Matt Beane on how AI is already changing our workplaces
Do yourself a favour and find 40 minutes in your day to listen to this. You can skip the first and last 10 minutes. I LOVED this episode because it completely flips on its head what a lot of people have in mind when thinking about AI and the future of work. Things like: we're all going to lose our jobs, everything we produce will become generic, we'll lose our ability to think deeply and learn properly...
While Matt Beane doesn't dismiss those very real concerns, it was wonderfully uplifting and inspiring to hear him talk about how we can work with this change rather than simply resist it.
For Beane, the big challenge is reskilling. In a really practical way, he outlines what he sees as the three "Cs" we should keep in mind (or benchmark ourselves against):
Challenge: Keep pushing yourself. Aim for things that feel just beyond your reach so you're still learning. Resist experiential avoidance.
Complexity: Make sure you understand the whole system, not just your narrow area of expertise.
Connection: You can't build skills without relationships based on trust and respect with other people.
I particularly loved that he actually encourages his students to use AI in the assignments he gives them. And he also made me think much more deeply about something I hadn't really considered before: the disruption, and perhaps gradual disappearance, of mentorship.
I feel like I'm really not doing the episode justice, but trust me, it's incredibly thought-provoking.
Jeanne
PS: for those of you who don't enjoy podcasts, here is an article that talks about the key points Beans make in his book "The Skill Code": https://mitsloan.mit.edu/ideas-made-to-matter/how-can-we-preserve-human-ability-age-machines
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