
Why soft skills are becoming more valuable - sarapeyton
https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/revisiting-the-jobs-artificial-intelligence-will-create/
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voidhorse
So called "soft" skills will always have value, even on a grand scale, because
life is not a technical problem.

You can devise technical solutions to saving the environment—the technical
solutions themselves won't secure the permissions you need for their
deployment, nor convince the parties involved. You can devise a technical
solution to ending world hunger-the technical solution alone won't
sufficiently navigate or alter prevailing power structures to ensure it is
implemented, nor get you funding. etc. etc.

Technology is fantastic but it's effectively the last step in solving an open
problem. Philosophical debates aside, humans have "wills", predilections,
beliefs, and a whole host of desires driving their decisions to shape the
world in particular ways. Technology gives us the way forward, but it doesn't
help us decide what we should _value_ (e.g. safety over efficiency) that
remains a human problem.

In fact, the so called "soft" skills are often what's required to solve the
hard parts of a given issue—contemplating its potential impacts on varying
social groups, being able to consider other perspectives, reflecting on one's
own motivations for pursuing a particular problem and particular solution,
collaborating with others--these are all fundamental activities that have
applications outside the realm of technology. Unfortunately these skills are
also quite rare.

