At some point  in the future when AI  can do everything, employers will focus on what humans have that AI will never have. I think these would include compassion , insight , empathy, self knowledge, values, creativity and  rebelliousness. I think the last of those human qualities could be the most defining one. By rebelliousness I am thinking of the maverick detective, so popular in modern fiction, the one who has no time for petty bureaucracy, the hierarchy or the “politics” but is just interested in catching murders.  Which they excel at. An AI would never see bending the rules as legitimate. An AI would be like Spock from Star Trek smarter than everyone else, a ridged moral code( can’t lie) stickler for the rules and procedures. But he isn’t captain and it’s Kirk for all his human weaknesses that habitually saves the day.

The humans on board the Starship Enterprise find Spock rather cold, unemotional, lacking passion and inflexible. He considers these characteristics weaknesses in humans. Bear in mind he is half human so if he struggles to understand his human ship mates on occasions an AI would find it even more puzzling.

Communication skills have always been important and management post always specify the requirement for excellent communication skills. I assume senior managers and leaders in the future will make extensive use of AI’s expertise to do so they will need to take great care of how they phase questions and instructions to avoid mis understandings because AI is libel to interpret very literally. Best not to use idioms euphemisms or irony. We may have sophisticated facial recognition technology but this does not mean an AI can read the subtleties of human facial expressions. And of course humans can’t read anything into an AI’s appearance. Which restricts one very important means of human communication.

Likewise it is unlikely that AI will be able to reliably detect sarcasm. They may be able to distinguish the difference between scared, angry and upset in tone of voice but will they be able to spot “jokey”?

What about body language? Much research has gone into how human subconscious communicate by their body language and we can expect AI to be up to speed with this knowledge but to reference Star Trek,  Spock is useless at poker, sure he can maintain an expressionless face but unlike Captain Kirk he cannot bluff because he finds it almost impossible to lie. Spock would consider lying an undesirable trait in humans. Where as Kirk sees it as an essential skill in negotiations and more than one episode is devoted to demonstrating how Kirk’s ability to bluff enables the Enterprise to defeat  a more powerful foe.

Employees in the future need to learn how to work with AI. Because like those odd couple detectives whose skills complement each other we could make a good team.