Dystopian narratives about AI abound. Will the bots take over? Are we doomed as a human species? While I do not have a utopian outlook about our tech-saturated future, I do wonder what we could start doing today, in our present state, to course-correct these calamitous narratives.
So, earlier this year I began conducting an informal thought experiment with approximately 50 people. I asked them to engage in the following pre-mortem exercise: “Imagine it is 10 years into the future, and the dystopian version of our world has come to be — that the bots have taken over. What is one mindset shift, one behavioral change, and one work process modification you would make today to prevent that dystopian future?”
The themes of the responses were reassuring and affirming. In summary, people want transparency and to enact their agency by demanding ethically designed AI. They would ensure there was more pausing and slowing down in our workday in order to do deep thought. Interestingly, most people would design in friction, not eliminate it. They want embodied learning to ensure that we are not rushing ahead without thinking through the human dimension of our work.
In short, we should scaffold AI output with human consciousness as inputs.
An opportunity
The responses from this pre-mortem thought experiment demonstrate that we have an opportunity to shift mindset and behaviors right now. In an earlier Fast Company article I shared about something I call “sentient intelligence”: the internal sensory and emotional navigational console with which we humans are equipped to make sense of the world. It’s in high gear when we sit in awe, discern meaning, pause, and ask bold follow-up questions. Without tapping into our sentient intelligence, we easily lapse into behavioral patterns where we stop at the first answer.
Sentient intelligence is unique to humans. The intelligence that AI exhibits doesn’t make it human. But computer scientists like Sean White, founder of Inflection AI, believe that AI is capable of having relational intelligence. By way of example, he referenced an AI tool that could recall a caregiving journey and then follow up with us weeks later. Sean calls that an example of AI exhibiting relational intelligence—a sort of “pro-social AI” that can build relationships and connect us back to each other. It’s an opportunity to shift away from one-stop, brief, pedantic answers towards AI platforms that engage more comprehensive thinking on our part and help us to engage with each other. In short, Sean’s Inflection AI is one way to redirect our trajectory away from a dystopian future.
The ballroom dance connection
Long after my conversation with Sean about Inflection AI, I pondered whether what Sean’s team has developed was relational intelligence or relational design. It’s a subtle distinction but bears some consideration as I reflected that I toggle between relational intelligence and relational design in one of my favorite pastimes: ballroom dance.
On the ballroom dance floor at the amateur level, I constantly experience toggling between relational design (or choreography) and relational intelligence (the execution and discernment between two dancers). That relational intelligence is powered by our sentient intelligence and improves through contact and connection. By extension, the benefit of something like Inflection AI is that it is a situational catalyst that could bring in the choreographer when we need guidance, mapping, and optimization of the ways we connect.
Consider that pre-mortem thought experiment. How would you answer it? And would you welcome assistance to ensure that the bots don’t take over but instead we lean into our human agency? A platform like Inflection AI may be the situational choreographer we could use to amplify our human connection—without outsourcing attunement completely.
