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You might recall a post about “it’s okay to think big.” I need to backtrack and get back to the basics of the state of thinking in general. For context, thinking is super-vital in our U of Houston Master’s program and “better thinking” is the #1 benefit our alums cited in a recent survey. What are you seeing about thinking in these three areas?
1. Are our brains flabby and out-of-shape? Perhaps too many people have gotten lazy, waiting for “the data” to give answers. Alas, it only gives us some answers , and to the easy questions. The hard questions, which require thinking, keep getting punted down the road and left undecided. This is what truly scares me about AI – I think most people will gladly let AI make decisions for them, without being careful to consider when that does make sense and when it does not.
2. Is our risk-aversion leading to avoiding the deep thinking required to make good decisions? Readers inside large organizations know this phenomenon. Teams meet on a topic for not only months, but years, and actually not do a darn thing! There is a whole array of stalling tactics. We used to joke that the key to success in our [unnamed] organization was the ability to avoid making decisions. They keep kicking you upstairs, downstairs, sideways, or into limbo.
3. Is good thinking paying a productivity penalty? Many times when an individual uses their brain to improve a work process, their reward is more work. Does one get some benefit from saving hours of work? Too often, it just means you are moved to something else. So, most people rightly figure, why bother improving?
In After Capitalism, I talk about how instead of using productivity and abundance to work less, we mostly use it to buy more. It is so vital that we think about the future that we want, which has been the whole point of developing the After Capitalism images. We can’t be too lazy, or let the AI decide for us, or fail to reward good productive thinking if we want to create a better After Capitalism world.
The growing awareness of AI may provide the opening for us to emphasize the vital role of human thinking – it’s always important, but perhaps never more timely. – Andy Hines
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