When you think of an augmented human, images of cyborgs come to mind. Or maybe some kind of neural interface that gives you instant knowledge, like Neo in The Matrix (“I know kung fu”).

We’re not quite there yet. But the truth is, you’re already augmented by technology in pretty magnificent ways. It’s just that we’ve become accustomed to it through gradual change.

The smartphone has been the biggest human enhancer in a long history of technology dating back to primitive tools chipped from rocks. But it’s now such an integral aspect of our lives that we take it for granted.

For writers, think of the dark ages before word processing software. Frightening, huh? Now we’re stressed when we can’t “word process” from any device in any location via the cloud.

Going forward, the level of augmentation will increase in wondrous ways for content creators. And I want to stress that this is something to embrace, not fear -- because it’s happening whether we like it or not.

The only downside is that the change is going to start coming at a furious pace. So instead of taking it for granted, we might experience overwhelm and even downright fear of advancing technology.

Let’s turn back to AI, as this is the bundle of exponential technologies that most threatens to make humans obsolete. That won’t happen any time soon, if ever -- but the fear is already there.

And no wonder. For years the media has focused on AI taking as many as 50 percent of all jobs this decade. And now with the pandemic and the acceleration of investment in automation, AI, and robotics, some lost jobs may never come back.

Artificial intelligence has both a branding and public relations problem. Science fiction has AI and robots becoming sentient, taking over, and destroying us one way or another. But that’s not what we’re dealing with any time soon, if ever.

While it’s true that today’s machines can perform many tasks that only humans could do previously, that doesn’t mean that the machines have true intelligence or grand plans for world domination.

Our machines do what we build them to do. Just like factories, and the printing press, and the textile machinery that the Luddites destroyed out of fear and anger.

Advancing humanity has been replacing skilled workers for centuries, but it’s not like the machines are the ones trying to steal your job. Humans create technology that displaces other humans, and then those people go do other uniquely human things that machines can’t.

Put another way, technological revolutions have always eliminated certain professions, while creating more new jobs overall. The current thinking is that is what will happen this decade as well.

By 2022, the World Economic Forum predicts that automation will displace 75 million jobs worldwide while creating 133 million new ones. This was pre-pandemic, so it remains to be seen how these numbers shake out.

The question is, what will the quality of these jobs be, and which roles will be eliminated?

Stanford professor Andrew Ng offers this rule of thumb for determining which types of work will be better handled by automation:

“If a typical person can do a mental task with less than one second of thought, we can probably automate it using AI either now or in the near future.”

Does that sound like writing or content creation to you? Not if you’re doing it well. Actually, even if you’re doing it badly it takes more thought and life experience than that.

So, there’s a particular kind of person that will remain in demand. You guessed it ... the poets, as long as they’ve got a healthy dose of killer in them.

For example, Amazon is one of the more algorithmically driven companies on the planet, with an unrivaled ecommerce platform. And yet the company employs more than 700 people in its communications department.

Why?

Because beyond the increasingly sophisticated AI that drives the Amazon platform, and the robots that work in the warehouses, Amazon needs to communicate with humans to ultimately succeed. Customers, but also investors, regulators, politicians, and the general public.

No matter how many words GPT-3 can string together, it lacks the uniquely human skills that are necessary to communicate effectively. It’s not just about words and coherent paragraphs -- it’s the right words for the right people at the right time.

And that’s the heart of content marketing. It’s the “soft skills” that only humans have, and will continue to only have for the foreseeable future. These include:

• Creativity
• Strategy
• Empathy
• Imagination
• Communication

With those traits, you’ve basically just described a top-tier professional writer. But the same skills power any form of content creation, and are certainly the ingredients for an entrepreneur with a “thought leader” approach (aka content marketing).

But we’re all going to have to adapt. A lot.

Kumar Krishnamurthy, an IT strategist at PricewaterhouseCoopers, uses a basketball analogy:

In 1979, the three-point line was introduced to the game. From this point on, the same players on the court had to change their strategy in order to shoot from longer distances more accurately. The players had to learn new skill sets in order to operate within the new rules of the game. Fast forward to today, the three- pointer has become a critical component of the game.

“And that’s the thing [about AI]—it’s not going to reduce the number of people that work,” Krishnamurthy says. “It’s going to require people to retool their skill set.”

Two things about this useful sports analogy bear elaboration.

First, you’re going to have to retool or augment your primary skill set. But the key point about the addition of the three-point line to the NBA was that it required a change in strategy for otherwise talented players who had an existing way of doing things to succeed. Let’s go back to Garry Kasparov.

Once his mastery of tactics was taken away by the computer, Kasparov had to rely on strategy alone. And it turned out that other chess players were a match for him once the playing field changed, much like the three-point line allows Steph Curry to be a prolific scorer in the NBA at only 6’3’’.

When’s the last time you’ve seen a chess + basketball analogy for writers? At minimum, this email series has delivered you that novelty in exchange for your time. :-)

But I hope you take away much more than that. Because there is so much opportunity to be had for writers who also develop other talents.

Technology is for tactics, and anyone can augment themselves with technology. But if you also bring creativity, empathy, imagination, and communication skills, plus a healthy dose of strategic thinking, you win.

A killer poet with the right tech tools can achieve outsized success in the coming years. A pure killer who focuses exclusively on tactics, though, may be out of luck faster than expected.

Keep this in mind, though. Deep Blue, the computer that defeated Garry Kasparov, was an example of symbolic AI, which has faded into the background.

Deep Blue’s successor is Alphabet’s DeepMind, and there’s a whole lot of difference. With vastly more computing power and data at its disposal, DeepMind learns.

And so must you. I'll share with you the 3 key areas to focus on in my next email.

Keep going-

Brian Clark
Founder - Copyblogger