Six AI-Resistant Skills

In March 2026, Pink published a framework identifying six human skills that AI cannot replace. Each is, at its foundation, a Type I capacity — none can be motivated by external rewards without being degraded. Asking better questions: you cannot incentivize a genuine question without converting it into performance for the evaluator. Developing good taste: taste motivated by payment serves the payer rather than the work. Iterating relentlessly: the internal drive to improve what already works. Composing pieces into meaning: seeing connections that arise from specific biographical experience, not pattern-matching. Allocating human and machine talent: understanding what each is for, which requires understanding what 'for' means. Acting with integrity: constraining behavior by principles that may reduce efficiency — the most economically irrational and most distinctively human capacity on the list.