I’m visiting my home town of Zagreb, Croatia. Frankly, it’s looking run down, ragged, and dusty.
This morning I went for a walk. I passed by a car ramp that keeps cars out of the old medical school campus. On each side of the ramp were two installed street signs, which instructed drivers, “Get closer, sensor!”
This made me think. Zagreb is full of non-functioning tech like this. Stuff that came out 10, 20, 30 years ago and seemed exciting when it appeared. But soon, the glitches became obvious (“The stupid ramp won’t open!”).
The new tech became the butt of jokes and the foil in funny anecdotes as the burghers of Zagreb sat around and drank their coffee for hours.
People chuckled and shook their heads. “All this newfangled technology… it will never replace a good old human parking lot attendant who knows your name and who lifts and lowers the ramp for each car.”
Except of course tech improves, always.
I don’t know where you live. If it’s a less dusty place than Zagreb, odds are you’ve never seen a sign that reads “Get closer, sensor!” Modern car ramps work flawlessly, 24 hours a day, without missing a beat.
But the same psychology obtains everywhere.
New generations of people, at least those over 25, still make fun of the newest tech, once the initial excitement has worn off. “Haha stupid AI, it made another blunder, it will never really replace humans!”
Except tech improves, always.
I listened to an interview with Sam Woods a few days ago. Woods is a former direct-response copywriter turned AI guru. He seems to be doing well in his new career, and not looking back with longing to his copywriting days.
Woods was asked what remains for humans in the age of AI. He replied:
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For now, you want to get away from the labor part… you want to quickly move through the intelligence part of your job that requires you to think, and that’s where you’ll be in a good place for the next few years.
But even beyond that, you need to start moving towards what looks more and more like wisdom work, which sounds esoteric. But the easiest way to think about that is doing the right thing at the right time.
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How do you get wisdom? How do you develop it? How do you uncover it?
I don’t know. But I know somebody who might. Because when I heard Sam Woods predict “wisdom” as the future for humans, I realized I had heard the same argument already, but months earlier. It came in one of Tom Grundy’s daily emails. Tom wrote:
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By “wisdom” I don’t mean “IQ”.
Wisdom and IQ could not be further apart.
It is categorically not the people who can create snazzy financial models, solve partial differential equations or complete a Rubik’s Cube in 60 seconds who will thrive in a world where AI can do all this in the time it takes to click my fingers.
That much should be clear.
I mean the wisdom which helps guide us to make decisions, gives us clarity when we don’t know which way to turn and answers questions which spreadsheets, robots and computers will never be able to answer.
This wisdom comes from the deepest part of what it means to be human.
And in a world where AI will do most of the heavy-lifting, I predict this wisdom is what will set humans apart.
Those who possess this wisdom will, I believe, have a huge advantage in their working lives for many years to come. Just like the Egyptian philosophers & scholars who held the positions of influence and prestige.
Good news is, finding wisdom can be taught and learnt.
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Next Wednesday, Tom is putting on a training he’s calling The Subtraction Method. This training is free for you because you happen to be a subscriber to this newsletter.
The promise for The Subtraction Method is that it gives you an approach that uncovers the enthusiasm, creativity, and maybe even wisdom that Tom believes are there for all of us.
Those might sound like broad, vague, even esoteric promises. But maybe that’s just the ticket in an age when specific and narrow and highly practical is something that can and will be automated.
Tom’s training will happen this Wednesday, Nov 6, at 8pm CET/2pm EST/11am PST.
I will be promoting Tom’s training until this Tuesday. In case you don’t want to miss it, it might be WISE (I know, I’m hilarious) to sign up for it now. Here’s the link: