The First Unintended Consequence Of AI – And It’s Huge

Our most fundamental and valuable skill set is vulnerable and under attack. It’s the one we do now and will in the future need most if we intend to continue our quest for competitive success in both our careers and our lives.

Yet it faces a clear and present danger – an existential threat to its very existence – because it comes along with too many temptations for overuse, misuse, and abuse, which have already played the role of Eve handing the apple to Adam.

The need for AI and human communication

The threat is AI and if we’re not careful and protective of what’s ours, our precious skill set of communication and interpersonal skills –) communication) and (2) ability as the top two AI and communication as one of the few uniquely human skill sets setting us apart from the rest of the inhabitants of this planet – we will do it and ourselves irreparable damage on our way to devolution and beyond. To be clear, this is not about AI and tech applications; it’s about the conundrum of AI with, or shall we say against human communication.

Headlines unfurl and broadcasts blare – proudly, no less – that AI will be taking over certain industries or occupations, particularly the lower entry-level grunt work done by new recruits. Things like generating business analysts’ reports, building PowerPoint presentations, collecting real estate data, and creating computer graphics are all in the cross hairs.

Rock and a hard place

Do you see the problem? These are all functions that, aside from technical (hard) skills, rely heavily on excellent or developing communication and team (soft) skills.

The urgency of this threat cannot be overstated. Repeatedly and predictably, in surveys year after year, executives and recruiters list (1) communication) and (2) ability to work week within a team as the top two most sought-after and difficult to find skill sets – more than accounting, engineering, research, etc. What they’re saying, essentially, is that they can get all the hard skills people they need; what’s keeping them up at night is the soft skills issue. Billions of dollars are spent annually on this.

And now, along comes AI, which has the power and the position to rain on this parade. And who’s creating this conflict? The very executives who have been pulling their hair out in quest of the soft skill employees are falling all over themselves. attempting to be ahead of the AI game. Go figure. The monster they’re creating is the looming threat of an empty bench when they’re addressing their succession plans, looking for candidates with good … uh, communication skills.

Citizens of the World

Here, then, is something that Dr, David Steele said. Dean of Silberman College of Business at Fairleigh Dickinson University in 2003, when I began teaching a communication and leadership course in the MBA program – and previously president of Chevron Latin America – Dr. Steele used to say in addresses to executive MBA and other graduate candidates. “My simple message to you is that we must become citizens of the world in order to excel in this ultra-competitive marketplace.”

“I believe that, more than ever, advanced education is essential. More importantly, we must go through a major rethinking of the concept of knowledge, a change in emphasis from ‘hard’ to ‘soft’ knowledge, emphasizing what will differentiate us as individuals and as a nation.”

Dr. Steele was talking about communication skills, knowledge of self, multicultural perspective, core values, ethics, team building, innovativeness, and creativity. In essence, he said, the focus is on developing “outstanding interpersonal skills.”

He was right in 2003, long before AI kicked in the corporate doors and made itself at home, and he’d be even more right now. In fact, he changed the face of that MBA program by launching that course, Executive Communication and Leadership, and made it mandatory in all students’ first nine credits, so it would positively affect not only their careers, but also their chances of success in the other courses that followed. But what are the chances of doing what Dr. Steele proposed if you’re going to give AI a seat at the head of the table? Or at least until its proper place in the power grid has been carefully measured?

This discussion, I remind you, is about an unintended consequence, not about all the purposely nefarious ways people are dreaming up to use AI. However, on thinking it over – and over and over and over – we might sooner rather than later conclude that the perverse nature of AI in regard to insidiously undermining the collective culture of communication we’ve spent generations building, may well be our undoing while we continue to see it as progress.

Have we seen this scenario before? Sure looks like a Trojan Horse to me.