Embracing the AI Revolution: How Knowledge Workers Can Thrive Through Mind Mastery

Throughout history, there have been predictions that new technology will take away jobs or negatively impact society. Now, with the rise of AI, the issue has surfaced as a topic of discussion once again. Previous predictions have not fully come true regarding job losses; we are still working. However, jobs have decreased due to automation, and that will likely happen this time as well—though no one yet knows the scale of it. What is certain, however, is that things will continue to evolve, and people will automate whatever can be automated. And since AI brings new possibilities for automation, more automation is coming.

AI understands language and possesses all available knowledge—everything. It understands concepts like dogs, the world, excitement. It learns new things, meaning it can create new capabilities, artifacts, and knowledge. It knows by heart all the theories and applications of medicine, law, economics, biology, natural sciences, and so on. It can absorb a 1,000-page manual in a second and immediately answer any question from it. It can recognize an image, explain where it was taken, and describe what it shows. These are digital contents, but at the same time, this capability is being integrated into robotics, allowing robots to understand their surroundings and learn new skills. This development has already led to a situation where, whenever I need to know something, I ask AI first. It has also led to the situation that anything in digital form can be mimicked, improved and transformed by AI, and the human role in this process will diminish.

One thing we can certainly do is prepare and decide how we will approach AI and the coming changes. AI can be resisted and feared, but its arrival is likely unstoppable and, frankly, something people may not even want to prevent. Alternatively, we can approach it with an open mind, explore its capabilities, and get the best sense of what it can do and how it will impact, for example, your own career or on a larger scale.

If you’re interested in how you will face the upcoming AI changes, follow the upcoming news and pay attention to how you respond to it. Also, take note of your current opinion on the subject, the emotional charge tied to it, and whether your opinion is based on your own experience or general news coverage. If you are passionately against it, there’s a chance that you won’t be able to control the change but will have to adapt to what is available to you afterward. However, if you’re open to it, your chances of leveraging the positive and preventing the negative aspects of the change improve, and you’ll be able to choose how things will go for you after the shift.

How you approach things—and thus what follows—is entirely up to you. If that feels difficult, it’s likely that your mind is controlling you. Mastering the mind is what we focus on here, so check out how you can learn to control it instead of letting it control you.