If you're like me, you've probably had some anxiety experiences recently. It usually occurs in innocuous environments such as gyms or grocery stores. Just when you think you're connecting with another person and having a normal conversation, things get weird.
It happened to me last week. I was calling an auto technician to get a quote to repair my car. Suddenly, there was a pause in the conversation.
“Hello? Are you still there?” I asked.
long pause.
“Yes, I'm still here.”
Understood. So where did he go during the last 20 seconds of silence? I wanted to hear it. Don't you know that it's weird to check mid-conversation with your customers?
I never questioned this customer service representative about what the hell happened. Eventually he resumed calling like a normal person and I hung up.
But this encounter, like many others like it, gave me the impetus to create a theory about what was going on. I call this the “chatbot paradox.” The more AI improves its communication skills, the less we humans will become socially.
I'm not the only one observing this phenomenon.
A recent study found that young people are at risk of losing their ability to sense other people's emotions because of their digital immersion. “Nonverbal emotional cues can't be learned from a screen the way they can be learned from face-to-face communication,” said lead author Yalda Uhls, principal investigator at the UCLA Children's Digital Media Center. She says, “If you don't practice face-to-face communication, you can lose important social skills.”
These researchers are studying something that has a lot to do with baseball. My co-author Randy Walton and I explore this in our new book. Hidden in plain sight: the secrets of invisible communication.
we call it a concept At bat. America's favorite pastime is At bat This refers to when a batter faces a pitcher. As everyone knows, At bat You will have more chances to get on base and score during the game.
We argue that something similar is happening socially. The more opportunities we have to interact with others, the more opportunities we have to hone and hone our social acumen, and the closer we become to social awareness. whispers of people– Professional communicator with excellent interpersonal skills.
Unfortunately, the opposite is also true.
If you don't have enough time to socialize, you won't develop strong social skills. As they say in Hollywood, things don't go well in the room. And even if you once had strong social skills, you can lose them if you don't use them to their full potential. they will become stagnant.
I think that's what's happening today. Whether it's at the gym, at the grocery store, or networking for business, we don't practice enough. Instead, we communicate behind screens via text messages, Zooms, DMs, etc., missing out on the face-to-face interactions that made up our reality just a few years ago.
But you know who it is. teeth Would you like to practice more socialization? love.
We're emailing and tweeting to digital networks 24/7, but AI is going even further. At bat—You're constantly talking to humans in a variety of environments, from sales to customer service. AI is having all the conversations with real humans that we don't have.
How strange is that?
Weirdness aside, back to the topic. hidden in plain sightIn , co-author Randy and I feature a chapter on how to learn communication skills like AI. According to many technology experts, including historian and philosopher Yuval Harari, AI and big data already know us better than we know ourselves.
Facebook will reportedly be able to tell in advance when a woman is pregnant and start showing ads for baby clothes.related wall street journal The investigation found that certain apps that measure women's health statistics, such as their weight, blood pressure, and ovulation status, were providing this information to Facebook. This is the type of data that allows social media apps to infer a woman's pregnancy status.
It's amazing and surprising to realize that this is a power AI already You never know what you'll be able to do in a few years. It's also empowering to understand that humans can employ the same strategies that computer programmers use to train AI to acquire social skills.
In the spirit of learning from AI, here are the steps to program a computer to use when training it to whisper to people. Side note: It is imperative that we humans get better at this now. If we don't, we will quickly find ourselves at a huge disadvantage, especially as AI takes away more jobs in all sectors.
step 1 develop pattern recognition
Imagine that every time someone asked you a question, you took it as a personal attack and immediately became defensive. This cripples your ability to network, much less make any kind of sales call.
To overcome this problem, you first need to recognize that there is a pattern in which when someone asks you a question, you are attacked and develop a defensive posture. Once you recognize this pattern within yourself, you can take the necessary steps to change the way you interact with others. (The same goes for any social deficiencies you may have, in addition to being offended by people's questions.)
Step #2 Try a new way of being
Going back to questions being triggers, instead of thinking that people are challenging you in social situations like this, try a new approach.activity as if. Act as if people's questions are well-intentioned questions based on genuine curiosity, rather than hostile challenges. With this new approach, you have the opportunity to share your knowledge with others and discover what they are interested in, depending on how you respond.
Step #3 Evaluate the results
In this scenario, notice what happens when you answer the question honestly, rather than feeling challenged by it. Here's another example. Imagine your social challenge is eye contact. You have difficulty holding the gaze of others without feeling uncomfortable. Now, pay close attention to what happens when you try something new. In this case, step out of your comfort zone and observe what happens when you make eye contact with someone for a certain amount of time.
Evaluate the results: Did your social encounters get better or worse when you tried something new? If the new experience was positive, there is merit in adopting it next time. It shows that. At bat— whether that means reframing your response to a question or maintaining eye contact.
Either way, you will be reinforcing desired behaviors that will produce socially positive outcomes.Next time you come At bat When you talk to someone, you can learn what works best to create the best interaction. And you'll develop better social patterns the next time, and the time after that.
It's like AI.
Step 4: Deliberately reinforce new patterns
Like any other skill, mastering interpersonal communication requires developing muscle memory. Whatever new thing you try, whether it's reinterpreting the way you approach a question, maintaining eye contact, or being intentional with your body language, you can chain this new positive behavior and use it over and over again until it becomes It will be a new routine.
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Improving your social skills by doing more At bat, You will change for the better from the inside out. Returning to computers, this updated version can consider itself his 2.0 model. Now, whenever something triggers, At bat If that doesn't work, you can use this data to further refine your approach and have a north star of what works.
Again, it's like AI.
One last thought. Unlike AI, we humans need tension to grow. The saying “no pain, no gain” is apt here. Think of someone who has broken their leg and is currently in rehab learning to walk again. It won't feel good at first. Similarly, learning a new language is no fun, especially in a foreign country where you will definitely stumble over words and feel stupid.
Then again, honing your social skills can be uncomfortable, especially if you lack them. How to avoid this? Imagine a childlike enthusiasm for the unknown.This is the point that Professor Adam Grant makes in his book Hidden Potential: The Science of Achieving Greater Things. “This is the first form of courage: embracing discomfort and being brave enough to throw your learning style out the window.”
Think of it like this: When a baby learns to crawl, crawling is not uncomfortable for the baby. know What's so troublesome about it? They just want to grow and experience. The same goes for AI. I don't know what it's like to feel awkward when learning something new. Just accept the challenge without complaining.
This is another valuable lesson we can learn from artificial intelligence.
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