How To Stay Human In The Age Of AI, With Johan Roos

Career Sessions

In this episode of Career Sessions, host J.R. Lowry interviews Johan Roos, strategy scholar and author of 'Human Magic,' about the essential human qualities that will remain

Key takeaways

• AI's growing capabilities make uniquely human traits like curiosity, creativity, and judgment more valuable than ever.
• Over-reliance on AI can lead to cognitive atrophy—skills weaken when not used.

Main topics

• The five pillars of Human Magic: curiosity, creativity, critical thinking, communication, and collaboration
• Cognitive offloading and the risk of 'cognitive rot' from overusing AI tools

Notable quotes

"As the algorithms become more capable, the value of humanism becomes greater."

"If you don't use your muscles, they atrophy. If you don't use your jelly bean, it will atrophy."

Conclusion

In an era of accelerating AI, the most sustainable competitive advantage lies not in matching machines at their own

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:00) Artificial intelligence is changing the way we work at a remarkable pace. Every day, it seems like there's a new tool that can write and analyze and summarize and code and even create. And it sparked an important conversation about productivity, but perhaps an even more important one about people. As AI becomes more capable, what's going to keep humans being indispensable? Will it be our knowledge, our experience, or could it be something even deeper, like our judgment and creativity? our ability to navigate ambiguity, our capacity to lead other people through uncertainty, something else perhaps. And my guest today, Johan Roos, has spent decades exploring these questions even before AI became mainstream. Johan is an internationally recognized strategy scholar, former dean of several leading business schools, and one of the pioneers behind Lego Serious Play, a groundbreaking approach that's transformed the way that organizations work, think, collaborate. and problem solve. And his latest work, a book called Human Magic, explores how leaders can preserve the uniquely human qualities that technology can support but never replace. In our conversation, we're going to discuss what wisdom looks like in an age of algorithms, why better leadership starts with better thinking, and how each of us can continue to create value in a world where intelligence is increasingly abundant, but sound judgment still remains remarkably rare. I'm J.R. Lowry. This is Career Sessions, and here's my conversation with Johan. Johan, thanks for joining me today. It's good to meet you. Good to meet you, too. All right, let's get going. You have a new book out called Human Magic. You've spent decades studying strategy and leadership in organizations. So talk about what you mean by human magic and why it matters in particular now. I define human magic as a Speaker 2 (1:49) set of... we can say distinctly human capabilities that machines really can support but never replace. So in the book, I group this into five, curiosity, creativity, critical thinking, communication, and collaboration. And the magic is not mystical. It's sort of what happens when a person, you and I, frame the question that algorithms haven't really posed or we hold the room with real conviction. That's what I mean with human magic. Speaker 1 (2:18) Yeah, and obviously this is particularly important now in an era where AI seems to be able to do more and more things every day. For the average person who's thinking about how to survive in this world of AI from a professional perspective, what advice would you have for them about how to think about these uniquely human capabilities and to sharpen their thinking and use them to their advantage? I think you're right that the time is now to Speaker 2 (2:42) think about these things. I mean, the AI tools are amazing. Have a user, I'm sure you too, and all our listeners. And I think we should do that. I'm a techno optimist and techno positive person, absolutely. But there's a certain danger to this as well. You know, there is a seductive danger. You know, seduction is great. when things are nice and it flows and things are really effortless, we are fantastically enchanted by this. But there is a risk of a slippery slope that we, in a sense, stop doing certain things and we delegate, I wouldn't say our soul, but we delegate some of these capabilities or a part of our human magic to machines. And I think that we should be really careful about that. So overall, I think it's about just be careful to think about what you're doing. There's lots of research now showing some dangerous patterns here, right? But just be careful and don't get too enchanted. So you go down what I call in the book, the slippery slope of erosion, rather than using these tools to amplify yourself and your Speaker 1 (3:42) human magic, you can say. I've heard the expression cognitive rot recently to refer to, I think, at least one part of what you're talking about, which is that people become so reliant on these tools that they start to dull the very skills that they need. critical thinking as an example. And then you've got the fact that the tools sometimes aren't as great as we are at doing things, hence the idea of work slop and people just handing over something that an AI tool has done and saying this is finished work without trying to add their human intelligence on top of it is another issue. And we're seeing both of those things, at least from my perspective. You're absolutely right. And there's Speaker 2 (4:17) plenty of words for this, you know, the lighter touch, which is started with, well, I believe in 24, 25, people started the word cognitive offloading. That doesn't sound so dangerous. And there was a cognitive... surrender, cognitive replacement. And then I've heard brain rot. And I think that's a little bit too much because rot means you can't go back. But it's just like, well, there's something into this. Like think of it as a muscle. You know, I often tell people like, if you don't use your muscles, what happens? They atrophy. You know, if you don't use your language skills, for instance, they atrophy. So if you don't use your jelly bean, it will atrophy. So it is for me where the danger. These tools are so good now that they become almost like effortless. And then it's very easy. None of our listeners, neither you and me are of course lazy, but you know, some people are lazy and it becomes sort of like, well, it's so nice that, you know, why don't I just let the machine do this? So I start the morning and immediately get my coffee on the screen up and running. And then I stay there all day. You think like, well, if you deduct AI from what you did to do. subtract AI from what you did to do what's left. It's more just give it a think. That's why I have it after each of these chapters, I have a very friendly, nice little self-assessment, not judgmental, just like, where are you on like your creative thinking? Where are you on creativity? Where are you on your curiosity on communication, et cetera? I'm not dogmatic. It's just like flagging a little bit of a warning. That's all I want to do. Speaker 1 (5:47) Yeah, I think part of the irony is that the people who are likely to pick up your book are a subset of the people. who need your book. And they're probably the ones who are most already focused on continuing to keep their critical thinking and communication and collaboration skills sharp. But this is something we all need to be working on. And you can either let the tool take over for you, or you can figure out a way to harness these AI tools to your advantage. And I think that's going to be a key determinant as to whose careers are better than others. I think you're right. First of Speaker 2 (6:19) all, I think a lot of people will pick up the book and I'm super delighted that it came up on the McKinsey's list of AI books. So I trust that they have some good judgment, but I also trust that people then say, hey, this is an interesting book. Why don't you pick it up? So it's for everybody. I actually addressed the book to all AI anxious and AI excited professionals of the world, of which there's many. on various levels. I think it's like for most things, there's a short-term thing and there's a longer-term thing. We tend to exaggerate all kinds of short-term impact of new technologies and then we forget about the potential long-term radical consequences that we may not be seeing today. And I think here you can say there's going to be the have and the have-nots, the do and the do-nots, and the can and the cannot. But I think today a lot of the tech bro... kind of people, of course, respond to the question, what should young people do now? They say, of course, you should learn all of these amazing tools and you should be capable. And of course, they're right. But it's a half true. If you only try to run after what the tools can do, you Speaker 1 (7:17) will always be a little bit behind. I always tell people like, maybe you should focus more on what the tools Speaker 2 (7:22) cannot do. And that is, they cannot be you. So this is the grand message or almost the irony of the time is that the more capable the algorithms become, the more value the humanism becomes. You cannot be replaced. Part of you can be replaced, but your experience, your curiosity, your creativity, your way to communicate cannot really be replaced. It can be mimicked, but your living experience cannot be replicated. So ensure that you continue. to gain Speaker 1 (7:55) this living experience that is you. I think that's a really important point because as the tools are able to create a higher baseline answer for just about anything, then what you add on top of it is the stories and the experience that you've got, which the tools by definition aren't going to know. And for a lot of people, I think this is going to require becoming better storytellers, thinking more about what they can add on top of the tools. That's going to be a challenge for some people that some will grab onto. It's a challenge that others will probably feel intimidated by. Yeah, Speaker 2 (8:29) you could say storytellers, but also story creators and all of these fundamental things. And again, I have a whole chapter on communication. I start that chapter and each of the chapters you've seen with an anecdote about ancient times. We meet some famous historical people. And in communication, we meet Cicero, the famous consul in ancient Rome. who was known because his slave Tiro took notes, stenography from what he did, so we know this, that he could sway an audience in an amazing way. So he's one of the first that have been documented how you sway the audience. He didn't do it by standing like this, holding his hand and talking