EI and SI

Enhance your emotional intelligence (EI) and social intelligence (SI) – essential assets in working with AI and others 

Why this matters: Working with AI in isolation can create an echo chamber. Algorithms tend to agree with your prompts and smooth over complexities, which can lead to tunnel vision. To build robust solutions, you need the “social friction” of other human minds. Social intelligence isn’t just about being nice; it is the essential error-correction layer that challenges assumptions, spots ethical gaps and ensures your work connects with real people. 

Mini-tool: The Signal Bars

Working alone with AI creates a “low signal” environment—it generates content quickly, but lacks the “bandwidth” of human critique, context and reality-checking. To get high-quality results, you must boost the signal by adding the advantage of your strong human relationships to the equation.

One bar: The echo chamber (you + AI)
What you get: Speed, volume, agreement

The risk: Blind spots and a closed loop, in which AI reflects your own biases back to you

Two bars: The sanity check (you, AI + a peer)
What you get: Challenge, friction, different perspective and ideas

The benefit: Your peer spots flaws or dimensions that you and AI did not see

Three bars: The collective thought (you, AI + a group)
What you get: A robust, vetted strategy that accounts for blind spots and human context

The benefit:   By incorporating human debate, you create a solution that is ethical and aligned with the team’s values

Try it

Boost the signal:

Start at 1 Bar: Identify a problem and use AI to draft a solution. 

Move to 2 Bars: Share the solution with one other person and ask for their feedback and ideas.

Move to 3 Bars: Bring that person’s critique to a small group. Discuss how to build upon it and improve the original AI-generated solution.

Reflection: Evaluate how the 1-bar and 3-bars versions are different and which is better.

Example:

You are designing an experiment to measure water quality in a local pond. 

1-Bar: Ask an AI tool for ideas on which tests to run and how to do the measurement.

2-Bars: Ask an upper-level environmental studies major about the AI’s suggestions and what approach they would recommend.

3-Bars: Ask a local water quality group about their biggest concerns and which results would be most helpful to the community.