131: How to Be Human in the Age of Generative AI

Third, I'm trying to learn more about how these Generative AI systems work more deeply and uncover their creative potential. You've seen my explorations with Midjourney through the cover images of many of the last few newsletters, including this one.

First off, I realize I can continue refining my humanity and my empathy skills. I hope to take more listening, relationship, and communication courses in 2023 to sharpen this critical skillset.

• Human labor will be in the "Safe Zone" in the social, unstructured environments where it will be hard to train an AI to train pets, offer physical therapy, and style someone's hair and face.


• Meanwhile, structured, asocial work is most easily replaced, such as fast food cooks, garment factory workers, and cashiers, he calls this the "Danger Zone"


• The

His core takeaways were:

• Human desire is infinite so there will always be some work people can do. The question is will the work be meaningful and high value or denigrating and low value


• What humans will likely still do best is empathize with other humans, which enables us to persuade, inspire, entertain, and engender trust.


• People still want other pe

Kai Fu Lee, a longtime AI researcher, former CEO of Google China, and technology investor, has developed a 2x2 matrix for how humans should expect to interact with AI in his 2018 book AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order.

He defines two spectra: structured vs unstructured environments and asocial vs social environments.

"In addition, there are problems that humans rather than computers will have to solve for purely practical reasons. It isn’t because computers couldn’t eventually solve them. It’s because in real life, and especially in organizational life, we keep changing our conception of what the problem is and what our goals are."

— Geoff Colvin,  Human

One small thing I try to do out of respect to artists is never use individual artists as part of my prompts, e.g. "painting of a couple in a warm embrace in the style of Artist Name" which is often used by people looking to achieve a specific "effect".

This may be a controversial take, but I'd rather look for ways to compensate or support people of

Second, I'm trying to create content that is more human and expressive. This is why I've been leaning into video—it's much easier to show emotion and create a deeper bond with your audience.

While I'm sympathetic to many already struggling creators who will find fewer commissions and opportunities, I also think the genie is out of the lamp on this one. While there are probably some legal, technological, and social mechanisms to slow the use of these tools—I've heard of calls to boycott AI generated art—we cannot stop their widespread u