to provide solutions but we still have to think about the problems we want it to solve and be able to evaluate the quality and effectiveness of the answers. Just like talking to people, the quality of the questions we ask determines the quality of the answers we get. The thinkers, the people who keep sharp and resist outsourcing every thinking challenge are becoming more and more valuable, being able to think and feel in a genuinely human way will be the new competitive advantage.

If you need reassurance that you have all the people skills you need, here’s a reminder: https://annhawkins.com/work-smart/how-good-are-your-people-skills/

AI is with us whether we like it or not but our biggest advantage will always be to value great thinking.