Transcript
Aidan McCullen: [00:00:00] Today’s guest has spent 20 years inside the technology that’s been quietly redrawing what learning looks like. He was at Harper Collins. He ran one of the first online tutoring businesses in the UK. He co-founded EtonX, teaching soft skills out of Eton College. He led international growth at Quizlet across 60 countries.
He’s just written a brand-new book, Super Skills: The Seven Human Skills for the Age of AI, publishing next month in July. It was the most requested title at the London Book Fair this year, endorsed by many brilliant authors, including Karim Lakhani at Harvard Business School. But one of the things that I loved about this book is that most books about AI start with the technology, but this one starts with a story of a boat.
It’s a pleasure to welcome author of Super Skills, Rahim Hirji. Welcome to the show
Rahim Hirji: Thank you so much, Aidan. It’s a pleasure to be here
Aidan McCullen: It’s great [00:01:00] to have you on the show, man. Let’s tell the story of the boat because people are going to go, “What the heck are these guys talking about?”
Rahim Hirji: the real icon of the book is the boat. And I start off with this journey that my forefathers took leaving India a long time ago and moving to East Africa. And the boat becomes this icon throughout the, whole of the book.
It starts in the prologue in the beginning and goes right through to the end. And I really want people to think about AI and the phase that we’re in as a, journey, right? So everyone goes on a boat, and you go, and you wanna end up somewhere. And that’s really what the, What this is about. The, real thing about the boat is I’ve been able to al-align it with different phases in my own personal story. So the Dao that my forefathers got onto was really because of a time of survival. They led, a very pauper’s type life in in India, and [00:02:00] they wanted to step up a level.
And I call this– the skills that they had at that time were survival skills. Getting on the boat they needed to eat, they needed to drink, and so they, they aspired for a better life. Those are survival skills. And then my grandfather was in Tanzania, in Dar es Salaam. He had a shop he needed a different set of skills. He also needed his survival skills, but he needed street skills. He in his shop, he needed to communicate with with people, with individuals. He needed to speak the language of the locals, which was Swahili. He needed some commerciality to be able to run his shop and sell at discounts and, make some money. And then my father mother came to the UK, they needed a different set of skills. They needed a vocation. I call them I call them specialist skills. And those specialist skills were to, learn a job. So my dad, who was an accountant, and my mom was a midwife.
And in, in a similar way people do that on a regular basis. They [00:03:00] learn a vocation. And then many of us who’ve grown up especially in the West have realized over the last 10, 15, 20 years that you need these additional layers of skills. And I had this business Eton X, and in that we taught soft skills.
So things like communication, critical thinking being able to lead a team, being able to work within a team. And like 10 years ago, I would think that’s all you really needed, right? So you, need these four layers of skills and they’ve been growing o- over every generation. as we know, the world has changed significantly over the last two, three, years even. And because of AI, need this new set of skills, which is what super skills are. And this is really what my ladder was– what is. So you’ve got the survival skills, you’ve got street skills, you’ve got specialist skills, soft skills, and [00:04:00] then super skills.
And it starts off with that boat, and then it starts off with a, “We’re going on a new journey,” all of us, like you, me, who hopefully reads the book, and everyone who’s in work today
Aidan McCullen: When I was reading that opening piece, I thought, and maybe this says a lot about me, I’m not sure, but I thought about the Greek myths and I thought about Charon who was the ferryman where you had to pay a coin to go in the underworld on the River Styx. And the reason I’m sharing that was that came to mind because when I read about that story of your forefathers and the traveling on the boat, I thought about us in Ireland as well and, the coffin ships we called them, when people escaped the famine to go to the US in particular, and many of our ancestors died.
But the reason I thought about it on a bigger picture was that a lot of people feel this period of time of change is going on the River Styx, and it’s treacherous, and there’s a lot of negativity about that. [00:05:00] And I felt from the book that you shine more on the positivity of AI change.
Rahim Hirji: I think the, issue that people look at is that for a very short period, and it feels like a long time, there’s these the missing rungs. People can’t advance within their career. They’re worried about their job. If you look in the US right now, lots of tech jobs being slashed, and that’s been going on for, quite some time, and some people blame COVID, some people blame blame AI. really I, see this phase that we’re in right now as, a it’s one of the greatest– could be one of the greatest periods of all time because what we’re able to do now is, pr- was, probably impossible five or 10 years ago. Some of the things that I’m able to do as a solo guy in my, study, I wasn’t able to do before.
A lot of people can converse on, on Instagram and communicate with other people. I created a [00:06:00] video with l- all of these AI clips, which looks very cinematic, just to really describe the book that I’ve created. And so there’s a, bit around, around that. But you know what?
I’m, not naive. There’s a bunch of other stuff going on in the world, so you know, anything from AI as the new oil. That’s one of the ways that people look at it. And I, don’t, like it, and I don’t think many people like it, the fact that AI is being used in war. So that’s…
There’s a kind of downside to that as well. But I do feel that what’s gonna happen is the skills that we’re able to elevate to will allow us to get rid of the stuff that we we sh- we’ve been doing for the last 15, 20 years, which has been boring work. I call it busy work, right? So there’s things like writing reports when actually you just need to pull out the information, and AI can do that for you. Things like AI note takers. Three years ago would seem, it seemed crazy that you’d allow this [00:07:00] machine to record you and and deliver you the notes and deliver the action. But that’s what’s happening right now. And There’s a, lot of these kind of, things going on. And I remember the days when I was a an analyst of sorts and would be moving these boxes on PowerPoint by one or two or three pixels, and you’d be s- you’re spending hours doing this stuff, and now you just press a button and it and it, just happens. So I think that there’s all of this dross, busy work will go away, and we start to elevate ourselves into doing higher order thinking, which is really what, humans are really all about
Aidan McCullen: So this tees us up nicely for one of your central arguments in the book, which is this concept of drift versus design. And I experienced this firsthand this morning. So I was meeting a friend of mine who is a business… He runs a business. He’s a COO, and he was telling me about how Anthropic’s Claude has changed how many, so many of his colleagues actually work with him, [00:08:00] and that people who he’d never get an email b- beyond a few lines were now sending him, like, 12-page documents.
And I was like, “But were the documents any good?” He goes that’s the problem.” He’s one guy, for example, sends this document, and he meets him, and he gives him feedback, and the guy goes, “Oh that, wow, that feedback’s really helpful.” And he’s going of course I’m your manager.
I want you to get better.” And he goes, “What do you think?” And he goes, “Oh, I didn’t actually have time to read it,” the document that he had created using AI. And I was like, “Oh, that’s the problem,” which is the problem with drift versus design
Rahim Hirji: Exa- e-exactly. That’s that’s part of the… That’s it’s the main thesis of the book actually I ca- I call it drift is, just to describe it is, algorithmic drift, right? So for many years we’ve been, we just haven’t realized it, but we’re slowly, going towards it.
You might have been using, I don’t know, [00:09:00] Google Maps or to, pick your destination, or you’d l- you would watch the next thing on Ne- Netflix or listen to the next thing on Spotify. And sometimes you’ll, be in the city and it’s been actually algorithmic des- alg- algorithmically designed, by AI to be to be focused really on, on less traffic. And so a lo- a lot of these things are in our daily lives and we don’t really realize it. The antithesis of that is this thing, is this concept called design. I’m, very well aware that AI is here to stay and I’m pro-AI. But this world of design is actually having the agency to really think about what it is and decide when to use it, having the awareness that it actually does exist.
‘Cause a lot of people don’t realize that they’re doing these things and they don’t realize that they can do anything about it. And I call these people sleepwalkers, right? And there’s a few people who have the agency about it, but don’t [00:10:00] realize it’s going on, and I call them programmed.
They’re really working very quickly. And then there’s those who realize that there’s things, are going on, but they don’t know what to do about it, and I call them the stuck. What I’m trying to do with this book and the seven skills are the things to get you there, is to help people towards this world where they become designers, right?
So they own the future. Not– It’s th- they’re not being governed by anyone else. They decide when they’re gonna use the algorithm. Um, it’s not just for theirself, it’s for their family, for the organization that they’re in, the teams that they work within. And then they’re able to, really qualify the decisions that they’re gonna make.
They’re gonna have judgment and they’re gonna have discernment
Aidan McCullen: Again, I love the Greek myths, and one of the creatures, if you wanna call it that, in the Greek myths was the centaur, which was half horse, the body of a horse and the torso of a man, uh, or woman. You [00:11:00] remember that in the, in, so Percy Jackson and all these kind of remakes recently. They’re making, by the way, I think Peter Jackson, the Lord of the Rings guy, is making the Odyssey, which would be phenomenal.
So that’s coming down the pipe. But, and we’re d- bound to see some centaurs, but we use that term centaur when we’re talking about AI and human, so this idea of half and half. And before we get into the seven skills, ’cause I’d love to share the seven super skills, you talk about this idea of the augmented mindset, and that’s why I share this idea of the centaur.
Because it’s not that we’re less, it’s actually that it’s these two things coming together. It’s, it’s one and one equals three.
Rahim Hirji: Yeah,
Aidan McCullen: And I think it’s an important kind of frame through which to see the super skills that we’ll share in a moment
Rahim Hirji: Exactly. I– the augmented mindset is my, seventh super skill. I lo- I love the idea of a centaur. I I align it a little bit more to Iron Man, so Tony Stark with his– when he puts his exoskeleton on. So it’s very, similar [00:12:00] in that regard, where you’re choosing when to use AI, when not to use AI you’re– and when to really dig in and use it in a, on a regular basis. There’s this concept that people talk about all the time. It’s called human, human in the loop, right? And people saying, okay, you need a human to decide different parts of the process, and especially in organizations, that’s what’s going on. My, my concept, and I’m sure someone else has, come up with this, I’m not… Uh, but I use human, human at the start. So HATS is the is my, phrase. So I– what recommend to people and is to sit down with a problem first and decide what it is that you want to do. you might wanna come up and use your own brain to decide what the framing is before you go to the AI.
And I, am pretty bad actually at that ’cause use Whisper Flow and I just talk out at at Claude [00:13:00] in my, walks in the park. But it’s– but what I’m doing is I’m stepping away from actually framing before I go to the, before I go to the AI. So I have to take a, step back. But this augmented mindset really is, this one plus one equals equals three or three plus, because you’re a- you’re able to do so much more, especially when you put the human right at the center first.
A lot of people, think about outsourcing themselves to the AI, which is the wrong way to do it. If you’ve got these amazing superpowers as a centaur or as, Iron Man, you choose when to do that to really accentuate yourself and get these extra, super skills to be able to do more
Aidan McCullen: One of the things though before we do, ’cause we’re gonna share the seven super skills or people will kill us, is to share a, a really important aspect that goes alongside them that you call out in the book. And if you are Ironman, you have these great powers, it means that you’re gonna [00:14:00] have to make judgment calls.
And judgment is a huge thing, and you say it’s bigger than decision-making. Decision-making is what you do with information. Judgment is what you do with your values when the information runs out. I thought that was a great line. So maybe you’ll share a little bit about this
Rahim Hirji: Yeah, absolutely. And judgment is one of those things that really sit throughout all of the super skills and throughout the book. And, I think that’s the concept. That, and discernment, and taste, and all of these concepts, they should be sitting across everything that you’re doing. And it’s it’s very easy to make a decision, right? But judgment is a, little bit different. It takes the context within which you’re in, information that you’ve got, but it also takes the wisdom that you’ve got over many, years. You may have been in a different situation, you may know certain pieces of information that AI doesn’t necessarily know.
It’s only trained on, data. So it’s up to you as an individual to say based on all of the data that I’ve got, this is what I [00:15:00] specifically want to do.” And that’s very different to just making a very quick dec-decision, and it’s why I kind of take– do is take a step back and say, “Look, what i- what is the decision that we’re trying to make, and what’s the judgment that we’re trying to make?”
Aidan McCullen: So we better do it, man. We better share these seven. So we’ve set us up nicely. So what we maybe’ll do is give a, shortened version of each of the seven, and then the book is, I said, is coming out next month. People can share it. I’ll share links because you also have a, website where people can find out more about the, this, the book coming through and where to find it, et cetera.
So let’s get stuck into the seven
Rahim Hirji: Okay. So some of these are not rocket science by the way. They’re things that have existed since the Greeks, right? Or even further back. So my first super skill is curiosity. And a lot of people say to me, “Curiosity that’s, not that’s not a super skill.” I said it’s– That’s not new.”
And I said no, curiosity is actually it’s the art of asking the [00:16:00] right question and continuing to r- ask the right question.” And people say that’s an easy thing to do.” But what people are doing is they’re outsourcing their curiosity to the AI, whether it’s Claude or ChatGPT or Grok or wh-whoever else, right? Curiosity becomes really important to take that step back. So curiosity is my first of the seven super skills. And by the way it’s, not an either/or of the super skills. It’s they work in in tandem. So curiosity is the first one. Then there’s change readiness, which is the ability to work through a world where everything’s changing.
But also, and specifically in change readiness, is knowing doesn’t change. You need to know what doesn’t change in a world that is changing. So what is your anchor in a world that’s changing? Big picture thinking, which is a very strategic way to, to think about, uh, the world and what you’re doing. I talk about different altitudes. So you could be thinking in in [00:17:00] multi years or you could be thinking in a year, you’re thinking about months, you’re thinking about in days. And this– They’re, all big picture thinking, but you need to decide which is the right altitude you’re thinking in. Principled innovation is the fourth one. Principled innovation is really around doing the right thing as we’re trying to solve problems and change the world. Empathy is the one that I think AI will never have because it will never have lived through the situations that humans have. Global adaptability. The world is very, close right now. And then the last one we’ve already talked about, which is the augmented mindset
Aidan McCullen: Fantastic, man. Good job. The book goes much deeper into it, but I think a really important thing, so this show is about the, the science of learning and the future of work. We’ve kind of touched on the future of work, but I really wanted to lean on something. So from reading it, I felt there’s multiple audiences here.
So anybody who’s in work, [00:18:00] anybody who’s kind of fearful of AI, and that’s why I was saying about the river sticks. There’s a lot of people who, who have AI fear, and I think that’s the same as any new technology that tr- absolutely and fundamentally changes how work happens. And the resistors are those people who will really struggle, and this book is really about a mindset, and I’m, and really a mindset as a set of lenses to go, “Here’s how to view it.
Here’s how to view it from the perspective of something like curiosity. Here’s how to r- view it from judgment,” et cetera. But I also felt it was so important for people who were managers in work to be able to exemplify that mindset, for parents and children. So the parents to, who, who may be actually telling their kids, “Don’t worry about it,” some, in some cases, or they’re extremely concerned.
But al- also mostly, and a lot of our audience are educators. So maybe you’ll give [00:19:00] a, a, word to those different cohorts on how the book plays out for them
Rahim Hirji: Absolutely. And I think if you’re– You know when, you’re putting all of this time… And I I did a lot of research into getting into these seven skills. Spoke to a lot of companies, spoke to educators on on, the other side as well, to really understand what is happening to the world, how people are thinking about it, and what’s working, what’s not working.
And so I think there are a number of these cohorts. It’s adults in the workplace and there is this kind of fear, what do we do? Ma-managers especially. Peop-people– If you look at some of these organizations, the leaders at the top they’re deciding AI s- AI strat, don’t necessarily know what’s going on, how it actually works what they should do, what they shouldn’t do. They don’t realize how humans play because some companies look at it in as AI as a cost– for cost reduction or revenue upside. But actually, it’s an accentuator of [00:20:00] who humans are. So adults in the workplace, those who are thinking about coming into the workplace, but really for educators and parents to really instill these kind of ideas, um, into their kids. And so the, way that I’ve written this book and I’d love everyone to read it, obviously. It’s not a textbook. It’s written with with my personal story within it and as we talked about at the beginning. also there’s lots of case studies in, in there. And in– and written in a kind of very cinematic type way.
So for example there is people may not may not like football, but there is a story of José Mourinho coming to Old Trafford when he was the manager of Porto and beating Man United. I’m a Man United fan for my sins. The whole point of that is that he used this deep curiosity in really looking at what the problem was that he was trying to solve, [00:21:00] that’s what got him to win. So it’s not about his, okay, we– his curiosity today, what do we need to do? It’s really about instilling these ideas and then h- then you’ll see, and this is what my early readers are saying is “Wow, this all really felt as if it was coming together.” Because it wasn’t an AI book, and people were worried and say, “Oh, it’s an AI book, and I’m gonna read about this worrying period that we’re in.” Actually, it’s solves part of the problem that people are going through and psychologically, they don’t realize that as humans we are all-powerful to some degree, right? And so this is our time if we treat AI in the right way.
Aidan McCullen: Beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. ‘Cause I was gonna say, what sustains your optimism? You’ve actually just said it. This is why it’s actually a joy to be on that river of change rather than actually being on the River Styx. But one last question is, I mentioned there there’s a website, the SuperSkills website.
Maybe we’ll share [00:22:00] what people can expect there when the book comes out, et cetera
Rahim Hirji: Yeah. So there’s my, my website is superskillsbook.com. I used AI to help create that book– that website, by the way. on there if you, buy early from Amazon or wherever else there’s some extra things. I’ve got a diagnostic which, will help you understand you are in some of these skills and help you go on the journey. There’s some extra deleted chapters and things like that. So just sign up at superskillsbook.com as soon as you want. I’m trying to get as many people to understand the idea and– but really the ethos of this is, to support people at this, time where they shouldn’t, feel worried. SuperSkills will help them go through this next phase
Aidan McCullen: Beautiful. Author of Super Skills: The Seven Human Skills for the Age of AI, Rahim Hirji, thank you for joining us
Rahim Hirji: Thanks so much
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