My favorite ideas from my conversation with Jess Von Bank on The Edge of Now, Episode 3
On Why the World Has Already Changed
❝ The world has already changed. Most people are not starting first drafts the way they used to.
❝ Work and learning are changing all around us. Knowledge is available on demand, and AI is generating ideas. If we are busy waiting for some dramatic threshold, are we missing what is already happening?
On Why Everyone Is Going Back to School
❝ This moment is causing everyone to rethink what they should be learning, what skills they should be gaining, and how to gain those skills.
❝ AI is a revolution. Moving people along is an evolution, which means we have to move at a pace at which humans can evolve.
On Why Curiosity Cannot Be Taught in a Course
❝ The way we have always taught is to create content, turn it into a course, give a test, and call it complete. We are moving into a world where these capabilities develop through repetition. How many reps do people get?
❝ Practice, feedback, and reflection matter. Can the way we teach today really develop judgment, taste, critical thinking, and curiosity?
On What the Future of Learning Must Become
❝ What if the future of learning is not transferring knowledge? What if the future of learning is creating experiences that actually make people better thinkers?
❝ Learning durable skills is messy. People have to practice, and we have to give them a stage on which to do it.
On Why Organizations Should Stop Leading With Prompt Engineering
❝ Give people a real-world scenario and have them work through it instead of teaching them how to prompt. Create something with AI, then challenge it. After we do something, ask how we can learn from it.
❝ I wish we would stop leading with prompt engineering. Teaching people how to AI is not about AI. It is about what they are trying to do, why they are trying to do it, and how they keep the human at the center and at the helm.
On Why Adoption Is the Wrong Measure
❝ We cannot look at every job and ask only whether it is faster or more efficient. The better question is: Am I, or is the organization, more capable because of the way I am working?
❝ Am I making better decisions? Am I learning faster? Is the organization developing better leaders? Imagine if the goal of AI were to develop better leaders.
On What Leaders Should Ask Instead
❝ Instead of leaders telling people to use AI, leaders should ask: What capabilities does our organization need more of? Not: What technology do we need people using?
❝ Give people space to experiment and reflect instead of transact, transact, transact. The question is not how to build another course. It is what experiences will help people build these capabilities.
On Why the Thinking Behind the Answer Matters
❝ AI can find the answer. My goal is to get people to prove the thinking behind the answer.
❝ Good questions, taste, judgment, curiosity, and learning become more valuable because the answers are already there. What matters is what you do with the answer, the content, or the options.
On the Question Every Executive, Educator, and Parent Should Ask
❝ Instead of asking what your child needs to know, ask what kind of thinker you want them to be and what kind of learner you want them to be.
❝ If you keep chasing “What do I need to know?” I do not think you are going to catch it.
Listen to the Full Episode
Apple Podcasts: https://tinyurl.com/3btuew4j
Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/484kdt4r
YouTube:
Follow The Edge of Now and find every episode here:
https://theedgeofnowwithjasonandjess.buzzsprout.com/2633596/episodes
About Jason Averbook
Jason Averbook is a globally recognized workforce and HR technology leader who has spent decades examining the gap between what organizations say they are changing and what people actually experience at work.
He is the co-founder of Now to Next, an AI studio built around practitioner intelligence, research, community, and the belief that human transformation must accompany digital transformation.
Love this Dave - The hardwire stage fails because organizations lack the courage to sit with real learning—which means staying uncomfortable longer than the polished deliverable requires. You can only bank capability if you actually protect the work that builds judgment, and most orgs won't do that I dont believe. They'll optimize for speed and the shiny output, then act shocked when their people can't decide anything without the tool.
The real question isn't about framework but it's about belief. Do you think your people are judges or just input processors? Because if it's the latter, automate faster. If it's the former, you have to redesign the work itself not just the training around it.
The banked-capability ratio will be the real moat. Organizations that move it forward will leave everyone else behind.
These are great tips! I am working with leadership teams on how to build these practices into their cultural norms, and they are realizing how important it is to make using our brains at work non-negotiable as AI takes on more of our brainpower.