Growing industry automation and use of artificial intelligence (AI) in various fields may have sparked the fear of machines taking over jobs, but the future of job sector relies heavily on developing social skills, trust and empathy among workers, more commonly known as soft skills. According to Collins dictionary, soft skills are desirable qualities for certain forms of employment that do not depend on the acquired knowledge.
Over time, jobs have shifted from farms to factories, and now to offices. Thanks to the advent of smart technologies and computing systems like artificial intelligence and blockchain, sooner there will be a magnanimous change in how the work is done.
It’s also important to realise that while automation can put a lot of jobs at stake, it is also imperative to realise the fact that technology cannot replace the humane touch. Skills such as empathy, creativity, teamwork, negotiation and communication are going to be far more important in the future when machines are able to do the work that we spend hours doing today.
From employer’s perspective, it is much harder, though possible, to teach an applicant soft skills, since these are coupled with personality and might require additional expensive coaching. Technical Skills or technical skills can be taught more easily by colleagues and can be improved with work experience. Thus, finding a candidate whose soft skills match the requirements of the employer is of greater importance for the employer.
According to an article in the Forbes magazine, these are some of the skills which lend humans the edge over the machines
- Empathy and communication: While AI is being used in medical applications to do things more accurately like detecting diseases on a scan, nobody would certainly like to receive a call from robots to break some sad news or be given happy news. Even though we are making strides towards effective computing, we are a long way away from any technology that can genuinely recognize human emotions and respond to them appropriately, so any job that requires empathy like primary care, physicians, caregivers, and therapists are unlikely to be outsourced to technology any time soon.
- Critical thinking: We love the old science fiction shows where the human asks the computer what they should do in a terrible situation, and the computer predicts a 99 per cent probability of failure — but the human goes and does the thing anyway and usually succeeds. It’s a beautiful metaphor for the fact that, no matter how advanced our AI may be, we still need a human to make judgments and critical decisions, even to “go with our gut,” in certain situations. A more contemporary example might be that law firms are employing AI to help identify relevant documents in legal cases, but we still need a human judge to adjudicate a decision.
- Creativity: Computer programs are good at spitting out a number of options, but they’re not necessarily good at providing quality of creative choices. While AI can technically produce food, music, or art, the results can be less than inspiring. Any job that requires true creativity, such as writers, engineers, inventors, entrepreneurs, artists, musicians, etc., are probably safe for a long while based on these results
- Imagination and vision: Finally, one quality we can’t quite imagine a robot or AI ever possessing is just that: imagination. The way AI currently works is by taking existing data and making logical inferences based on parameters we give it. Imagination and dreaming are merely not programmable skills.
Again, given the growing abilities of AI and machines, what many of us need to cultivate today is not the skills we gain through reading or study but the skills we gain through experience. When we develop our skills, we must focus on both soft skills and Technical Skills. Soft skills may be growing in importance but Technical Skills are still the basis of your job and career. Look at it this way: Technical Skills help you get the job done faster, while soft skills are what helps you get the job done better. You need both in order to excel, but more importantly, you need both so you cannot be as easily replaced by a machine.
To sum it up, technology is pushing us all to change and adapt. Throughout all previous industrial revolutions, our predecessors had no choice but to learn, adapt and change or get left behind. In the same way today, we need to stop thinking of “soft skills” as some kind of add-on and instead include them on our list of essentials for job and career success.