The future belongs to those who invest in soft skills

If AI makes us speed up, relationships make us slow down

We’re about to enter a collective turning of an era. It’s already started, but we’re still right at the very beginning. Most normal people haven’t started to feel it yet, but I can feel it and I know you can too.

AI will be able to teach you a lot, and being curious enough to learn how to work with it is going to be important. But it won't teach you how to listen deeply. It won’t get you to trust your intuition. It won’t inspire you the way a great conversation will. It can’t change you the way love can. AI is not going to help you become earnest and big hearted. It will not make you feel exposed or embarrassed or uncomfortable. It won’t reject you. These are all very useful things for a person to experience.

Interacting with AI will never give you the warmth that interacting with a good person will.

It’s uncomfortable, this change. Ominous. Somehow things are starting to move even faster, more chaotically. Kind of hard to look at, but also hard to look away. It feels familiar though, doesn’t it?

Winds in the east, mist coming in.

Like somethin’ is brewin’ and bout to begin.

Can’t put my finger on what lies in store

But I fear what’s to happen all happened before.

I miss the collective novelty of people being like, “where are you in the world?” No matter what the answer was everyone would kind of do a silent little cheer, like “ooh New Jersey!” I miss that first year of Zoom. The newness of it. I miss being absolutely delighted to be sharing the same space as someone in Perth.

I have a weird sort of homesickness for this time.

I’d like to go back to the time when people weren’t talking about AI. I’d like to hear someone drop “the effects of long haul” into a casual conversation. I’d like to rewatch the NXIVM documentary for the first time.

I was just about to turn 25 when Broadway closed. I’d just made it to the final round of auditions for Juilliard’s MFA program and then life paused. Normal things became dystopian. In the beginning, even the idea of Covid felt impossible. Ominous. Kind of hard to look at, but also hard to look away. Now it’s just something that happened. A progression of the collective experience we share.

I don’t actually long for this time. What I long for is being on the cusp of a new way of living and working and being and not feeling completely disoriented.

It’s got a “if only I knew then what I know now” kind of feeling to it.

And in a way, it’s happening again, right now.

One day we’ll look back at this time too, and be homesick for the moment just before AI completely changed our society and way of living and working and being.

“You have about 36 months to make it”

I recently read

DAN KOE

’s essay, titled You have about 36 months to make it, which due to its rage-bait nature, obviously scared the shit out of me. I felt a pit in my stomach as I often do when I see people writing about AI.

It feels like a tsunami is coming, which I may or may not have experienced in a past life. The ocean is involved in some of my earliest memories. I used to put my toes at the edge of the water and imagine it slowly pulling back before it turned around to rush forward at full speed. I’d look around the beach and imagine what everyone there would do. Some people would run, screaming, some people would go toward the water, curious.

[Is this normal?]

Now I’m doing my tsunami nightmare fantasy while also reading this essay and I become overstimulated. Negative self talk enters telling me I’m not ready. Telling me I’m behind. Telling me I don’t know enough.

I take a deep breath and resist the urge to close the tab and let this ruin my nervous system for the day. I consider what it would mean if my reaction to this essay said more about me than about Dan. Five years ago, I would have spiraled, but I’m more resilient now and you are too.

The truth is AI is coming. It’s here already, but it’s still easy to ignore. Soon this will be the time we look back on as “before.” Soon, everything is going to change again. Life and work as we know it won’t be the same again.

But there is one thing the machines cannot do.

It was true 30 years ago and it will be true 30 years from now: the only thing technology hasn't been able to touch is interpersonal relationships.

Your ability to build relationships will outlast your ability to code, pitch, or design.

AI is a very good thing for those of us with “soft skills.”

As we become more automated, more inundated with slop, more virtual, more lonely, and more disconnected, real, meaningful connections are going to become our most valuable skillset. You cannot automate or delegate real connection.

With the increase of efficiency and technology, our connections will become the most valuable thing. It’s time to lean in because we are going to be the ones who will decipher what is real and what isn’t.

People will always need people, period.

I loved this quote in

Anu

’s essay: “People keep telling me how many more things I can do on my own now — with AI — and they’re right. I can write, build, launch, sell, automate — forever. I could assign an agent to every task — even companionship. And maybe it would do its job. But it’s so obviously spiritually vacant.”

She says, “All this tech. I still want a teammate.”

If AI makes time speed up, connections make time slow down. We’re going to need both. Whatever emptiness is created with the next wave of technology, we can decide how to fill it.

The more we get used to AI as our thought partners and therapists and engineers, the more people skills will become increasingly harder to learn and maintain.

Now my tsunami nightmare fantasy is gone and I’m excited about the turning of a new era. The most desirable edge will belong to those of us who can do both.

Embrace the discomfort of the moment

As intimidating, confusing, and uncomfortable as it is, accepting that machines are becoming a bigger part of your life has a lot of upside. Imagine all of the things the creative, non-technical people among us will be able to do and build. Imagine how impactful you could be if you jumped right in. If there is anyone prepared to embrace this moment it’s you.

Currently: I’ve used AI to improve my task management, personal organization, and client work. I’ve used AI to help me reach my health and fitness goals. AI has even helped me find clarity in how I should be growing my network based on my long term goals. And I still have so much to learn.

Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never fear of regretting. Learning is the thing for you.

— Merlyn’s advice to young King Arthur in “The Once and Future King” (1958)

The future belongs to those who are learning while also investing time, energy, and feeling into making meaningful connections. It belongs to those giving and receiving mentorship, lifting others up without expecting anything in return. The future belongs to those who are brave enough to reach out.

Now is the time to commit to making real connections more than ever. Even when you’re tired, and busy, and distracted. You have to. Because if you don’t, your ability to communicate, to listen, to understand others, might just slip away. In a world increasingly biased toward what is fastest, or easiest, it is more urgent and important than ever to pay attention to your relationships.

It is a practice like any other. Almost always uncomfortable in the moment, but deep down you know that you’re doing something so good for your future self. Reaching out now is like believing in your 2030 self, who maybe is on the cusp of another massive change.

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Thank you to

Sasha Chapin

and

Alex Dobrenko`

for making this better. <3

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