Last Thursday’s announcement of OpenAI’s new ChatGPT agent, which creates spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentations, deepens the concern that AI will replace large numbers of white-collar jobs. Do knowledge workers have any lasting advantage over AI? This is an important question, and particularly for educators, who need to know how to prepare students for durable career success.
Gian Segato, of the AI company Replit, has a convincing answer: “It’s no longer as important to know how to do something. It’s knowing that it needs to be done and then just doing it.” AI appears to be highly effective at knowing how to do things. But in the highly uncertain world we are living in, the really valuable skills are deciding what needs to be done and then making sure that it happens. Who does that better, humans or AI?
Dr. Andrew Abela is the founding dean of the Busch School of Business at the Catholic University of America, faculty affiliate at Harvard University’s Human Flourishing Program, and author of Super Habits: The Universal System for a Successful Life. He writes about leadership, ethics, and building a fulfilling life in business, including How To Be Happy As You Climb The Corporate Ladder and Upgrading Employees’ Human Operating System.
Previously he was a brand manager at Procter & Gamble and a management consultant at McKinsey & Company. He has an MBA from the Institute for Management Development in Switzerland, a Ph.D in Business Ethics from the Darden Business School at the University of Virginia, and is a winner of the Acton Institute’s Novak Award.