Latest / The DEX Show: A Show for IT Change Makers / AlphaFold, Office Politics, and Mustafa Suleyman’s Two Futures (w/Benedict Lelijveld)

Transcript

AlphaFold, Office Politics, and Mustafa Suleyman’s Two Futures (w/Benedict Lelijveld) · The DEX Show: A Show for IT Change Makers

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome it, change makers to the Deck Show with Tim
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Flower and Tom McGrath. Let's get into it.
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: I know, I know. The music's the same, the intro
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: is the same. Tim Flower has gone, but it still says,
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: Tim Flower, you don't have to keep telling me this.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: We have been working hard on you.
• 0:18
  Speaker 3: See.
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: The thing was we we couldn't, for the life of
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: us find the original music track, the original tune with
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: a hub of voiceover, but we added to it. So
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: we thought, well, what the heck, let's have all new
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: music to go with an all new intro. So the
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: Deck Show production team we've been deep in the trenches
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: weighing hundreds of different songs, and the next week we're
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: gonna unveil the new intro and outro music. It's it's
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: pretty different. You're gonna love it or hate it that much.
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: I can I can kind of guarantee, but it will
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: be new. It will give you something to react to.
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: It will stop the messages coming in about why does
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: the show still introduce you and Tim Flower? I know,
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: I know, I know. It's it's it's it's it's in
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: the it's in the post. Tune in for next week's episodes.
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: You'll you'll hear what we've come up with, and you
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: can let us know what you think. Okay, all right
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: on with today's show. I don't know about you, but
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: I often find myself these this last year in particular,
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: thinking about what it's like to be a young person
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: in their first decade of their career, over this last
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: over these last few years, right, I mean, from all
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: the disruption of COVID to remote work now AI am
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: the way that's ripping out all the previous certainties in
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: terms of what a career looked like, in terms of
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: what we could expect in terms of career progression and
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: skill sets and such like. It's been hectic if you're
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: in your thirties, forties, fifties beyond. But imagine if you're
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: if this is your first decade of work, if you're
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: if you're trying, if you're busy trying to find your
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: your your feet and your way. What has this been like?
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: And how younger professionals preparing for such an uncertain as
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: well as exciting future. Well, it just so happens that
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: we have in our raw bit a fantastic young writer.
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: He's written on Decks for the Decks Hub as well
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: as other publications countless times over the last year. Really
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: great selection of pieces which we can find in the
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: show notes, and we thought we get him on the
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: show to discuss not only those articles and some of
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: the themes he's already addressed there, but indeed what it's
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: been like, what it's like to be a younger professional
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: making their way in the world at such an uncertain time.
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: So let's welcome him to the Deck show.
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: Hi, everybody, I am benderditt lellidod. It's a pleasure to
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: be on the pod. Been listening for a while, so
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: it's quite special for me to be here. Yeah, so
• 2:56
  Speaker 3: I am a young professional. I've been looking for a
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: couple of different companies over the past seven years, mostly
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: in sort of tech and telecom spaces. Most recently I've
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: been contributing some writing to the dex Hub and a
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: few other different companies and platforms out there. But yeah, no,
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: it's it's really really great to be here, and I'm
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: very happy to kind of give my two cents on
• 3:18
  Speaker 3: some of the perspectives of, you know, the modern situation
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: that we found ourselves in. Fantastic Benet, thanks so much
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: for coming on a show and as I say, I
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: think your articles they give us super compelling overview of
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: how AI is impacting a generation still relatively young in
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: terms of its professional development, both in terms of the
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: good and the bad and the unknown. How would you
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: articulate that picture overall, and how are you seeking to
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: build your own experience and expertise in this very changeable environment. Yeah,
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: of course, I grew up in a very digital first generation.
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: We grew up in the kind of transition from a
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: lot more analog forms into a lot more digital forms,
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: online news, online entertainment, and all these things. AI has
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: come kind of just at the end of that where
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: I've been transitioning out of that really formative stage and
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: into the stage of Okay, now things are sort of
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: past what I grew up with. So we're in this
• 4:11
  Speaker 3: period of we didn't grow up with it, but we
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: know how to use it. We're not going to completely
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: be subsumed by it. And it's just a real delicate
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: balancing act of you know, is this actually good for people,
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: this is good for society, is this good for business?
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: So it's just a very strange point of history to
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: kind of be coming into our early careers and is
• 4:33
  Speaker 3: really just a summary of Wow, there's so much we
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: can do. Let's hope this doesn't go horribly excellent.
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: I mean one of the that does speak to the
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: balance in your writing and I think between optimism and caution,
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: shall we say, And perhaps a great kind of entry
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: point to your writing is your excellent piece on a
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: Mustafa Sulliman. For anyone who doesn't know, maybe begin by
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: giving it a know much about him, give a bit
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: more of an overview into his career.
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: Yes, So Mistafa Suleiman started with deep Mind, which was
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: a UK based AI company started not too far from
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: where either of us are actually Caledonian Road in North London,
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: and they had a lot of very interesting sort of
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: early developments came around at things like Alpha Go, which
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: beat one of the Go grand Masters in twenty sixteen
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: or something. They're established in twenty ten, so six years
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: they went from simple kind of computer programs to deep
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: machine learning and producing things which you know, go grand
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: Masters or were playing StarCraft things like that. It was
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: a lot of video game kind of learning situations in
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: the early days. Then they had Alpha Fold I believe
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: it was called, which was this fantastic program which could
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: look at how protein folding stretches came together a little
• 5:57
  Speaker 3: bit of a personal area interest for me. I have
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: a sort of biology background, so there's some kind of
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: really fascinating things which came out of that and eventually
• 6:07
  Speaker 3: got picked up by Google into their sort of Google
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: Deep Mind collaboration, which eventually happened. But yeah, Suleiman has
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: always been this very outspoken voice within the AI space.
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: He kind of preaches this interesting balance of yes, there's
• 6:23
  Speaker 3: all these amazing things we can do, the kind of
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: plummeting cost of power, the ability for AI to kind
• 6:29
  Speaker 3: of form these deep personal connections with people. His vision
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: is sort of that everyone in the future will have
• 6:35
  Speaker 3: their personal AI which will be intelligent, emotionally intelligent, and
• 6:40
  Speaker 3: able to perform many more actions than we can see
• 6:42
  Speaker 3: in the kind of the modern day and age. But
• 6:44
  Speaker 3: he also constantly preaches caution and that kind of this
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: containment should come first, that governments need to be dramatically
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: changing their attitudes around AI and making sure that they
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: are ready for the things which are to come in
• 6:59
  Speaker 3: a very real way, which is in some ways refreshing,
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: and then in other ways it's like, Okay, great, you're
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: preaching all these things, and we're seeing all this stuff
• 7:08
  Speaker 3: out there. Some of the things you've done with various
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: companies maybe don't reflect those values all the time. No, no,
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: no one's perfect. And you know it's a big business
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: world out there, and when you work for Microsoft, no
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: man is an island.
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: And it's the fact, as you articulate it in your piece,
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: that he is both assertively optimistic and assertively pessimistic at
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: the same time, which seems to allow to break from
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: the pack. You know, it tends to be that people
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: embody one direction or the other.
• 7:37
  Speaker 3: It's sure. Yeah, So he coined this term pessimism, pessimism
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: of a version of sort of. I mean, think of
• 7:46
  Speaker 3: any movie that's not like a kid's movie that has
• 7:49
  Speaker 3: a big AI in it, you know your Terminators, Yeah,
• 7:52
  Speaker 3: two thousand and one's anything like that. It doesn't paint
• 7:55
  Speaker 3: a great picture of what AI would be. And if
• 7:59
  Speaker 3: you know certain spheres of people, you know they want
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: to fully automate everything and have AIS be in charge
• 8:05
  Speaker 3: of hiring, firing, monitoring, all that kind of thing. No
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: one wants, you know, big brother AI staring down over
• 8:11
  Speaker 3: them and so and sue them. Kind of preaches against this,
• 8:14
  Speaker 3: saying that you know, we need to make sure their
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: AIS are not this tyrannical force which could be harnessed
• 8:21
  Speaker 3: by you know, bad actors or you know, people within
• 8:24
  Speaker 3: certain government spheres to kind of repress and suppress people.
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: And he kind of paints a very clear picture that
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: you know, if unregulated, unchecked, given unlimited access to everything,
• 8:39
  Speaker 3: and that if pushed by you know, unfortunately the worst
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: of society, it very much could be at all. It
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: is that powerful. AI is this multi spectrum, incredibly potent
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: force multiplier. It's it's not almost a thing by itself.
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: It's just it enables you to do other things much
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: more better and much more effectively. And humans have been
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: good at, you know, depression, tyranny, monitoring all those things
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: since before we even had, you know, the first computer.
• 9:05
  Speaker 3: It would simply just make people better at doing those
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: things if it was allowed to. On the other hand,
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: he preaches this sort of utopian future where you know,
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: everyone has sort of the personal AI and it's been
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: used to kind of create these things. He talks all
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: about synthetic biology, So protein folding is a really complex
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: space within the locular biology of how these certain proteins
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: fold up together, have being been constructed by certain DNA sequences.
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: It's really computer intense to put it together, but AI
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: is sort of the perfect tool for mapping out these
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: proteins and how they fold together. And then if you
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: get really good at that, you can start messing around
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: with Okay, can we make new proteins? Can we have
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: them do something else? And with advances in things like
• 9:48
  Speaker 3: Crisper and Tiger, these new gene editing tools and things
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: like that, and so like we've we've able to be
• 9:55
  Speaker 3: we've modified ecoli to produce insulin that was not a
• 9:59
  Speaker 3: little while ago, like we worked out how to do that.
• 10:01
  Speaker 3: Imagine what we can do with these tools and this
• 10:03
  Speaker 3: level commuting technology. We can produce viruses which could cure diseases.
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: We could you know, produce complex synthetic compounds from purely
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: organic kind of the micro organisms to revolutionize medicines, construction,
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: kind of healthcare of any kind, beauty, anything like that.
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: If you don't need to test it on a live
• 10:27
  Speaker 3: animal these days, because you can perfectly kind of produce
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: whatever sort of analog you need to test it on properly. Fantastic, great,
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: I mean, so many kind of good ideas out there
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: for this and if you have this emotionally intelligent action
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: capable AI that's constantly with you and helps you learn
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: and grow, kind of encourages your curiosity rather than surprises it,
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: and it kind of helps you move through the world.
• 10:54
  Speaker 3: You know, a lot of things out there get first
• 10:57
  Speaker 3: of it for people with disability or something like that,
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: like all the plastic surgery we have now that came
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: out of World War One and World War Two, of
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: all the horrible kind of injuries that were out there.
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: So if there's tools out there which AI can develop,
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: which you know, help the kind of most in need
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: in our society first will undoubtedly work out ways to
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: apply those to wider society as well. So yeah, it's
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: just it's this fascinating kind of world of But you know,
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: people said people said that about you know, the atom
• 11:25
  Speaker 3: when they worked out you know, okay, you can make
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: a bomb, you can make a power station. That there's good,
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: there's bad. It's any technology really. He tries to avoid
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: being a tech determinist in his own words, but it
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: kind of comes across that way sometimes as well.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: Of just.
• 11:39
  Speaker 3: Technology tends to fill human need, But what if we've
• 11:42
  Speaker 3: moved a bit beyond that at this point, because you know,
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: we've produced enough food, we produced enough shelter. We don't
• 11:47
  Speaker 3: you know, distribute it super fairly. But you know, we
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: we've kind of moved beyond the basics of survival at
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: this point. We really we really have. It's the complex
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: problems now that we need to solve, and AI is
• 11:57
  Speaker 3: a complex tool for it.
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: So terrifying and fascinating. AI infused Island of Dr Moreau
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: Future hinted out there when we think about what, when
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: we think about all of this change and bringing it
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: more into bringing a workplace back into focus.
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: Sure, yes, sorry, yes, that's why we all love you.
• 12:17
  Speaker 4: That's amazing.
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: But with the level of change, the changes being predicted
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: in our work, working lives right yes, by many of
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: the most powerful and knowledgeable voices in society is you're
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: just how are we down here? So many rungs below
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: over them, all supposed to anticipate and prepare for these
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: changes in our future and particularly in your generation.
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: How do I put this? You can doom scroll on
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: your phone for two hours. At the end of the night,
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: eat some crab food and you'll be very comfortable. You
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: won't be happy, though, However, if you go and you
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: do two hours of hard graft bloodsware, enters into some project,
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: some deep thing. You come out of it tired, sure,
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: and maybe a little uncomfortable, but you'll be satisfied. Is
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: that kind of drive, that knowledge that satisfaction going to
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: be taken away from you if certain tools are introduced?
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: Is that where kind of the edge that you have
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: in your your career comes from. Is it the fact
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: that you are constantly diving into these certain tasks and
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: you are coming out stronger for it. And if that
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: gets fully automated and taken away from you and you
• 13:24
  Speaker 3: just trust everything that's coming out of it because you
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: know you're not questioning the data source or whatever, is
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: that going to take away your edge? So don't avoid
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: the AI tools, but think about, okay, what makes me?
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: You know, what's my personal brand, what's my personal kind
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: of contribution to the company? What it's the thing that
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: I can kind of put on my CV and say
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: this is why you should hire me. And if you
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: can be fully replaced by a machine and you let it,
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: you actively let it, that's probably not going to go
• 13:56
  Speaker 3: so well for you. Versus if you say no, I'm
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: going to keep myself plugged into this. I am going
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: to take the challenges. I'm going to make sure that
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: I am so deeply immersed in this section, this area,
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: this understanding, this business, this event space, this networking group,
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: whatever it is that kind of makes you special in
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: your kind of field, keep that. Don't don't let the
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: don't let the machine kind of kind of take that
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: away from you. Sure, let it write a bibliography for you. Sure,
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: let it, you know, proof read an article for you.
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: But don't let it write it. Don't let it take
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: away your voice, that kind of thing. Sometimes, I sometimes
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: feel that all these conversations about the impact of AI
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: seem to neglect the fact that we we're not just
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: markets or organizations, but we do ostensibly live in societies,
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: and yet society seem to be doing absolutely nothing, will.
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: Have no idea how to prepare for anticipate this new technology.
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: Do you think, particularly among your generation, there's the sense
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: that more should be done, or more could be done,
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: or is there a sort of prevailing sense of helplessness
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: about what it is that ever any of us can
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: do to prepare for something so inherently unprecedented.
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: Thinking about it from a societal point of view you
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: do see some action, you know, like there's the EU's
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: AI Act which came out I believe twenty twenty four,
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: and that kind of lit The problem is it's a
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: very general actor, just basically saying don't use AI for
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: bad things, don't use it to trick people, don't use
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: it for you know, you shouldn't plug it into a
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: facial recognition database, that sort of thing, and trying just
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: a very top level space to go. These are the
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: kind of the things that we typically agree probably would
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: be bad uses of AI that we have seen. You know,
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: there was that CEO God that got scanned out of
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: a couple of million because someone made a deep fake
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: of something. So are we know with that? I think yeah,
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: And things like that and basically just saying, hey, if
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: look that's bad, don't do that. But obviously it's an
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: EU actor. All that means is that when people do it,
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: they get fined. It doesn't actively stop them, But how
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: do you actively stop them? If any Tom Dick and
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: Harry can now go to something you know, like Lovable Vibe,
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: code up a deeply problematic app, sideload it onto whatever
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: device they want, put it on an app store until
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: it gets taken down a week later, but that's still
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: a week of people using the app. That kind of thing.
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: It's an unfortunate democratization of power. But honestly, I'm not
• 16:33
  Speaker 3: really worried about the Tom Dickson Harris. I'm worried about,
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: you know, the big corporates out there who will just
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: pay the fine and move on, because you know, we've
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: seen you know, not wanting to get to on, you know,
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: sort of a political bent on it. But you know,
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: big corporates, generally, without regulation, they tend to do things
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: which are best for profits, not necessarily best for people.
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: We see it again and again and again and again
• 16:56
  Speaker 3: across all spaces of society. Not saying you know, every
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: corporate's made off a bad person. I worked for one.
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: They were fine, but you know, on aggregate certain spheres
• 17:05
  Speaker 3: and things, it tends to go a bit nasty if
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: people aren't being told do the right thing, not the
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: profitable thing, all the time. But then AI is just
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: a big profit driver right now.
• 17:19
  Speaker 5: So societally it's yeah, it's AI has so many good uses,
• 17:26
  Speaker 5: so many potential powers and things it can do, and
• 17:29
  Speaker 5: it just feels like no one's ready and the people
• 17:32
  Speaker 5: that are ready for it are maybe not the people
• 17:35
  Speaker 5: who we can fully trust.
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: To have it is I guess just the summary well put,
• 17:41
  Speaker 3: very well put.
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: I did want to touch upon some other themes sort
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: of directly from your article's benedicts. I mean, one of
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: them you've addressed very well and and sort of blends
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: those themes of decks and being at an earliest stage
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: in your career as you're writing about the remote work explosion.
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: It feels like one of those topics for consumed absolutely
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: everybody's attention for months and months and months three four
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: years ago, and then everybody, almost everybody completely forgets about
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: it as they get distracted by the next disruptive phenomenon
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: in this more recent case. AI right, But there are
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: still consequences for younger generations who joined the workforce in
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: or around that time and continue to adapt in a
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: in a workforce fundamentally seems uncertain or unsettled about what
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: a workplace is or should be. You've written about it,
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: so maybe share some of your experiences and thoughts on
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: this topic, please.
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: So my very first eight months in one of my
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: first sort of proper kind of career jobs that I had,
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: rather than just something I'd been doing before, side project whatever.
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: I didn't actually go into an office for the first
• 19:02
  Speaker 3: eight months because it was in twenty twenty. I was
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: very fortunate that they were still hiring at that point.
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: But I didn't go into an office. I didn't meet
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: a person in real life. I didn't have like a
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: proper face to face to one to one with my manager.
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: I wasn't sitting in a meeting room with everybody else
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: listening to all those little side conversations that happen during
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: big meetings or roundtables, what have you. And then after
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: eight months of doing kind of all the tasks of
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: the job, because these days everything is just doable over
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: a computer and a WiFi, so there was no problems.
• 19:35
  Speaker 3: I did all my work. I did the website, edits,
• 19:38
  Speaker 3: I made the copy. I talked to other companies that
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: would have been online meetings anyway, because they're not going
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: to come into our office every time that kind of thing.
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: And that was fine. And then I went into the
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: office after those eight months, and I was like, Ah,
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: this is what I've been missing, this is this is
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: the thing, this is the secret source, this is the
• 19:59
  Speaker 3: humor element of office life, the office politics, the kind
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: of friendships, the things you hear, they're kind of just
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: able to properly read people's body language and understand their
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: perspective on things. All these little bits and pieces which
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: make up sort of being actually effective in your job
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: and understanding who the change makers are and understanding, okay,
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: this is what people actually kind of care about. Because
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: you know, a simple email, you're not going to get
• 20:28
  Speaker 3: a lot of emotion out of it. Video call, you
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: can't see anything below the next So when companies kind
• 20:34
  Speaker 3: of start to an ounce of like, okay, we're offering
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: digital work experience, anybody can do it, and then it's
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: just you know, one kind of webinar call with kind
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: of two people from the company and five hundred people
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: in attendance, where they're never going to kind of pick
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: you out individually. And then go watch these two videos
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: and go do an interactive quiz and you know, write
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: something about it afterwards and send it in. What are
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: you getting out of that? What are you actually getting
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: out of that? Go watch your ted talk and you know,
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: experience and experiment with something online. I don't know, you'll
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: get more out of doing that then you would have
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: got out of that webinar versus going into an office,
• 21:15
  Speaker 3: having those conversations then being able to kind of see
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: you for the individual that you are rather than just
• 21:21
  Speaker 3: like a little box on a screen. That's how you
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: match people to come to the culture. Like every single
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: kind of job application you go for, it is like,
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: we want to make sure you're a good culture match.
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: You don't get that online. You get that from going
• 21:32
  Speaker 3: and meeting them in person and having a coffee and
• 21:35
  Speaker 3: working out what their vibe is. That's where it comes from.
• 21:38
  Speaker 3: It doesn't come from anywhere else. It really doesn't. And
• 21:41
  Speaker 3: if you just need a person to you know, send
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: you reports online, sure, If you want to build an
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: effective business where everybody is closely collaborating and kind of
• 21:53
  Speaker 3: putting things together in new and exciting ways and is
• 21:56
  Speaker 3: more than the sum of their parts, that's where it
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: comes from. That's where it comes from ultimately. So yeah,
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: this sort of digital obviously I'm very much, very clearly
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: bussed one way, and there are arguments out there for
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: it the other way of being like it's a much
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: lower barrier to entry for people, and there's you know,
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: people that can't commute, or they come from areas where
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: they can't you just get to London really easily if
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: that's where the big office is and stuff like that.
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: And what I'm saying there is, if you want to
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: build an effective company which has all these kind of
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: good culture of its and things, guess what, that's what's
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: investing in your workforces. That's what that's for. You get
• 22:33
  Speaker 3: those people in, You get some people in that you
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: maybe wouldn't have had before, to get that sort of
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: diversity of thought in the company. That's where it has
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: to come from. If you're reporting your best ever quarter,
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: but you feel like you're hiring the worst ever people,
• 22:46
  Speaker 3: maybe take some of that best ever quarter money and
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: put it into getting better people. It's it's not that difficult.
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: So yeah, obviously I'm very much clearly bussed here in
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: terms of my answer, and I'm not going to be
• 22:59
  Speaker 3: done like I'm not because I've lived through it. And
• 23:03
  Speaker 3: digital only is great for simple tasks and for you know,
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: on a Monday and a Friday when you want to
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: kind of join, join a little later and clock off
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: a little earlier and make sure you just get the
• 23:14
  Speaker 3: things done and send off the emails. In terms of
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: having an effective team that works together, closely and produces
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: things which are really benefiting the company and working better. Obviously,
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: you need to have to write people first. I'm not
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: saying everybody, you go where I'm going with this, but basically, yeah,
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: get people into the office again, strong.
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: A rallying call and I feel many people for and look,
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: that is one of those generational things. I think that
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: earlier you are in your career and in your life,
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: and not only then more important is it that you
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: get that face time with your with your colleagues, that
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: in personal.
• 23:48
  Speaker 4: Workplace experience, but the more viable it is, right, like yeah, absolutely,
• 23:52
  Speaker 4: absolutely kind of it's all formative really and if you're
• 23:56
  Speaker 4: you know, some twenty two year old university graduate who's
• 24:00
  Speaker 4: never had a proper job before and you want.
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: To here's our real life stuff. Yeah, so my age
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: Benedict is all over.
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but you had all the in person you had
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: all the in person stuff first. And also, I'm saying
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: this is a slightly kind of selfish point of view,
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: because if you hire that twenty two year old and
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: it's all digital for the first two years of their employment,
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: guess what, I don't want to work with that person
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: because they haven't learned all the things that I need
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: them to know to actually do the job properly. A
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: kind of that's another good point. Yeah, Like I want
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: to work with good colleagues, and good colleagues are produced
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: by occasionally going into the office, not by being at
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: home all the time. Obviously, I'm kind of I'm making
• 24:44
  Speaker 3: a statement here rather than say it's a hun't fast
• 24:45
  Speaker 3: of all, But just in general, I want to work
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: with good and interesting people who I have a bit
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: of a working relationship with. Just let me do that,
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: let me have a coffee break with them in the office.
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: It's really that simple.
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: Sounds highly reasonable, right, We've been We've been over a
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: lot of fascinating stuff today, Benedicte, love having it on
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: the show. Last question for you, since we've been covering
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: that spectrum from pessimistic to be optimistic, I'm interested where
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: do you sit on that spectrum?
• 25:13
  Speaker 4: Where does where?
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: And again once again to ask you to be a
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: representative for your for your working generation. Where do you
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: think that they you collectively sit on that spectrum?
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: Cool? No pressure, Okay, on a personal state stance. Honestly,
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: it's probably a little more in the negative. I can
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: see all these individuals and corporations saying all these things
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: and then doing all these things which are kind of
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: in contrary to that. I can see kind of the
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: vast potential for harm and all these things. And also
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: just something we haven't quite touched on it that the
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: environmental impact of all these A identity data centers and
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: the need to mine all these rare elemental elementals elements.
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: So I've got too too many variants on brain apparently
• 26:01
  Speaker 3: rare earth elements and things like that. And I just
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: see and I see this, you know, market bubble forming.
• 26:09
  Speaker 3: And I've already lived through so many different wants in
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: a lifetime events in my you know, sub thirty years
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: of life, I've seen crashes, wars, political upheavals, things like that.
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: There's been just it's a little hard to be fully
• 26:27
  Speaker 3: optimistic in our generation, simply because we have all this
• 26:30
  Speaker 3: information constantly live streamed into our brain. Maybe it's a
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: social media effect and maybe we all need to lighten
• 26:35
  Speaker 3: up a little bit, But in general, the world has
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: this slightly just negative bent to it in general, because
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: you know, the economy is going downhill, the hiring market's bad.
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: Bad people seem to be getting away with plenty of things,
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: and then oh, look something which lets people do whatever
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: they want much easier. Hmm. I wonder who's going to
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: use that best? Is kind of just the conclusion you
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: come to. And there's so many fantastic uses for it,
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: and there's so much good it can do, and there's
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: so many really cool things about it, and then I
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: just have to look at okay, and how many of
• 27:11
  Speaker 3: those are actually going to end up benefiting you know,
• 27:13
  Speaker 3: society in the world in general. Are we all going
• 27:16
  Speaker 3: to move into some solar punk utopia of everything's powered
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: by solar panels and no one has to work anymore
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: and everyone just gets to kind of do what they want. No,
• 27:26
  Speaker 3: are we going to end up with you know, are
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: they going to get rid of a button on my
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: keyboard I used every day in real place it with
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: an AI button. Yes, they did that, and now I
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: don't have my nice button on my keyboard anymore that
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: I wanted. So ultimately, yeah, from yeah, yeah, sorry, sorry,
• 27:47
  Speaker 3: anything unfortunate. It just kind of is from a work
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: perspective though, rather than just a purely societal expectation. It's
• 27:57
  Speaker 3: great as long as it doesn't mean that we all
• 27:59
  Speaker 3: end up losing our jobs is basically not prevailing. It's
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: the prevailing opinion from people my age of just cool. Okay,
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: we have all these tools and it can kind of
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: automate a lot of the stuff, which is some of
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: the more drudgery of work, because what the work is.
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: There's the interesting parts, and there's the cool colleagues, and
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: then sometimes you're just in a spreadsheet for twenty minutes
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: trying to make something format properly through report and if
• 28:21
  Speaker 3: we being autumnate, yeah, and if you can automate.
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: Jury is underrated, Benedict, We're going to miss it.
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: I am, I said earlier. I'm pro suffering. It just
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: needs to be kind of worth it for some of it.
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: Pro suffering for your work, making sure that you're in it.
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: I'm not pro suffering. Don't quote me on that, but
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: you know what, where what was that going? There are
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: parts of work which obviously it can massively improve and
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: kind of means that you can focus on the more
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: interesting parts and more kind of task important tasks of
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: work and making sure that you are kind of really
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: keyed into it and making yourself that valuable person for
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: it and kind of just from a purely work perspective,
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: it's the prevailing sentiment is really just this is fantastic.
• 29:04
  Speaker 3: Please don't find me and replace me with an AI.
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: That's the sentiment.
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: I like the please. Yeah, that's such as our bargaining position.
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: Perhaps phenomenal, Bennette, great conversation, loved having on the show.
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: You must must, must come back again, and we obvious
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: see more articles from you this year. But lastly, for
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: anybody who wants to read your work, find you, talk
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: to you, where can they do so? And what what
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: do you want people to reach out to you about.
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: Sure, let's pug myself so obviously I'm a freelance copywriter,
• 29:35
  Speaker 3: but I'm also pretty much well pugged into the product analyst.
• 29:40
  Speaker 3: So I'm pretty much well pugged into the product marketing
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: and analyst space. If anybody would like to reach out
• 29:46
  Speaker 3: to me in any of those regards, very happy to
• 29:49
  Speaker 3: take a LinkedIn call or organize something else.
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: Brilliant Bennett will see you see.
• 29:55
  Speaker 3: Thank you very much, thanks for having me.
• 29:57
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