When you think of the smartest people in society, who comes to mind? What jobs do they occupy? Most people answer with jobs like lawyers, software engineers, or architects. Maybe you think of your favorite pastor 😎.

In a recent interview with Jensen Huang, he turns the whole conversation of who is the smartest person in the room on its head.

Right now, we have an adolescent artificial intelligence. I would say it is past infancy stage, but it has not turned into a full-grown adult that can think and act completely on its own. Even in its youth, we already see AI making a significant impact on innovation and the economy.

But what jobs do you see an adolescent artificial intelligence taking? It happens to be taking the jobs that we view as the most complicated, the jobs that are held by the people we view as the smartest. If AI, which has hardly developed in the grand scheme of things, is first taking jobs of the smartest people, what does that mean about all the jobs that couldn’t possibly do?

To me, it may seem to suggest that our understanding of intelligence has been wrongly defined for a long time.

Or, maybe with the advent of AI, our definition of intelligence, or more precisely human intelligence, is changing.

What defines the type of intelligence that AI is replacing? It is a type of knowledge that deals with pattern-recognition. It is a type of knowledge that is scarce and specialized.

Elon Musk tells us that in just a few years, robots equipped with AI will be better at surgery than any human alive. Surgeons and doctors are suddenly replaceable. These professions we treat with reverence could suddenly become a cheap commodity. It is not that their knowledge or skill are no longer impressive. It is that the capability of chips and software easily replicate these tasks. Think about it: the moment a single robot with AI learns a task, every robot AI that has access to the same memory can perform the same task at the same skill level. Once we have one excellent robot surgeon we will have as many as we want. The same is true with AI architects, lawyers, and engineers.

Intelligence once defined by degrees and exams and IQ are being surpassed by silicon.

What we know as intelligence is being redefined, and the future of human intelligence will belong to those who excel where AI struggles. That means any role that requires a human presence and empathy. Jobs that need human judgement amidst fast-changing and often messy environments. Roles that require creativity and foresight, anticipation and the ability to redirect.

Automation is currently unable to coordinate the messiness of humans.

This new reality of bumping up against a new AI is going to cause a mass reevaluation of the roles we hold as keys to human intelligence. We will always need people who know and can develop software and the like. But the future of human intelligence belongs to those who are most human.

If you liked this post, or you feel like it would start a good conversation, please share this with your friends and ask them to subscribe.

It would help me a lot. Thanks for reading! 

New videos coming out weekly: https://youtube.com/@thejacobhayward?si=JHgwOjGP_-FwY3l0

Follow me on X for newest updates: https://x.com/thejacobhayward?s=21