The humanity of it all, the era of empathetic leaders

Like everyone, I am between concerned, scared and in a way excited about all this AI progress. On a flight, I watched The Matrix, one of my favourite movies, and it made me think about the worst-case scenarios of AI. Then I also watched a couple of the new A24 production movies, and I felt very human and touched by the complexity of the stories. This is the tension that I ponder about human vs. machine. I really have been thinking about how relevant and important it is now and in the future to keep things human and not lose sight of humanity.

This comes to me in two patterns of thought when it comes to my work:

1. Being human in the workplace is more important than ever, and showing that humanity.

2. Putting humans first when taking AI decisions is fundamental: just because we can doesn't mean we should.

   
   

I will start with why being human in the workplace is more important than ever, because culturally, this is something that I have been dealing with throughout my professional career. Spaniards culturally are prompt and taught to show emotions, being honest and transparent, and being human is fundamental for us to build relationships: professionally and personally. But I always found that professional settings internationally, and even more corporate settings, tend to strip one part of us of being human. This comes in the form of us holding ourselves to a more palatable version of who we are by not being emotional, sugarcoating our views and losing nuance, and reducing the importance of emotional intelligence against analytic intelligence. In the name of pragmatism, I have seen during my career companies reducing human reaction to: they are just being emotional. But being emotional, and more importantly, having emotional intelligence, will be now more important than ever. The era of good enough products that kind of solve your problem based on data is far gone. In the future, we will have more products and more competition in every single industry. The ones that will win will be the ones that truly connect with the users, in a way that the users LOVE the product. And you can only create something that users LOVE if you understand them on a human level, if you have enough emotional intelligence to see the nuances, if you are able to connect on a higher ground than "getting the job done". It is not just about solving pain points anymore; it is about bringing the fun back. We tend to say "delight". So being a leader that is emotionally connected with reality, that understands human behaviour, that when a user is talking, and there is a silence, gets what that really means, is going to become fundamental.

I see many product leaders talking about efficiencies by using AI tools to summarise meetings that they have been in half-focused, clocking 100 hours of automation for the sake of "productivity". Our understanding of "productivity" is about to change. The product leaders who will succeed can understand the subtleties, they will listen to the silences, and they will have Bene Genesserit's level of empathy. Mentats will now support but will not drive.

For the second point, this one has been bothering me for longer.

This is a concept that I have pondered since I heard Ian's past year in NXT BLD presenting Hypar. He said architects become architects because they want to design. This was a fantastic reminder and reality check. Design is a process that conveys understanding of the environment, the user, and the impact of your solution...that is the fun part, it is the human part. If we create tools that remove the fun, what is left? Let's face it, AI is evolving at a speed that will be able to do, or pretend that it did, many of our jobs. But shall AI do it? Shall we leave the creative process to a creator that doesn't create but outputs glamorous copies of what it has ingested before? I saw on LinkedIn a post from someone that I used to follow (and respect) in the urban studies community, claiming he had built a tool that not only finds the land to build, but also gives you a concept building plan in minutes based on regulations and space. Do we really want that?

As I tried vibe code tools, and I see that it's fun to create my own app (I will share more on this later this month), I wonder if what we are doing at the moment is a bit like fast fashion, but in software product: creating numerous options of the same thing with low quality code design, copies by someone, and that it will not last long because the fabric of the code lacks quality that comes with human craft. I have heard many of my architect friends being scared of computers, just designing buildings, and claiming that you cannot become an architect in 5 minutes or 6 months. That was not possible. But now I see the same architects believe they are software engineers after vibe coding. I feel everyone is taking every job for granted in an illusion of AI making you capable, and with it taking the fun out of it, in the eternal search for productivity gains, for technological progress.

I mentioned Dune. I am a big Dune fan and sci-fi fan. In none of those alternative worlds is AI good, really, tops you get Murderbot or OneEskNineteen. But maybe we find a balance in reality that we have never found in science fiction by keeping being human and empathetic and making sure that we all still have fun with it.