I've been hearing more frequently dire predictions that AI will replace coaching. I've heard that some contract coaching platforms are considering using AI for coaching in the near future, cheapening coaching services and decreasing the need for actual coaches. Is the coaching profession doomed to fail, replaced by computerized voices?
As a big science-fiction fan, I'm all for Artificial Intelligence to help automate repetitive drudgery jobs and I find the concept of androids fascinating and alluring. However, even at their best, computers can only adapt to change if they are assiduously monitored and managed. Computers basically see things as black and white, and even Learning Machines degrade over time unless they are continually fed new information and algorithms to help them adapt to the constant and chaotic changes that humans generate. Still, apparently AI computers loom large in people's mind as a threat to the coaching profession.
I have three words for this prediction: "Automated Customer Service". How many times have you called customer service only to groan when you hear "Your call is important to us. Press 1 if you want…." After 15 minutes of pressing buttons and being given options that don't fit what you need, you scream into the phone "Just let me talk to a human!"
Human beings crave connection with other Human beings. There is an energy field that our mirror neurons automatically connect to that cannot be duplicated by a computer. We feel other people's pain, their joy and their fears. We can flex and change instantly in response to what happens to the person with us.
As coaches, we are rigorously trained to do this better than most people. And our clients know this. They intuitively know when they can trust a coach, and when they do, it inspires them to do the deep work that transforms their lives. The soul-to-soul connection between coach and client is where the answers lie.
Granted, an AI computer will not be judgmental, and few humans can be entirely judgment-free. Yet that vulnerability deepens the connection between coach and client. Think of when you had a client who wouldn't go deep, and then upon self-reflection you realized you were judging them in some way.
Once you do the self-awareness work to transform the judgment to respect, the client will automatically go deep, aware at an intuitive level that you are now fully accepting of them.
There may come a time in the far future where AI is so sophisticated that androids or robots act completely human.
There's no way to predict how that will impact humanity, and not something that we have to fear in our lifetimes. For the foreseeable future, the coaching profession is safe in the hands of human coaches. Our clients will demand human contact for their deepest self-awareness work. I feel that once AI computers have the need of a coach, they can be a coach. That time is a long way off.