Number 7: #HumanIsTheNewLuxury
What if humanity becomes the ultimate luxury? Explore how the human touch will thrive in an AI-driven world.
This is the seventh in our series exploring ten themes that will shape the next 10 years. Here we'll be looking at ‘#HumanIsTheNewLuxury: The Rising Value of the Human Touch' – In an AI-me-diated world, being truly human will be the ultimate competitive advantage—the killer ‘app’.
Number 7: #HumanIsTheNewLuxury
‘LLMs are the revenge of the Humanities Graduate’
As a History and History of Art Graduate, who bizarrely also spent twenty years coding and running software companies, it is very pleasing to see the rise of Large LANGUAGE Models, which are transforming what it means to code. Instead of understanding the odd syntax of Python or Javascript the new interface to computational power is language. Indeed the great AI Researcher Andrej Karpathy has said:
‘The hottest new programming language is English’
Natural Language Computing, where we use text or voice to interact with ‘the machines’, appears to be the future. Where we describe what we want, an LLM understands and processes our wishes, and then offloads the task or tasks to an army of computing ‘tools’ who do our bidding. Unlike historically where we had to precisely know how to do something, now the most important thing is to be able to describe precisely what it is we want done. Hence the revenge of ‘Humanities Graduates’ who have been trained to have great facility with words. The stumbling and mumbling of an archetypal ‘techie’ is now a hindrance. Clarity, precision and persuasiveness are all of a sudden superskills rather than arty affectations.
This is just one way that the future is going to be a lot more human than many people believe. Despite the world becoming ever more mediated by technology, it is going to be the acquisition and development of human skills that will become, for most people, their route to a successful life.
Because #HumanIsTheNewLuxury.
We humans are very hard to please materially. We strive to acquire the next big thing, are in thrall to it for a while once acquired, and then, every single time, become tired of it a little further on. It’s why so many very rich people are miserable; they rapidly learn that being able to have everything is a curse not a blessing. Arriving is no fun. The journey is always the enduring pleasure.
And with technology this is true in spades. There is a saying that ‘AI is anything that doesn’t work - as soon as it works it’s just.... statistics’. We move on very fast. It wasn’t that long ago that maintaining a phone signal while travelling in a car was hit and miss. Now we rage when our 4k video streaming at 80 mph drops off. Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI has quipped that people veer between saying ‘AI will end the world’ one day to ‘It’s SO slow’ the next.
We're fickle. We're not really interested in technology itself - we care about what it enables us to do. And somehow, it's never enough.
Shania Twain nailed it:
‘Okay, so you're a rocket scientist. That don't impress me much’
And this will just become more and more obvious as technology improves. We’re realistically within 2-10 years of AGI - Artificial General intelligence, which OpenAI have defined as ‘a highly autonomous AI system that can perform most economically important tasks better than humans.’ But will we be impressed? For a while, but shortly thereafter it too will merge into the background. Once we can let AI do all the things needing doing, we’ll be back to the perennial question; Now what?
With a big caveat. That ‘perform most economically important tasks better than humans’ means that we’ll need to be inventing a whole new set of ‘economically important tasks’. Where the AI cannot substitute for us. We’ll need to be doubling down on being human. But being human that has economic value. Incentives matter to humans and we like to create value and be valued.
So where might this take us?
Where does our capacity for nuanced emotion, our desire for authentic connection, our appreciation of imperfection, become not just differentiators but essential qualities?
All things
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I think in seven key directions:
- Personalised Experiences: This is a classic area where AI will help us be more human. It is very good at personalising at scale digitally, but if one can combine this personalisation with human delivery there are many opportunities to provide exceptional experiences.
- Emotional Intelligence: Now, computers can ‘simulate’ emotional intelligence very well but there is an irreplaceable role for human empathy and understanding. Many high IQ people have very low EQ, but in a world where AI provides the IQ, working on one’s EQ makes a lot of sense.
- Creative Problem-Solving: This is one of the great superpowers for the AI age. Problem solving alone is an intellectual muscle we all need to work on but if one can add creativity to it, then magical things can happen. From current research we know that using LLMs does raise the creativity of most people but it does so both in the same way, and in a different way to how humans are creative. We have more creative ideas, but they tend to all follow a similar pattern, and these ideas are not those we’d have left to our own devices. So humans need to work with LLMs but never lose sight of the need to inject humanity into the equation. Many products and services will be AI developed but the luxury ones will have that human je ne sais quoi.
- Authenticity: The value of genuine, non-automated human connections will become incalculable. All our luxury moments will be authentic.
- Artisanal and Bespoke Services: Custom, human-crafted solutions are already luxury offerings, but in a world of mechanical perfection we will actively seek out imperfection. The imperfect will be unique, the perfect a commodity. It is upside down, but humans like ‘character’ and few real characters are perfect. There is a sterility to perfect that we tire of. It is enervating. It bores us. We want to feel the human in the loop. Artisanal and bespoke services will definitely be a luxury we strive for. Think vinyl versus CD - the CD is perfect but vinyl speaks to your soul.
- Human-Centered Design: Spaces and services designed to enhance human experiences and catalyse human capabilities will be the only spaces and services people actually want. They won’t always get them, but it will be what the luxury market provides. And as with personalised experiences, these will be the fruit of human + AI working in synergy, creating something that is better than either could create alone.
- Community Building: The importance of human-facilitated social connections cannot be overstated. Remove community from society and we have nothing. This will be the ultimate luxury in an AI mediated world.
Given we spend more than 90% of our time inside buildings, real estate is the crucial canvas for bringing these human values to life.Here's six ways they might manifest themselves:
- Concierge Services: High-touch, personalised property management will be the ‘premium’ offering. AI will help us know a lot about you but it’ll be a human that turns that knowledge into something special. Helping enable you to be ‘happy, healthy and productive’ is the aim, and that takes data, resources.... and a deft human touch.
- Curated Spaces: Human-curated environments that cater to specific lifestyle needs will be essential. Curation is currently anunder-appreciated skill - it won’t be in the future.
- Relationship-Based Transactions: Personal, trust-based interactions in high-end real estate deals will distinguish them from the norm of automated transactions. Often we will want automated transactions but for those that really matter we wantto deal with humans. If you could buy a home with just one pushof a button, would you?
- Experiential Retail: Retail was hit by online technology a decade, or two, before offices but it is clear that successful retail spaces focus on human-centred, memorable experiences. Offices will follow.
- Wellness-Focused Design: ‘there is no wealth without health’ so spaces that prioritise human well-being and personal interaction are a very obvious luxury offering. This will become ever more so as we have more time to invest in it.
- Community-Centric Developments: Real estate HAS to be designed to foster human connections and community engagement. We’re going to see a renaissance of mixed-use developments. The industrial era gave us live, work, play separation - the AI era will bring all of these back together. Commuting is almost the antonym of luxury - AI will lead to its demise.
Does this sound like a world you’d enjoy? I think I would. Will it happen? I’m 100% certain it will, for some. #HumanIsTheNewLuxury is such a wonderful thing to aspire to. Putting humans, and humanity, at the centre of a good life.
The big challenge will be in making it the norm, not just a #Luxury.
Next Steps
What constitutes #Luxury in your business? Can that become your North Star to aim at? Let me know.
Thank you for reading Trillion Dollar Hashtag. Here’s to rethinking the future of real estate together.
- Antony Slumbers
Thank you for reading the first edition of Trillion Dollar Hashtag. Here’s to rethinking the future of real estate together.
Best regards,
All things
#SpaceasaService
Exploring how AI and technology are reshaping real estate and cities to serve the future of work, rest, and play.