Express Your "Self." AI and the Human Mode

Step 3: How to Succeed in the AI World

This series of Substack posts is designed to help us prepare for the enormous challenges that lie ahead for life in an AI dominant world. If you haven’t done so already, please read the previous two posts: “Here’s the Key to Success in the AI World” and “Your ‘Self.’ Who are You Becoming and What are You Losing?” Please share the posts with family, friends, and colleagues.

Natural Human Expression

How is it that in a few short years we humans can go from behaving like this…

to behaving like this…

In previous generations, the main threat to spontaneous expression was the gradual encroachment of rules, norms, and laws on our lives that discourages the natural expression of joy and other feelings. We “grew up” in ways that often greatly restrain or redirect our expressive human energy for institutional purposes—singing in school or church, for example.

Today, smart phones and social media have captured our attention and directed our bodies and minds in ways that profit corporate and political interests. The smart phone can be used creatively to personally produce pictures, movies, music, and literature. But the photo above—taken at a bus stop in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico—reveals a far more familiar posture and use of the device.

The Joy of Creating and Communicating

How can each of us personally adapt to AI—a technology whose social and cultural implications are far more impactful than previous technologies—in ways that will continue to allow us to express ourselves naturally?

Exercising our creativity is key.

Elon Musk this week said that in 10-20 years work will be “optional.” If he’s right, two major consequences of this future must be identified and dealt with NOW.

Employment

Being successful across a range of professions and vocations will require employees to not only have competence with AI technology, but to have a creative, innovative spirit and the ability to communicate face-to-face with their colleagues in ways that build trust. Communicate with integrity in person and online.

Creativity is crucial to professional well-being.

AI systems can identify and integrate existing information of all types—visual and audio. But you, the creative and innovative human being, can produce something different. Something more. And better. AI can’t tell an original joke, for instance, or write an original song. Apply that principle to whatever work you produce. Let the creative juices flow in your work. Be a passionate entrepreneur in spirit and deed.

Another way to adapt to the inevitable conditions of employment is to use AI as a force multiplier for whatever it is you’re doing now or want to do in the workforce. AI can provide you with information; you can use that information to expand upon the ideas you’re trying to develop in ways AI can’t imagine.

Be creative and innovative. Don’t give in to the voices of doom. Think of AI as a resource for what you’re doing or hope to do—not as a substitute or competitor.

Life

When Musk says work will become optional, the implications are much broader than employment. It is also about purpose, however you define it. AI challenges the core of our very being.

The communication-based perspective I offer here should not be understood solely as a way to prepare professionally for the inevitable automated future. Instead, everyone is going to have to constantly adapt in other ways that may seem unimaginable to us now. The entrepreneurial spirit you’ll want to bring to your work can be applied to every aspect of life.

In the face of AI’s demands for submission and conformity, one powerful response you can make is to (1) fully recognize the range of your personal insights and abilities and (2) find ways to express them in everything you do.

That process begins by adopting the right mentality.

The Creative, Expressive Mindset

That creative, expressive mindset should pervade every aspect of life. You can begin by giving your body expressive license. No matter what your age or physical condition, don’t be afraid to explore your creativity and physical potential.

Some of the best creative expression is done by partnerships and groups. Family production of Mexican woodcarvings known as alebrijes (ah-lay-bree’-hays) is a spectacular example. The center of the artistic activity is three small towns outside the city of Oaxaca (Wah-ha’-ka) in southern Mexico. Artisans combine elements of nature with myth and magic to produce beautiful other-worldly wood figures. The family is the foundation of the art: children search for the copal wood that is used, fathers do the carving, mothers, sisters, daughters, and other family members do the delicate painting. Each piece represents the product of a creative group effort.

Never Leave the Human Mode

How we choose express ourselves going forward is key to personal and community health and happiness. Technology always wants you to go to “AI Mode.” Do so carefully. But never abandon the “Human Mode.” Your “self.” Nurture your expressive self, beginning with the freedom you give your body.

Adapt to Survive and Thrive in any Environment…

The perspective presented in my Substack posts is based in the science that explains how communication drives the development of organic life, culture, and technology. Please take a look at my YouTube channel to learn more about the ways communication functions as the motor of human evolution.