I spent a few days in Los Angeles and had the opportunity to learn more about neuroscience, artificial intelligence and the latest advances in ‘humanoid robotics’ which focuses on “creating intelligent machines that learn and feel for themselves, as an artificial replica of the human being.”

Although artificial intelligence is still a far way off from approaching human intelligence, increasingly more scientists believe that artificial intelligence is very close to surpassing it.

In fact, many of those scientists also believe that in the future we will need to establish relationships with robots and relate to them and vice versa.

“But what are the benefits?” I asked.

And they replied: “Not being influenced by emotions.”

“Emotions are an unnecessary part of human intelligence”, is what the pioneers of robotics assume, who are convinced that humans can be replaced by machines.

“And how can we remove emotions from the equation?” I have asked myself…

And the answer that appears in my mind is: Self-knowledge and Neuroleadership.

On this basis it becomes clear that emotional intelligence – defined as the ability to monitor both our own and other people’s emotions and feelings, discriminate between them and use that information to guide our actions (Salovey & Mayer) – will save us from human extinction.

Emotional intelligence depends on how we manage our behaviour, deal with social complexities and make decisions to achieve positive results (Bradberry).

Emotional intelligence is not and should never be in disuse or decline and should be considered one of the most important skills in the corporate world.

Emotions guide our brain, influence its chemistry and electricity and direct our behaviour and how we react to life occurrences.

With this in mind, self-knowledge allows us to become aware of our reality and through self-assessment we can identify and manage our thoughts, feelings and actions to positively influence our performance for our own benefit.

On the other hand, Neuroleadership facilitates an understanding of our brain so that we can apply and make use of our innate abilities and achieve our real potential – without the need to be replaced by machines.