A management professor argues that experience and empathy will still be valuable in the age of AI

We value being quick and efficient. But in a world where an artificial intelligence (AI) model can crunch millions of data points in seconds, an aspect of slow, immersive understanding will be increasingly valuable – empathy.

AI will likely replace many of our “thinking” jobs in the coming decades, such as analytics and summarisation. By not getting swayed by emotions, AI may also be able to make more unbiased and rational decisions, especially when executing routine processes, replacing many bureaucratic jobs.

The power of AI is fundamentally based on processing inputs codified in the form of words, numbers and symbols. Its massive processing power allows AI to simultaneously give processed outputs to billions of coded inputs. So, any human job that relies on processing codified inputs – be it text or numbers – is at risk of being replaced by AI in the next few decades.

However, human beings do not learn through words. We experience the world around us and life within ourselves rather non-discreetly. Much of this experience – for example, what the sweet taste of a Malda mango is like, or what it is like to be a victim of discrimination – cannot be fully transmitted through words.

Computers can be fed...

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