A revolution in deep listening

Artificial Intelligence is changing everything. As this new form of intelligence continues to grow and innovate, it is drawing the line more clearly in the human mind about what it means to be artificial and what it means to be human.

As AI and machines begin to take some of the tasks we have previously considered human work, it is helping refine human work to things that cannot be replicated by machines.

In other words, AI is going to help humans become more human.

A Relationship Revolution is coming.

One of the human skills we have lost is the art of deep listening.

I see this most clearly in the arena of politics and the deeply entrenched lines between political extremes. Each side understands their view as correct and the other side as next to evil. There is little communication between tribes that could bring about a sense of unity.

The age of the internet and social media has only heightened the energy between the tribes. The algorithms of the internet are fed by clicks, and few things get more clicks than political outrage. So, our pages send us updates about what some red or blue politician said or did now. Our algorithm shows us not the peaceful protests but the violent ones. It shows us the few bad apples, rather than the overwhelming amount of good ones.

This is a bad way to communicate the news of the world, and yet we have accepted it as normal. Everyone knows that social media and the news feed you outrageous stories so that you continue to view and listen. Everyone knows they should delete their apps and turn off the news. But your human nature can’t. You want the drama.

But, our defense against this onslaught of bad media is no longer in use. Listening has long been a practice used to understand the position and story of someone else so that we can have a better understanding of the whole story. We might accumulate the life lessons and culture of another people and in turn reason within ourselves what is right or best practice around a certain idea or event.

Now that every person has their own algorithm, it is as if we each live on our own planet. Our world has become fragmented. And the noise has become so constant and so loud that we have lost the skill to sit for long periods of time and could reason with another person.

Don’t believe me? The best practice in listening is reading. In reading, the reader has to allow the mind of the author to enter into their own mind, and the reader and writer collide with one another. As the reader follows line by line, they are to be constantly listening to the author and using reason to debate the author’s logic. But the only true way to read is to enter into the shoes and culture and space of the author, and allow the author to enter your space.

But, reading has become a niche hobby rather than a cultural norm. At least not for long periods of time. The most people read these days is a post on social media or emails for work.

I believe that listening is an art that is bound to come back with the increased usage of AI.

Let’s take healthcare, for example. If we install AI into a manager position at a hospital, AI will be able to process patient data and communicate automatically with team members removing friction and allowing staff to instead spend time with the patient and listening to the needs of the patient in ways that a machine cannot.

In business, AI is already able to handle routine emails, service scripts, phone calls social media, summarizing reports, scheduling, and optimizing workflow, just to name a few things. This transformation of how administration is done gives humans the opportunity to use that freedom to interact with one another, making the workplace somewhere that people are able to speak and be listened to.

In schooling, AI will play the role of both teacher and grader, opening new roles for teachers to not just teach on history or math but on character and virtue and what it means to be human.

AI will open for us a new pathway to leisure. At this point in the age of technology, the internet has caused the world to work 24/7. There was a time where work happened at work, and everything waited until you got into the office. Now, work can happen anywhere, and so often does. It is not uncommon that to-be moms are working up to labor and delivery rather than experiencing the process of birth. Dads are checking emails at their kid’s baseball games rather than cheering. AI will return the space between work and leisure, if we allow it. AI agents will answer emails and do mechanistic internet work for us. In turn, we will have our presence back and we can choose to pay attention, and to listen.

AI is going to take on the burden of efficiency and the transactional parts of our life, allowing us as humans to invest once again in inefficient and deep relational complexity.

The Internet trained our minds to skim. It optimized us for speed over substance. AI presents an opportunity to us, that it will take on the transactional nature of too much information and too many to-dos and instead allow us to slow down and connect.

Machines can process words, but only humans sense the weight behind them. Humans sense the grief in someone’s voice, meaning in their pauses, joy in their grins.

As we reclaim the art of listening, we also find a revival of empathy, of presence, and of unity.

AI is not only going to change how we connect to the internet, but even greater, how we authentically connect and listen to one another.

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It would help me a lot. Thanks for reading! 

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