Degrees of Change

Chapter 5Is It You? The Importance of Figuring Out What It Means to Be Human in the Age of AI

—Daniel Maxwell, University of Florida

Generative AI poses many challenges, especially for those working in white-collar professions. Will I still have a job? How should I respond to this new technology? What skills should I master? In this chapter, I sketch out a way of thinking through these issues. To flourish in the age of AI, humans will need to embrace creativity as never before. Indeed, this will be the defining skill of the twenty-first century. Over millennia, humanists have developed a set of ideas regarding the nature of creative thought. We consider six key propositions in this chapter. One can use them to craft a personal response to generative AI. Additionally, they can be helpful as you decide which skills are worthy of continued investment and mastery. Mastery is not obsolete in the age of generative AI. Rather, it's strategic, as these tools call for even higher levels of understanding. How else will we know when a given response is a hallucination? Thus, determining how one's expertise fits into the larger collaborative landscape is the key challenge. That, in turn, requires self-knowledge, an awareness of what makes you unique. It all begins with the question, “Who am I, and who do I want to be?”

Introduction

Is it you? In the age of generative AI, this will be a defining question. To what extent is my work a reflection of my thought and effort? And to what extent ...