Leadership, Innocence and Artificial Intelligence (Narrow Way III)

August 2023

Toxic versus liberating innocence

In my last two blog posts I’ve been exploring the leadership path of the “narrow way” (or tao in Chinese) and the clear voice of leadership “innocence.” From my perspective as an executive coach, when a leader is traveling the narrow way, her awareness is on the razor’s edge of not-knowing that threads between her inner and outer worlds. By not-knowing, I do not mean ignorance or lack of experience or an absence of suffering. (Especially I do not mean the lie at the heart of toxic obliviousness that, for example, the writer James Baldwin referred to as “white innocence” in the U.S. racial context. Terrifyingly, this dynamic impressed the Nazis: “America’s knack for maintaining an air of robust innocence in the wake of mass death struck Hitler as an example to be emulated,” writes Alex Ross.) Instead, by not-knowing I mean a condition of openness to the continuous opportunity for renewal, narrative reframing, and refreshment offered by the radical uncertainty in every moment. 

The freedom to start over right now

Every second, there is a chance – an invitation, really – for a blank page on which to start anything over or anew. (Tiokasin Ghosthorse, whose eloquence initially inspired my interest in innocence, says there’s “medicine” in the fact that “every moment is innocent, and…you can say it clears the slate.”) A leader who understands this is potent, because the truth of existence – i.e. that we control precisely nothing – patiently waits for us to muster the courage to relinquish the harmful illusion that “power over” (even power over something as benign-seeming as our calendars, for example) equals safety. The liberation offered by innocent consciousness is on the flip side of this control-security delusion, but letting go of perceived safety in order to get there is incredibly hard for obvious reasons. It’s scary, and requires deep humility as well as a willingness to slow down and allow for enough disruption of our own mind’s chatter to see “control” for the egoic distraction – the addiction – that it is. (I’m being seduced by my mind’s compulsive, self-serving natterings as I write these words…)

We all have our well-wired identity attachments, and when we can make room inside ourselves for seeing them as the mere stories they are, we miraculously become more expansive in our presence with others in our outer environments. (If you are having trouble naming your attachments, think of something you believe it’s important to be “right” about and see what comes up.) So, the shift move is a loosening or softening into a freedom from the pathological expectations we put on ourselves to know or to do or to win, and towards a freedom to discern: to use compassion, curiosity, foresight, and wise innocence in a back-and-forth kind of dance with what’s unfolding through us and around us.

The question your work answers

In this regard, the narrow way of not-knowing lives on the thin line between walking the outward path of navigating our tangible world, while simultaneously surrendering inwardly to the path itself. In my opinion as a leadership development consultant, to be able to make both moves – or rather, to find what it is in yourself that is big enough to unite the inner and outer horizons – is the ultimate expression of leadership (and life) purpose. When we take the time to reflect on our presence to not-knowing as a source of change energy, some things make more sense in retrospect. For example, many of us who have had the privilege of choosing our careers can find the roots of our professions in our childhood experiences: we can trace our work interests back to curious questions about something we did not know as kid, which – it turns out – may indeed be unknowable entirely, or else we wouldn’t still be pursuing it.

What question is the world asking that your work answers? (That your life answers?) When do you first remember encountering this question? In what ways was a version of this question a formative one, either express or implied, in your very early years?

AI (artificial intelligence – or artificial innocence?)

I find artificial intelligence to be a fascinating phenomenon that I’m currently neither “for” nor “against.” Upon bringing innocent consciousness to the subject, I’m not even convinced there is such a thing as artificial intelligence, in the sense that we living beings and machines are both made of the exact same elements of stardust-plus-mysterious-processes. When humans design and make machines that have intelligence, and which perhaps may someday develop superintelligence, aren’t those machines genuine evolutionary extensions of humanity – regardless of whether they eventually “surpass” us and/or destroy us? (Is not the Tao the source of everything in the cosmos, and does it not flow through all things?) That said, of course I’m interested in how AI is already thoroughly monetized by humans and used to manipulate social and economic behavior, particularly by extracting complicity from other humans. For years, data-mining algorithms have been shifting global markets, politics and employment environments, and of course this influence will only grow. I would note that, just in the realms of leadership and leadership coaching, there are tasks that AI already does as well as people, if not better. (See this piece in Forbes about “AI-informed leadership,” and this study showing that – when it comes to helping people to reach goals – AI coaches were as effective as human coaches against two control groups, suggesting “AI could replace human coaches who use simplistic, model-based coaching approaches.”)

Learning about artificial intelligence is causing me to marvel anew at what AI is mirroring back to us about what our human being-ness is by virtue of what AI is not (yet). Based on my understanding, neither the artificial narrow intelligence we have now (ANI that can complete specific tasks, like ChatGPT) nor future artificial general intelligence (AGI with human-level cognitive capabilities, which so far remains an aspirational technology) are projected – for the time being – to offer the following characteristics central to being a transformational human presence: empathizing, bearing witness, imagining, surprising one’s self, grieving, intuiting, sensing into group energy, playing, deriving meaning from the passage of time, surrendering knowledge to innocence in order to midwife something emergent, and taking existential risks based on moral or spiritual belief (e.g. for the sake of whom or what would an AI risk annihilation? for the sake of whom or what would you risk your life?).

Additional resources

To further understand James Baldwin’s heart-achingly prescient 1963 reflections on “white innocence,” see the first essay in The Fire Next Time (the volume I have is published by Vintage, 1992) and other of his writings.

For a superb explanation of the AI challenges and opportunities over which the Hollywood writers and actors are striking – a foreshadowing of the kinds of AI-sparked societal questions that will soon be more directly affecting all of us – see Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s recent op ed in the Washington Post. 

For lively discussion and inquiry about developing not-knowing and other distinctly human capacities, consider joining my fall workshop, “Cosmic Mischief: Evolving the Spirit of Leadership.” Designed to be a spacious and playful exploration for leaders and coaches, this 6-week online course offers companionship on the journey of becoming a transformational human presence. There is both a scientific and a spiritually artistic basis for the transformative potential of our presence amidst “cosmic mischief,” the fluctuating energy with which we co-create reality. On a practical level, one of the questions provoked by the power of our presence is: What becomes possible if who we are in the cosmic mischief of any given moment actually determines the future that emerges? Through readings as well as individual, small-group and full-group activities, we will noodle on the implications of this question together. “Cosmic Mischief” meets weekly on Wednesday evenings from 6:30 to 8 p.m. ET, starting on September 6 and running through October 18 (skipping October 11). The registration fee is $500 or pay-what-you can. Deadline: Friday, September 1^st. All course materials included. Please e-mail me with questions or to register, at susan@susanpalmerconsulting.com.