Digital Leadership in the Age of AGI (Artificial General Intelligence): A Guide for Executives & Leaders

The Great AI Debate: Human Intelligence vs. Computational Thinking

There is a growing schism in the world of AI between those who believe that all human intelligence is mere computation and those who don’t. For leaders navigating digital transformation, understanding this divide is crucial.

I’ve debated this publicly on BBC World Radio with Nick Bostrom, author of “Superintelligence” (his Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University, which received a $1.5 million donation from Elon Musk in 2015, was shut down earlier this year). Suffice it to say he did not agree with my stance.

The Limitations of AI Systems

The debate gained traction through my Huffington Post essay “AI vs. Human Intelligence: Why Computers Will Never Create Disruptive Innovations.”

Written nearly a decade ago, before the emergence of powerful generative AI tools like Midjourney and ChatGPT — I personally prefer the morals and performance of Claude, which I used to tidy up this article — its central premise remains vital for today’s digital leaders: AI replicates only one facet of human intelligence—prediction, control, and pattern recognition.

At its core, AI operates through “next token prediction”—analyzing patterns in vast datasets (data is always about the past) to predict what should come next, whether it’s:

• Words in a sentence
• Pixels in an image
• Notes in a melody
• Business metrics and forecasts
• Customer behavior patterns

AI is a powerful tool for optimization and efficiency but not a replacement for human-led innovation, team and culture leadership, and strategic thinking.

The AGI Race and Its Implications

Many are worried about the arrival of Artificial General Intelligence. AGI is what OpenAI, Meta, Google, Microsoft, etc, are all racing to deliver first, with billions of dollars in play and maybe trillions at stake for the “winner.”

Those who worry about a dystopian future—called the p(doom) = probability of catastrophic outcomes from AI—believe that AGI is possible, coming soon, and could destroy us all with its superhuman mind.

I imagine this is true as long as we define AGI very narrowly. They believe AGI could destroy humanity because it will be better than humans at being human—a superintelligence beyond our capacity to match it, and so stop it.

However, what is fascinating is that those who have dedicated their life to studying actual human intelligence, and not computing—like Stanford childhood development expert Alison Gopnik (whom I met at SciFoo at Google Mountain View ) and John Krakauer, a neurobiologist at Johns Hopkins who led a research group on thinking vs. intelligence—state that nobody has yet defined human intelligence accurately or in any way created an agreed definition.

Therefore, how can we replicate it with computers if we cannot even define it?

The entire idea of AGI, as well as its potential to destroy humanity on its own—rather than because it is being managed and directed by a bad-faith leader—is based on an impoverished view of intelligence.

Beyond Computational Thinking

Neurobiological research reveals that intelligence emerges from both computational processes and embodied experiences, including:

• Interoception: Our ability to sense and understand internal bodily states
• Affect: The experience and expression of emotions
• Relational intelligence: Our capacity for empathy and social understanding
• Moral intelligence: The ability to make ethical decisions in complex situations
• Strategic wisdom: Knowing when to trust data and when to trust intuition

Creativity: The Essence of Human Intelligence?

Many computer scientists reduce the richness of our astonishing creative, embodied, and relational intelligence to mere prediction/pattern recognition/computation.

The fundamental digital architecture of all AI and AGI means that it cannot truly create; it can only generate based on patterns it has seen before.

In contrast, human innovators and leaders conceive of what comes next by breaking from the past.

Creativity—our ability to challenge assumptions and imagine entirely new possibilities—is perhaps what makes us uniquely human. This creative intelligence drove our ancestors to develop complex hunting strategies, invent tools, and create language itself.

Creativity is perhaps what makes us most human, as opposed to ape-like. It is the key to human intelligence. It is what had us invent ways to collaborate on bringing down a wooly mammoth. It had us invent tools to make weapons and clothes. It had us invent language to make connection, communication, and co-creation effective.

The Essence of Leadership: Moral Care & Decision-Making Complexity

But there’s an even deeper dimension to human intelligence that AI cannot replicate: our capacity to care deeply for others and navigate morally complex situations without clear answers (and certainly without simply analyzing the past data on a topic).

Consider a CEO deciding how to balance stakeholder interests during a crisis—shareholders vs. frontline employees vs. head office staff vs. citizens in the form of sustainability commitments—or a team leader supporting employees through tough personal challenges while maintaining organizational performance.

Consider a head nurse on a ward in Ohio or New Dehli deciding how to divide their limited time and the hospital’s resources between multiple patients, each with different needs, or a community leader in South Central Los Angeles or the Amazon basin balancing environmental protection with economic development.

These situations require a form of intelligence that goes beyond computation—one that integrates empathy, moral reasoning, and the wisdom to know that sometimes there is no “right” answer, only thoughtful choices made with humility and care.

Digital Leadership in the AGI Era

Today, major tech companies, including OpenAI, Meta, Google DeepMind, and Microsoft, are racing to develop Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). For business leaders, understanding the implications of this race is critical. While the investment exceeds hundreds of billions of dollars, successful digital leadership requires focusing not on the technology itself but on its strategic application alongside uniquely human capabilities.

Effective digital leaders in the AI age must:

• Understand AI’s strengths and limitations without either hype or dismissal
• Lead teams to innovate with AI and digital tech in the face of cultures of risk-aversion and perfection
• Cultivate human wisdom and emotional intelligence to make decisions about AI
• Balance efficiency with ethical considerations for their stakeholders and all life on the planet
• Foster environments where both technological and human potential can flourish
• Navigate complexity with moral courage and empathy
• Monetize investments in digital technology without falling foul of either techno-optimistic addiction or techno-skeptical aversion

The Future of Digital Leadership

This technological revolution presents an unprecedented opportunity for leaders. Rather than fearing AGI’s superiority, visionary executives should recognize that machines will excel at narrow, computational tasks while liberating humans to focus on what we do best: caring, creating, connecting, and making wise decisions in complexity.

The real challenge for digital leaders isn’t that AGI will surpass human intelligence—it’s ensuring that our pursuit of technological advancement enhances rather than diminishes human capability. We need leaders who understand that wisdom transcends smartness, and that sustainable success demands more than just algorithmic thinking.

Developing Tomorrow’s Digital Leaders

What organizations need isn’t just more computational power but a renaissance in human wisdom. As machines take over routine analytical tasks, we must cultivate the irreplaceable human elements of leadership: ethical judgment, creative thinking, emotional intelligence, caring for all stakeholders (including the planet), and the capacity for wise action in complex situations.

We can develop these capabilities in leaders as they move beyond being “The Smartest Person In The Room” toward becoming facilitators of human potential, disruptive innovation, and sustainable progress. This is the essence of digital leadership in the age of AI—combining technological sophistication with deep human wisdom.

SOL offers customized leadership programs in Responsible AI and Digital Leadership and runs AI-focused Breakthrough Innovation processes with and for corporates and institutions.

The Future of Leadership

If your status, success, and livelihood in the world are based on this computational intelligence, on smarts, then yes, worry! You can’t hide away any longer as a manager attempting to perfect The World’s Best Spreadsheet or The Ultimate Gantt Chart.

AI is coming for your job. It will also replace many other job types based on data analysis and entry, requiring an urgent shift in what we teach in schools and colleges.

Yet this, as always, is a major opportunity here for all leaders. There is a way to make lemonade with the lemons of the AI era while disrupting their plans for good.

What is on offer, perhaps for the first time in human history, is the possibility that machines can take away the drudgery of analysis and prediction and give us the space and time to do what they cannot do and what all the life on this planet desperately needs: care, creativity, kindness, connection, and conservation.

We don’t need any more smartness in leadership. Coders and their soon-to-be AGI computers have got that nailed. What we need is more wisdom, more ethics, and more care. We can cultivate these when we are encouraged, inspired, and held space to do so.

I give cracking keynotes on AI in Leadership & Innovation and also on The Future Of Leadership. Do share this with anyone in your network who is looking for a keynote speaker for an upcoming event or workshop.

Customized & Experiential Leadership Development Programs We go way beyond teaching leadership skills to support leaders to change the way they think, act, interact, communicate, and relate to their teams—and how they go about leading change, adaptive responses to challenges, innovation, and (digital) transformation. We work in trusted collaboration with our clients to deliver exceptional context-fitting leadership journeys and experiences that truly transform leaders for good. DISCOVER MORE