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10.07.2024 Today’s Insights from McKinsey and Reid Hoffman – Embracing genAI and Teaching Robots EQ

10.07.2024 Today’s Insights from McKinsey and Reid Hoffman – Embracing genAI and Teaching Robots EQ
Dear Students,
 
You probably haven’t heard too much yet about teaching robots emotional intelligence. While doing so may sound strange, high-EQ robots could, ironically, support humans in collaborating more effectively in teams!
 
McKinsey Senior Partner Lareina Yee, while interviewing Reid Hoffman (a co-founder of LinkedIn and Inflection AI), highlights the value of “training EQ,” which could, for example, “include empathy, active listening, how to stay positive, and how to listen to feedback.” Hoffman, for his part, showcases that “What I really care about [as a business leader] is how people feel about their position on the team, or how they’re interfacing and interacting with other people on the team, or in the industry, or in the world.”
 
Now, we recognize that ambitious international students like you may wonder, “If we can train a computer to act human, will humans really be necessary? Let’s hope so! In any case, there is a more important perspective to consider. Hoffman, in illuminating what he coins “the cognitive industrial revolution,” stresses the importance of embracing – by experimenting with – such technologies – essentially adopting an “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em” approach to this “revolution.” While you and your peers will likely still be valued professionally in the near future (although uniquely by function, company and situation) the time for students like you, who may have been only dabbling with ChatGPT (and who may have hesitated to dialogue meaningfully with other AI platforms and/or for other uses) is now.
 
Our coaches thus encourage candidates like you to “get out and play” with the broad range of new gen AI tools (even beyond ChatGPT), while discovering each platforms’ strengths and weaknesses, given that facility in leveraging these will soon become an expected workplace “communication skill” competency. And, you are at it, why not help these platforms to develop the empathy to work most effectively with aspiring professionals like you and your friends, in the coming years!
 
What can each of us learn from experimenting with some type of AI this evening?
 
Best,
 
Amy-Louise