The “How” of Hyper-Learning

How will we add value in the Digital Age? How will we ‘outsmart’ the technology? There are three types of human activities that will differentiate us from smart technology:

We can think differently than the technology: creative, imaginative, and innovative thinking; higher-order critical thinking including making decisions in environments with lots of uncertainty and little data; exploring the unknown and figuring it out; and making moral judgments;

Emotionally connecting and relating with other human beings in positive ways: ultimately, our key uniqueness as human beings will be our emotional abilities to connect and emotionally engage in positive ways with other human beings. That will require both high emotional intelligence and ‘Otherness’ – the ability to build caring, trusting, and compassionate relationships with others; and  

The ability to perform trade services that require complex problem identification, iterative problem solving and lots of manual dexterity.

Notice – I did not say that knowing more content than the smart machines will be an advantage. No human being will know anywhere near as much knowledge as a smart machine will know in the Digital Age. 

What will be key is our ‘how to’ skills: how to think in different ways; how to manage our emotions and create positive emotional connections with others; how to go into the unknown and figure out what is possible; and how to continuously learn, unlearn, and relearn.