How to Thwart the Robots: Unabashed Creativity
The next generation of workers will thrive by embracing creative literacy
By Scott Belsky
Let’s face it, the robots are coming for our jobs. Artificial intelligence expert Kai-Fu Lee writes in his recent book AI Superpowers that as many as 40% of professions will be automated in the next 15 years.
This change will bring a lot of good. Automation will take over lots of tedious, mind-numbing, or dangerous chores that few people enjoy doing. But the transition will be disruptive and some jobs will be safer than others. Among the safest professions, Lee says, are creative ones.
The more creative our children are, the more secure they’ll be in their careers once they enter the workforce. What was once considered a “soft skill,” requiring nothing more than an occasional art class or coloring at the dinner table, has become the skill set that will ultimately differentiate us as humans, enable us to stand out at work, and give us an advantage against the algorithms.
That’s because no algorithm can replicate human creativity. In fact, creativity is antithetical to the way artificial intelligence works. We develop machine learning by feeding in data about the way people react in certain situations. The point of algorithms is…
