Contact: Pat Pemberton 
ppembert@calpoly.edu; 805-235-055

SAN LUIS OBISPO -- As artificial intelligence automates many routine, time-consuming workplace tasks, human skills will actually become more essential on the job, and humanities courses like public speaking can help students prepare for the AI era, recent research at Cal Poly indicates.

“People need to continue to talk with each other,” said Alexa Loken, a professional career coach and lecturer on in the Management and Human Resources Area  of Cal Poly’s Orfalea College of Business. “Many people are still understandably nervous about speaking in front of a group, but the ability to communicate clearly — in small groups or to larger audiences — will remain enormously valuable.”

To get a sense of what human skills will be in demand as AI continues to evolve, Loken and two students from the college conducted a survey of 90 working professionals, many of them managers, across various industries. They paired those results with additional research. The findings, presented during the Summer Undergraduate Research Symposium, identified five human strengths that will be essential in the AI future: critical thinking, judgment, adaptability, communication and collaboration.

The research was conducted as many people are beginning to fear AI’s potential impact on employment. 

“That is very distressing for a lot of people,” Loken said. “This is kind of like when the Internet went mass market. It’s just another technological moment where people have to adapt.”

Loken, founder and principal of Loken Careers, thinks AI will possibly result in young professionals skipping some more entry-level tasks.

“AI may take on more editing, summarizing, searching and routine analysis, while people spend more time evaluating the information, communicating meaning, solving unfamiliar problems and making the final decisions,” Loken said. “As AI becomes more capable, human oversight and judgment become even more important, not less.”

The summer undergraduate research program pairs faculty mentors with students to conduct relevant research. During their work, Loken’s students sent surveys to professionals in tech, government, education, health care and a variety of other fields. Areas most impacted by AI, respondents noted, included data analysis, technical work and content creation. Human skills, such as empathy and leadership, were considered valuable.

While there is a perception that young people are more receptive to technology, Loken, who works with established professionals in her coaching career, said seasoned employees have actually embraced AI.

“In my professional experience, many seasoned professionals have been especially ready to engage with AI,” she said. “They have already adapted to multiple waves of technological change and often see it as another tool they need to understand.”

There is a sense of AI mistrust and competition among younger Americans, and many recent college graduates believe AI is responsible for high unemployment rates for entry-level candidates. But Clayton Germaine, one of the two students who worked on the project, said he doesn’t fear AI, he sees it as a tool. 

“Throughout the research that we conducted this last summer, I would definitely conclude that avoiding AI doesn’t exactly make you more valuable to employers,” said Germaine, a finance student. “With that being said, it’s crucial for people to not fully rely on it, as the human deskilling risk is real and very much apparent.”

AI technologies can be biased and incorrect, he said, making it important for humans to use critical thinking alongside it – and to be able to communicate well.

“It’s crucial to take Communications: Public Speaking as seriously as possible,” he said. “The course is often disregarded as some general education that students just want to get out of the way. And, for the most part, public speaking is many college students’ worst fear. Especially with AI now being used, being able to communicate clearly and collaborate with others is an incredibly enriching skill that many students may instinctively avoid.”

Still, fears of AI will persist. Recently, leaders in the field, in startling words, cautioned that the industry needed to slow advancement of AI to ensure public safety. While that concerns Loken, she thinks humans are creative, adaptable and ingenious and will use AI for positive societal outcomes.

“I don’t think the most useful response is doom and gloom,” Loken said. “This is a moment to lean in thoughtfully, work together and figure out how to use these tools in ways that strengthen — not replace — human judgment and connection.”

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