Rewire Live Conversations 1: Hollow Competence
Hollow Competence: What happens when we outsource our thinking to AI?
Summary: A live, interactive hour with Dr Neil Wilkie and Dr Gwen Stirling-Wilkie, authors of Rewire: How AI is Rewiring Relationships at Work.
Description:
Your colleague hands in a flawless report. You ask them one probing question about it, and the floor gives way. That is hollow competence: the look of capability without the learning that produces it. It isn't laziness. It is what happens when a tool removes the struggle, because the struggle is where judgement grows.
AI can help us work faster, write better and solve problems more quickly. But what happens when it starts replacing the very experiences through which we learn to think, judge, question and grow?
In the first of our Rewire Live Conversations, we’ll explore what we call hollow competence: the risk that people appear increasingly capable while some of the thinking, practice and relational learning underneath that capability thins out.
We’ll look at questions such as:
What happens when AI becomes the first place we turn rather than a colleague, mentor or our own judgement?
What might the disappearing first rung of the career ladder mean for how people learn and are guided by more experienced colleagues?
Where is AI genuinely augmenting capability, and where might it quietly be eroding it?
What conditions do leaders need to create so that AI strengthens rather than substitutes human development
We’ll introduce some of the ideas from our new book Rewire: How AI is Rewiring Relationships at Work, then open up the conversation.
You'll leave with:
A clear way to spot hollow competence, in yourself and others
A sense of what informal mentoring gives us, and how to protect it
One practical thing to try right away, for you and for those around you
Who it's for: leaders, managers, HR and L&D professionals, and anyone curious about what AI is doing to working relationships and organisational culture.
This is the first of three sessions. The others are Creative Friction (2 December) and The Relational Barometer (9 December). Each stands alone.
Come ready to think, contribute and compare what you’re noticing in your own organisation.
Rewire Live Conversations:
Three conversations about what AI is changing between us at work.