- Report requirements AI Adoption depends on critical human abilities
- Ethics, adaptability and audience -specific communication all named
- Skill gap at AI workplaces is as much human as it is technical
As AI tools become more and more embedded in our daily work, new research claims that the challenge of not getting the best out of them may not just lie with the technology.
A Multiverse report has identified thirteen core human skills that could determine whether companies fully realize AI’s potential.
The study warns without conscious attention to these capabilities, investments in AI Authorities, LLM applications and other AI tools could fall under expectations.
Critical thinking under pressure
The Multiverse study draws from observation of AI users at different levels of experience, from beginners to experts using methods such as Think Aloud protocol analysis.
Participants verbalized their thought processes while using AI to perform tasks in the real world.
From this, researchers built a framework that grouped the identified skills into four categories: cognitive skills, responsible AI skills, self-management and communication skills.
Among the cognitive abilities, it turned out that analytical reasoning, creativity and system thinking were important to evaluate AI output, push innovation and predict AI response.
Responsible AI skills included ethics, such as spotting bias in output, and cultural sensitivity to tackle geographical or social context holes.
Self-control covered adaptability, curiosity, detailed orientation and determination, traits that affect how people improve their AI interactions.
Communication skills included tailoring AI-generated output to audience expectations, engagingly empathetic with AI as a thought partner and exchange of feedback to improve performance.
Reports from academic institutions, including MIT, have raised concerns about generative AI can reduce critical thinking, a phenomenon linked to “cognitive offoading.”
This is the process in which people delegate mental efforts to machines that risk erosion of analytical habits.
While AI tools can process huge amounts of information at speed, research suggests that they cannot replace the nuanced reasoning and ethical judgment that humans contribute.
Multiverse researchers note that companies that focus only on technical education can overlook the “soft skills” required for effective cooperation with AI.
Leaders can assume that their AI tools investment addresses a technology forgap when they are in fact facing a combined human technological challenge.
The study refrains from claiming that AI inevitably weakens human cognition, but instead argues the nature of cognitive work that is changing, with less emphasis on remembering facts and more of knowing how to access, interpret and verify information.
