How do humans exceed AI? And how to use that superpower?
Instead of being afraid of AI, let’s think about how to use it. Where it can support us, what should be entrusted to machines, and where human input is priceless. AI is a powerful tool, but not omnipotent. The sooner we realize what we humans are better at, the more we will take from artificial intelligence. The authors of the book “Framers: Human Advantage in an Age of Technology and Turmoil” explain it very clearly.
What do the Wright brothers, the singer will.i.am and Spielberg have in common?
What determined the success of the movie “Minority Report”, the #metoo campaign, or the rescue of hostages from the airport in Uganda in 1976?
Why is out-of-the-box the worst approach you can take?
The answer is framing. In the book “Framers: Human Advantage in an Age of Technology and Turmoil” Kenneth Cukier, Viktor Mayer-Schönberger, and Francis de Véricourt show why contextual thinking and mental models are our main assets. They explain how we can use these uniquely human skills to make better decisions in the age of artificial intelligence.
There are three main framing models:
- causality — people act based on cause-and-effect thinking, it allows us to anticipate consequences, and we create templates that we can translate into other situations (when a child touches a hot pot, it makes a general rule “not to touch a hot thing” and understands that touching an iron has the same effect, it does not have to relearn the relationship between pain and temperature of the object every time);
- counterfactuals — AI machines can make better choices between options than humans, but they must have defined options. A human can come up with other options on his/her own (we are able to create an imaginary world, where we can test different options and think “what if…”);
- constraints — using the rules and requirements, we limit ourselves to a few options, but possible to implement (when we are waiting for a bus and we are late, we can consider whether to choose a taxi or walk, but we will not consider teleportation).
AI is great at answering questions and processing big data sets, but it doesn’t know how to use these frames. AI will not go beyond the questions asked. It only lives in this world that has been “uploaded” and is current, and cannot imagine another world.
Read: Why ChatGPT Is Making Up Facts? And How To Deal With That?
Machines are not creative because they won’t come up with anything new. They may find correlations we haven’t discovered, or propose an unknown way of playing the game, but they won’t go beyond the frameworks. For example, AI can make beautiful music (like Coconet designed by the Google team), but it relies on limitations imposed by humans. The ML model, Coconet, was trained with Bach 306 chorale harmonization, so it recreates the structure and characteristics of this composer.
Frames can limit us, but if used properly, they can also organize knowledge, eliminate chaos and excess information, give the right direction to thinking and facilitate decisions. So it is not about thinking “out of the box” but deliberately reaching for alternatives. Humans can go far beyond what animals’ instincts and what machines following programmed instructions are capable of.
The human superpower is the ability to create mental models responsible for creativity, changes in social structures, scientific discoveries, and technological innovations. The authors of “Framers” explain in detail and with fascinating examples from real life how to effectively use mental models to make better private, professional, or business decisions. If you want to make more accurate choices, this book is for you!
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