To keep a competitive edge amid a proliferation of high-performing AI technologies, professionals must invest in their critical thinking skills.

As artificial intelligence becomes increasingly capable of performing our daily tasks, from entry-level to executive status, which skills will we need to future-proof our careers? Researchers have identified five essential areas: critical thinking, creative thinking, collaboration, communication, and co-creative leadership (See Figure 1).

While mastering these competencies may take time, gaining an effective handle on a few tools can significantly boost positive outcomes. Without a moment to spare, this column identifies one concrete skill set that will enhance your critical thinking – a skill set you can immediately put to use.

Specifically, that skill is learning to spot framing behaviors and foil bad faith actors from using framing to manipulate your emotions. Successful framing attempts allow the manipulator to coerce you into unknowingly making decisions that benefit them at your expense.

Let’s start with a business focus. Imagine SwiftSoft, a multinational software company that operates in a market with high unemployment and nearly zero inflation. Over the last decade, a growing number of competitors have eroded the company’s profitability. Last year, its profit margin declined again, from 12.8% to 7.3%.

In response, SwiftSoft’s leadership team sought help from a consulting firm on how to best analyze and improve the company’s business performance. “Cut everyone’s salaries by 7%,” the consultants recommended. “It will mask the decline in profit.”

The consulting firm based part of its recommendation on a national survey, which reported that 86% of people felt “lucky to have a job.” The consultants argued that given the high rate of unemployment and overall anxiety toward changing jobs, the leadership team would face little or no risk of losing talent – a recommendation that saw favorable outcomes for the company. After implementing the new pay policy, SwiftSoft saw no change in employee turnover.

If you were a SwiftSoft employee, how would you feel about the management’s decision to cut your salary by 7%?

1.     Unacceptable. I would quit immediately.

2.     Unacceptable. I would quit as soon as I found a new job.

3.     Acceptable, but I wish management had found a longer-term solution.

4.     Acceptable. No questions asked.

Hold that thought while you consider this second story.

Quantasoft, another software company, operates in a neighboring country with a similar standard, cost of living, and high unemployment. However, this year, the inflation in this country has gone up to a staggering 12%. Unlike SwiftSoft management, the leadership team at Quantasoft has decided to increase its employees’ salaries by 5% to help staff cope with rising inflation.

If you were a Quantasoft employee, how would you feel about management’s decision to increase your salary by 5%?

1.     Unacceptable. I would quit immediately.

2.     Unacceptable. I would quit as soon as I found a new job.

3.     Acceptable, but I wish management had found a longer-term solution.

4.     Acceptable. No questions asked.

During training, when these two stories were put to the vote, the majority of people found SwiftSoft management’s response “unacceptable” and Quantasoft management’s response “acceptable.” 

In the first story, SwiftSoft’s management is framed as “the bad guys” for reducing salaries, while in the second, Quantasoft’s management are “the good guys” for increasing them. Participants are then asked to identify with the worker affected by circumstances beyond their control. Storytellers understand that most people will sympathize with the workers, portrayed as victims of high unemployment and inflation, respectively.

Framing has shifted the focus away from the overall cost of living. In SwiftSoft’s case, a salary cut effectively increases a worker’s cost of living by 7%. For Quantasoft, despite a 5% salary increase, living costs are also effectively 7% higher due to 12% inflation. In other words, workers at both companies are equally worse off. However, this parallel becomes invisible due to the way the two stories are framed.

Having been fed the narrative, we were then asked to explain how we would feel about a 7% loss in salary versus a 5% increase. Daniel Kahneman’s Prospect Theory, for which he won the 2002 Nobel Prize in Economics, predicts this outcome. His theory explains that we perceive the loss in the SwiftSoft story as disproportionately more painful than the gain in the Quantasoft story. Bad faith actors exploit this knowledge to design policies or marketing strategies that subtly take advantage of our aversion to losses.

So, what can you do to protect yourself from real-world threats?

Start by paying attention to how a message is framed when you are asked to make a decision. For instance, when booking a room for your next vacation, notice messages like “Only one room left!” or “Sixty-eight guests are currently looking!” By making hotel rooms appear scarce, unscrupulous websites nudge you into making impulse purchases.

The base rate – the total number of available hotels in the city you are visiting – is made invisible behind the framing’s veil. The message creates the impression that there’s just one room left and that you are competing with 68 other tourists for it.

A test of mastery

Imagine that Taiwan is preparing for an incoming outbreak of a rare disease. It is projected that this rare disease will kill around 900 people. You are the head of a task force with the mandate to save as many lives as possible, and two groups of scientists have provided you with the two decisions.

Decision 1:
(a)    Exactly 300 people will be saved.
(b)    There is a one-in-three probability that 900 people will be saved and a two-in-three probability that no one will be saved.

Which will you choose – (a) or (b)? 

Decision 2:
(c)    Exactly 600 people will die.
(d)    There is a one-in-three probability that no one will die and a two-in-three probability that 900 people will die.

Which will you choose – (c) or (d)? 

Most people choose (a) and (d). Framing makes “people saved” appear less painful in Decision 1, and “people dead” appear less painful in Decision 2. The base rate – 900 deaths – is the same in both cases, and both alternatives save 300 lives. Neither is better, but framing makes one appear more favorable than the other.

Practices like this prepare employees to face AI systems and algorithms that will substantially shape the way information is delivered, and decisions are influenced. Being able to critically assess and unpack the framing of information ensures that you remain vigilant and resilient to safeguard your job security by navigating AI tools effectively.

If you would like to learn more about base rates and how to detect them more easily, take this free online course by Professor Richard Nisbett of the University of Michigan on Coursera.

If you prefer reading over watching videos, then read Choices, Values, and Frames, edited by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky.

On the other hand, if you are interested in building a solid foundation in critical thinking, I recommend you take:
1.     University-level foundational courses in deductive, inductive, and abductive logic
2.     University-level foundational courses in systems thinking, with an emphasis on complexity and chaos theories
3.     Applied courses in statistics and probability