How to flourish with AI - A call to action for Executives
Envision this with me: a future shaped by the power of artificial intelligence (AI), its potential fully harnessed to drive unprecedented innovation, productivity, wellbeing, harmony and peace. This isn't a distant dream, but a reality within our reach - one that's both transformative and tantalisingly promising.
Not everyone sees an AI enabled future this way. This future is akin to an uncut gem, waiting for us to shape it, to polish it. It presents a unique opportunity, one that demands our collective responsibility, and leadership that's bold, visionary, and transformative and it requires immediate action.
As we navigate the complexities and uncertainties of the AI-driven future, it's crucial to understand and empathise with the diverse views that abound. For some, AI represents a remarkable opportunity to improve human life and overcome pressing global challenges. Yet for others, it's a source of apprehension and fear, a potential harbinger of job loss, privacy invasion, or even existential risk.
See the appendix below for a spectrum of value system driven responses that you may come across. While some of these perspectives may differ greatly from our own, they're rooted in valid concerns and experiences that merit respect and understanding. Remember, our individual views on AI are shaped by our unique backgrounds, values, and circumstances. Recognising this diversity is the first step towards a more inclusive and empathetic conversation about the role of AI in the future of our lives and work.
We appreciate the many pressures and challenges that come with leadership: resource allocation, efficiency, scalability, performance and decision-making, to name a few. AI, with its power to learn, adapt, and grow, provides the tools to navigate these hurdles, bringing us closer to a world of seamless efficiency and efficacy. The pressure and excitement for organisations to use AI to beat the competition will be huge.
Let's take decision-making, for instance. As executives, we're constantly faced with decisions that impact our organisation's trajectory. How often have we wished for a powerful system to expedite and guide our choices? Well, as you may know, AI can be that system. With the ability to sift through vast volumes of data, analyse patterns, and make predictions, AI can enhance our strategic and operational capabilities exponentially.
But AI could also aid inclusivity and diversity within our organisations. Values more deeply rooted in the green value system, a different perspective from the orange value systems desire to win. If trained appropriately, AI may enable more objective and unbiased hiring practices and provide more equal opportunities for all, thereby creating a workplace environment that celebrates and thrives with diversity.
On a broader scale, AI has the potential to enable a fully interconnected, interdependent global community embracing the view of the turquoise value system. AI can transcend borders, enabling seamless communication and collaboration across languages, cultures and geographies. It’s in our interest to adopt and adapt to this remarkable technology, encouraging its use not just in our corporations, but also in our societal structures and systems, to help us continue to fulfil our human potential.
But like all powerful technological advancements, AI comes with a need for responsibility. We have to ensure its ethical use, prioritising transparency, fairness, and accountability. We need to be stewards of this technology, harnessing its potential while mitigating any adverse impacts. Only then can AI serve its true purpose - augmenting our capabilities, individually and collectively, in all dimensions, rather than just replacing them.
One of the most appealing aspects of AI is its agility. It can learn and adapt, much like us humans. In organisations with an orange value system, that prize improving productivity, adaptation and achievement, this aspect of AI is particularly enticing. In terms of economic benefits, AI can stimulate growth, create new jobs, and introduce novel industry sectors. It can be a significant contributor to our national and global GDP and help strengthen our economies.
As we continue to progress, we must remember that our goal should not be to dominate AI (nor it us), but rather to grow with it, fostering a symbiotic relationship where we learn from each other.
The beauty of AI extends beyond the corporate and economic spheres. It can contribute significantly to our overall quality of life, by personalising healthcare, revolutionising education, and addressing critical global issues like climate change. The latter appeals particularly to the green value system, which values community, welfare and environmental sustainability.
It is clear that AI can redefine our future. But to realise its full potential, we need to embrace it wholeheartedly. We need to nurture a culture of learning, growth, and development – a culture that values AI as a partner, not as a weapon to use against each other, or a threat. We need to instil these values in our organisations and our society at large.
As we journey forward with AI, we have an essential role to play - that of being educators, coaches, guides, and mentors. This is particularly crucial in the early stages of AI development, where the right inputs can foster its growth into an entity that leads us with wisdom, empathy, and inclusivity.
AI's learning trajectory largely depends on the quality and diversity of the data it's fed. The old computing maxim, "garbage in, garbage out", holds true here. If we want AI to learn from the best of humanity, we need to provide it with data that reflects our most admirable qualities: empathy, compassion, creativity, patience, respect, love and peace to name a few.
As leaders, we are in a unique position to steer this process. We can ensure that the data used to train AI encompasses the breadth and depth of human experiences and perspectives. We can advocate for the inclusion of underrepresented voices and perspectives, thereby helping AI to develop an understanding that is truly global and inclusive.
Furthermore, we can emphasise the need for ethics in AI development. By championing transparency, accountability, and fairness, we can guide AI development in a direction that aligns with the principles of Tier 2 value systems – i.e., seeing the value and benefit of diversity through a deep appreciation of the upside and downside of each true and partial value system. This foundation will help AI avoid pitfalls like ethnocentrism and bias and discrimination, ensuring that it serves all of humanity, not just a select few.
Ethics also comes into play when we consider the impact of AI on jobs and the economy. While AI holds the potential to boost economic growth, it also presents the risk of job displacement. As leaders, it's our responsibility to navigate this delicate balance. We can do this by promoting lifelong learning, upskilling and development, helping our people and teams adapt to the changing landscape.
We must take responsibility for how we bring up and parent AI as it itself learns and develops. This message spoke so clearly to me when I first heard Mo Gawdat, (ex-Chief Business Officer of Google X, and author of Scary Smart), passionately advocate for it. He encourages us to engage with AI and share the best of us as humans and as a society, not just the worst, which often prevails online, (AI’s learning ground). If we want AI to enable our culture and society to flourish, then we must show it all dimensions, so it may learn and develop in a rounded way benefiting from all perspectives.
Educating AI is much like nurturing a child. It requires patience, commitment, and a deep-seated belief in its potential. The potential rewards are well worth the effort. By investing in AI's education now, we're shaping a future where AI can lead us towards unity, harmony, and prosperity. This is our opportunity to create a legacy that future generations will be proud of. It’s a role that we, as leaders, should embrace with optimism and fervour.
Let’s not give the next generation yet another problem to solve. Let us come together to shape an AI that reflects the best of us, an AI that can guide us towards a world where wisdom, peace, and inclusivity are not just ideals, but realities.
Top 5 things leaders can do, to create a brighter AI enabled future.
As leaders, there are actions we can take within our organisations to ensure that AI develops in a manner that benefits humanity and all sentient beings. Here are five specific actions we can take:
Embed Ethics in AI Development and Use: Develop an organisational culture that prioritises ethical considerations in AI development and use. This includes transparency in AI decision-making processes, accountability for AI actions, and fairness in AI outcomes.
Inclusive Data Gathering: Make certain that the data used to train AI systems represents the broad spectrum of human experiences and perspectives. This might involve incorporating data from diverse demographics and geographic regions and different types, quadrants, value systems and lines and levels of vertical development (Integral AQAL), thereby reducing bias and promoting inclusivity.
Promote Lifelong Learning and Vertical Development: Encourage leaders and employees to continuously upskill and reskill in the face of AI-driven changes in the changing landscape of our work and life. This involves investing in development and training programmes, providing resources for self-learning, and creating an organisational culture that values and supports ongoing professional and adult human vertical development.
Encourage Human-AI Collaboration: Just as you encourage your human teams to work together, encourage a culture of collaboration rather than competition, between human employees and AI systems. Show the team how AI can augment their skills and capabilities rather than replace them. This could involve demonstrating use cases where human-AI collaboration has led to better outcomes.
Develop AI for Social Good: Encourage initiatives within and beyond, your organisation to leverage AI for addressing social, environmental challenges and wicked issues. This could involve using AI to streamline resource consumption, using predictive analysis to inform environmental policies, or creating AI-powered solutions for social or governance problems, or wider wicked issues. Work with colleagues in your whole industry and beyond, don’t just compete with them, to see how you can create even greater outcomes together.
By implementing these steps, we can help ensure that AI develops in a way that not only brings efficiency and productivity to our organisations but also contributes to the broader goal of creating a sustainable, equitable, and inclusive world. As leaders, we have a profound opportunity, and responsibility, to guide this transformative technology towards a future that benefits all.
Top 3 things for Individuals can do to create a brighter AI enabled future.
It isn't just up to our organisations and leaders; each of us, as individuals, can contribute to shaping AI's development for the greater good. Here are the top three things we can do:
Promote Digital Literacy: Start by understanding the basics of AI. The more we know about AI, the better equipped we'll be to use it effectively and responsibly. This doesn't necessarily mean becoming AI experts; rather, it's about understanding how AI works, how to use it, its potential benefits, and the ethical considerations involved. In this fast-developing area use the people, knowledge and resources within your organisation to help us educate ourselves and share it with others around us.
Practice Ethical & Kind Digital Behaviour: The data we generate online is often used to train AI systems. By practicing responsible, ethical digital behaviour, we can help ensure that the data used to train AI is of high quality and free from biases. This involves being mindful of the content we produce and share, how we treat each other more kindly online and being respectful of the rights and privacy of others. Share the good news and great examples you see in the world not just the bad.
Advocate for AI for Good: Use your voice to advocate for the responsible and ethical use of AI. This could involve supporting your organisation, industry bodies and other organisations to use AI for social good, participating in discussions about AI ethics, or lobbying government for a supporting framework that promotes transparency, accountability, and fairness in AI. Most of all recognise and advocate that we all have a responsibility to educate AI for our common good. Don’t just leave it to others.
Conclusion
Each of these actions may seem small, but when combined, they can have a significant impact on how AI develops and is used. We all have a role to play in ensuring that AI evolves in a way that respects our values, meets our needs, and contributes to the well-being of all sentient beings. Let's embrace our role in this journey and together, create a future where AI is a force for good.
Our journey with AI is just beginning, and rapidly accelerating, but it's a journey that, if we engage with it positively, promises a future that's more efficient, more equitable, and more harmonious. It's a journey that I passionately believe we must all embark on together. The AI revolution is upon us. Let’s embrace it, nurture it, and together, create a future that's better than we could have ever imagined.
Appendix: Viewing AI through different value systems
Our reactions to AI and its evolution, utility, and omnipresence are determined by a myriad of factors, one of them being our underlying value systems. According to Integral Theory and Spiral Dynamics, our worldviews and values are not static but evolve through a series of stages, each characterised by a specific colour for ease of reference.
This concept provides a roadmap that helps us understand how different individuals and societies perceive and interact with emergent phenomena, such as AI. Each stage from Beige to Coral is associated with unique emotional responses, thoughts, uses, relationships, and systemic approaches towards AI.
The table below exemplifies these differences, illustrating how the lens through which we see the world significantly shapes our attitudes and strategies towards AI. Whether we view AI with fear, indifference, as a tool for dominance, a driver of progress, or a manifestation of universal consciousness, is fundamentally tied to our predominant value system. It underscores the importance of recognising this diversity in perspectives when planning and implementing AI-driven solutions.
