In a world where machines can borrow our intelligence, what remains irreplaceably ours?
On the 3rd of June, I attended "The Power of Human Connection: Growth, Trust & Brand Loyalty in the AI Era," where I had the opportunity to listen to Linda Albright. And when the Q&A came, I asked her the question that stayed with me long after I left the event:
"Do you think the future AI — the AGI models — could borrow a lot of our EQ and SQ? Our emotional intelligence. Our social intelligence?"
The question underneath the question is the one I think we're all quietly carrying right now: in a world where machines can borrow our intelligence, what is it that remains irreplaceably ours?
Let me take you back for a moment.
Back in 2008, I sat down in front of an SAP system for the first time. I had no idea that what looked like screens, transaction codes and process flows would teach me something I'd carry for years: that technology only ever works as well as the humans learning to work with it.
A few years later I was part of a project at British American Tobacco called SAP Utilization & Academy, helping markets around the world get more out of their legacy systems before the big migration to one platform, strategically named TAO. (Interesting name for a system, isn't it?)
Looking back, my job was never about the system. It was about the people standing in front of it — with their fears, their but we've always done it this way.
That's the work I've loved ever since. Helping people meet the next thing without losing themselves in it. Helping them tame their metamorphosis.
Today the next thing is AI. And the question feels bigger than any system migration I've ever known: how do we adopt something this powerful in a way that serves our humanity rather than erodes it?
When the world goes VUCA, the answer is VUCA²
For years, the corporate world has had a name for chaos: VUCA — Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous. It was coined to describe a turbulent world.
AI has put all four into overdrive at once. The volatility of tools that change daily. The uncertainty of not knowing which skills still matter. The complexity of systems no single person fully understands. The ambiguity of not knowing what's relevant and what's history.
Yet, here's what I've learned, in boardrooms and in my own life: you cannot answer external chaos at its own level. You answer it from within, with human capabilities.
That's the framework I've spent my life living before I ever named it.
A human-generation VUCA:
Vulnerability — the courage to say I don't know yet. The most honest, and most credible, thing a leader can say right now.
Uniqueness — knowing what only you bring, precisely when machines can do more of what everyone thinks. This is the real answer to "the skills AI can't copy." YOU!
Courage — acting before certainty arrives. Small, brave, reversible steps.
Authenticity — leading as yourself, choosing a pace you can stand behind.
So, when Linda said we can borrow IQ from AI — yes, we can. Though EQ and SQ? Vulnerability, Uniqueness, Courage, Authenticity? That is the part I'm not willing to outsource. And I don't think you are either.
The alarm is real. And we need to act now.
I've been listening, lately, to the voices sounding the warning. Mo Gawdat, on The Diary of a CEO, predicting years of disruption before things settle, the end of white-collar work as we knew it. Tristan Harris, on the same podcast, naming what this technology is already doing to our attention, our trust, our sense of what's real.
I take them seriously. We all should. While watching the narratives, I've noticed something: the alarm tells us what's coming. It rarely tells us who to be while it comes.
The very skills these thinkers say we'll need most are the human ones. Creativity. Empathy. Connection. Judgment. Discernment. Please, read that list again. That is VUCA² by another name.
So that's part of my work now — and, I think, our work together in this space.
To contribute to a Human + AI world, built on the ethical use of these tools, for the best of who we are.
One question for you:
Of the four — Vulnerability, Uniqueness, Courage, Authenticity — which one is this AI moment testing in you most right now?
Sit with it. Notice what came up first. That's usually the one asking for your attention.
What's been nurturing my thinking:
📚 Reading. Two books: Ethan Mollick's Co-Intelligence — the practical case for working alongside AI rather than against it. And More Human by Rasmus Hougaard and Jacqueline Carter — on how AI might actually invite us to become more human.
🎬 Watched, and still with me: The Sheep Detectives. It left me thinking about belonging, about tribe, about the very human ache to be part of something and to matter to one another. In a season of conversations about robots, it was a quiet reminder of what we're actually trying to protect.
🎧 Listening. Two episodes of The Diary of a CEO, as a pair: Mo Gawdat for the scale of what's coming, and Tristan Harris for what it's doing to us already.
Wherever you are in your own metamorphosis — leading a team through it, or simply trying to meet the next thing without losing yourself in it — I'm glad you found your way here.
This reflection first appeared in the BlagaSphere Letter, where I write about change, courage, and staying human in a shifting world. If you'd like the next one in your inbox, subscribe here.
And if this is the kind of conversation you want to be in, not just read — that's what BlagaSphere Spheres™ are for. Come sit in the room with us when the doors open.