Your Colleague Is An Algorithm The rise of collective intelligence at work

McKinsey says it’s workforce of 65,000 includes 25,000 AI agents. Sound dramatic? Organizations becoming collective intelligence systems, with Humans + AI thinking together, changes what human skills matter. Read more here
#AI #FutureofWork #CollectiveIntelligence

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Beware the Silicon Idols AI, judgement, and the ancient danger of mistaking tools for gods

"Once men turned thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free, but that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them". Before modern AI, sci fi writers saw a risk. Humans abdicating thinking to machines.
#AI #CollectiveIntelligence
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The Abundance Illusion Why Tech Utopias Keep Appearing — and Why They Rarely Arrive

Every generation thinks tech will end work. This idea has been circulating since the Industrial Revolution & 2 centuries later… we’re still working. So why is Silicon Valley trying to sell us this (self-serving) vision of techno-utopia again?
#FutureofWork
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Mind the gap! The human operating model is now playing catch-up to AI

The AI in work debate often focuses on just tech, but our survey suggests the real issue may be human capability. Most senior leaders believe the future depends on collective intelligence. So, the question is ... are we developing the skills to do it well?
#AI #CollectiveIntelligence
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Fast, Slow… and Now Artificial Why two systems are no longer enough!

For decades we've assumed thinking happened inside the brain. Kahneman gave us Thinking Fast & Slow. But if AI is now part of the cognitive process… are we abdicating some agency to technology? This is not a tool that we can put down!
#AI #CollectiveIntelligence
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Organized Immaturity – the danger lurking in the AI-shaped workplace Two academic papers have recently come across our desks.

AI will make knowledge work faster BUT will it preserve the conditions under which judgement develops? 2 academic papers point to the risk of “organised immaturity.” Here’s what that means for consulting & strategy
#AI #FutureofWork #CollectiveIntelligence #Polymath
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Stupidity as strategy … How organizations can be their own worst enemies

In the age of AI, the biggest risk isn’t machines replacing thinking. It’s organizations making thinking optional. The "Go along to get along" mindset is like kryptonite to Metacognition
#AI #CollectiveIntelligence #Polymathy

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Communicating clearly & persuasively in complex environments is just one human skill that we will need to dial-up in the collective intelligence era ... storytelling on its own is not enough. Get more on the 7 Powerskills on our polymathmind.substack.com
#AI #CollectiveIntelligence #Polymath

Davos and the Performance of Polymathy Looking at it from the outside

Does anybody believe that Davos "improved the state of the world” (the WEF's stated aim)? This years’ agenda was built around “A spirit of dialogue” .... perhaps its end of term report just reads ... could do so much better!
#AI #CollectiveIntelligence #Polymathy

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McKinsey CEO Bob Sternfels says the firm now has 60,000 employees: 25,000 of them are AI agents McKinsey & Company CEO Bob Sternfels says he wants every employee working alongside an AI agent within a year and a half.

Is this one of those turning points in the evolution of organizations? We talk about “collective intelligence” … and here is an example of just that
#AI #CollectIntelligence #FutureofWork #Polymath

www.businessinsider.com/mckinsey-wor...

‘I think, therefore I am’ … the value of metacognition in the age of AI In the late 1970s, a developmental psychologist named John Flavell (1928-2025) introduced the term metacognition in a short paper titled ‘Metacognition and cognitive monitoring’. The prefix “meta” mea...

When AI gives you a perfectly coherent explanation, how do you know when to dig deeper? That depends on metacognition, a concept John Flavell introduced way before AI. Find out why it matters more than you think.
#AI #Polymath #CollectiveIntelligence #FutureofWork
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The third in our occasional podcast series. This week we discuss why we should focus more on the human side of the human-AI equation to maximize the impact we can get from artificial intelligence
#AI #CollectiveIntelligence #FutureofWork #Polymath

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AI automates and augments cognitive processes in a way that has NO historical precedent or parallel. That is not to say AI WILL permanently displace jobs, but we can’t yet see what the full fall out will be.

Bank of England gov Andrew Bailey says AI likely to displace jobs in a similar way to Industrial Revolution! On what does he base this claim? To use the financial services proviso … ‘past performance is no guarantee of future results’! What kind of crystal ball has he got?

Why God Loves AI (Apparently) Pope Leo XIV’s Surprisingly Cheerful Tech Theology

We didn’t expect one of the more thoughtful voices on AI to come from the Vatican, but we live in strange times.
The Pope's early comments on AI are surprisingly grounded, and are far from sermonizing.

#AI #FutureofWork #Polymath #CollectiveIntelligence

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Contemporary Polymaths – Who is Michael Polanyi? We were recently sent an article … ‘Michael Polanyi: Unknown and Untapped’ (link below) which hit all the Polymath Mind high notes.

Polanyi argued that 'we can know more than we can tell' which reminds us that the most valuable human contribution in an AI-shaped workplace is the tacit, intuitive, hard-to-codify judgment machines can’t replicate.

#AI #FutureofWork #Polymath

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Polymath Mindcast #2 - 28 November, 2025 Centaur or Cyborg Part 2

Conclusion of David & Adam's MindCast ... Collective Intelligence - centaur or cyborg? Which represents you & your org better ... Chiron or Steve Austin (if you are under 50, look him up & marvel at 70s TV)!
#AI #CollectiveIntelligence #FutureofWork #Polymath
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Finally with a caveat … “but there will be a lot of trauma and disruption along the way." If that is the benign scenario … what are some of the others?

“And we'll have, in a benign scenario, universal high income, not just universal basic income. Universal high income, meaning anyone can have any products or services that they want”

Perhaps billionaires (and potential trillionaires) are not best placed to consider the impact of AI on the rest of us … “Ultimately, working will be optional because you'll have robots plus AI” So says Elon Musk … and he goes on

Contemporary Polymaths – Who was Terry Jones? Terry Jones has a new statue … he is celebrated on the seafront of his hometown, Colwyn Bay, as the Nude Organist from Monty Python’s Flying Circus.

“He’s not the Messiah, he’s a very naughty boy!”. Any excuse to quote Monty Python! But Terry Jones was far more than just an anarchic comic - a film director, historian, author, poet, and scholar of medieval literature! A true polymath. Happy Friday
#Polymath

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Coca-Cola | Holidays Are Coming YouTube video by Coca-Cola

Tis (almost) the season to be jolly, unless you’d prefer to be furious about Coke’s 2025 Xmas ad being AI-generated. The PMM team have looked at it & can't tell or don't care. 'Its the real thing' ... raised a smile tho!
#AI #CollectiveIntelligence #FutureofWork #Polymath

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Defending the Soul of Insight From The Barbarians At The Gate This article was first published in ESOMAR’s Research World Magazine on 23rd October 2025

Will your work become faster cheaper & better without you? Read our perspective on the Insight Professional from our recent article published in Research World magazine. Lessons here for all knowledge workers!
#AI #CollectiveIntelligence #FutureofWork #Polymath
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This week Amazon Snr exec, Beth Galetti, said the business needed to be “organised more leanly” to capitalise on the opportunities from AI. “Leanly” equates to 14,000 jobs lost! At what point do we tip into full blown white collar recession?
#AI #CollectiveIntelligence #FutureofWork #Polymath

The Power Skills Revolution Leading the Human Response in the AI Workplace

The next scarce resource won’t be data or ‘compute’ but human-side skills. What were once deemed valuable degrees or technical credentials will lose out to cognitive adaptability, judgment, flexibility & creativity
#AI #CollectiveIntelligence #Polymath #FutureofWork
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If you don't know who Douglas Adams is ... you are in for a treat!

Mostly Harmless: What Douglas Adams Can Teach Us About AI When people think of Douglas Adams, they tend to think of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: talking doors, Marvin the Paranoid Android, Deep Thought and its famous answer “42.” It’s easy to forget...

What number is binary 101010? How many pips are there on a pair of dice? What is the answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, & Everything? The answers are of course 42. This week we are considering what Douglas Adams would make of AI.
#AI #Polymath
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Beyond the Noise: Why AI’s True Direction Lies in Collective Human–AI Intelligence If you’ve been following the AI debate, it’s easy to feel lost in the noise.

What to make of AI? One day 95% of orgs have seen no value, and the next, we are on the cusp of superintelligence. Its either the greatest thing since the discovery of fire or a stochastic parrot!

#AI #FutureofWork #Polymath #CollectiveIntelligence
polymathmind.substack.com/p/beyond-the...

Interesting article in FT this morning … ChatGPT responds to 18bn+ messages a week. In just 3 yrs it is used by more than 1 in 10 people. This is an adoption rate not achieved by the WWW for more than a decade after launch. Interesting?
#AI #FutureofWork #Polymath #CollectiveIntelligence

Our Brave New World Revisited Does the latest data vindicate the model or consign it to the dustbin of history?

This week David & Adam have revisited a framework they created in 2024 exploring how the world of work, and your role in it, will change. Does it still stack up given what we are learning? Spoiler alert ... Yes!
#AI #FutureofWork #Polymath #CollectiveIntelligence

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