Conscious leadership in the AI era

A: There is no doubt the technology and AI are permeating our lives and the way in which we approach things from both a business and a personal perspective. We are likely to going to continue to see changes across industries, our many social sectors and everyday life. 

Having said that, as technology keeps on increasing significantly, there’s a need to focus more on sharpening new human skills. We are facing a period of technology diffusion where new roles and skills are formed-and are required! That’s the only consistency from the industrial age to now. 

Technology unlocks vast new capacity to sense, connect, automate, amplify and augment, – but it is we humans who are able to bring specialised context and empathy. To survive, we must live by purpose and respond mindfully to our life situations by bringing a consciousness for an enlightened future and, at the same time, use these advanced technologies responsibly. 

A: The critical global challenges are deep, with many systems at play, and solutions will require input from many disciplines, including technology. By harnessing science and technology, coupled with innovation and consciously thinking of purpose in our leadership, we can not only take steps to transform our relationship with nature and reverse rising inequality by providing access and opportunities, but we can also start to build resilience against future crises as well.

A: The reality is that, in general, technology is growing at an exponential rate, information and tech are becoming a commodity. I had the privilege earlier this year of meeting world-renowned leadership philosopher Professor Palsule Sudanshu who says that this rapid pace of technological change is impacting existing business models and markets, and it also leaves us with the question of human irrelevance. 

We’ve moved from ‘physical labour’ being done by machines to ‘cognitive abilities’ being done by machines, and at a pace we cannot comprehend. Something that used to differentiate us before, our cognitive ability, does not differentiate us any longer. We had time to understand these shifts before, but time does not work in our favour now, considering the rate of change is exponential. 

We must reconfigure our people to determine what are the future skills that we need to stay relevant – analytical judgement, smart decision delegation by humans versus machines, intellectual curiosity to find deeper relationships and prompt better outcomes, and many other adaptations. 

Used with the right intentions, technology will be the driver of economic output and offer significant opportunities. But it also poses risks. The development of powerful tech and AI systems not only threaten existing structures, with many people raising concerns around being replaceable and certain jobs becoming redundant or irrelevant, but there are also concerns around ethics and how malicious actors can be exploited if not managed. 

As AI becomes more intuitive, it leaves many of us unsettled. It goes without saying there’s an upside and a downside to technology.

A: Even though algorithms are created with positive intent, they learn from data, and this could lead to skewed results.  As a result, the human consciousness and input will continue to be critical in humanising the engagements and experience to supplement this high-tech space.  We will also have to ensure that judgement and critical thinking (with a human touch) is used to provide transparency and understand where, and what information was used to derive the decision and whether it’s relevant or not. 

We will need to question the AI model’s meaning behind the responses or decision making. We will have to understand what the model did not do to determine the desired outcome and use our judgement skills to determine if that makes sense. 

Navigating the uncharted waters of industries in turmoil requires bringing to life our organisational purpose in order to make the right judgments and bring a sense of context of which machines are incapable. 

Humans, in contrast, often excel at this kind of thinking and as such, we need to sharpen these skills, as these elements of human judgment will become indispensable.

A: We are in a deepened networked environment in this information-explosion age. On one side, we question: is there an existential threat to humanity if AI systems are exploited and malicious actors are not being contained? On the other side, we ask ‘does this invade my privacy, security and manage my wellbeing better than a human can?’ 

Are there opportunities to incorporate this tech into our daily lives? Are we looking at how our existing methodologies / models need a re-shift, blending it, using technology for example in education and industry using ChatGPT? 

Are there things we should be learning, unlearning and relearning is a question asked by one of the world’s leading futurists Alvin Toffler? 

All of the above are certainly true. 

A: We need to approach this from a systems-thinking perspective. In this eco-system, there are the suppliers of the tech, the users and the regulators. We each have a role to play towards the responsible use of AI. 

Above the surface is governance and then, below the surface there’s purpose and culture. Governance works for the best interests of humanity – balancing safety with innovation, while purpose reminds us to the do the right thing. 

AI should not displace what differentiates you. It’s not about self-interest. It’s about value to all stakeholders. And culture drives a set of values that focuses on stronger judgement, ingenuity, and empathy – the rehumanising of leadership – to ensure that we can make the right decisions and filter out what is relevant versus what is not.

A: Leaders need to be liberated from routine work to focus more on strategic transformation. But, with companies using technology to make determinations about health and medicine, employment, creditworthiness, and even criminal justice (to name just a few), how are we ensuring decisions are not based on flawed assumptions and encoded with structural biases? 

Where are the deepened relationships of our humanity and empathy and how are we making the right decisions and filtering out what is relevant and not?

Sure, smart machines can out-think us, but certain elements of human judgment are indispensable and counterfactual thinking and conscious leadership will be critical in addressing the ‘known unknowns’ when it comes to abuse, misuse, or unintended consequences of new technology. 

Just a last thought from us: Clearly, listening to the views of Thaver on this deeply complex and at times rather frightening topic of AI, makes one grateful that there are people who appear to be on top of things and who can protect us from what does, at times, seem like a deepening and ever more complex future.