Our vision for Chicago 2050 is a workforce ready for the new world of artificial intelligence. With every new headline describing some amazing (or sometimes shocking) AI feat, Chicagoans can be forgiven for imagining 2050 will be a bleak place for humans: not just all the manual labor being done by robots, but all the thinking as well. The stakes couldn’t be higher.
We need a plan. That plan has to start with the differences between artificial and human intelligence. AI excels at routine tasks. For humans to add value, they’ll need to be good at what’s hard for AI: novel problem-solving and navigating social interactions with other people. Essentially, another form of problem-solving.
The challenge is these tasks are hard not just for AI, but also for people. The reason stems from something very basic about how our minds work.
What we think of as “thinking” is the voice in our head that we are aware of letting us deliberately, rationally navigate the world. Psychologists call this “System 2” thinking. It can be powerful, but it is mentally exhausting. So our minds are designed to do as little of it as possible.
Most of what our minds do happens below the level of consciousness, a series of automatic responses that help us quickly and effortlessly navigate low-stakes situations we encounter all the time (“System 1” thinking). How many doors have you opened today? You have no idea. That’s System 1 at work. That’s essential, but the price of speed and effortlessness is accuracy. Sometimes automatic responses can get us into trouble when they’re overgeneralized.
Imagine your first job is helping customers navigate the complicated process of applying for life insurance. While that job could be automated — done by an AI-driven “robo voice” — customers, all else equal, prefer interacting with a human because of the human touch and because sometimes AI can “break” if the customer’s situation winds up getting too complicated. But customers will only prefer the human if the person is actually good at both the human touch and the problem-solving.
How do people normally get better at their jobs? Often that’s trial, error and feedback. The rookie does something wrong at work. The manager points that out and explains what should have been done differently.
How does the new worker react? The rational, deliberate part of their mind should be delighted. The manager is helping them get better at their job.
But the fast, automatic part of the mind often gets there first. Without the rookie even realizing it, System 1 puts a feeling in their head about what their manager thinks (“theory of mind”). It’s hard for that intuitive part of their mind not to confuse “negative feedback about how I handled that call” with “negative feedback about me.” From there, it’s a short step to “the manager doesn’t like me” and “I’m no good at this, it’s hopeless.” Defeatism is the enemy of learning.
This essay is part of a series developed in collaboration with World Business Chicago wherein accomplished authors envision what Chicago could and should look like in 2050.
This is a problem because the worse people are at this job, the more tempting it is for companies to automate the job away. We need to help people get better at the very human skills that will become increasingly important in the job market of the future.
The good news is we’ve seen that future, and it may wind up looking a lot like the Tools of Thought program we implemented last fall in a partnership between the University of Chicago and the City Colleges of Chicago (CCC), working with CCC students apprenticing at a Chicago company. This is obviously just one of many such partnerships underway, but it illustrates some important and urgent principles.
Tools of Thought helps people become more skeptical of whatever System 1 reactions pop into their minds. The program coaches people not to take that feeling or thought (“my manager doesn’t like me,” “I’ll never be any good at this”) too seriously. You can notice the negative thought but not treat it as a true signal of reality; instead, you learn to engage System 2 and reality-check it.
For example, in the case of feedback from a manager, we might suggest the employee look for evidence that contradicts the thing they’re sure is true. Can the person think of any times their manager offered them some positive feedback? Even recently?
There are other ways we can help people get better at problem-solving and social interactions. We ask them to avoid “catastrophizing” when something goes wrong. (System 1 tends toward overly simple categorizations of how things are going “fine” versus “end of the world,” which can make bad outcomes feel much worse than they are.) We encourage them to change course when something’s not working. (Updating our beliefs is mentally costly, so System 1 tends to filter out information that challenges them.) We advise them to stay away from “fortune telling,” or being too confident predicting how things will go. (System 1 jumps to conclusions because we dislike uncertainty.)
The initial feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, not just from the CCC students, who called it “life-changing” in both their work and personal lives, but also from their employers.
This effort is essential to Chicago’s future. In modern America, the three strongest predictors of whether a city thrives or dies is median January temperature, public safety and the human capital of its people. Here in Chicago, there’s not much we can do about the Hawk — the wind that comes off Lake Michigan — and everyone already understands the urgent need to fix public safety. It’s the human-capital part of things that should have us worried about getting caught flat-footed.
For a thriving Chicago in 2050, we need more urgency in preparing for what’s coming next — and coming fast.
Jens Ludwig is the Edwin A. and Betty L. Bergman distinguished service professor at the University of Chicago and faculty director of a new research center, the Bike Shop @UChicago, devoted to artificial intelligence and public policy. Mark Potter is the provost and chief academic officer at the City Colleges of Chicago. Bec Weeks is executive director of the Tools of Thought Initiative at the University of Chicago.
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