The European Union faces a multifaceted challenge: the 2025 Competitiveness Compass details the increasing global competition, rapid technological advancements, and complex societal issues. In this context, artificial intelligence (AI) is no longer futuristic; it is already radically reshaping industries, economies and everyday life. In the European Commission’s AI Continent Action Plan, planned for later this week, the EU must move beyond a narrow focus on skills and cultivate a new paradigm: hybrid intelligence (HI), demanding a fundamental shift in mindsets.
Hybrid intelligence recognises the potential of combining human and machine capabilities. It's about curating a synthesis in which each enhances the other's strengths to curate something new that is stronger than both. This necessitates moving away from the traditional emphasis on specific skills toward fostering a holistic understanding of self and society, technology and nature. It must build in collective intelligence, interpersonal adaptability and ethical awareness.
This type of organically evolving intelligence arises from the complementarity of natural intelligence (brain and body, individual and collective) and artificial intelligence (AI, its mechanisms and applications).
Erosion of human agency
A surreal confluence of challenges marks the current geopolitical landscape. We see a mixture of human empowerment and erosion of human agency, with individuals experiencing unprecedented opportunities and feeling like tiny cogs in a vast machine, alongside a fraying of social relationships as digital interactions increasingly mediate our connections. The energy risk looms large, exacerbated by geopolitical tensions such as the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, while the digital divide continues to widen, creating new inequalities. This unfolds against tense US/EU relations and a broader questioning of traditional alliances and multilateral institutions. These interconnected risks form a complex web that demands a coordinated and innovative response.
The EU has taken significant strides in addressing the skills gap through initiatives like the Skills Agenda and the Pact for Skills, set out in the recently presented Union of Skills proposal. These instruments aim to equip the workforce with the technical abilities to navigate the digital age. However, focusing solely on technical skills is insufficient to prepare the EU for an uncertain future.
Cognitive flexibility
In a world of rapid technological change, the ability to adapt, learn and unlearn is paramount. Neuroscience research highlights the brain's remarkable capacity for plasticity, its ability to reorganise itself in response to new experiences. Cultivating this cognitive flexibility requires education and training programmes emphasising critical thinking, problem-solving and creativity rather than rote memorisation. The brain is our biggest asset in a hybrid society; curating it systematically requires a move away from rigid educational structures toward lifelong learning approaches that encourage continuous adaptation and exploration.
Collaborative intelligence
Hybrid intelligence is fundamentally about the synthesis of humans and AI. This requires individuals who can understand, communicate, coordinate, and co-create with intelligent machines. Fostering collaborative intelligence involves transdisciplinary teamwork, cross-cultural understanding and genuine empathy. Education should emphasise social and emotional learning, develop individuals' capacity to build trust, resolve conflicts and work effectively in diverse teams, both human and hybrid. Beyond fixed humans-in-the-loop mechanisms, it is time to tailor organically expanding human-AI loops.
Ethical awareness
As AI systems become more integrated into our lives, ethical considerations become increasingly sensitive. Cultivating a strong sense of values and awareness of moral non-negotiables is essential. Guardrails must be put in place to ensure AI is tailored, trained, tested and targeted with a prosocial ambition in accordance with human values. This requires education and training in ethical reasoning, culture and the societal implications of AI. Policymakers, developers, educators and end-users must be willing and equipped to critically evaluate AI technologies' potential biases, risks and unintended consequences, including the impact of these new assets on their decision-making.
Systems thinking
The EU's challenges are intricate and interconnected, from climate change via geopolitical upheaval to economic inequality. Addressing these bottlenecks necessitates a shift from linear, reductionist thinking to a holistic, systems-oriented approach. Systems thinking emphasises understanding the interconnectedness of different elements within a system and their ongoing interaction. Cultivating it involves transdisciplinary research, intersectoral collaboration and policies that go beyond quick fixes to address the root causes of intergenerational problems.
Recommendations for EU policy shifts
To effectively equip the EU with hybrid intelligence, the following three policy shifts are recommended:
- First of all, the EU should prioritise double literacy in education. Increase investment in education and training programmes that cultivate double literacy, characterised by human and algorithmic literacy, anchored in the pursuit of cognitive flexibility, collaborative intelligence, ethical awareness, and systems thinking across all levels. Starting in kindergarten, initiating a lifelong hybrid learning journey.
- Second, the EU should expand the Skills Agenda and anchor the future of learning in a 360º perspective of humans, society, and the planet as they depend on it. A more holistic approach is needed, one that cultivates the mindset necessary for effective human-AI collaboration. Equipping the EU with hybrid intelligence requires interconnected mindsets. In addition to the planned digital skills academies in four key digital areas (quantum, AI, semiconductors and virtual worlds), the EU should create one in hybrid intelligence to achieve excellence in education and training curricula in the area of human-machine interaction.
- Third, the EU should engage diverse actors in AI governance, bringing together policymakers, researchers, industry, educators and civil society to shape ethical AI development and deployment. This is the only way to ensure broader understanding of different issues at stake and build trust. Tools to achieve this aim should include cross-generational and intersectoral public engagement platforms. In parallel, funding for longitudinal research on the societal implications of AI has to be assured.
The challenge and the opportunity
The EU stands at a critical juncture. The challenge lies in the risk of individual agency decay, the gradual erosion of relationships, and the loss of a competitive edge at the collective level, both occurring in an explosive geopolitical setting. However, the opportunity is tantalising. By embracing the concept of hybrid intelligence, the EU and its members can move beyond doing more of the same and chart a course toward a fundamentally different and better future. Today, we can move beyond a narrow focus on skills to cultivate mindsets that thrive in the age of hybrid intelligence.
As the European Commission prepares the AI Continent Action Plan, expected on 9 April, it should align its funding and policymaking with this new paradigm. This is not merely about upgrading skills; it's about fostering a holistic approach to AI that empowers individuals, strengthens societies, and ensures Europe's prosperous and sustainable future.
Dr. Cornelia C. Walther is a Senior Fellow at Wharton/University of Pennsylvania and Founder of POZE@ezop Alliance
Paweł Świeboda is a Senior Fellow at the European Policy Centre and Centre for Future Generations and Co-Founder of Brain Capital Alliance
Elizabeth Kuiper is Associate Director and Head of the Social Europe and Well-being Programme at the European Policy Centre
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