I am that AI am… or not to be.
Authenticity. This term is coming at me from all sides the last few days. A voiceover newsletter suggesting that in the face of AI we need to be real in order to find work. A Master Class episode host repeating over and over again that we need to be real, genuine, our authentic self. And there have been other occurrences lately.
A decade ago, I appeared as an expert guest on an Internet TV broadcast. The two hosts asked me what made my coaching practice and me so different, so special. I instantly answered, “Authenticity.” The two women stared blankly at me and had nothing to say in response. They didn’t even know how to ask what that meant. After a beat they just went on with the show.
We are now being forced to compete with AI in every arena. And the backlash is that we are trying to be more real than ever. “Trying” to be more real. The problems are, we can’t pretend to be real, honest, open, genuine, sincere, authentic. We can’t fake it. Not completely convincingly. And we somehow have a sense that AI will master authenticity at some point. So, we desperately cling onto being as real as we possibly can be or as insincerely real as we can be while AI is working it out.
We’ve all been exposed to it lately. The store clerk who seems to suddenly be interested in whether or not we found everything we need, as he looks at us through his glassy emotionless eyes. The restaurant server who no longer just asks us if the food was good, but who now makes a huge point of feigning concern, maintains a massive smile, and appears to sincerely want to know if we enjoyed our meal.
We are being controlled by AI. We’re becoming Stepford people with no personalities of our own out of fear of being replaced by computers, robots, who knows what, and losing what remains of our sub-standard and underpaid livelihoods.
I predict that at a point in the near or not so near future, AI will win. Humans who are deemed worthy will be subservient to the AI masters – however that will manifest itself. We will discontinue putting on authenticity, because it won’t matter any longer what we think or feel. Humanity will be an archaic concept. There will be no need for kindness, courtesy, decency. It will be every person for themselves, as we do the bidding of our AI masters.
My little interview. I am a dinosaur. I am an authentic teacher and coach. I care about clients and do everything I can to help them succeed. I am honest and considerate. I am old school. I belong taxidermied and stuffed away in a museum of who cares anymore. But I will never give it up.
When I was eight or ten years old, my alcoholic kleptomaniac elderly neighbor gave me the gift of a little book titled, Apples of Gold. In the absence of any better input, I taught myself to be all the things represented in the book, to the best of my ability. It felt good to be a mensch. It felt good to care about others. It even felt good to consider the concept of long suffering and enduring hardship in order to realize a better outcome at the end of difficulties. These qualities are what it means to be a person, to be caring, judicious, thoughtful, introspective, giving, and, yes, completely authentic in everything we say and do.
A friend of mine once texted, “The future is bleak.” It certainly isn’t going to be an easy one, as we age and as everything moves ever more quickly and change isn’t necessarily for the better. That’s for sure. Eons from now the Sun will explode and nothing we do here on planet Earth will have mattered, anyway. But, while we’re here, why don’t we try the big, brave authenticity experiment? Couldn’t hurt. Find it in yourself to be real, no matter the consequences.
