Claire Rutkowski is Chief Information Officer at POWER Engineers.
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In 2021, Harvard Business Review released a study showing that only 14% of U.S. workers exhibited a passion for lifelong learning within their respective fields. These rare employees exhibited what HBS referred to as “the passion of the explorer”—they showed long-term commitment to achieving impact in their fields, excitement about unexpected challenges and the potential they brought for development and, crucially, a desire to continually connect with others to solve problems. However, the study found that leaders struggled to foster this passion for lifelong learning among their employees and teams.
The study demonstrated something most people would agree is at least anecdotally true in the era of Google, and more precipitously, in that of generative AI: While once there was social value on learning for its own sake—geography, history, humanities, even how-to skills—the prevalence of available information through digital sources has seemingly rendered this type of learning obsolete. Why bother committing to memory and understanding something that you can just look up on your phone, or ask ChatGPT to tell you about?
Unfortunately, numerous studies have shown that our constant engagement with technology has a negative impact on cognitive development, both in children and in adults, impeding decision-making, memory, relationship building and critical thinking. The prevalence of this lackadaisical attitude towards learning is a symptom of the problem; we’re not just complacent about learning new information because we can find it elsewhere, but because our brains are literally changing as a result of our interactions with technology.
A Double-Edged Sword
GenAI has only compounded this issue on a number of levels. While GenAI tools’ capacity for sourcing, summarizing and synthesizing giant gobs of information have made them incredibly useful for an array of purposes, they also pose a host of problems. Notably, these tools’ ability to craft and produce what appear to be thoughtful, well-researched, nuanced answers to any question give users a sense of complacency. GenAI answers are presented as the “final word” on any given subject, further diminishing the impetus for any further inquiry.
Of course, this is misleading: When using GenAI, we’re not seeing a variety of perspectives and thoughts on the topic. Rather, we’re seeing something that's already been amalgamated and summarized, distilled down to the most compact form using the information available. That information’s accuracy or completeness is limited (particularly due to finite training data), in some cases outright false (AI hallucinations remain a consistent problem) and, often, undermined by human biases or skewed perspectives. Yet, because of diminishing critical thinking skills and, bluntly, intellectual laziness that is facilitated by the ease of obtaining rote information, we are all too willing to accept AI-generated responses as a complete understanding.
An Imperative For Continued Learning
If we’re going to use AI responsibly, that needs to occur in conjunction with—and not in lieu of—a process of continuous learning. As a start, users need to make sure they understand how prompting works and what they’re actually asking, because the quality of the answers they receive from a GenAI tool will depend very much on how these queries are worded. Users also need to learn about the security and privacy implications of whatever tools they’re using, particularly surrounding the information they may inadvertently feed into it based on certain prompts. All of these considerations require discrete training—in other words, we need to be continually learning about the technology we’re using in order to actually derive a benefit from it, as well as mitigating possible harm.
Beyond the scope of GenAI, technology is changing constantly—as are industries, as a result of digital transformation. Companies that stick their heads in the sand and say, “Well, that’s it, we know everything we need to know!” will find themselves rapidly falling behind. The pace of change is accelerating, which means the pace at which enterprises can lose ground is also accelerating; at a standstill, a gap forms faster between a company and its competitors than ever before.
A Personal And Professional Boon
For individuals, it’s never been more important to learn continuously. If you wait around now, and then find yourself the victim of an RIF or some other type of layoff in a couple of years, you might find that your skills are hopelessly outdated, and that you have an awful lot to catch up on. If you had stayed current, these gaps (and the legwork required to bridge them) would be far less pronounced. For example, when we download an iPhone update, we don't think twice because these updates are so common and the changes so small. But larger “updates,” such as learning an entirely new software program, present a much steeper hill to climb. Learning constantly and incrementally keeps individuals from having to climb so many of these steep hills in record time.
Ongoing learning also has the benefit of keeping you relevant to your company and your industry. Increasingly, companies have recognized the competitive advantage of offering opportunities for upskilling and reskilling to their workers, both to the benefit of the company’s own operations, products and services, and as a mechanism for furthering employee retention. Employees are increasingly aware that, as far as career progression and transition, what you knew that got you to where you are right now is not going to take you to the next place. The need for new skills is not limited to technology; it also includes “soft skills”—the ability to work well in a hybrid environment, leadership capabilities and other working skills. All of these take time to learn and develop.
Lastly, lifelong learning has a significant impact on mental health. Burnout, anxiety and depression are at record levels, even since the pandemic. Continual learning has been shown in numerous studies to improve self-confidence and self-efficacy, increase well-being and promote overall life satisfaction. Irrespective of the influence of GenAI or other technologies, making ongoing efforts towards self-improvement is, at this point, something no one can afford not to do; it is a boon to our communities and our employers, and most importantly, a gift to ourselves.
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