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From how we work and learn to how we consume entertainment, artificial intelligence has become nearly inescapable in daily life. And while the technology has fueled soaring profits for companies\u2014and promises to bring profound benefits to society\u2014even top business leaders are doubling down on the need to intentionally preserve human connection.<\/p>\n
Billionaire Mark Cuban put it bluntly: \u201cIt\u2019s time we all got off our asses, left the house, and had fun.\u201d<\/p>\n
That level of candor might seem surprising coming from the former Shark Tank <\/em>star who has long positioned himself at the forefront of tech trends. But Cuban has also been clear that there\u2019s little point in working hard if there\u2019s no room to live fully outside of it.<\/p>\n \u201cIn an AI world, what you do is far more important than what you prompt,\u201d he added in an interview with\u00a0 Inc<\/em>.<\/p>\n This back-to-basics mindset extends to the Fortune 500 C-suite. General Motors CEO Mary Barra, for instance, does not have AI handle her communications. Instead, she picks up the pen and paper and personally responds to letters she receives.<\/p>\n \u201cI get [letters] from customers \u2026 when their odometer turns over to 200, 300, 400,\u201d Barra said at the New York Times<\/em> DealBook Summit in December. \u201cI also get letters from consumers who are unhappy about something, and I respond to every single letter I receive. To me, this is such a special business.\u201d<\/p>\n Even Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI and an architect behind ChatGPT, makes a point of stepping away from technology altogether. Many weekends, Altman retreats to his Napa, California, ranch with his husband and son, where they often hike in areas without cell service.<\/p>\n \u201cI end up living in a weirdly isolated world,\u201d Altman said. \u201cI fight that every inch \u2026 I think the more you let the world build a bubble around you, the more insane you go.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n While Cuban, Barra, and Altman come from vastly different backgrounds\u2014and carry very different responsibilities\u2014their actions reflect a shared belief: as AI becomes more powerful, the most valuable skills for Gen Z may be the ones technology can\u2019t replicate. Nine out of 10 executives said that human skills are more important than ever for career growth, according to a 2024 LinkedIn survey.<\/p>\n The moment echoes an earlier technological reckoning more than a decade ago. As social media became more popular, executives celebrated unprecedented connectivity\u2014only to later grapple with its effects on attention, mental health, and autonomy.<\/p>\n Snap CEO Evan Spiegel, best known for creating the messaging app Snapchat, has taken a notably restrictive approach at home. Spiegel previously said he limited his children\u2019s screen time to about 90 minutes per week. He has also credited his own parents with enforcing a no-TV policy until he was \u201calmost a teenager.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI think the more interesting conversation to have is really around the quality of that screen time,\u201d Spiegel told the Financial Times<\/em>.<\/p>\n That emphasis on quality over quantity has been echoed by Steve Chen, YouTube\u2019s cofounder and former chief technology officer, who helped build the platform before it was acquired by Google in 2006.<\/p>\n \u201cI think TikTok is entertainment, but it\u2019s purely entertainment,\u201d Chen said last year at Stanford\u2019s Graduate School of Business. \u201cIt\u2019s just for that moment. Just shorter-form content equates to shorter attention spans.\u201d<\/p>\n In more recent years, tech leaders have become increasingly vocal about how algorithm-driven platforms shape behavior.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are being programmed,\u201d Twitter cofounder Jack Dorsey said in 2024. \u201cWe are being programmed based on what we say we\u2019re interested in, and we\u2019re told through these discovery mechanisms what is interesting\u2014and as we engage and interact with this content, the algorithm continues to build more and more of this bias.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Some executives have taken that warning to its logical extreme. Danny Hogenkamp, CEO of Grassroots Analytics, a Washington, D.C.-based fundraising software company described himself as a \u201cLuddite.\u201d He uses a flip phone, avoids social media entirely, and openly encourages others to follow his lead.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m out on a limb here, right? A lot of people think I\u2019m crazy,\u201d the millennial told Washingtonian<\/em>. But, he added, \u201call of science is on my side,\u201d pointing to research linking constant digital engagement to declining attention spans and cognitive overload.<\/p>\n Not every executive agrees that unplugging is the answer.\u00a0<\/p>\n Jack Ma, founder of e-commerce giant Alibaba, has publicly supported the demanding \u201c996\u201d work culture\u2014clocking in from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week\u2014a practice that has since influenced parts of the global tech industry.<\/p>\n \u201cIf we find things we like, 996 is not a problem,\u201d Ma said in a blog post in 2019. \u201cIf you don\u2019t like [your work], every minute is torture.\u201d<\/p>\n For Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, constant engagement is part of the job. He works every single day of the year, answering thousands of emails and thinking constantly about the future of his company\u2014even while doing mundane tasks like watching movies or washing dishes.<\/p>\n \u201cYou know the phrase \u201930 days from going out of business,\u2019 I\u2019ve used for 33 years,\u201d Huang said on The Joe Rogan Experience<\/em> last year. \u201cBut the feeling doesn\u2019t change. The sense of vulnerability, the sense of uncertainty, the sense of insecurity\u2014it doesn\u2019t leave you.\u201d<\/p>\n Still, as AI becomes increasingly woven into daily life, a growing number of leaders are suggesting that progress doesn\u2019t require total immersion. Instead, they argue, it may demand clearer boundaries\u2014before the technology designed to enhance human potential begins to erode it.<\/p>\n Gen Z, for its part, may already be heeding that advice. Many younger consumers are gravitating toward so-called \u201canalog islands,\u201d embracing tactile, offline experiences as a counterweight to constant connectivity. From learning to drive stick shift and collecting vinyl records to playing board games and writing handwritten notes, the shift suggests that even in a digital-first generation, there\u2019s a growing appetite for slowing down\u2014and staying human.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n #Arrow #Button #Icon<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" From how we work and learn to … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19891,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[119,3816,12214,3817,1083,300,3818,6800,12215,1980,2787,930,953,1981],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19890"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19890"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19890\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Today\u2019s escape from AI echoes social media pushback<\/h2>\n
Escaping technology isn\u2019t a possibility for some business leaders like Jensen Huang<\/h2>\n