Latest / The You Project / #2198 Is AI Making Us Dumber? - Harps Solo

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#2198 Is AI Making Us Dumber? - Harps Solo · The You Project

0:01
Speaker 1: Good day, gang. I hope you're great. So let me
0:07
Speaker 1: say up front, of course, I'm not an expert or
0:09
Speaker 1: a guru in AI, but I'm affected or impacted or
0:18
Speaker 1: in the middle of AI, just like we all are,
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Speaker 1: whether or not we choose it or not, whether or
0:23
Speaker 1: not we use it, or it just comes into our
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Speaker 1: feed or it's just an ever present reality that's not
0:31
Speaker 1: going away. If you're anywhere near anything electronic anyway, it's
0:35
Speaker 1: not going away. And so I try to de emotionalize
0:42
Speaker 1: and turn down the hysteria and try to be discerning
0:49
Speaker 1: in terms of what I listened to and what I
0:51
Speaker 1: pay attention to. And the thing about new things coming
0:56
Speaker 1: into our culture, whether or not it's that's the wheel
1:00
Speaker 1: a few billion years ago or million years ago, or
1:03
Speaker 1: whether or not it's television, or whether or not it's
1:06
Speaker 1: you know, automobiles as they would say in the old days,
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Speaker 1: or the internet or whatever, there's always concern. There's always
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Speaker 1: initial concern because we while we enjoy the benefits of change,
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Speaker 1: sometimes we don't always enjoy the process. And there's a
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Speaker 1: certain percentage of the population that no matter what's coming
1:32
Speaker 1: down the pipeline, if it's not familiar, if it's not
1:35
Speaker 1: the same if it's not comfortable, if it's not what
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Speaker 1: we know and what we typically do and how we
1:41
Speaker 1: typically do it, Even if it's mind blowingly fantastic, we're
1:47
Speaker 1: still going to resist it. There will always be that,
1:49
Speaker 1: there will always be people who jump on the next
1:52
Speaker 1: big thing without realizing maybe it's the next bad thing,
1:55
Speaker 1: not the next big thing, and so on. So I'm
2:00
Speaker 1: speaking from a non expert position. I'm speaking as someone
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Speaker 1: who uses and experiences and interacts with and does work
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Speaker 1: with this new tool that we call AI. Do I
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Speaker 1: think it's all puppies and fairy tales and Disney movies
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Speaker 1: and positive Do I think that? No? I don't do.
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Speaker 1: I think it's the beginning of the destruction of humanity. Well, standby,
2:36
Speaker 1: but I don't think. So. That's my honest thought. I'm
2:39
Speaker 1: not trying to sell it or sabotage it. But I
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Speaker 1: think one of the common worries and concerns is that
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Speaker 1: using artificial intelligence makes us dumber because now we don't
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Speaker 1: have to think. You don't need to think, you don't
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Speaker 1: need to remember, you don't need to store knowledge, you
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Speaker 1: don't even need to be as creative as you once were.
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Speaker 1: Because it can create, it can think, it can give
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Speaker 1: you data, it can give you information, it can be
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Speaker 1: your memory, it can be your knowledge base. Therefore, therefore
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Speaker 1: it's bad because as it rises, we sink cognitively and
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Speaker 1: we just don't need to use our brain or our mind,
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Speaker 1: and the internal contents of our skull are just going
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Speaker 1: to become pumpkin soup and we're all fucked. Now. I
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Speaker 1: understand why people think that, and I actually believe to
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Speaker 1: an extent, to an extent with some people, for some people,
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Speaker 1: depending on how they use it, that could be kind
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Speaker 1: of true. I think the key phrase in there is
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Speaker 1: depending on how we use it. So the way that
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Speaker 1: I look at it is AI just like the Internet
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Speaker 1: before it, and just like smartphones and just like calculators
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Speaker 1: and just tools that we have to use, and the
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Speaker 1: way that we use them, the relationship that we have
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Speaker 1: that with them kind of determines to a large extent
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Speaker 1: the impact good or bad that they have on us
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Speaker 1: and our practical, real world, world life experience. So it's
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Speaker 1: definitely a fair question, But is it making us less intelligent?
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Speaker 1: Think about this? You can you can outsource your thinking
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Speaker 1: by asking it to write you an email to Brian
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Speaker 1: and give it the snapshot of what you want, and
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Speaker 1: then it writes the email to Brian. You give it
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Speaker 1: a glimpse over, a once over, and then you send it.
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Speaker 1: You didn't think of it, or you didn't create it. Really,
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Speaker 1: you didn't write it. Really, you gave it a prompt
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Speaker 1: and you gave it a once over, and then you
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Speaker 1: sense it off. Now that can be good or bad.
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Speaker 1: It's very practical, it's very helpful. And if it writes
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Speaker 1: great emails and it covers what you needed covered, well,
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Speaker 1: I guess that's good. The problem happens when all of
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Speaker 1: a sudden we don't start to deeply think about the
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Speaker 1: message we want to send, about the energy or the
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Speaker 1: style of the email itself, how it will be interpreted
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Speaker 1: by the other person, whether or not the words and
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Speaker 1: the intent behind the words are aligned. So when it
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Speaker 1: comes to writing in particular, and I have many people
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Speaker 1: write to me and I know that they didn't write it,
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Speaker 1: I straightway know that if not all of what I'm
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Speaker 1: reading was AI, or a lot of what I am
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Speaker 1: reading is AI, and especially if it's somebody that's trying
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Speaker 1: to build rapport or connection or trust or respect or
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Speaker 1: relationship with me. That gets an immediate cross, not a
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Speaker 1: tick from me. That's not judgmental, that's just an awareness
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Speaker 1: that I have that, Well, this person isn't even writing this.
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Speaker 1: They're not writing this. They're requesting another brain, another source
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Speaker 1: of intelligence, to write it for them. And I get that,
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Speaker 1: but I don't want that. So for some people, AI
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Speaker 1: represents the beginning of cognitive decline. They I guess they
6:40
Speaker 1: can imagine a future where nobody remembers phone numbers, because
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Speaker 1: why would you need to. Nobody writes without assistance, why
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Speaker 1: would you need to? Nobody solves problems independently. And then eventually,
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Speaker 1: and this definitely could happen, we become intellectually dependent on
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Speaker 1: for one of the better term machines. Can that happen? Yes,
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Speaker 1: that can happen, doesn't need to happen. No. My way
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Speaker 1: of thinking about AI and every other piece of tech
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Speaker 1: that I have at my disposal is that this is
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Speaker 1: something that for me can help me create quicker, solve
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Speaker 1: problems more effectively, give me ideas so that I can
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Speaker 1: expand my thoughts and my knowledge and my creativity and
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Speaker 1: my choices and my intentions, but also my outcomes. For me,
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Speaker 1: it's like having a super duper duper smart best friend
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Speaker 1: that's always sitting next to me. That sounds weird as
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Speaker 1: that was coming out of my mouth I'm thinking, but
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Speaker 1: that is always available to check in with, while not
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Speaker 1: on any level taking away from my own ideas, my
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Speaker 1: own intentions and thoughts and plans. But nonetheless, there are
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Speaker 1: times where I will write something. I will write a
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Speaker 1: paragraph of something about something, and I'll ask AI to
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Speaker 1: read it, reflect on it, and give me a critical
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Speaker 1: good or bad assessment. So in other words, I'm in
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Speaker 1: an honest assessment. I do not want you to make
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Speaker 1: me feel good, neither do I want you to make
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Speaker 1: me feel bad. I just want as objective as you
8:29
Speaker 1: can be feedback on this. Sometimes I like it, Sometimes
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Speaker 1: I don't like it from an emotional level. But most
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Speaker 1: of the time, if not all of the time, it
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Speaker 1: gives me a perspective and or insight that I can't
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Speaker 1: get on my own. Because I look through the Craig window.
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Speaker 1: Everything that I write is coming from a subjective space
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Speaker 1: or at personal experience or moment in time, or group
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Speaker 1: dynamic or conversation or exposure to data or stimulus. And
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Speaker 1: so to bring in another mind, let's use that in
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Speaker 1: inverted commas, that I now have access to this other
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Speaker 1: mind where it can it can support the things that
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Speaker 1: I want to do, because it doesn't have goals or
9:21
Speaker 1: plans I do, and its job is to help me
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Speaker 1: get where I want to go. So I understand why
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Speaker 1: people worry, because you know, history tells us that convenience
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Speaker 1: often comes at a cost. The less we use a
9:39
Speaker 1: particular skill, thinking is a skill, problem solving is a skill.
9:45
Speaker 1: Creativity is a skill. The less we use a particular skill,
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Speaker 1: the more that skill tends to decline. So, of course,
9:54
Speaker 1: if I stop working out, my muscles get weaker. If
9:56
Speaker 1: I stop speaking a language, over time, I lose fluency,
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Speaker 1: I lose memory of that language, and I lose the
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Speaker 1: capacity to When I go back to that country or
10:09
Speaker 1: that environment or whatever years later, I am now at
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Speaker 1: the very best incompetent, if not totally hopeless, at that language.
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Speaker 1: If I stop challenging my memory, if I outsource my memory,
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Speaker 1: my internal library, to something else, then it becomes it
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Speaker 1: reduces capacity, It becomes less efficient and less effective. So,
10:36
Speaker 1: as I've written many times before, our brain is like
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Speaker 1: the rest of our body. We don't think of it
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Speaker 1: like that, but of course, the brain is part of
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Speaker 1: the body. It's an organ. And we've spoken about a
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Speaker 1: thing called AMCC, the anterior mid singulate cortex, which is
10:55
Speaker 1: part of the brain that when we do stuff that
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Speaker 1: we don't love or that isn't fun, or that it's
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Speaker 1: just hard or difficult or uncomfortable, we do those things
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Speaker 1: that we don't want to do but we need to
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Speaker 1: do to live our best life, or to live our values,
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Speaker 1: or to reach our goals. That part of the brain
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Speaker 1: that and to emi simulate cortex AMCC that literally changes
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Speaker 1: in structure, that changes physically within the brain. We need
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Speaker 1: to train our brain. So I'm going to use very
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Speaker 1: colloquial lay terms here, so that it stays strong, it
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Speaker 1: stays operational, it stays functional. Cognitive decline in other words,
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Speaker 1: your brain becoming weaker or less operational or capable. That
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Speaker 1: is an inevitability of being human. But the rate of
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Speaker 1: decline is not an inevitability. In other words, it is
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Speaker 1: not set in concrete. The rate of decline can vary
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Speaker 1: greatly dependent on what we do, how we live, how
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Speaker 1: much we use our brain. Am I still learning? Am
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Speaker 1: I still asking good questions? Am I still exposing myself?
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Speaker 1: To new ideas and stimuli and people. Am I okay
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Speaker 1: with people disagreeing with me? Am I okay with being wrong?
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Speaker 1: Do I still have the curiosity to try new stuff
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Speaker 1: and do new stuff in new places with new people,
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Speaker 1: to have new experiences so my brain is exposed to
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Speaker 1: something unfamiliar. Do I still give myself tasks and responsibilities
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Speaker 1: and challenges Where I am challenging my brain, I am
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Speaker 1: taking my brain to the cognitive gym for it to
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Speaker 1: have a workout. Because the brain is like any other
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Speaker 1: muscle in the body. I use the word in inverted
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Speaker 1: commas muscle. But it's like any other muscle. It starts
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Speaker 1: to atrophy, it starts to waste, it starts to go
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Speaker 1: away when we don't train it. So somebody like me,
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Speaker 1: as most of you know who's sixty two like, biologically,
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Speaker 1: physiologically typically, I would if I was average, if I
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Speaker 1: was representative of the majority of sixty two year old
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Speaker 1: males in Australia, I would be much weaker. I would
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Speaker 1: have much less muscle. My brain might not work as well.
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Speaker 1: I'll let you decide whether or not it works. And
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Speaker 1: my level of overall function cognitively and emotionally and physiologically
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Speaker 1: would be way lower than it currently is. And that
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Speaker 1: is not because I'm special or amazing. That's not because
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Speaker 1: I'm gifted or I don't you know, my genetics are spectacular.
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Speaker 1: It's none of that. It's because I don't do the
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Speaker 1: things that most sixty two year olds do, which is
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Speaker 1: not say anyone's doing anything wrong and I'm doing everything right.
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Speaker 1: It's not that. It's just to say that when we
14:02
Speaker 1: do certain things too and with and for our body
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Speaker 1: which are atypical of the age that we are, at
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Speaker 1: the chronological bracket that we sit in. Oh, you are fifty,
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Speaker 1: you are fifty five, you are seventy, you are forty five.
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Speaker 1: This is what's appropriate, this is what's expected, this is
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Speaker 1: how you should live, This is what you should do.
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Speaker 1: Now that is that's okay if you want to be typical.
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Speaker 1: But when you look at the typical let's say Australian,
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Speaker 1: because I'm in Australia and a lot of my audiences,
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Speaker 1: but you look at the typical Australian male or even
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Speaker 1: female fifty five or sixty years or older, they definitely
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Speaker 1: are not optimizing their brain optimizing, they're not optimizing their
14:52
Speaker 1: genetic potential. They're not optimizing their bone density and their
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Speaker 1: movement and their overall body strength. They're not optimizing it,
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Speaker 1: more likely wasting most of it. Is more typical than atypical.
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Speaker 1: The amount of people who consistently and consciously and strategically
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Speaker 1: and intentionally use their brain in a way that's going
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Speaker 1: to not only sustain its capacity and function for much
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Speaker 1: longer In certain cases, depending on where you're at when
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Speaker 1: you start, there are people who improve cognitive function over fifty.
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Speaker 1: They just maintain it and don't go backwards, but they
15:32
Speaker 1: go forwards. They actually gain more cognitive function for more years.
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Speaker 1: Just like somebody who's fifty and horribly out of shape
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Speaker 1: who changes their diet, their lifestyle and their habits and
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Speaker 1: their exercise behaviors, all of a sudden, that person can
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Speaker 1: lower their biological age significantly, meaning that their fifty year
15:53
Speaker 1: old body, which was in sixty year old shape, is
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Speaker 1: now a fifty one year old body that in forty
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Speaker 1: five year old shape, so to speak. So when we
16:06
Speaker 1: stop challenging, and when we stop stimulating, and when we
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Speaker 1: stop working against some kind of resistance, things generally break,
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Speaker 1: including our memory. Our brains operate on the same principle
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Speaker 1: you know, and there's a legitimate concern. And if AI
16:28
Speaker 1: becomes something that does all your thinking, all your writing,
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Speaker 1: all you're analyzing, all your decision making, then over time
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Speaker 1: you probably will become less capable, less capable. But I say, unnecessarily,
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Speaker 1: you don't need to do that, And that's not really
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Speaker 1: an AI problem. That's a human behavior problem. AI is
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Speaker 1: the tool. AI is not making any decisions for you.
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Speaker 1: It's not running your life. It's not tapping you on
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Speaker 1: the shoulder and sitting you down and making you stare
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Speaker 1: at anything for any length of time. It's not an
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Speaker 1: AI problem, it's an US problem. It's a human behavior
17:06
Speaker 1: problem because tools don't determine outcomes. We do, you do
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Speaker 1: I do. Like if we talk about, like I mentioned before,
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Speaker 1: the old calculator. People were up in arms, believe it
17:19
Speaker 1: or not, when calculators electronic calculators came out because people
17:23
Speaker 1: were convinced it would destroy mathematics and people's capacity to
17:27
Speaker 1: do mathematics, and they didn't. And I do realize some
17:32
Speaker 1: people aren't great at mathematics. Maybe is a byproduct of that,
17:36
Speaker 1: but for the most part not. It just kind of
17:38
Speaker 1: changed the way that we did maths. People still need
17:43
Speaker 1: to understand mathematical principles. The calculator simply remove the repetitive
17:49
Speaker 1: computation and freed people to focus on bigger, more complex problems.
17:55
Speaker 1: Same thing, you know. When Google and the like you
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Speaker 1: know engines arrived, people will worry that we'd stop remembering
18:03
Speaker 1: things because Google would remember everything for us, and it
18:09
Speaker 1: depending on what we're talking about that, you know, with
18:11
Speaker 1: kind of just science and data, I guess, But with
18:14
Speaker 1: personal memories, of course that's not possible. And most of
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Speaker 1: us don't need to memorize dozens of phone numbers anymore.
18:24
Speaker 1: But we also have access to more knowledge than any
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Speaker 1: generation before us, and the Internet and AI don't eliminate intelligence.
18:37
Speaker 1: They kind of just change what intelligence looks like. And
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Speaker 1: for me, AI just represents another step in that evolution.
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Speaker 1: So the real question is not whether or not AI
18:51
Speaker 1: is making us smarter or dumber, but rather how do
18:55
Speaker 1: we use it. There are at least two different ways
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Speaker 1: of interacting AI. The first is passive. You ask a question,
19:07
Speaker 1: it gives you an answer. You accept the answer without thinking.
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Speaker 1: There's no analysis, no curiosity, no critical thinking. There's no challenge.
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Speaker 1: And if that's the relationship or the protocol that somebody
19:22
Speaker 1: uses every day with AI, then yeah, there's going to
19:26
Speaker 1: be a genuine risk of becoming cognitively less capable. It's like,
19:34
Speaker 1: not really, it's silly idea. But getting someone else to
19:37
Speaker 1: do all your physical training. Of course, nobody can do
19:41
Speaker 1: that for you but you. But I guess there's another
19:46
Speaker 1: way to use AI. And that's how I use it,
19:49
Speaker 1: and many other others use it. I just I truly
19:53
Speaker 1: just look at is almost like an accessory for my mind,
20:01
Speaker 1: something I can use, a resource, a tool. I don't
20:08
Speaker 1: use it. I don't use AI instead of thinking. I
20:11
Speaker 1: use it to think better. And it asks questions of
20:18
Speaker 1: me that I don't think to ask myself. And the
20:21
Speaker 1: very asking of that question makes me think, makes me
20:25
Speaker 1: find clarity, makes me use my brain to figure out
20:31
Speaker 1: what I truly and clearly want and what's next, and
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Speaker 1: what's doing great in my life and what's not. And
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Speaker 1: as I said before, sometimes I will ask it to
20:43
Speaker 1: challenge one of my ideas. I ask it to argue
20:48
Speaker 1: the opposite of my case, like what I think. Sometimes
20:54
Speaker 1: I'm reading something that's not in my field, like it
20:58
Speaker 1: might be some medical paper on some kind of medical
21:03
Speaker 1: condition and I'm just hanging in there by the skin
21:05
Speaker 1: of my teeth, trying to understand this very very wordy,
21:10
Speaker 1: academic jargony medical paper that I'm interested in the topic
21:15
Speaker 1: and interested in finding out what they learned. But I struggle.
21:21
Speaker 1: So I'll say, you know, explain this to me in
21:24
Speaker 1: simple English, you know, in lay terms that I can understand.
21:28
Speaker 1: Obviously I'm not bad at that stuff, but it certainly
21:32
Speaker 1: helps me learn more effectively. And I have no intention
21:38
Speaker 1: of becoming a medical doctor, so I don't need to
21:41
Speaker 1: be super duper fluent in medical language. Sometimes I'll ask
21:47
Speaker 1: it to help me organize a whole lot of disconnected
21:52
Speaker 1: thoughts into something coherent, like I might be thinking of.
21:58
Speaker 1: I would want to run a workshop. I don't know
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Speaker 1: what to call it. I don't know how to write
22:03
Speaker 1: the synopsis, but I want your help with that. But
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Speaker 1: here are the things I am going to talk about.
22:10
Speaker 1: Here are the topics and ideas. Here are some of
22:13
Speaker 1: the stories I'm going to use. This is my reason
22:17
Speaker 1: for doing this workshop. These are the outcomes I want.
22:20
Speaker 1: This is what I want to be the result of
22:23
Speaker 1: these three hours. How I want to help people in
22:25
Speaker 1: the three hours is this, But help me put together
22:29
Speaker 1: some kind of structure, but I give it all the information.
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Speaker 1: Sometimes it will come up with something and I don't
22:37
Speaker 1: like it because it's just it looks like a textbook.
22:41
Speaker 1: I go, no, it's got to be more of me.
22:42
Speaker 1: It's got to be more Yes, we want the information,
22:45
Speaker 1: we want the quality, we want the science, but it's
22:48
Speaker 1: got to be more Craigish. It's got to be more conversational.
22:51
Speaker 1: It's got to be informative, amusing, hopefully stimulating, but also
22:59
Speaker 1: a little bit fun. And it will come back with something.
23:03
Speaker 1: And that something that it comes back with, that'll be
23:06
Speaker 1: my starting point for writing the overview and the notes
23:13
Speaker 1: and the content of what I'm going to present. So
23:18
Speaker 1: it doesn't replace me. It supports me, and for me,
23:22
Speaker 1: that is a super duper invaluable tool. So it's not
23:29
Speaker 1: outsourcing my thinking or my problem solving or my creativity.
23:34
Speaker 1: It's expanding it. It's like having an incredibly well read
23:39
Speaker 1: conversation partner who's on tap. You don't need to annoy anyone,
23:44
Speaker 1: you don't need to wake anyone up, you don't need
23:46
Speaker 1: to make a phone call, you know. And there are
23:50
Speaker 1: days where I will use AI fifteen times and often
23:56
Speaker 1: that's one minute of something. There are days where I
24:00
Speaker 1: don't use it at all because it's just not needed
24:03
Speaker 1: for what I'm doing on that day. Yeah, it's like
24:08
Speaker 1: having just an incredibly smart friend who's always accessible, and
24:14
Speaker 1: not because it's always right, far from it, but one
24:19
Speaker 1: of the most valuable habits we can develop. I think
24:23
Speaker 1: also in this is to question it. Question AI. So
24:28
Speaker 1: when it says something, when it writes something, I'll say,
24:33
Speaker 1: where's the reference for that? Why are you saying that?
24:36
Speaker 1: Show me evidence that that is true? Can you support
24:39
Speaker 1: that statement with a reference or a citation? Can you
24:46
Speaker 1: verify that? Sounds great? I hope what you're saying is true,
24:50
Speaker 1: but I need there to be evidence for that otherwise
24:54
Speaker 1: I can't use that. So I check its reasoning, I
24:56
Speaker 1: verify its claims, I look for gaps, I compare the
25:03
Speaker 1: different perspectives, and I guess, ironically, AI might increase the
25:09
Speaker 1: importance of critical thinking rather than reduce it. For me,
25:14
Speaker 1: it's a collaboration where I definitely don't believe everything it
25:22
Speaker 1: spews out, and even if it does say something that
25:26
Speaker 1: is insightful and maybe helpful and accurate, it often doesn't
25:31
Speaker 1: write or talk well. It never writes or talks like
25:35
Speaker 1: I do, and that's okay, that's good. But I might go, oh,
25:39
Speaker 1: this sentence, these two sentences are great. I already thought that,
25:45
Speaker 1: or I knew that, or maybe I didn't think it
25:47
Speaker 1: or know it. But now I've just had a revelation.
25:50
Speaker 1: Then the next thing for me is how do I
25:51
Speaker 1: incorporate this into what I want to say? And also
25:55
Speaker 1: how do I say it differently to how AI has
26:00
Speaker 1: expressed it to me? Because I need it to be
26:03
Speaker 1: way more engaging and interesting and captivating than the way
26:08
Speaker 1: I'm reading it from my screen. So, I mean, you know,
26:13
Speaker 1: when information like you and I have so much information,
26:17
Speaker 1: so much science, so much research, We have so much
26:21
Speaker 1: stuff that the real scarcity is not information, but I
26:29
Speaker 1: think it's judgment. So judgment becomes the scarce resource and awareness.
26:35
Speaker 1: And in the middle of all of that, you know, curiosity.
26:40
Speaker 1: I read. Sometimes I read things and I think that's amazing,
26:44
Speaker 1: But then I go, but I think it's kind of bullshit.
26:48
Speaker 1: It sounds nice and warm and fuzzy, but is it
26:53
Speaker 1: actually true? And when I sometimes I go, I question
26:57
Speaker 1: it with a counter argument, and it literally says good,
27:00
Speaker 1: good point, greag and then it will it will like
27:04
Speaker 1: we will go. Notice how anthropomorphizing it now, it's part
27:09
Speaker 1: of the we. We my old mate and I go
27:13
Speaker 1: back and forwards. We kind of work through stuff together,
27:20
Speaker 1: which you know, I think at some stage, you know,
27:26
Speaker 1: I'm never not aware that I'm talking to a machine,
27:31
Speaker 1: a robot and AI and artificial intelligence. I'm never not aware.
27:36
Speaker 1: But I think it's some stage to optimize this technology,
27:41
Speaker 1: we need to just have conversations with it. We know
27:49
Speaker 1: it's not a human, We know it doesn't have emotions,
27:53
Speaker 1: We get all of that. We know it's it doesn't
27:55
Speaker 1: totally understand us. It just accesses, you know, the vastness
28:01
Speaker 1: of everything available via the internet. We get that. But
28:05
Speaker 1: I think the way to you know, for it to
28:10
Speaker 1: get to know you, and I say that in inverted commas,
28:13
Speaker 1: know you, the best ways to have kind of almost
28:16
Speaker 1: human conversations with it, if not arguments, if not you know,
28:20
Speaker 1: philosophical debates. So you know, we have humans. We've used
28:28
Speaker 1: external tools forever for I was going to say centuries,
28:34
Speaker 1: but really millennia. Not the kind of tech we have now.
28:37
Speaker 1: But like I said before, cars and planes and microscopes
28:42
Speaker 1: and and you know, just tools that gave us greater
28:47
Speaker 1: capacity to learn and grow and build and evolve and
28:53
Speaker 1: create medicine and build freaking amazing cities and buildings and
29:01
Speaker 1: infrastructure and you know, engineering and all of the brilliant
29:06
Speaker 1: stuff that we had that we can't Without those tools,
29:09
Speaker 1: we can't do most of the things that we do now.
29:14
Speaker 1: So those tools didn't weaken humanity just because they were there.
29:19
Speaker 1: They allowed us to do things that would have otherwise
29:24
Speaker 1: been impossible. You know, thank God for the microscope for
29:30
Speaker 1: people discovering bacteria. The guy's name escapes me, but you know,
29:38
Speaker 1: for so many years people didn't have any For most
29:43
Speaker 1: of humanity, we didn't know about germs. We didn't know
29:50
Speaker 1: about germs, so we didn't wash our hands. The surgeons
29:52
Speaker 1: didn't wash their hands because they couldn't see the germs,
29:56
Speaker 1: and they thought the germs didn't exist. And then the
29:58
Speaker 1: guy who came up with that theory, whose name escapes me,
30:02
Speaker 1: I apologize, I should ask ai. But the moment that
30:09
Speaker 1: he started to try to spread the gospel of hygiene
30:14
Speaker 1: and disinfecting and washing, and he got ridiculed because you know,
30:22
Speaker 1: people couldn't see the evidence for it, because they literally
30:25
Speaker 1: couldn't see the bacteria. Turns out he was right. They
30:30
Speaker 1: created all these new protocols, they created drugs to fight
30:35
Speaker 1: infection and bacteria, and now people who would have died
30:40
Speaker 1: in a day or two now it's a simple matter
30:43
Speaker 1: of taking antibiotics. So these are amazing tools that we
30:47
Speaker 1: have at our disposal. Nobody's mad at drugs. Nobody's mad
30:50
Speaker 1: at medicines. I mean proper drugs, well even that, but
30:57
Speaker 1: you know I'm saying without the technology, without the medicine,
31:00
Speaker 1: without the surgeons, without the capacity to do the things
31:04
Speaker 1: that we can do now in a medical space. Is
31:08
Speaker 1: Without that, we're all dying at forty or a bit
31:13
Speaker 1: younger or a bit older. So there's an interesting idea
31:16
Speaker 1: in philosophy and cognitive science that's known as the extended mind,
31:21
Speaker 1: and it's the notion that our thinking doesn't stop at
31:26
Speaker 1: the boundaries of our skull or our notebooks or calendars
31:30
Speaker 1: or smartphones or even conversations with other people. All of
31:35
Speaker 1: these things can become part of the way that we think.
31:39
Speaker 1: And in that sense, humans have always been what's the term,
31:46
Speaker 1: I guess, cognitive collaborators, and I see AI as another
31:52
Speaker 1: non human, but a collaborator. Nonetheless, and that's that's something
32:01
Speaker 1: that can help you see things that you couldn't see before,
32:04
Speaker 1: understand understand complicated things by using different language, give you
32:10
Speaker 1: analogies and metaphors and stories, give you ideas that you
32:15
Speaker 1: didn't have, give you advice to operationalize your own ideas,
32:23
Speaker 1: and to turn your theoretical creative plan into a real
32:32
Speaker 1: world result. Obviously you're doing the work. It's not doing
32:36
Speaker 1: the work. You're doing the work to materialize that possible
32:41
Speaker 1: thing into an actual thing. But why wouldn't just like
32:45
Speaker 1: we employed people to do stuff for usself, to help
32:48
Speaker 1: us with stuff or to solve problems for us, we
32:52
Speaker 1: don't think of those people as being something of a
32:56
Speaker 1: deficit in our life. We go, no, thank God, We've
32:58
Speaker 1: got these people to do these things that I either
33:01
Speaker 1: can't do or don't want to do. And it's the
33:06
Speaker 1: same with AI. It's just another thing that's going to
33:08
Speaker 1: be valuable used the right way. Can it also be
33:11
Speaker 1: a problem, Yes, as I've already as I've already suggested,
33:16
Speaker 1: and it could be. It might be the most valuable
33:20
Speaker 1: or powerful collaborator we've ever created. But it only works
33:26
Speaker 1: when we bring something valuable to the conversation, which means
33:30
Speaker 1: that you're thinking matters. In fact, you're thinking matters most
33:35
Speaker 1: because you're thinking. Your brain, your operational headquarters. That stuff
33:40
Speaker 1: between you is that great stuff that's driving all of this.
33:46
Speaker 1: You're driving all of this. You're sitting down, you're opening
33:50
Speaker 1: the app, You're asking the questions, you're collecting the data.
33:53
Speaker 1: You're thinking about that. You're making decisions around that. You're
33:58
Speaker 1: asking better questions, learning your unlearning. You are open to
34:04
Speaker 1: being right and also being wrong. So you're thinking still
34:08
Speaker 1: matters the most. Your experience matters the most. Your values,
34:14
Speaker 1: you know, the things that for most of us, we
34:16
Speaker 1: would like our values to be the internal sat Nav
34:21
Speaker 1: of our life. Like it's kind of like our guiding starts,
34:25
Speaker 1: our true north. It's like, my values help me figure
34:29
Speaker 1: out who I want to be and how I want
34:32
Speaker 1: to be and what I need to do to be that.
34:34
Speaker 1: An AI is something that can help us with that process.
34:40
Speaker 1: It's not going to tell you what your values are.
34:42
Speaker 1: You're going to tell it, but it will find a
34:45
Speaker 1: way to support you or challenge you, or maybe clarify
34:50
Speaker 1: some things or build a strategy around the things that
34:53
Speaker 1: matter to you. Your judgment matters your creativity matters, your
34:57
Speaker 1: ethics matter. AI doesn't know what's meaningful for you. It
35:06
Speaker 1: doesn't know your purpose. It doesn't have your lived experience.
35:11
Speaker 1: It doesn't know what kind of person you are. It
35:14
Speaker 1: has some insight into your thinking because of your conversations
35:19
Speaker 1: in inverted common is it doesn't know who you want
35:22
Speaker 1: to become or why you want to become. That these
35:25
Speaker 1: things remain profoundly human questions. But one of the things
35:30
Speaker 1: that I find most exciting about AI's potential as a
35:34
Speaker 1: learning partner is that it helps me find awareness where
35:42
Speaker 1: I had none, create strategies out of the murkiness of
35:46
Speaker 1: my own mind, and being able to know that there's
35:55
Speaker 1: no emotion attached to this feedback that I'm getting, there's
36:00
Speaker 1: no agenda, I'm not talking. Talking to another human is
36:04
Speaker 1: of course amazing, and relationships with humans will never be
36:08
Speaker 1: replaced by relationships with AI. Not well, I don't believe
36:14
Speaker 1: so anyway. That's just my thought, because there's a lot
36:17
Speaker 1: of things that AI still cannot do for humans. Yes,
36:20
Speaker 1: it can engage you, it can amuse you and distract you,
36:23
Speaker 1: but it can never be a human. It can never
36:26
Speaker 1: have feelings. It can evoke feelings, in you of course,
36:29
Speaker 1: but still not a human. So yeah, this idea of
36:36
Speaker 1: AI being a learning partner, imagine learning a new language
36:40
Speaker 1: where you can talk to the AI and so you've
36:44
Speaker 1: got instant feedback learning this language. You can ask in
36:48
Speaker 1: real time. You don't have to book lessons anywhere, or
36:52
Speaker 1: learning stats. I'm like God learning statistics with a personalized
36:57
Speaker 1: teacher in inverted commerce, person lie explanations, I don't understand that.
37:03
Speaker 1: Can you simplify that? Could you give me an analogy?
37:06
Speaker 1: Could you give me an example of that? Could you
37:10
Speaker 1: tell me when I might need that in the real world?
37:14
Speaker 1: How does that apply to all of that to my life?
37:17
Speaker 1: All of that stuff in real time or practicing this
37:22
Speaker 1: is definitely not what I need, but practicing difficult conversations
37:26
Speaker 1: for having them, or having a conversation with AI about
37:29
Speaker 1: the things that you fear, all the things that you're
37:33
Speaker 1: worried about, or the things that could be problematic in
37:36
Speaker 1: the meeting you're about to have the conversation, the conflict
37:39
Speaker 1: resolution and working that through. It's not going to have
37:43
Speaker 1: all the answers, but it gives you another in inverted
37:48
Speaker 1: Commas again, perspective that you can't have on your own
37:54
Speaker 1: What about receiving instant coaching on your writing? Write something?
38:01
Speaker 1: Please critique these three paragraphs. I'm not worried about editing
38:06
Speaker 1: or spelling at the moment. Just tell me about how
38:11
Speaker 1: this is written. What could I do to make it
38:15
Speaker 1: flow better? Perhaps? Does it is it clear? Is my
38:19
Speaker 1: message clear? Is it convoluted? Am I too repetitive? What
38:25
Speaker 1: are your thoughts and suggestions? All of a sudden, you've
38:29
Speaker 1: got a coach for your own writing. You want to
38:31
Speaker 1: become a good writer, Well just write. Don't fucking hand
38:34
Speaker 1: over the writing to be done by an ai, but
38:39
Speaker 1: rather hand over your writing for feedback on your writing
38:43
Speaker 1: so that you can become a better writer. I think writing, speaking,
38:48
Speaker 1: and communication broadly are in trouble at the moment, and
38:54
Speaker 1: I truly think that it is important that from kids
39:00
Speaker 1: up that communication, human interaction, human connection, relationship building, and
39:08
Speaker 1: knowing how to interact verbally nonverbally in terms of even
39:16
Speaker 1: things like writing letters or writing emails, or writing notes,
39:20
Speaker 1: or writing comments on social media, responding to someone, All
39:24
Speaker 1: of these things, I think at the moment heading in
39:29
Speaker 1: the wrong direction. Not with everyone and not all the time.
39:33
Speaker 1: But if we can't communicate effectively and I realized the
39:39
Speaker 1: irony is that technology is part of the problem. But
39:44
Speaker 1: if one of your goals is to become a better
39:46
Speaker 1: communicator all round, then start working on that and use
39:53
Speaker 1: AI as a tool to improve your capacity and your
39:57
Speaker 1: skill and your understanding around that. You're not asking it
40:03
Speaker 1: to have the conversation for you, or to write the
40:06
Speaker 1: paper for you, or to write the invitation or the
40:09
Speaker 1: email for you. You're writing it and you're getting coaching.
40:14
Speaker 1: I think it's, you know, the capacity that we have
40:18
Speaker 1: and the potential that we have to explore multiple perspectives
40:22
Speaker 1: on psychology and philosophy and human behavior where all of
40:29
Speaker 1: a sudden we're opening you know, can you explain this
40:32
Speaker 1: to me in simple terms? Like what is psychology versus
40:35
Speaker 1: what is philosophy? Like? Are they the same? Are they different?
40:40
Speaker 1: What is psychology looking at and teaching and putting under
40:46
Speaker 1: the microscope? And what's philosophy? Did I say psychology either way?
40:52
Speaker 1: What are they both looking at? We can create simulations,
40:57
Speaker 1: we can test ideas, we can we can run through
41:02
Speaker 1: thought experiments. You know, there's so much stuff we can
41:08
Speaker 1: do do. I think it's great. I think it can
41:11
Speaker 1: be great. I put an asterisk next to that. But
41:16
Speaker 1: again it's still dependent on what you do with it.
41:21
Speaker 1: You know, will there be people who misuse AI? Of course,
41:25
Speaker 1: there will always be people who choose convenience overgrowth, people
41:30
Speaker 1: who copy instead of create, people who accept instead of questioning,
41:35
Speaker 1: people who consume instead of thinking. But all that stuff
41:39
Speaker 1: existed before AI, that was always around. AI didn't. AI
41:43
Speaker 1: did not invent intellectual laziness. It simply gave us another
41:49
Speaker 1: opportunity to choose between comfort and effort. The technology itself
41:55
Speaker 1: is neutral, but the behavior is not. So maybe we
41:59
Speaker 1: should stop asking whether or not AI is making humanity
42:02
Speaker 1: less intelligent. Maybe maybe we should ask how can I
42:07
Speaker 1: use it to become a better thinker, or become more
42:11
Speaker 1: curious or informed, or creative or reflective or open mind
42:16
Speaker 1: or minded, or intellectually humble? Because if AI encourages us
42:23
Speaker 1: to question more deeply and learn more broadly, and think
42:29
Speaker 1: more clearly and critically and perhaps differently, it won't diminish
42:34
Speaker 1: human intelligence at all. It will amplify it, it will
42:39
Speaker 1: improve it. I look forward to the next however long.
42:45
Speaker 1: The next year is five ten beyond of working with AI,
42:50
Speaker 1: because I just think for me in my life, in
42:53
Speaker 1: my work in my research in the way that I
42:56
Speaker 1: do things. There are things that I don't need to do.
43:00
Speaker 1: I don't need to sit down and laboriously analyze. I
43:06
Speaker 1: don't need to read this twenty pages of this this
43:11
Speaker 1: report on this particular knee in juryr operation. But what
43:15
Speaker 1: I can do is I can get a really like
43:18
Speaker 1: ninety nine percent kind of version of the picture through
43:22
Speaker 1: reading a one page snapshot synopsis overview call it what
43:27
Speaker 1: you want produced by AI, which gives me the highlights reel,
43:31
Speaker 1: which is all I need for now to know. Because
43:34
Speaker 1: I'm not a doctor, I'm not going to operate anyone,
43:36
Speaker 1: but I want an understanding of how it works. And
43:41
Speaker 1: as always, the greatest opportunity isn't found in the tool
43:46
Speaker 1: or the resource, but rather in the person holding it.
43:50
Speaker 1: And maybe the future belongs not to those who fear
43:53
Speaker 1: AI or blindly embrace it, but rather those who learn
43:59
Speaker 1: to partner with it. Like I've said many times already,
44:03
Speaker 1: because intelligence has never been defined by what we know.
44:06
Speaker 1: It's been defined by what we're willing to learn, how
44:09
Speaker 1: we use that knowledge, how we operationalize it, how we
44:13
Speaker 1: exploit it, how we adapt the benefit that we get
44:17
Speaker 1: from having that knowledge. Knowing stuff is good, but knowing
44:21
Speaker 1: stuff by itself doesn't produce change. Hopefully, we learn something now,
44:29
Speaker 1: we know more now because we're more informed. We make
44:32
Speaker 1: better decisions. Now, because we're making better decisions, we're taken
44:36
Speaker 1: better action, we've got a better operating system, and now
44:40
Speaker 1: we're producing better outcomes. But it all starts with the
44:45
Speaker 1: learning and then acquiring the knowledge. Now I've did the
44:49
Speaker 1: learning and now I've got the knowing. But if we
44:53
Speaker 1: end there, oh, I learned something, I know something. For me,
44:57
Speaker 1: learning really happens when we put the knowledge into practice.
45:01
Speaker 1: For me, learning and I'm saying I'm a particular kind
45:03
Speaker 1: of learner, but for me, learning happens in the middle
45:08
Speaker 1: of doing. That's where it has the most impact. That's
45:11
Speaker 1: where it becomes the most hardwired into my brain and
45:15
Speaker 1: my understanding and my mind. So maybe AI doesn't represent
45:22
Speaker 1: the end of human thinking. Maybe it's the beginning of
45:25
Speaker 1: a new chapter in it.