ChatGPT's Top Rival Just Showed Why Storytelling Is the One Skill AI Can't Replace
Anthropic, the creator of ChatGPT rival Claude, is banning the use of AI in job apps — and the irony is richer than a pint of chopped liver.
OH THE IRONY.
This week, an open-source developer named Simon Willison spotted something incredible: Anthropic — the creator of ChatGPT rival Claude — is requiring applicants to refrain from using an AI writing assistant in their job applications. (h/t to 404 Media for reporting on it.)
Here’s the exact language from nearly all of Anthropic’s 150 open job specs:
While we encourage people to use AI systems during their role to help them work faster and more effectively, please do not use AI assistants during the application process. We want to understand your personal interest in Anthropic without mediation through an AI system, and we also want to evaluate your non-AI-assisted communication skills. Please indicate 'Yes' if you have read and agree.
Anthropic’s request here is incredibly telling — and the irony is richer than a casserole at Tim Walz’s cheese-orgy cookout. The AI darling has skyrocketed to a $60 billion valuation on the promise that GenAI models like Claude will replace most human labor (particularly writing!) and propel us into a utopian future. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei’s recent viral essay predicted, among other things, that AI would help us reach “escape velocity” from death itself. (Blood boys sold separately!) But as Anthropic’s job-app AI ban shows, the company also clearly understands that AI can’t replace humanity’s most fundamental cognitive technology: Our ability to communicate and tell stories.
Unlike technical skills like coding and data analysis, humans have to use communication and storytelling skills in contexts where AI isn’t there to help — in meetings, pitches, presentations, networking events, etc. Much of work — and life — revolves around the tricky task of building relationships and influencing other humans. There’s no AI easy button for that.
A report by top LinkedIn and future-of-work researchers last year reinforced this point. In The New York Times, the researchers wrote that the “technical and data skills that have been highly sought after for decades appear to be among the most exposed to advances in artificial intelligence.” They concluded that AI will replace 96% of a software engineer’s current skills.
What did those researchers find to be the most durable skills for the next era of work? The ones we’ve long derided as “soft.” Communication. Leadership. Empathy. Critical thinking. Skills that help us connect with other humans.
In an exchange on a LinkedIn post I wrote about this topic, Kelly Wenzel — former CMO from Amazon Pay and Andela — put it well:
“When I look at the superstars in my teams and companies, it's not just the WHAT (skills, tasks, projects), but HOW they GSD (get sh*t done) that matters. Can they influence effectively to move a project forward? See around corners to anticipate (and eliminate) risks? Do they discern trade-offs? Do others WANT to work with them? Can they create fellowship in service of a broader goal?”
If you’ve ever worked in a corporate environment, you know this is the shit that really matters. Even Anthropic realizes this is true, which is why they won’t hire someone without evaluating their storytelling and communication skills without AI assistance.
Subject-matter expertise, of course, is critical too. (If you only know how to communicate but absolutely nothing else, you’re the worst thing of all: A 22-year-old McKinsey consultant.) You need to know what you’re talking about to gain trust, and you need to know when the AI is hallucinating and feeding you garbage. But if you want to get anything done, you need to combine that domain expertise with strong soft skills. Just look at the most successful (if villainous) founders today: as Sam Lessin notes, Elon and Sam Altman aren’t engineers. They’re storytellers.
Why storytelling is humanity’s superpower
Perhaps none of this should be so surprising.
After all, storytelling is humanity’s superpower. It’s how we transformed from a mid-rate species with few dominant traits into ultra-social learning machines that rose to conquer the earth. It’s how we’ve built bonds, passed down lessons, and taught each other to survive and thrive.
Stories are the cognitive technology that’s empowered leaders to rally people together to discover new worlds, build jaw-dropping wonders, and travel to the moon with the computing power of a modern calculator.
Think of all the soft skills that those future-of-work researchers and 70% of executives say will be most valuable in this next era: storytelling is the super skill that powers them all.
We lead and rally people through stories. We communicate most effectively through stories. We develop empathy and trust through stories and collaborate best when we feel like protagonists in the same plot. When we tell stories, the brain activity of the listener mirrors that of the storyteller through a process called neural coupling, helping create a shared emotional state. It’s been our most important skill for millennia — the trait that makes humans, well, human.
As we see here, even our AI overlords realize this: If there’s one skill that AI can’t replace, it’s true human storytelling and communication. And the good news is that we all have inherent storytelling skills.
We are storytelling animals. As children, we instinctively live in a world of stories. When we fall asleep at night, our brain immerses itself in a world of stories. We all have a storytelling superpower inside of us. As we grow older, we forget. But it's always there.
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Luddite Teens Still Don’t Want Your Likes (Alex Vadukhal / NYT): As a relatively new dad, nothing gives me more hope than smart teens saying fuck you to addictive tech.
Don’t Believe Him (Ezra Klein / NYT): Speaking of hope — if the political news of the past two weeks has made you as depressed as it’s made me, read or listen to this.
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I’m the best-selling author of The Storytelling Edge and a content nerd. Subscribe for free to get storytelling and audience-building strategies in your inbox each week.
How I used GenAI in this post (Read this post for why I think disclosing this is important / useful):
Nada. I wrote a different post for this week originally and had it ready to go, but once I saw this news, I had to rip off a rant about it.
I work in a corporate (Veterinary) medical practice, and although corporate continually beats us up about production, it's all about connection and not the impersonal medical jargon and cost information. It's the Marcus Welby soft skills of empathy and communication that work (yes, I know I'm dating myself with that reference). And, yes, stories that people can relate to! (I tell a lot of stories that start with "My granddoggie .....").
I read the subhead and LOL'd. Ah the sweet poetry of justice! Breath of sweet air when we are all exhausted from explaining to the tech co's why human words will always fly colors above synthetic pattern generation.
p.s. with all due respect, Elon and Sam aren't storytellers as much as story-stutterers, but I digress...