In the words of physicist David Bohm: “Thought creates the world and then says, ‘I didn’t do it.’”

Recently I asked a colleague to review an artificial intelligence (AI)-generated welcome message for a course I’m refreshing, hoping to determine whether it made her want to enroll. She thought it was very good and asked me if I liked it. My reply was yes, I did; I was pleasantly surprised and now see how it will make me both a better course designer and obsolete as a teacher.

Like their first edition, this book is written by two thought leaders in technology and innovation at Accenture, one of the big consulting companies. It begins with an introduction to the authors’ expanded digital transformation model. The digital transformation is called the “expanded missing middle” in this new “updated and expanded” edition of Human + machine. In the missing middle, humans complement machines and AI gives humans superpowers. Various use cases are described in Part 1 of the book.

In Part 2, the authors reimagine business processes with AI and define eight new fusion skills for an “AI workplace.” These skills are:

(1) Rehumanizing time;

(2) Responsible normalizing;

(3) Judgment integration;

(4) Intelligent interrogation;

(5) Bot-based empowerment;

(6) Holistic melding;

(7) Reciprocal apprenticing; and

(8) Relentless reimagining.

The first three fusion skills are in the category of humans complementing machines. The next three are in the category of AI giving humans superpowers. The last two fusion skills are shared, at least for now. Given the current and projected rapid expansion of AI superpowers, I (re)imagine the third and last edition of this book will be written by AI and titled Machine minus human. In the career pathways of the big consulting companies, AI made partner.

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