AI Wake-Up Call: Time To Get More Human
AI is doing in seconds what used to take a team hours or days. It's writing code, analyzing data, creating strategies, and drafting proposals. Every day, there's a new tool that makes another human skill seem obsolete.
Last week, I created an AI Agentic application just by verbally describing the idea to the platform. Yesterday, AI helped restructure an entire business model. I'm amazed by the speed, the content, and the capabilities.
Wake-Up in the Blink of an AI
The companies using AI most successfully are the ones that understand that as machines get better at being machines, humans need to get better at being human.
We're already 4+ years into a revolution that's moving faster than anyone predicted. Change is happening right now.
“Will it change everything?” Yes. “Will we evolve fast enough to remain relevant?” We can.
The more AI content, data, and capabilities we pump out, the more actual HI (human intelligence) is needed. I’m talking EQ (emotional intelligence) and real connection. The stuff you can’t download.
While AI is processing power and efficiency. HI is connecting power and empathy.
These human intelligence skills are about to become primary skills that matter in the world of everything AI.
Racing the Algorithm
The pace is exponential, not linear. What took AI five years to learn now takes five months. What takes five months will soon take five days. AI is AI-ing at an accelerating rate.
Ryan Calo, University of Washington law professor and technology expert, summarized: "In three years, any task that can be documented can be automated. Any skill that can be taught can be programmed. What's left? The things that can't be coded. The human things. The messy, intuitive things."
The Human-Tech Tango
Even those of us using AI daily face a unique challenge: Keep up with technology while doing everything else.
Master AI prompt engineering? Sure, add it to the list right after "run the household," "manage everyone's emotions," "advance career," "maintain relationships," "build muscle," and "remember to drink water."
These are exciting times in tech, and I’m loving the pros of AI. Yet we already know humanity is being challenged as well.
Why AI Still Needs Us
Here's what AI can't do, no matter how sophisticated it becomes:
Read the Room; AI can process facial expressions. It can't sense that Susan is about to quit, that the team is one bad meeting from uprising, or that what sounds like agreement is actually polite rebellion.
Navigate Invisible Dynamics; AI sees the org chart. We see the real power structure. The unspoken alliances. The hidden tensions. The influence that has nothing to do with titles.
Build Trust Through Vulnerability; AI can simulate empathy. It can't share a failure that makes others feel safe to fail. It can't build connections through imperfection. It can't make people feel seen by seeing them.
Know When Efficiency Is Violence; Sometimes the "optimal" solution is cruel. The "efficient" path is inhumane. The "logical" choice misses the point entirely. AI optimizes. We humanize.
Create Meaning from Chaos; AI finds patterns. We find purpose. AI connects dots. We connect hearts. AI processes grief, joy, fear, and hope as data points. We convert them into wisdom.
Not to mention (but I’m mentioning) that AI doesn’t always tell the truth, which ironically is the more human thing that it is doing ;). But AI’s design is to be a perfect machine. Our human design is to make connections and live in an imperfect world.
Strategy at the Speed of Change
We’ll utilize AI - a lot. And we can position ourselves as the essential human layer AI requires:
The Translator: Between AI efficiency and human needs.
The Integrator: Between AI solutions and messy human reality.
The Protector: Of human dignity in an automated world.
The Meaning Maker: Creating purpose in a data-driven landscape.
The Connection Creator: Building bonds in an increasingly isolated world.
My New Tech-Life Rules
Become AI-Enhanced, Not AI-Replaced: Use AI to eliminate the parts of my work that never required my expertise anyway. Let it handle the repetitive so I can focus on the irreplaceable.
Double Down on Human Skills: Every hour AI saves me, invest in developing deeper emotional intelligence, stronger connections, better intuition.
Stop Apologizing for Being Human: My variance, emotion, and intuition are features. They're part of what makes me unexplainable, unprogrammable, irreplaceable.
Create What AI Can't: Sense which problems matter. Create real connections around it.
Build My Human Network: Relationships are everything. My human network is a strategy for life, work, and future wellbeing.
Living Wise When Tech Gets Smarter
By 2028, experts predict 40% of current job tasks could be automated. But here's what they're not saying: 90% of human needs will still require human connection.
The loneliness epidemic will worsen. The mental health crisis will deepen. The hunger for authentic connection will become desperate. And who's been trained since birth to tend to human connection? To notice emotions? To create belonging? We have.
In three years, when AI can do everything that can be measured, documented, and replicated, the value humans will have - will be in what can't be coded:
Lead with wisdom.
Create meaning.
Build belonging.
Embrace imperfection.
Develop trust.
Navigate paradox.
Hold complexity.
Listen to the unspoken
Influence humans to be human
Value ethics beyond data
Transform pain into purpose.
See. Real. People.
Love.
The Revolution Inside the Revolution
As AI eliminates the tedious, automates the repetitive, and optimizes the mechanical or operational, what's left is the human work. The emotional labor we've been doing for free, intuitive decisions we've been making without recognition, connections we've been building without compensation. We've been ‘training’ for this our entire lives.
Remember, while machines are getting better at being machines, our job is to get better at being humans.
If you’d like to keep this human connection network going, please comment with “human” so I can follow you and your journey.