$100 Billion Brains: How AI Highlights the Genius of Human Thinking

Guest post by Jo Owen

Artificial Intelligence is showing just how smart humans are. Over $100 billion has been spent on developing self-driving cars, which can now navigate relatively predictable environments like the gridiron streets of Phoenix and San Fransisco. Most of us can learn to navigate roads with ease: we do not need $100 billion of training over ten years to pass our driving test.

If navigating roads is simple, navigating life is hard, and is becoming harder than ever. I have spent over 20 years working with tribes around the world and I am consistently struck by how hard but simple their lives are. They follow a predictable pattern of events throughout the year. Everyone knows what they are meant to do, how to do it, and when to do it. In contrast, we live lives of affluent anxiety and ambiguity. Where tribes have little or no choice and little information, we have too much choice and too much information, as well as disinformation.

Your ability to navigate a life of complexity, uncertainty, and excess choice and information shows that you are already a smart thinker, without even trying. Most of the time, you make decisions unconsciously. Learned habits and assumptions are essential to navigating life day to day. If you had to check the design drawings and maintenance records of every bridge you crossed and every elevator or escalator you used, then you would probably not bother getting out of bed in the morning.

But even the smartest people with a string of degrees to their name have their face-palm moments. These are the moments you wish you had said or done something different. They are not moments when AI can help: the situation evolves too fast with too much ambiguity. There is not enough information to establish the sorts of patterns that AI needs to succeed. Instead of depending on AI, you have to depend on yourself.

There are two ways you can navigate these moments of truth even better: buy time and get help.

The difference between smart thinking and dumb thinking is approximately 3.27681 seconds. You only need a couple of seconds to switch from autopilot to conscious thinking. Autopilot is very useful most of the time and remarkably dangerous some of the time, at moments of maximum risk and uncertainty. When you let your conscious take over from your unconscious, you normally find the right response and right course of action: trust yourself to be a smart thinker. The easiest way to buy time is to have a stock question that you can ask. Even saying “say more” to the other person is enough to buy you those vital few seconds to help you find the best response.

The second way of avoiding face-palm moments is to expand your available brain power: get help. In standard problem-solving exercises (such as desert survival or space survival, which you can find on the internet), the collective answer is invariably better than the best answer of any individual. Different perspectives allow you to find new and better solutions. Even the simple act of talking a problem through with a friend or colleague usually helps crystallize your thinking and help you find a solution.

Artificial intelligence is helping show how we are smart thinkers. Like AI, we learn from patterns. Unlike AI, we are very good at seeing patterns in uncertain, ambiguous, fast-moving situations where there is either too much or too little information. These are typically the moments we are dealing with other human beings: we have to read emotions, hear what is said and not said, and understand their needs and wants. For managers, this is very good news. AI can help with much of the routine and predictable work, but we still need managers to deal with all the glorious complexity, emotion, and politics of organisational life.

Navigating modern life and work requires very smart thinking. AI shows we already have $100 billion brains. We just need to find the tools and the time to make the most of our abilities.

Smart Thinking: How to live, think and work even better by Jo Owen is published by Bloomsbury Business priced £14.99, out now.