"Humans have and will continue to have a strong comparative advantage when it comes to inspiring the troops, empathizing with customers, developing talent and the like. Sometimes, machines will provide invaluable input but translating this insight into messages that resonate with organizations will require a human touch. No computer will ever manage by walking around and no effective executive will try to galvanize action by saying "we're doing this because an algorithm told us to". Indeed the contextualization of small-scale machine-made decisions is likely to become an important component of tomorrow's leadership tool kit" - Mc Kinsey Insights.
True, or not giving enough credit to machine learning? Machine learning will never replace the physical sensation of a hand on a shoulder saying "good job", but it may yet drive more and more decisions in the C-suites making human decision-making less and less important or devalued. Machine learning observes power laws of expansion and self-correction. Most technologists are aware of this but fear prognosticating too far out because of it. Yes, they're right to be cautious in that regard, but perhaps they are not right in not sounding some human alarm. This message is fairly contrary to what I've been writing on this blog since its inception. Thus far I have tried to continue to point out the human in human/tech interaction, the primacy, messiness and beauty of human limitations. I do, however, fear that we may get beyond that very soon, and in the blink of an eye, thanks to exponentially paced machine learning. If I'm right, then we'll need a new paradigm for "humanness", not for technology. We must be more than the adjuncts to machine learning, not because, a la sci-fi dystopias, of a fear that the machines will govern us. Rather, we should be concerned about what we will voluntarily give up to them.
