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An argument with a teenage daughter really makes you question your identity. In this case, the argument was about my AI usage and if I genuinely bought the expertise and was doing the work. In her telling, I had not gotten smarter. I had just found a smarter intern. I called it directing. She called it delegating to a machine and keeping the credit. She disagreed and as always walked off in a huff.
The Unease Professionals Are Carrying
Milder versions of this conversation are happening within us and at water cooler chatters. The unease we sense among professionals is what they really bring to the table. What is my identity in a world where AI is automating tasks rapidly?
Identity questions are not a sign that we are broken. It does not mean something is wrong and needs to be fixed. Identities shape and evolve over time. Unfortunately, sometimes much of the identity we carry was never really chosen by us. It somehow evolved. AI is giving us an opportunity to choose our identities deliberately. By automating tasks and compressing a large part of work, AI is freeing us up to ask the identity question.
Many a times identity evolves by default. Things we are good at, get adopted as our identities, without conscious thought. William James, an American philosopher, noted that we carry multiple identities. We move between them depending on who we are with. Erving Goffman, a Canadian-American sociologist showed us that we may carry an identity to display and another backstage version we keep for closer groups or ourselves.
Identity Is Curated, Not Delivered
But one thing which stands out from William James in 1890 to the identity researchers of today, is that we do not wake up to an identity one fine day! There is no voila moment. We grow into our identities, many a times, sub consciously.
Think of it as shopping for a new look at the store. You browse the shelves. And pick out a few items to try on at the fitting room. You see how it looks and feels on you. Then mix and match outfits and accessories to get the look you are comfortable with. You choose what works best and leave the rest behind. This is closer to what recrafting an identity feels like. You are not accepting a ready-made version handed to you. You are curating one from the pieces that fit.
Herminia Ibarra, has spent her career studying how professionals reinvent themselves. Her findings match our fitting room experiences. We won’t know for sure which identity suits you best, until we try it on. Defining who we are in this AI driven world, will be no different. We will have to curate our identity through experiments and conscious choices with AI.
Experiment Your Way to AI
Think of you using AI as experiments. Each experiment is a different self we are trying on and not merely handing off tasks. The experiments stack up over time and give us fresh perspectives. With every new way of working we are curating our new identities.
I may have lost the argument with my daughter. But the unease i felt is good enough to make me ask myself if being an AI handler is enough. Made me question, how I can build something so different, that it justifies my AI addiction 🙂
So I will leave you where she left me.
Notice the unease. Do not rush to fix it. Stop waiting for the answer and your new identity to arrive before you move forward. It does not work that way. You experiment your way to it.
