Confluence of Human Intelligence and Artificial Intelligence

In this episode of APEX Performance Podcast, Dr. Anthony Simmons explores the critical intersection between artificial intelligence and human intelligence, revealing why emotional intelligence, trust, communication, and authentic relationships remain essential in an increasingly AI-driven world. Drawing from decades of leadership experience in the Navy, high-tech warfare systems, organizational strategy, and human performance, Dr. Simmons breaks down how organizations can leverage AI as a tool for enhancement without allowing technology to replace critical thinking, ethics, culture, and human connection.

Through powerful real-world examples ranging from military operations and leadership decision-making to sports analytics and organizational culture, this episode unpacks the dangers of over-reliance on automation while highlighting the importance of maintaining “man in the loop” leadership. Dr. Simmons also explains why companies must establish ethical guardrails, preserve emotional intelligence skills, and intentionally create environments where technology amplifies human excellence rather than eroding it.

This conversation is a masterclass on balancing innovation with humanity and offers valuable insights for leaders, executives, educators, entrepreneurs, and organizations navigating the future of AI, leadership, and performance optimization. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Do you ever feel like you're doing all the right things? But success doesn't last. If you're struggling with trust relationships or performance that feels harder than it should, then this podcast is for you. Here's your host, executive leader, and scholar practitioner, Dr. Anthony Simmons.

SPEAKER_01 0:26

Hey greetings, everyone, and welcome to another episode of Apex Performance Podcast, where we continue to offer you accelerated pathways to excellence through authentic relationships. Today's pathway is the mastery of people and artificial intelligence. This episode addresses the confluence of people and technology. How do we optimize their coexistence? I will expound on how we can leverage technology without discounting people skills. Bottom line and up front, humans are enablers while technology multiplies these gifts to enable. But let's be clear and up front, we all want autonomy, but we must filter it with human intervention. We must remain mindful that any human-driven endeavor requires what I call a common act. We must always show appreciation, communication, and we must build trust. So despite the proliferation of artificial intelligence, emotional intelligence skills will always remain integral to organizational success. In the same spirit as Apex performance focuses on enhancing personal and professional excellence, technology is used to enhance rather than supplant human excellence. Now, as a proponent of human intervention, I recall the advent of email and how it could be used as an excuse for people to not interact with one another. Sometimes people relied on it to apply to one of the four horsemen, stonewalling. You know, they would use email to not respond. But for me, I always respond to emails regardless. I'm just careful to leave out the emotions. But also, let's keep it authentic as in alignment with this platform here. I do make it a priority though to acquire about those unanswered emails when I do engage people. So when I was in command, occasionally I would just turn off the computers for a day. I would just have the command just get rid of the computers so it will force us to interact with each other. I wanted to foster, encourage, you know, face-to-face communications, to exercise social skills. I wanted the people to be able to connect and empathize, you know, through the tone of voice, body language, and eye contact. I felt that was pivotal to building and sustaining interorganizational relationships. Now, to champion the merging of AI and humans, I like to call on Six Gear Consulting, which is a company I built in order to bridge people and technology. So Six Gear does the integration of the people and artificial intelligence initiatives in order to optimize performance through the retooling of human intervention methodologies. Now, we can't ignore AI and human confluence. So tie that into my impetus for six gear. Couple that with my anticipation of the erosion of people skills, stemming back to 9-11. And I've been on both sides of this equation. I've been an AI provider and also I have been a customer. I was a provider since I retired from the Navy working with small business innovation research, and also I was a customer during my hands-on experience in operating high-tech ships with automated systems in the engineering plant and also in the warfare systems. And also I had experience performing strategy analytics to help businesses understand how to integrate human and artificial intelligence and also their interdependencies. And as well, I worked at fleet experimentation in order to inform small business innovation research initiatives to help the military fill capability gaps throughout the Navy. So my approach is unique because it has been tested across multiple disciplines and sectors. This will always be an analog world, regardless of the proliferation of digital systems. People will always be in the loop. Human intervention will forever prevail. Captain McDonough, Commanding Officer, Service Welfare Officer School, March 1997. This was at my department head class welcoming ceremony. Now, how do we preserve soft skills in an AI-driven workforce? I would have to submit we can't allow AI to get ahead of culture. We must be careful with untethered autonomy. We must control AI before it controls us. We must implement guidelines to drive AI. We have to take it off autopilot. I recall when I was once working at the Navy Bureau of Personnel and was doing community management, we were playing with the numbers and trying to determine what was the right amount of officers we needed in order to take on responsibilities. And I vividly recall the commander for my community once told the data analyst that I just need the numbers. I can do anything to make them look like I want them to look. And I tie that into just recently listening to Stephen A. Smith who was talking about the firing of Daryl Mori. He was the general manager, I think, there for the Philadelphia 76ers. And Stephen A said, I knew his tenure would be short-lived the minute he made a comment that based on analytics, it appeared that technically they had a winning season when the numbers did not show that, or the record did not show that. So that's another example. And also I said, why are we getting all into this, you know, AI? Why are we allowing it to outpace, you know, the human piece there? I would submit that I find more often than not, I feel that the people that are uncomfortable with personal but intangibles, with soft skills and emotional intelligence are the ones that rely more on the analytics. Now, looking at data, data should augment humans rather than displace them. As an enhancer to humans, I would argue that AI transforms information into visuals, you know, for human reasoning. It shortens the decision cycle and also it accelerates the solution set. That was one of the takeaways I had gathered from when I was working across fleet experimentation. So as I looked into sixth gear, as I call this my common sense approach, that's the sixth gear is common sense. I feel it has to reintroduce the essential human elements into the decision-making process in order to emphasize the intangibles. We have to understand teamwork. Also looking at the sum of the whole, which is collective intelligence, which you've heard me say before. And also we have to highlight the value of collaboration, you know, the mutual impact. It manifests a confluence where technology sinuates human thinking and creativity. Now, I was reading Fast Company, and they suggest that most organizations are not struggling with a technology problem. Rather, they struggle from a thinking problem. Now, human intervention in AI-driven world, it requires, once again, that common appreciation, that common act. We must have human adroitness because that triumphs AI in a vacuum. Now, as an art form of reasoning, humans' instinctive filtering acumen is the input to any process. I call garbage in, garbage out. That enables leading in a diverse and what I call the vocal environment, the volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous environment to adapt to unknowns. It likes to rely on what we call as a commanding officer your spider senses. You got to sort of understand and have the extra feel when you know things are just not going to be right. You know, you must trust, you know, and embody, you know, the human ability to anticipate the need for immediate change and connect complexities to facilitate agility and adaptability to get to the left of unpredictable ability and what I call a rapid changing environment that's critical to success. Now, technology serves as a science that enhances human art form while not preempting critical thinking. I was just reading where a duke professor and dean, Dr. Scott Direng, he conceives that AI is better when used to analyze and summarize discussions, you know, by replacing the communication. Once again, it's about shortening the solution cycle. Now, the irony is, you know, we can't afford not to use AI. CNN quoted recently that the only thing worse than using AI is not using it. So how and what degree do we really use AI? That's, I feel, is the key to the application of AI and also how do we merge AI with people. Now, organizations, higher education institutions are running into a challenge, what we call an AI ethnic flagmire, where you know we're having a hard time trying to determine, you know, where are the guidelines there, you know, where are the guardrails. In my mind, I like to say that values matter and drives ethics. That's Anthony Simmons there. And it comes down to values and moral compasses, what your values should be your moral compass. And to remedy the compliant issues in our head and institutions, I feel they must propagate the proper guidelines. Just look at calculators. We've been using calculators to take engineering exams forever. So, as for value, you know, those who omit due diligence, I feel they're more inclined to maybe commit academic fraud by using AI as a shortcut, you know, visa enhancer. So we have to manage this ethical piece, you know. Like I said, when taking the engineering exams with calculators, we need to identify the parameters or the guardrails, you know, otherwise people will make their own line of demarcation. I would also suggest that there's a relationship between ethics and instrumental values. You know, in real-world scenarios, you know, to illustrate the salient relationships between technology and people, you know, having been one that operated, you know, high-tech systems for two and a half decades on end, I understand, you know, the vitality and the science of systems while also appreciating and knowing the art of humans. I was actually listening in on a show on TV there, uh, I think on one of the major networks on Sunday, May the 3rd, and I was listening to Fareed Zakhari, and he was discussing the Ukraine and Russian situation and the impact of artificial intelligence on both countries. He made it pretty obvious that he felt that Russia was outmaneuvering Ukraine because how they was pretty much using AI sort of endlessly. And he pointed out how it was speeding up, you know, their warfare by removing the human when engaging targets. Well, that's all well and done, but this comes down to two conditions, you know, and I feel these two conditions are linked. You know, you got to look at your culture and your objectives. Okay, it's one thing to be effective, then it's another thing to be efficient. But this aligns to more so your culture of how do you fight wars, how do you engage targets? Are you in a position where you can do it indiscriminately? And the senior analysts address Ukraine as more of a cultural concern as opposed to Russia background, where I look at the US policy and doctrine, you know, where how do my kill chain work? Like you look at the Russian versus the Ukrainian kill chain, how do we align that to what's in the doctrine? Can we afford to have fraticide? Can we just take out targets, you know, indiscriminately? So some countries do not allow that. So we've got to look at this from a measure of success standpoint. So I can understand why Ukraine has put the human piece in there. And in the US, I know we do battle damage assessment to determine, you know, how effective our targeting is. So that all ties into this process of it ain't about just being efficient and getting, you know, your weapons out there. It's about how effective you are and how you avoid, you know, what I call war crimes, particularly, and taking out human targets per se. So we need human intervention for discrimination. That's just what it comes down to there. So and also culture must lead technology and not vice versa. You know, the Navy was building ships with autonomous engineering plants in the 70s, but we still manage engineering spaces for preventive measures. Essentially, it was our culture, you know, to have people there monitoring the systems in order to take manual logs or what have you, although the autonomous systems are actually in place there. Now, maintaining the Navy legacy skills, this thesis here, I feel that we have to, once again, I talk about AI as a multiplier by enabler by not just something, you know, it ain't just something I thought about. You know, it has been in my approach, you know, in advanced technology since the mid-90s. Now, back when I remember I was a damage control officer and I was working within the ship's firefighting systems and battle damage systems there, and we had the digital plots there, but I still wanted to stick to some of the manual messaging and communication methods so we could ascertain sometimes some more integrity. And also I was real mindful of what happened during, you know, like World War II when there was the ships that continued to practice your celestial navigation skills in the event of they took on some damage and lost some of the electronic systems there. And those were the ships that was more durable during wartime. And I looked at that damage control in the same manner. And I also fast forward to 2007 when I was in command of the USS Lasson, it was one of the first ships to employ what we call it was the electronic charts and voice management system there. And we became certified in order to go out of the harbor just using strictly electronic charts. But once again, me, no, I'm not in the Androthol, but yet still I like to keep the practical stuff. I also like to preserve the human skills. So once every three, the four details, I would go back to the manual charts so the watch team could stay proficient in those methods to do navigation and with paper charts and manual navigation practices. So I just wanted to have that comfort in place because you never know when electronics are gonna sort of go awry on you. So, in addition to conserving these people's skills, you know, I was reminded of the vulnerabilities that you know could once again that can stem from high-tech systems and the inception and also what could potentially transpire during battle. Now, look at another piece that's similar to the conversation I was having earlier about. If we read the Zakhari conversation there, I tie that into the Easy's weapon system. I mean, now you look at the Easy's weapon system, you know, it's a very advanced system that dating back to you know my times when I was training on that system back in 2002. I learned how we could the system could fight itself in auto mode. But we always depress man in the loop because we have to have the human element there in order to execute our doctrine, you know, more often than not. And also another hands-on experience I had was with the human saturation piece. How sometimes you could be overwhelmed with data. I feel that was part of what happened in 9-11 with the big data, with the information overload, and also in our combat systems in the Navy ships. There, we have electronic warfare library there. So, and it could just become a watchstand, it could become saturated with information. So we have to sort of sector the system or upload data that's more manageable, more like metadata. And once again, as I always looked at 9-11 incident, it dated back when I was in Joint Forces Staff College when I was doing a thesis on inter-organization relationships. I sort of understood that was most of the challenges that we faced there with 9-11 was not actually having, you know, that metadata, that available data, even though it was all there in the portal, but we didn't really know what to apply. So it's really the application of data that really makes the difference. Vice, just availability of data. So just tie that into in-organization relationships, looking at, you know, the big data pools and turning into usable data. Then I like to also tie that into what I did fleet experimentation. And we had tons of small businesses that was just there, just building these nice systems and pushing them out to the Navy. But what objective do these systems get after? I mean, you know, technology is proliferated to the point where people can build you all types of fancy tools. So we had to sort of back that up. So I was in the business of facilitating and mentoring these small businesses. We had to design something that's going to work within our culture and within our doctrine. So we had to do what I call uh analysis plans. We had to learn the objectives that we were getting after. So then we did data collection analysis plans so we could collect the right data and have usable data. So we had to sort of put some parameters on what it is we're looking for. Otherwise, you know, once again, technology could just overwhelm you. Now, let's get to my last scenario here. Let's talk analytics as it relates to driving with GPS, coaching sports, or driving ships. Okay, whether you're driving a ship, coaching sports, or using Google Maps, you know, users are speaking. They must have the big picture on what the data input really entails. Otherwise, it'll be like driving with GPS while ignoring the landscapes or just not appreciating, you know, the landmarks that we can sort of have in order to sync with what we're seeing in the data. So we must identify the curves in the road. We must understand the hazards per se. I recall an article when tells the first crash, it was due to software not discerning between the glare from the sun and the white structure. So it's great for coaches, you know, to have analytics at their fingertips, just like it's good for, you know, bridge officers to perform trial maneuvers and track, you know, ships moving on their radar indicators. But nothing is more appreciating than just looking out the window and understanding the relative motion, you know. So we can't drive a ship looking through a radar scope, and we can't coach basketball, you know, looking at using data. It's like looking through a straw. And also, we cannot drive a car without appreciating the landscape. So, bottom line, AI is suppressing players' instinct when it comes to basketball. I was listening to Tracy McGrady and they asked him, you know what, did Philadelphia do different in game seven when they was playing Boston on May 2nd? And McGrady said, hey, they stopped playing analytically and started to play natural basketball. I said, Oh, it's pretty interesting, which it pretty much rung true and it ties into what I was had already been thinking about coaching with analytics and looking through this straw here. So, as we look into the future of artificial intelligence, as I discussed in this episode, it is important to understand how to effectively integrate people and technology in order to achieve the best outcomes. Today, world, I feel the dominant key performance indicator is emotional intelligence, which is people skills. It's that sixth sense. Bottom line, technology alone is never enough. AI allows us to change the process. And also, we must keep human skills sharp in the midst of this change. As a multiplier, AI amplifies and it accelerates the availability of information in order to shorten this decision-making process and it provides great insights at our fingertips, but it cannot replace the critical thinking and natural human filtering process. So organizational must be intentional and implementing measures to preserve people's skills to compensate for the erosion of emotional intelligence skills. Ethics are value-dependent. Again, we must implement guidelines to drive AI. We have to take it off autopilot, and we must enable man in the loop. We have to define our culture before we institute AI. It was in an article that talks about the future of emotional intelligence and work. Daniel Goldman, who's a big emotional intelligence proponent, he talked about how EQ will still offer people an advantage even in the AI future. And also, we must be mindful that AI burns people skills if you don't apply them when you're actually doing filling. We have to make sense of data. So please subscribe to the next episode of Apex Performance Podcast, where vital game-changing insights on accelerated pathways to excellence are right there at your fingertips. Thank you, and I'll see you next time.

SPEAKER_00 21:47

So that's it for today's episode of Apex Performance. Head on over to Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen and subscribe to the show. One lucky listener every single week that posts a review on iTunes or Apple Podcasts. Will and a chance to win a grand prize drawing worth $5,000 for a private VIP day with Dr. Simmons himself. Be sure to visit ApexPerformance Podcast.com to pick up a free copy of your gift. And ask your questions for Dr. Simmons in your own voice, and he'll answer you privately in his. Then join us on the next episode.