As AI automates jobs and intellectual labor, humanity faces its biggest question: What is left for us? This interview explores the profound psychological and societal shifts, revealing why unlearning old paradigms is vital. Discover how to find inner purpose and generativity and navigate an era of unprecedented, accelerating change – ensuring human meaning thrives.
Peter, you’ve stated that the future is no longer about knowledge… The future is about relentless curiosity in the pursuit of personal fulfillment. In a rapidly emerging world where AI is described as another life form and is predicted to automate a significant portion of jobs, what new definition of work do you foresee for humanity?
If you look at the evolution of work over the course of human history, we’ve spent much of our existence as a species progressively trying to make whatever we called “work” easier somehow. Initially, this meant finding ways – using first tools and animals and then machines – to reduce the physical aspects of human labour out of work that’s been done. In recent times it is automating more and more of the cognitive or intellectual side of things with computers and other smart devices. To date, all of this automation has been wholly augmentative – that is, it is all supportive of and in service to human physical and mental labour. However, with the emergence of artificial intelligence, we’ve now advanced technology to the point that we have almost completely removed the need for humans from most forms of physical work (i.e., manufacturing) and are increasingly removing the need for humans from the intellectual and cognitive aspects of a great many forms of work as well. And I say this with the caveat that what we have for AI today in the form of weak or narrow AI is simply the very tip of the AI iceberg; what it’s capable of today is a mere drop in the ocean of what – if I understand the development arc accurately – it will be capable of in the very near – 5 years? – future. Okay, so what’s left for human beings?
That is quite literally THE question! And, it’s one that is beginning to be debated as AI’s capabilities and applications continue to unfold day to day. From my perspective, there are two answers that come to mind. First, in the near term, the one thing AI can’t currently do is form relationships, or it can’t actually feel. AI can identify and characterize a feeling – that is, it can look at a face of someone scowling or crying and “know” that that face represents anger or distress, but it can’t – yet – actually have a first-hand experience of “sad”, “glad”, “mad” and so forth. We still need a human interface to feel. I say “yet” because I think this limitation is likely only true for the moment simply because once AI can fully do “theory of mind”, it will have the capacity to understand and interpret human emotions, beliefs, and intentions. And, once we make the leap to General or Strong AI, you’re talking about what is effectively human-equivalent in terms of how it engages and relates; this is technology with human-level cognitive abilities, capable of learning, understanding, and reasoning across a wide range of tasks – it’s essentially human. Second, longer term, I think we’ve got to re-evaluate our lives – and our organizations – at an existential level: what is our purpose in life? Humans have traditionally functioned with a largely linear path: birth, school, work, death – obviously there are an infinite number of individual variations and cultural nuances to this path, but as a generalization I think it holds true. But AI will – for certainly has the potential to – eliminate at least one of the steps on this path – work – and so doing it calls into question the need for a second step – school which has traditionally been preparatory for a career … leaving nothing between birth and death. Consequently, we can no longer look outward for work to provide much of the meaning in our lives; instead, we are going to have to be both wildly curious about this emerging environment as well as look inward to what really matters to us as a source for generative activity going forward. I don’t think there are any absolutes about what our role in this future is going to be – it’s a world of quite literally infinite possibility. The future is, if it’s even possible, more uncertain than ever – no one has any idea how this is all going to unfold.
While AI is celebrated for ushering in a new era of efficiency, what are the unseen risks? What are potential multifaceted impacts of large-scale AI implementation on human socioeconomic structures, employment patterns, or long-term societal development? Are there for example new ways to organize the economy so this doesn’t collapse everything?
First of all, there’s a significant psychological impact. If you look at psychologists like Eric Erickson, or even philosophers like Friedrich Nietzsche, they’ve all talked about this notion of how crucial the need to be productive, to have a sense of fulfillment, to feel generative is for humans – and that comes from our ability to do purposeful work, to do meaningful work. Look at when unemployment in the United States during 2008/2009 hit 13 to 15%, and what you saw was a massive spike in the use of mental health services. People were flocking to therapists because our identities are symbiotically tied up in the work we do and in the absence of work people’s very sense of self was adrift. In many cultures, certainly in an American culture, our sense of self is largely defined by what we do; “I’m so-and-so. I’m a fill-in-the-blank with your title or occupation”.
Our labour becomes a key piece of our being. And when we strip that out, people become, as Nietzsche would say, unmoored and wistful. Within Capitalist or more open market economies, I think there’s also a sociological impact that at its core stems from the question around what is the purpose of any given business? What defines and how does the business add value in an automated or non-human environment? In an era where businesses are dominated by automated production or artificial intelligence doing the work, for whom is that product being produced? If the majority of people are no longer drawing wages from being employed, there isn’t money to pay for goods or services unless there are significant changes to the current economic structure. Again, if we strip all of the human labour out of an organization, profits will no longer be paid as wages but instead will flow directly to the owners of capital which leaves the questions of increasing wealth disparity and economic segregation as open-ended possibilities.
Are businesses only producing for the owners of capital and everyone else is screwed? This seems to take us full circle to the question you asked at the beginning. As I said, it’s not about knowledge anymore. It’s about endless curiosity. The only place you can look for sources of generativity is within. Instead of looking outward to figure out where you fit in the existing economic structure, looking inside and thinking deeply about what really matters.
What do I truly, genuinely, deeply care about? How do I take that sense of purpose and make it a reality in this world?’ Now, that’s a strategic question and it applies to each of us as individuals as much as it applies to organizations and businesses: what is it that I care about and how do I make it manifest? This is literally “future creation” – building the bridge as you walk on it. Because a tremendous number of jobs are going to be automated, right? The places I used to go to find work, employment, and generative opportunities no longer exist out there. So, I have to turn inward, be very skilled at looking within myself, and have the confidence to think forward into that world of infinite possibility to create truly purposeful employment opportunities for myself.
This could be also another challenge for today´s leaders – to cultivate the curiosity in the employees. You propose that Leadership is not about what YOU do. Leadership is about what you enable and excite OTHERS to do, and that fundamentally shifts from telling to asking. Considering your Stark’s Law of Leadership: Before you can exercise leadership you must first exercise leadership in learning to learn, unlearn, and relearn about yourself, what practical steps can aspire leaders take to cultivate this critical self-awareness and become an „interpersonal catalyst” for learning in others?
You’re not making this easy for me, are you! This is like asking: “what’s the answer to the Universe?” Okay, first, I believe that leadership is a verb, not a noun – it’s an active, intentional, conscious way of being that begins with deep self-reflection in service to one’s innate capability to be a catalyst, for themselves, for others, for their organizations, and for society at large. In this context, the word “leader” – a noun – is useless and, in fact, a hierarchically defined and frequently misapplied term. We call CEO’s “leaders” which is totally incorrect; a CEO is nothing more than a functional job responsibility. There’s absolutely nothing about either the functional position or the individual that occupies it that suggests, implies, or otherwise supports the notion that they provide “leadership”. These are two completely different concepts. No one should ever pursue “becoming a leader”; instead, they should pursue learning how to exercise great leadership. You can be a janitor or a window washer or mail sorter and still be catalytic in service to the efforts of those you interact with or otherwise influence; you don’t need a title or a specific job or position. In terms of practical steps toward exercising great leadership, I think there are four really crucial ones. To begin with, we operate largely on autopilot.
Our mind processes roughly 95% of the universe for us without our being consciously aware of it, sifting, sorting, evaluating, and processing millions of pieces of sensory information through the rubric of our unconscious beliefs. Think about the number of times you’ve driven home from someplace, pulled into your driveway, and had absolutely no conscious memory of how you got there. Our unconscious mind manages enormous amounts of life for us without our slightest awareness and sometimes we miss a lot of information about not only what we do day to day but feedback about who we are in terms of how others experience us. While we think we know how others perceive us, in reality we are actually quite unaware of how we “ripple” in the world. So, people may think I’m off my new-age rocker for saying this, but the first practical step that I always suggest to those I coach or consult with is … get into therapy; go sit down and talk to a mental health professional. Why? Because we simply don’t realize either that we do or the extent to which we function on autopilot. Therapy isn’t just about fixing problems – it’s about increasing our awareness of how others are going to experience you. It helps reveal blind spots in our self-awareness, it allows us to bring our hidden selves out of hiding to become more authentic, and it provides an opportunity to explore our unconscious autopilot. The therapeutic process is what forces a reckoning with the gap between self-perception and reality. Second, I think it’s also important to note that self-awareness demands more than reflection – it requires stillness. I think there has to be an investment in calm time, downtime. I’m a practicing Buddhist, so for me it’s meditation. It’s finding a space where I can be, to become present with myself. It’s only in those still moments that can you ask: how well do I actually know myself? How influential am I able to be within myself? To exercise leadership among others, you must first be able to exercise leadership within yourself by increasing the level of consciousness and intention in your everyday life – this includes even in the most mundane acts like having a cup of coffee. We’re so production and achievement oriented that we literally multi-task ourselves into unconsciousness.
Focus on the coffee: the smell, the taste, the colour, the weight of the cup, the environment you’re in; don’t be anywhere other than in that moment. That’s being present; that’s self-leadership. Finally, I think it’s really important to anchor growth in self-leadership in accountability. Get a coach or mentor, someone whose honest feedback you are willing to accept. Their candor again helps you internalize blind spots and refine your ripple effect – completing the cycle of learning, unlearning, and relearning that Stark’s Law demands. In a world where AI displaces traditional work, leadership becomes less about tasks and more about fostering self-aware, intentional ecosystems – where your interpersonal catalysis lets others thrive in their pursuit of meaning in their own lives.
Alvin Toffler’s quote, The illiterate of the 21st Century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn, sounds pretty challenging for us human beings, especially for persons who don’t like any changes. How do the concepts of unlearning and relearning apply to both individual and organizational levels in the face of unprecedented technological change and global disruption?
Alvin Toffler’s warning about illiterates of the 21st century cuts to the core of our struggle with change. Again, it begins with a radical self-inquiry: How do you know what you think you know to be true or false, right or wrong, good or bad? Both individuals and organizations operate on inherited frameworks – our understanding of the universe is something we came to through a series of downloads from our parents and grandparents and our cultures. These beliefs are accepted as empirical truth, but survival now demands we challenge that actively and continuously.
Test whether it still is true and valid in the current environment and learn a different way to exist if need be. The urgency is staggering. Where once change unfolded over generations (in the old days we had years if not decades), today it happens in hours and days and weeks. Take medicine, for example: everything we know about medicine – the entire body of knowledge – doubles every 900 days. 900 days!! A physician basically has to relearn everything they were taught in medical school every three years – and it doesn’t ever stop. In my own life, what I learned in college is being taught in grade school today. For individuals, complacency is fatal – if I’m not actively challenging the version of the world I created with my existing beliefs, I’ll be behind the curve that’s being accelerated exponentially by artificial intelligence by the end of the week. Organizations face even steeper cliffs. Their cultures take forever to change because transformation isn’t about policies but paradigms: it is the underlying belief structure that has to change. What you think is right is now wrong; what is good is now bad. Yet human beings hate change, clinging to comfort even as obsolescence looms. This is why Eric Hoffer’s words resonate: In times of great change… learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists. Toffler’s illiterates are those who cannot shed the learned mindset – who prioritize dogma over adaptability. In an AI-driven era, the stakes are clear: unlearn or unravel.
But the timeframe for adaptation is dangerously compressed.
Right. But let’s put this into context. Humans don’t actually hate change. Humans hate being changed. Most of us find change exhilarating and exciting when we, in fact, can envision a more desirable future and take steps to implement it. When we’re doing it of our intention and volition, for our own purpose, change is fun, it’s exciting, it’s interesting, it’s exhilarating in some ways. We just hate having someone say: Okay, Iwona, be different today, right?
Right. I would hate it.
Change is often too complicated and because it is often occurring in too short a period of time for humans to adjust. What’s happening with AI, what we’re experiencing as human beings, is that technology is forcing us to change at a scale and pace that’s literally overwhelming. And we’re inherently resistant, right?
Given this accelerating pace of change – which creates unprecedented chaos and renders traditional notions of control and certainty merely illusions – what frameworks or strategies can individuals and organizations adopt to effectively navigate this inherent instability?
There’s no question that the chaos of rapid change – both in terms of the physical reality of change as well as in our beliefs about it – strips away illusions of control and truly stresses both individuals and organizations. Consequently, and first of all, we need a real paradigm shift. That is, we need to stop thinking of our organizations as monolithic, bureaucratic entities designed to “manage work” and implicitly use them as a means of reinforcing a fictional sense of control over our environment. Instead, we need to start conceptualizing them as dynamic, organic human systems that are both purposeful in and of themselves collectively as well as mediums for individuals to exercise their personal agency in pursuit of their own personal purposes. This paradigm shift moves our thinking from a focus on organizations separate from their environment with an emphasis on control to understanding organizations as a part of their environmental systems and an emphasis on learning how to navigate them. Second, we need to rethink our understanding of strategy. The vast majority of organizations are obsessed with the short term and the pursuit of certainty over a 5- or 10-year time horizon. Frankly, the pace and magnitude of change today is such that a 5- or 10- year “strategic plan” is almost completely out of date coming off the printer. Instead of strategy being understood as a largely deterministic “planning process”, which is implicitly the pursuit of controlling the near-term future, we need to understand strategy as a creative thinking process for explicitly innovating the future – specifically an intentionally desired future. Putting it more simply, strategy is a semi-structured thinking process for getting from where we are today to where we most desire to be at some point 50, 75, 100 years in the future. It’s figuring out how to navigate from where you are today to where you most want to be in the future in an uncertain, ambiguous, paradoxical environment with inaccurate, imperfect, or incomplete information. Think of it this way. You’re on a ship about to set sail. You know where you are now – in port – and you know what your destination is; what you don’t know is what the open ocean may present you with as you sail out into it. The winds may change, storms of varying magnitudes may occur, the tide conditions will vary with phases of the moon – there are an infinite number of routes you can sail and an infinite number of variables that can impact your journey. The only thing you know for certain is what port you want to arrive at. We have to navigate through whatever the ocean throws at us to get to where we intend to land. Individually and organizationally, its exactly the same: if we know where we’re going, all the rest is just stuff the Universe throws at us that needs to be dealt with in the context of how it impacts or influences the voyage to our destination. The bottom line: when instability feels overwhelming, having clarity around a generative purpose (like metaphorical port) it turns chaos and uncertainty into a navigable sea: if you know where you’re going, the storms, tides, winds, pirates, whatever are just stuff to be dealt with!
To survive in this fast-changing world with AI, we have no choice but to keep learning – letting go of old skills, gaining new ones, and staying open. Adapt or get left behind. It’s that simple.
Well, I think that’s a pretty good summary. The downside – again – is that things like challenging our beliefs in pursuit of consciousness, imagining infinite futures, and being willing to let go of the present in order to create the future are things humans don’t do naturally and often struggle with as a result. But, to me, they’re absolutely essential for our survival. To be fair, they’re complex things to attempt because they often involve political, sociological, anthropological, and certainly business/organizational elements – all of which are changing rapidly in real time. So, it’ll be an interesting ride over the next 10-15 years! I’m going to be relentlessly curious to see how these developments unfold. We’ll see.
Dr. Peter Stark is recognized internationally as an engaging educator with expertise in strategy, cross-cultural organizational effectiveness, and leadership. He is currently the Marcia Page and John Huepenbecker Endowed Professor of International Business and Entrepreneurship at Gustavus Adolphus College (USA). Peter also consults worldwide in the design and delivery of human performance improvement initiatives in complex, multi-cultural organizations. His background encompasses more than 25 years of senior executive experience and includes starting and/or leading businesses in 16 countries.
Iwona Heyen – efektywne i twórcze zarządzanie projektami to jej żywioł. Z certyfikatem PMP® i studiami EMBA w toku, od ponad 10 lat prowadzi międzynarodowe zespoły projektowe przez meandry branży motoryzacyjnej. Zamienia chaos w sukces, a deadline’y w osobiste wyzwania – a wszystko to z uśmiechem na ustach i książką w torbie na kolejne wyjazdy. W wolnych chwilach pielęgnuje ogród i rozwija pasję do języków obcych. Jej mottem jest: „Dzień bez kwiatów i bez książki jest dniem straconym”.
Iwona Heyen – effective and creative project management is her element. With a PMP® certification and an EMBA in progress, she has been leading international project teams through the intricacies of the automotive industry for over 10 years. She transforms chaos into success and deadlines into personal challenges – all with a smile on her face and a book in her bag for her next trips. In her free time, she tends to her garden and nurtures her passion for foreign languages. Her motto: „A day without flowers and a book is a day lost.