#164 Prof Picks Up Where Dan Left Off

Welcome back to OTF, where your resident professor, Prof Mike, is taking over this week’s edition. Though it’s probably a good time to let you all know that I won’t be in residence much longer.

Dan recently teased an upcoming announcement, and this is it: beginning two weeks from now, On the Fly will become a solo venture. Dan will continue piloting this plane alone while I pursue opportunities to try to elevate my own career.

One thing you can look forward to: no more corny aviation jokes.

I’ll be back next week to talk more about what I’ve learned from this experience (and more), but for now, I want to piggyback on what Dan wrote about in the last edition.

Now boarding…

Last Week…

Dan talked about the future of employment and gave some really useful advice. I wanted to build off of that because this is something my students and I talk about pretty frequently.

I am not clairvoyant. I have no idea what the future will look like. But common sense tells us that:

• Some industries, trades, and positions will see significant growth

• Some will achieve (or come pretty close) to obsoletion

• And some will simply shift or evolve with the tech.

As we’ve talked about many times over, the best way to ensure that you don’t become obsolete is to 1) remain capable of doing things the tech can’t, and 2) figure out how to use the tech to enhance your strengths and mitigate your weaknesses.

Teamwork Makes the Dream Work Keeps YOU At Work

This is what I tell my students if they want to maintain an active role in this upcoming sci-fi movie we’ve all been cast in: figure out how to make AI work for you, or it’ll get the job instead of you.

Here are the skills we talk about the most, and how AI can play a supporting role in each one:

1. Communication Skills - We’ve talked about this ad nauseam, so you don’t need much more from me. But it will always be crucial. Many sources talk about how “human closers” will remain vital (think business, sales, etc.), and that boils down to basic communication. So keep flexing those conversation / persuasion muscles, every chance you get.
   
   * AI’s Role: Editorial Assistant: I’d steer clear of letting it draft for you, and you should have final say over your tone / style / voice, but when you need some feedback or line-editing, let the LLM handle it.

2. Creativity / Idea-Generation - You want to stand out, and to do that, you need a great, outside-the-box idea. So you go to AI for help. The only problem? AI doesn’t conjure original ideas. It gets information from inside-the-box (granted, it’s the biggest box on the planet), synthesizes a little bit, and repackages old ideas as new. If you’re looking to do something unique, AI can’t come up with that idea for you. Only you can analyze a problem, ask the right questions, and come up with answers in a truly original way. So keep pushing yourself to ask questions, consider other perspectives, take risks, and imagine.
   
   * AI’s Role: Sounding Board: Prompt it with your thoughts, see what sorts of similar ideas it can find, and then work through the information together until that light bulb goes off in your head. Then YOU act on it.

3. Learning - There’s obviously a lot that goes into this, but you need to make sure you continue to support your memory, your focus, your reading comprehension, your pattern recognition, etc. We are so used to having things handed to us on a silver platter that it’s become hard for some to work for the payoff that comes with deeper learning. So keep reading, and find ways to build/rebuild your attention span, and make time for quiet thought and reflection, and don’t mistake information for knowledge.
   
   * AI’s Role: Teaching Assistant: I talked in the past about Notebook LM, and since then, I’ve only come to appreciate it more. I had a plumbing issue in my house, and while the tool couldn’t teach me to solve it myself (there’s still no better teacher than hands-on training), I now know way more about water filtration than I probably should, and that knowledge helped me make several important decisions that will impact my family for the foreseeable future.
   
   A student of mine also told me a little bit about how she uses AI to learn better: when she’s studying for a test (whether on paper or in the lab), she uploads materials into her AI of choice and then asks it to “quiz” her on it. Sometimes it’ll be a traditional quiz where she needs to apply concepts to answer questions, and sometimes it’ll be hands-on activities that she can physically practice. I thought this was clever (while simultaneously realizing that I might be out of a job soon).

OTF O.F.T
One Final Thought

The beauty of this human-AI partnership is that if you do your part while allowing AI to enhance your efficiency, suddenly you have more time to live. So while it isn’t a skill per se, that’s the thing I’ll leave you with: keep a life separate from work. Keep hobbies, interests, passions that have nothing to do with making money or maintaining employment. Keep paying attention to both your mental and physical health, and set aside device-free time so your neck, back, eyes, and brain don’t become totally f&%#ed.

A more automated world means fewer time-consuming, mindless, soulless tasks and more freedom. What will you do with yours?

Before You Go!

Thanks for reading. I know we talk about this stuff a lot, but with the way the world’s going, we can’t afford not to think about it. Everything’s changing rapidly, and we have to change with it.

That’s why even though I’ll be stepping away from active involvement in OTF, I’ll continue making it an essential part of my weekly reading. Dan’s AI content is the reason I know what little I do, and it’s already had a positive impact on my life. (And I hope my passing it on to my students has done the same for them.)

Next week, I’ll be back writing for you for the last time. In the meantime: if you have any feedback for Dan - stuff you want to see, stuff you’re sick of seeing, questions, comments, etc. - email him at [email protected].

See you next Tuesday.

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