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How AI Will Ignite a New Era with Sinead Bovell · QUESTION EVERYTHING

0:04
Speaker 1: Big things happen when you're pretty, pretty bold, pretty clever,
0:08
Speaker 1: pretty strong. I'm Danielle Robe and each week my guests
0:12
Speaker 1: and I have conversations that put a new spin on
0:15
Speaker 1: pretty This is pretty smart. If I handed you a
0:20
Speaker 1: crystal ball that could tell you the future, would you
0:23
Speaker 1: take it? Regardless of your answer to that question, the
0:28
Speaker 1: future is coming. Some might even say the future is now.
0:33
Speaker 1: But it wasn't so long ago that we weren't living
0:36
Speaker 1: in the future the way we are now. Remember when
0:39
Speaker 1: we didn't know what the internet was actually? Remember this clip.
0:43
Speaker 1: You've probably heard it before.
0:45
Speaker 2: A lot of people use it and communicate. I guess
0:47
Speaker 2: they can communicate with.
0:48
Speaker 1: NBC writers and producers.
0:49
Speaker 3: Alison, can you explain what Internet is?
0:53
Speaker 1: That was Katie Couric on The Today Show in nineteen
0:55
Speaker 1: ninety four, asking what the Internet is? Just for your
1:00
Speaker 1: After she asked that question, Google was founded six years
1:03
Speaker 1: after that, Facebook, and then in two thousand and seven,
1:07
Speaker 1: the iPhone entered the chat. Well, now it's twenty twenty
1:11
Speaker 1: three and a technological revolution is on the horizon. AI,
1:17
Speaker 1: except this one feels like it's moving at lightning speed
1:20
Speaker 1: with a lot more implications. I've heard a lot of
1:23
Speaker 1: conversations around fear that AI and automation could lead to
1:27
Speaker 1: widespread job losses as machines and algorithms replace human workers.
1:33
Speaker 1: That's a big part of the SAG after union strike
1:35
Speaker 1: happening right now. But that's just one of the many
1:39
Speaker 1: questions on people's minds. The future of work, social media,
1:43
Speaker 1: family structures, even small things like the way we gather
1:47
Speaker 1: watch concerts or sports is up in the air. So
1:51
Speaker 1: the question I've been asking myself lately is what does
1:55
Speaker 1: the future look like? So I thought it was time
1:58
Speaker 1: we wrap our heads around this together. There Our guest
2:03
Speaker 1: today is Shaneade Bevell. She's a futurist and the founder
2:07
Speaker 1: of Way, a tech education company. She's here to help
2:11
Speaker 1: us make sense of the new age that we're entering.
2:15
Speaker 1: She's also a seven time United Nations speaker. She's given
2:18
Speaker 1: formal addresses to presidents and Fortune five hundred leaders on
2:22
Speaker 1: topics ranging from cybersecurity to AI, and she's honestly revolutionizing
2:28
Speaker 1: the way that young people learn about technology. Shanade believes
2:31
Speaker 1: that we are entering a light bulb moment for humanity.
2:35
Speaker 2: I mean, if you look statistically, the more we've been
2:38
Speaker 2: empowered by information, and the more intelligent people we have
2:42
Speaker 2: trying to solve problems, the better we've been largely as
2:46
Speaker 2: a society. In many ways, it's a microscope to data.
2:50
Speaker 1: There are a lot of takeaways from this conversation, particularly
2:54
Speaker 1: that it's vital that we engage and not tap out
2:57
Speaker 1: at this particular moment in history.
3:00
Speaker 2: I would say that the absolute best thing you can
3:02
Speaker 2: do about the future is prepare for it, and so
3:06
Speaker 2: it's to do that you have to lean into it.
3:09
Speaker 1: But what does all this change mean for us specifically?
3:11
Speaker 2: We'll start to see more digital twins. We'll start to
3:14
Speaker 2: see celebrities send out a digital twin to fum a
3:16
Speaker 2: commercial versus actually go and do that. So we'll see
3:19
Speaker 2: automation in that type of way.
3:21
Speaker 1: So does that mean like people will get paid more?
3:24
Speaker 1: Like Samuel L. Jackson sence his twin and it's fifty
3:27
Speaker 1: grand plus. Shanade's fascinating thoughts on the age of social
3:31
Speaker 1: media and what she calls the dopamine generation.
3:35
Speaker 2: I think we're going to look at social media in
3:37
Speaker 2: the future that wave looked at cigarettes.
3:39
Speaker 1: You know, one of my mottos, if you want better answers,
3:42
Speaker 1: ask better questions. I had a lot of questions for Shanaide,
3:46
Speaker 1: and she had answers. I hope this conversation speaks to
3:50
Speaker 1: you like it did to me, so shanaid. On your
3:55
Speaker 1: website you say that your dream job should be an
3:58
Speaker 1: extension of your life and who you, which I think
4:00
Speaker 1: is a really good definition, especially nowadays, people don't really
4:04
Speaker 1: want to split their work self from who they really
4:09
Speaker 1: are their personal self. And you have such an interesting background.
4:12
Speaker 1: How did you find yourself becoming quote the model who
4:16
Speaker 1: talks tech.
4:17
Speaker 2: Yes, I think for the assurance, I didn't grow up
4:19
Speaker 2: with that plan at all. I did kind of just
4:22
Speaker 2: grow into myself in many ways. But it starts back,
4:25
Speaker 2: I guess in academia. I was always very focused on school.
4:29
Speaker 2: I studied business, finance, chemistry, all sorts of nerdy things.
4:32
Speaker 2: And then the more I sought after careers that I
4:36
Speaker 2: thought I wanted the end all being kind of management consulting,
4:39
Speaker 2: the further I felt for myself and I couldn't explain why.
4:44
Speaker 2: And I think for a lot of people, we look
4:46
Speaker 2: at our life as a hierarchy and careers as linear,
4:49
Speaker 2: and so I would assume maybe if I'm just higher up,
4:51
Speaker 2: maybe if I just can manage where people are have
4:53
Speaker 2: more autonomy, but I think it will never feel right
4:55
Speaker 2: in a lane you're not passionate about. And I was
4:58
Speaker 2: really confronted with that, wh but I thought was my
5:00
Speaker 2: dream job. So simultaneously, while I was doing my MBA,
5:03
Speaker 2: I was scouted by a modeling agency, and that was
5:06
Speaker 2: not at all on my path whatsoever, but I did
5:09
Speaker 2: see it as maybe a window to a different life.
5:13
Speaker 2: I knew what I had built for some reason in
5:15
Speaker 2: this academic corporate world wasn't me, and I didn't know
5:18
Speaker 2: what else it was or where else I was supposed
5:20
Speaker 2: to be, but I just knew it was not that
5:22
Speaker 2: in those rooms solving those types of problems. So I
5:25
Speaker 2: quit with New York City started modeling. And it was
5:28
Speaker 2: once I stepped into the world of the arts and
5:30
Speaker 2: creative industries that I realized all of the nerdy future
5:33
Speaker 2: of work stuff that I was talking about my own world,
5:37
Speaker 2: other people are just as interested, they just weren't invited
5:40
Speaker 2: to the conversations about their own futures. So then I
5:42
Speaker 2: kind of saw that opportunity to bridge those worlds, because
5:45
Speaker 2: it's not like I left the corporate world uninterested in
5:48
Speaker 2: the material. It just that those weren't the rooms I
5:51
Speaker 2: wanted to be solving problems in. I was very interested
5:54
Speaker 2: in AI, very interested in what the future is going
5:57
Speaker 2: to look like, but I wanted to approach it a
5:58
Speaker 2: different way and modeling technology. Those worlds ended up merging,
6:03
Speaker 2: and I realized that you don't need to edit yourself
6:06
Speaker 2: to exist in a career, and if you do, you're
6:08
Speaker 2: probably in the wrong room.
6:10
Speaker 1: What were you feeling that let you know that you
6:12
Speaker 1: weren't in alignment with what you were supposed to be doing.
6:17
Speaker 1: What were the symptoms that were coming up?
6:19
Speaker 2: A lot of anxiety, And it was interesting, like the
6:24
Speaker 2: more secured I got towards that what I thought was
6:29
Speaker 2: the dream job, the greater the anxiety, the greater the
6:32
Speaker 2: lack of sleep. It was all I could think about.
6:35
Speaker 2: And I was getting quite clear, not voices in my head,
6:40
Speaker 2: but knowing I'm in the wrong life. And I remember
6:42
Speaker 2: saying that to my close friends and people around me.
6:45
Speaker 2: I feel like I'm in the wrong life, but I
6:47
Speaker 2: don't know what else I'm supposed to do. But the
6:50
Speaker 2: signs became very physical for me. I got more and
6:53
Speaker 2: more anxiety. I landed the internship, felt really scared about
6:56
Speaker 2: that landed the full time offer felt even more anxious,
7:00
Speaker 2: and that was when it was like something really isn't right,
7:03
Speaker 2: and it felt quite existential and it couldn't be ignored,
7:05
Speaker 2: and it was like my body was like, we're not
7:07
Speaker 2: going to let you sleep until you figure out this
7:10
Speaker 2: isn't who you're supposed to be.
7:12
Speaker 1: I just heard Sarah Blakeley, who started Sphinx, say that
7:16
Speaker 1: in a TikTok video that she kept saying she was
7:18
Speaker 1: selling medical devices or something, and she kept saying, I'm
7:22
Speaker 1: in the wrong life. I'm in the wrong life. So
7:24
Speaker 1: that must be a common feeling.
7:27
Speaker 2: M hm.
7:28
Speaker 1: You get to the modeling world, which is very different,
7:31
Speaker 1: and it's still very different from AI and tech. It
7:35
Speaker 1: sounds to me like you stepped in and found it
7:38
Speaker 1: a very joyous place, which is actually a little confounding
7:41
Speaker 1: to me because a lot of the people I've had
7:44
Speaker 1: on pretty Smart who have modeled in the past, actually
7:47
Speaker 1: have a lot of trauma from it. Tell me about
7:50
Speaker 1: your experience.
7:52
Speaker 2: Yes, so there's definitely it was very interesting to walk
7:56
Speaker 2: into a room and introduce myself as a consultant and
7:58
Speaker 2: then a day later introduce myself as a model and
8:01
Speaker 2: see these stereotypes, and I have stories for days about
8:04
Speaker 2: the way people responded to me, the way they started
8:07
Speaker 2: to explain things about the world assuming I didn't understand things,
8:10
Speaker 2: and so that was very real. I think going into it, though,
8:13
Speaker 2: as someone who saw modeling as an escape and a
8:17
Speaker 2: bridge to something else, I think the pressure was probably
8:21
Speaker 2: different than somebody who maybe knew that that's what they
8:25
Speaker 2: wanted to be, and we're kind of putting all of
8:27
Speaker 2: their eggs in that basket. So for me, it was
8:29
Speaker 2: a little bit different, and it also forced me to
8:31
Speaker 2: confront my identity as a mixed race woman, something that
8:34
Speaker 2: I never confronted growing up. So my relationship I think
8:36
Speaker 2: with modeling was different in that sense. I do however,
8:39
Speaker 2: especially building more friendships and things with models and being
8:44
Speaker 2: kind of more exposed to things like cast themes and
8:47
Speaker 2: people's homes and all of the things that have brought
8:49
Speaker 2: up real problems and challenges and ethical issues and modeling.
8:53
Speaker 2: I've seen some of that and been very aware of that.
8:57
Speaker 2: I'm very vocal about that, but I think it was
8:59
Speaker 2: well light different how I stepped into modeling and was
9:02
Speaker 2: kind of on the edge of the industry in a way.
9:05
Speaker 1: It forced you to confront your identity as a mixed
9:07
Speaker 1: race woman.
9:09
Speaker 2: Yeah. It was the first time in my life or
9:10
Speaker 2: my resume was about how I looked right, and I
9:14
Speaker 2: couldn't edit that or minimize that because I found growing
9:17
Speaker 2: up I love the town that I grew up in
9:20
Speaker 2: here right now, I come back here at any time
9:22
Speaker 2: and again. But growing up there weren't a lot of
9:25
Speaker 2: people that looked like my sisters and I. We were
9:27
Speaker 2: probably one of the only mixed people around, and so
9:30
Speaker 2: for us that was challenging, and I minimized my identity
9:35
Speaker 2: a lot to kind of fit in. So my hair
9:36
Speaker 2: was always straightened or pulled back. I never worked curly.
9:40
Speaker 2: It was the same green to university, the same being
9:42
Speaker 2: my MBA. It was always minimize the thing that made
9:45
Speaker 2: you different. And then as you step into a world
9:47
Speaker 2: as a model, it is just who you are and
9:50
Speaker 2: how you look. And for me that was like it
9:52
Speaker 2: was became very freeing in some ways.
9:55
Speaker 1: So you study the future for a living, and most
9:59
Speaker 1: people I know are very anxious about looking ahead, especially
10:02
Speaker 1: now because i'd consider us going through a technological revolution.
10:07
Speaker 1: Tell me why you're fascinated by the future.
10:10
Speaker 2: Yes, And I know for some people it gives them
10:12
Speaker 2: a lot of anxiety, and I guess it depends on
10:14
Speaker 2: what you're hearing about the future. But I find it
10:18
Speaker 2: if you know the different ways things could evolve, because
10:21
Speaker 2: there isn't one future, there's many that we could end
10:24
Speaker 2: up in. I find it kind of empowering to be
10:27
Speaker 2: able to see the data that could align with the
10:29
Speaker 2: future that we would want to be a part of.
10:31
Speaker 2: So for me, that is really exciting and motivating and inspiring,
10:36
Speaker 2: but also the kind of I guess, and it's still
10:40
Speaker 2: kind of in my consulting days, connecting data points and
10:43
Speaker 2: having light bulb moments of oh, this is where we
10:46
Speaker 2: could be headed. And the feeling and excitement of those
10:49
Speaker 2: moments is something that I look forward to every single day.
10:53
Speaker 2: I spend a lot of my days buried in data
10:56
Speaker 2: white papers and connecting dots and data points, and those
11:00
Speaker 2: bull moments are just fascinating.
11:02
Speaker 1: I was just at the Collision conference in Toronto, which
11:05
Speaker 1: is a tech conference, and I was asking everybody about
11:08
Speaker 1: AI and there are a ton of chief technology officers
11:12
Speaker 1: and developers there, and most people were talking about chat
11:16
Speaker 1: GPT because that's what's right in front of us now.
11:19
Speaker 1: I love it, but AI is so much more than
11:22
Speaker 1: just chat GPT. So can you explain how we should
11:25
Speaker 1: be thinking about AI beyond the scope of just chat GPT.
11:30
Speaker 2: Yes, So the way to kind of think about AI
11:33
Speaker 2: is more more like our smartphones or our computers. It's
11:38
Speaker 2: going to be the base layer that everything gets built
11:41
Speaker 2: on top of and is powered by. So if you
11:45
Speaker 2: open up a word document, expect an AI system in
11:48
Speaker 2: there helping about to help you write. If you're about
11:51
Speaker 2: to search something on the internet, expect to have an
11:55
Speaker 2: AI agent that will kind of you'll talk with and
11:59
Speaker 2: kind of coach you and support you on whatever it
12:02
Speaker 2: is that you're trying to discover on the Internet. So
12:06
Speaker 2: everything that we do going forward will be powered by
12:09
Speaker 2: artificial intelligence, which is something that I think is still
12:13
Speaker 2: just wild for people to think about.
12:15
Speaker 1: It is because we grew up during a time where
12:17
Speaker 1: it was only part of film, but I think on
12:19
Speaker 1: a very base level for anybody who's not as familiar
12:23
Speaker 1: with it, I learned just a few weeks ago that
12:25
Speaker 1: I didn't know this, but AI, like are all the
12:28
Speaker 1: filters that we use on Instagram and TikTok, that's AI, and.
12:32
Speaker 2: I think that's what it helps for people to know
12:34
Speaker 2: that you interact with very advanced AI systems every single day.
12:37
Speaker 2: If you use Google Maps, I cannot pick down the
12:39
Speaker 2: street without consulting an AI system. I'm lost all the time.
12:42
Speaker 2: If you use a streaming platform, if you use social media,
12:44
Speaker 2: you're always interacting with AI. And so these systems aren't
12:47
Speaker 2: as overwhelming as we think. And we hear kind of
12:51
Speaker 2: crazy things on the news, but for people to recognize
12:54
Speaker 2: that you actually already interact with AI, and why it's
12:57
Speaker 2: actually all going so viral is because it's so easy
12:59
Speaker 2: to use, so non tech people, it's irrelevant. We can
13:02
Speaker 2: all just text with these systems or co create with them,
13:06
Speaker 2: the same way we text friends in group chats, and
13:08
Speaker 2: that's why it's all so transformational.
13:10
Speaker 1: I love that you use the word co create. I
13:13
Speaker 1: think about that in relationships so often, and now we
13:16
Speaker 1: do have a relationship with technology. When I was at
13:20
Speaker 1: this conference, I was sort of taken by how excited
13:24
Speaker 1: everybody was by AI, and that was such a different
13:26
Speaker 1: sentiment than what I'd been reading about. There's a ton
13:30
Speaker 1: of fear around AI. What evidence is there that AI
13:34
Speaker 1: could actually be really good for humanity?
13:37
Speaker 2: I mean, if you look statistically the more we've been
13:40
Speaker 2: empowered by information, and the more intelligent people we have
13:44
Speaker 2: trying to solve problems, the better we've been largely as
13:48
Speaker 2: a society. That's what AI is in many ways. It's
13:52
Speaker 2: a microscope to data and a system that can look
13:55
Speaker 2: at data the way humans don't. And I think that
13:58
Speaker 2: that's really exciting. For example, if you have looked at
14:01
Speaker 2: some of the like tagpt or the AI image generators,
14:05
Speaker 2: there are researchers now that are taking those same systems
14:08
Speaker 2: and applying them to biology and they're like, wait, instead
14:11
Speaker 2: of just designing an image of something for somebody's blog,
14:15
Speaker 2: could you design maybe a new medication that resembles how
14:19
Speaker 2: you could treat this this person has, you know, this
14:21
Speaker 2: type of a disease. This is what it looks like.
14:23
Speaker 2: Could you design something the way you design a blog post.
14:27
Speaker 2: And we're applying these same systems to those types of problems,
14:30
Speaker 2: and to me, that's an absolute game changer. And you know,
14:33
Speaker 2: kind of customize education, all sorts of things. So the
14:36
Speaker 2: data in that element is and that way is really exciting.
14:40
Speaker 1: Elon Musk is starting a new AI company, and just
14:44
Speaker 1: six months ago he was one of the most outspoken
14:48
Speaker 1: people talking about wanting to slow AI and actually correct
14:53
Speaker 1: me if I'm wrong, But I think he started a
14:54
Speaker 1: petition for all of these tech entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley
14:58
Speaker 1: to sign to slow the design of AI. He clearly
15:03
Speaker 1: jumped on the bandwagon. I heard that what can be
15:06
Speaker 1: helpful right now is listening to people who have a
15:08
Speaker 1: really clear vision of where this technology is going. Who
15:12
Speaker 1: do you think we should be listening to.
15:14
Speaker 2: That's a really, really great question. You have amazing voices
15:19
Speaker 2: and technologies such as doctor timnet Gerbru who used to
15:22
Speaker 2: work at Google, doctor Joy Bulhamwini, who's posted some incredible
15:26
Speaker 2: papers about things like face or recognition technology. You have
15:30
Speaker 2: research scientists like Gary Marcus that are calling some more
15:33
Speaker 2: academic attention, futurists like Amy Webb. I think the list
15:39
Speaker 2: really goes on. I think that there's also the CEO
15:41
Speaker 2: of the Atlantic, Nick Thompson. He's great. So there's a
15:45
Speaker 2: lot of different voices that have many different perspectives. And
15:48
Speaker 2: I think the doom and gloom it's something that I
15:51
Speaker 2: worry about with AI because one, I think everybody has
15:54
Speaker 2: the right to be informed about their own future. But
15:57
Speaker 2: when it's very all, very scary, and all doom and gloom,
16:00
Speaker 2: people unsubscribe, and that's actually where we get led astray,
16:04
Speaker 2: because then you have just a few select voices deciding
16:07
Speaker 2: on the future for everybody. So that's why I do
16:09
Speaker 2: think it is so important that we have balanced views.
16:11
Speaker 2: And it's not just to be blindly optimistic, like I'm
16:14
Speaker 2: not a pessimist or an optimism a futurist, but it's
16:16
Speaker 2: not just to say, you know, who cares about all
16:18
Speaker 2: the risks is going to be phenomenal, Like that doesn't
16:20
Speaker 2: end up well either. But I think when you just
16:22
Speaker 2: have nothing but doom and gloom and media narratives, people
16:25
Speaker 2: unsubscribe and then the real problem is kind of brew
16:27
Speaker 2: that nobody catches.
16:29
Speaker 1: I actually see that so much in democracy. I think
16:31
Speaker 1: a lot of people have hit the unsubscribed button, and
16:34
Speaker 1: it's a verb. You know, we have to be active
16:36
Speaker 1: with it. So I agree with you, and that's part
16:38
Speaker 1: of that co creation you're talking about. Is there anything
16:41
Speaker 1: you think we should be looking out for flags that
16:44
Speaker 1: you think should be raised?
16:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think we do need more insight and interrogation
16:50
Speaker 2: and so the ways we already interact with AI. I mean,
16:53
Speaker 2: there are, of course the longer term risks with these systems.
16:56
Speaker 2: But I'm very concerned why somebody was or wasn't shown
16:59
Speaker 2: a job posting and what elements or categories or demographic
17:04
Speaker 2: factors played into that decision. If you work at a
17:08
Speaker 2: company and your HR team probably uses a I deflect resumes,
17:12
Speaker 2: that's something that I think that we need to be
17:13
Speaker 2: paying attention to, thinking twice when you're given a mortgage
17:17
Speaker 2: rate or a credit card, why your rate is a
17:20
Speaker 2: certain way, and understanding how AI need that decision. Those
17:23
Speaker 2: are the things that I think the everyday things that
17:26
Speaker 2: actually do have a quite a substantial impact on our
17:29
Speaker 2: life and our quality of life. And then I would
17:32
Speaker 2: also say, you know, social media, I very much believe
17:35
Speaker 2: social media is kind of the most dangerous technology out
17:37
Speaker 2: of all of them. And so that's one on a
17:39
Speaker 2: micro level to try to have a balance relationship with,
17:42
Speaker 2: but at a macro level, as a societal level, we've
17:44
Speaker 2: got to source some things out with with social media.
17:47
Speaker 1: I have a ton of questions for you about social
17:49
Speaker 1: but I want to table that for a second. When
17:51
Speaker 1: you're talking about mortgage rates and who's using AI, does
17:55
Speaker 1: that go back to who is designing AI? The developers.
18:00
Speaker 1: For instance, Elon Musk's new company is he staffed all
18:04
Speaker 1: men thus far?
18:05
Speaker 2: Perfect? Awesome? Right?
18:07
Speaker 1: I was like that tracks and I'm not like a hater.
18:10
Speaker 1: But there's a great book called The Difference, and the
18:13
Speaker 1: author talks about how diversity is actually so foundational to success,
18:19
Speaker 1: and not just in a financial way, but like, for instance,
18:22
Speaker 1: smallpox was cured by a milk farmer and so they
18:27
Speaker 1: recognize something on the farm that other people didn't, and
18:30
Speaker 1: that's diversity and IQ, you know, And so how does
18:33
Speaker 1: that work? How do you fix the pipeline that seems tough?
18:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I think when it comes to AI, there's
18:40
Speaker 2: kind of two big categories that impact outcomes. So when
18:44
Speaker 2: is the data that the AI systems are trained on,
18:47
Speaker 2: And data usually comes from the past, and the past
18:50
Speaker 2: is usually something we're not trying to repeat as a society.
18:54
Speaker 2: So you really need to take a critical lens to
18:57
Speaker 2: that data to understand who may have been subject to
19:00
Speaker 2: some biases, to some discrimination that are present in these
19:03
Speaker 2: data sets. And why the people building these DAYA systems
19:07
Speaker 2: matter is because if you don't have diverse voices in
19:10
Speaker 2: that room, you're not going to have people who even
19:12
Speaker 2: know to look out for certain things in data anyways,
19:15
Speaker 2: And it can even be something as small as deciding
19:18
Speaker 2: to include postal codes and mortgage rates because there are
19:22
Speaker 2: certain neighborhoods of communities that may have been predominantly discriminated against.
19:26
Speaker 2: It's in that data set. But if you think, oh,
19:28
Speaker 2: it's fine, it's just postal code as a data marker,
19:31
Speaker 2: that's actually could be very problematic. So when you don't
19:33
Speaker 2: have diversity and it's like, as you said, it's not
19:35
Speaker 2: just diversity and more typical demographics, but in thought and ideas,
19:40
Speaker 2: you'll probably miss eien completely and in jobs entirely. In
19:46
Speaker 2: tech rooms, especially AI because a lot of the problems
19:49
Speaker 2: we're trying to solve what AI are actually some of
19:51
Speaker 2: them philosophical in nature. So you do need ethicist, philosophers,
19:55
Speaker 2: historians all to make this kind of big sociotechnical technology
20:00
Speaker 2: you work properly.
20:02
Speaker 1: So two things on that. The first is autocorrect is
20:05
Speaker 1: that AI. Yes, I've also noticed that my friends that
20:10
Speaker 1: have ethnically diverse names, it auto corrects them for me.
20:14
Speaker 1: And I was thinking to myself the other day that's
20:17
Speaker 1: an issue in who is developing this technology. It doesn't
20:22
Speaker 1: autocorrect the name Claire.
20:24
Speaker 2: No, no, No, it's definitely not it's not autocorrecting ann.
20:28
Speaker 2: And it's the same with voice recognition. So a lot
20:31
Speaker 2: of voice recognition systems don't recognize people with accents. And
20:34
Speaker 2: there was actually a problem in immigration and maybe they've
20:38
Speaker 2: solved it now, but I know in immigrating to the States,
20:40
Speaker 2: some people that had different accents, the AI translators weren't
20:43
Speaker 2: understanding what they said. And that's just one of the many,
20:46
Speaker 2: many ways they show recognition. When a lot of the
20:48
Speaker 2: systems were originally tested on white males, they would flag
20:52
Speaker 2: people that looked like me because I just wasn't really
20:54
Speaker 2: considered in that data set. So it is really significant
20:58
Speaker 2: in all of the subtle ways Google translate. There were
21:01
Speaker 2: past examples where when it would translate something certain languages
21:06
Speaker 2: that have feminine in male or masculine terms, it would
21:09
Speaker 2: always translate things that were more stereotypically associated with males.
21:13
Speaker 2: It would automatically send those to the masculine in other words,
21:16
Speaker 2: to the feminine, or just things like for a long time,
21:20
Speaker 2: if you googled CEO, the only female CEO that would
21:23
Speaker 2: show up on Google was Barbie and that was what
21:26
Speaker 2: the AI. That's all we really got that has since
21:29
Speaker 2: been changed. But yes, all of those historical biases are
21:32
Speaker 2: baked into the data and into the systems.
21:36
Speaker 1: I'm fascinated by the future of work with AI. I
21:40
Speaker 1: have a friend who works in virtual reality, and he
21:43
Speaker 1: was telling me that he's most interested in use cases
21:48
Speaker 1: for the elderly. So for instance, like you know, you
21:51
Speaker 1: can put a headset on, like maybe your grandmother who
21:54
Speaker 1: lives in a home in a totally different state, and
21:58
Speaker 1: she can watch a concert or feel more connected because
22:02
Speaker 1: there's so much isolation as you get older. In terms
22:06
Speaker 1: of AI in the future of work, are there positives
22:11
Speaker 1: that you see because I just keep hearing quote AI
22:15
Speaker 1: is going to take all of our jobs and leave
22:17
Speaker 1: an entire sect of people unemployed, which will ultimately lead
22:21
Speaker 1: them to be disenfranchised. And we know how the cycle
22:24
Speaker 1: goes with.
22:25
Speaker 2: A Either will of course be transformation and things will change.
22:29
Speaker 2: But if you look at the creator economy, I mean,
22:32
Speaker 2: how many people exist as creators, as podcasters, as YouTubers
22:37
Speaker 2: that did not exist as a sector prior to smartphones
22:40
Speaker 2: in the Internet. So there are jobs and industries that
22:43
Speaker 2: we can't even imagine and the way that it's actually
22:46
Speaker 2: empowered a lot of people who have steted to the
22:48
Speaker 2: Creator economy and have an entirely different life path than
22:52
Speaker 2: previously just did not exist. So the same can be
22:55
Speaker 2: said with AI. It's hard to even imagine the ways
22:57
Speaker 2: it's going to transform our world that just simply do
23:00
Speaker 2: not exist today.
23:02
Speaker 1: I agree with you, right, Like with any new industry
23:06
Speaker 1: comes a whole new sect of jobs. But those are
23:10
Speaker 1: usually young people who have not been trained yet, right,
23:14
Speaker 1: and so they're jumping into something new. How about the
23:17
Speaker 1: people who work in factory lines who are forty five
23:21
Speaker 1: or fifty, people who work in coal mining, et cetera,
23:25
Speaker 1: who are going to find it probably very difficult to
23:29
Speaker 1: take a course and learn how to code. I don't
23:31
Speaker 1: know if that's even realistic.
23:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, so there's a few things there. So who automation
23:37
Speaker 2: impacts and actually, historically, unfortunately, a lot of the more
23:41
Speaker 2: physical labor jobs, So whether you're in a plant, those
23:45
Speaker 2: have been already quite severely automated. If you look at
23:48
Speaker 2: a car factory today versus sixty years ago, it's predominantly
23:53
Speaker 2: machines going forward. The more fine, fine granular things like
23:58
Speaker 2: being an electrician or plumber dexterity. That's actually a lot
24:03
Speaker 2: harder to automate. So yes, there is. It's going to
24:06
Speaker 2: be challenging if we do have robots and AI that
24:09
Speaker 2: continue to change and transform things like physical jobs. It's
24:14
Speaker 2: actually much more knowledge workers that are going to be
24:16
Speaker 2: impacted by this next wave of AI.
24:18
Speaker 1: When you say knowledge workers, who do you mean If.
24:21
Speaker 2: You do work on a computer, so you use digital
24:26
Speaker 2: technologies and software. So maybe you're an attorney, maybe you
24:29
Speaker 2: do taxes, maybe you're a marketer or a financial analyst.
24:33
Speaker 2: All of those jobs will be impacted by artificial intelligence
24:37
Speaker 2: in some way.
24:38
Speaker 1: They already have an AI news anchor in Japan.
24:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, and those kind of more novel ways will happen
24:45
Speaker 2: more like even yes, in entertainment, we'll start to see
24:47
Speaker 2: more digital twins. We'll start to see celebrities send out
24:50
Speaker 2: a digital twin to from a commercial versus actually go
24:53
Speaker 2: and do that. So we'll see automation in that type
24:56
Speaker 2: of way.
24:56
Speaker 1: So does that mean like people will get paid more?
24:59
Speaker 1: Like Samuel Jackson sends his twin and it's fifty grand,
25:03
Speaker 1: but if he comes himself it's one hundred grand.
25:06
Speaker 2: It depends because is it more work that if he
25:09
Speaker 2: comes in person. So I feel like, wow, it's actually
25:12
Speaker 2: easier not only just for Samuel L. Jackson, but for
25:15
Speaker 2: the team to just render him into an AD then
25:18
Speaker 2: physically bring him on set. Yeah, it could be easier
25:22
Speaker 2: to do a bunch of different takes. You just tell
25:24
Speaker 2: the AI more motive, less emotive, and you could actually
25:27
Speaker 2: have Samuel see his own performance as in AI and
25:30
Speaker 2: adjust it himself. So yeah, in terms of the compensation
25:35
Speaker 2: and how things get valued going forward, that will be
25:38
Speaker 2: also something that's kind of up in the air. But
25:39
Speaker 2: I do think celebrities, instead of leaving a movie set
25:42
Speaker 2: to go shoot a toothpaste commercial, you would just have
25:46
Speaker 2: your AI do that. Or if you do the scene,
25:51
Speaker 2: and instead of having to bring everybody back to make
25:53
Speaker 2: the edit because somebody tripped and look terrible in post production,
25:57
Speaker 2: you just use their digital twin a whole other world
26:01
Speaker 2: of pauliood that things are going to change, Hollywood is
26:04
Speaker 2: going to get quite transformed, but digital twins, yes, it's
26:06
Speaker 2: just kind of scratching the surface.
26:08
Speaker 1: So that's a perfect segue. You have said that we
26:13
Speaker 1: are going to see a creative boom.
26:15
Speaker 2: What do you mean, Yes, So the same way the
26:19
Speaker 2: Internet led to this entire world of the creator economy.
26:23
Speaker 2: What happens when people now have access to creative intelligence
26:29
Speaker 2: and so a way a professor of mine, I think
26:32
Speaker 2: Goldfarb likes to describe it as there's a lot of
26:34
Speaker 2: creative people, but not everybody can drop And so what
26:37
Speaker 2: happens when you have a system that can do some
26:40
Speaker 2: of that skill and now your imagination is what you had,
26:43
Speaker 2: but you didn't have the ability to articulate that. Now
26:46
Speaker 2: you have a system that's kind of like that broker,
26:48
Speaker 2: how many more creative ideas and things that will actually
26:51
Speaker 2: get brought to life, whether that's in filmmaking. People that
26:55
Speaker 2: have amazing ideas that maybe they're not good at scriptwriting,
26:57
Speaker 2: they have maybe a teammate that can help them, or
27:01
Speaker 2: a creator that's their film is never going to be
27:03
Speaker 2: seen by a big studio, but they can use AI
27:05
Speaker 2: to bring some of it to life themselves. All of
27:07
Speaker 2: the different ways we can't even really picture yet, kind.
27:11
Speaker 1: Of like the iPhone, right, Like eventually a whole film
27:14
Speaker 1: was made just on the iPhone. We would have never
27:16
Speaker 1: thought about that.
27:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think the iPhone and even then, I
27:20
Speaker 2: don't even I think AI will be more disruptive than
27:23
Speaker 2: the iPhone. I think how the iPhone allowed everybody to
27:25
Speaker 2: suddenly present themselves and we could go down the rabbit
27:28
Speaker 2: hole of why social media is crazy, But how the
27:30
Speaker 2: iPhone allowed everybody to present themselves to the world, or
27:34
Speaker 2: smartphones allowed this new world where it's me for everyone
27:37
Speaker 2: to see. It's a fundamental paradigm shift. AI will have
27:41
Speaker 2: those types of transformations that we can't even imagine. I mean,
27:45
Speaker 2: if you had a team of fifteen employees, how would
27:48
Speaker 2: that change what you do? And when you think about
27:51
Speaker 2: that question, you realize, hmm, the things I would maybe
27:54
Speaker 2: build or be able to create, it's just a different
27:59
Speaker 2: Ballparker scale.
28:01
Speaker 1: There's that meme about like we all have the same
28:03
Speaker 1: amount of hours as Beyonce, but I think do we?
28:07
Speaker 2: Though, I think we need to get some physics professors
28:09
Speaker 2: in on that, because she has access to some spacetime
28:13
Speaker 2: reality that we just don't. I think she's just yeah,
28:16
Speaker 2: there's something that she.
28:17
Speaker 1: Has a whole team right, Like now everybody's going to
28:19
Speaker 1: have access to a team, which is kind of exciting.
28:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, it really changes the game. I think if you
28:24
Speaker 2: ask yourself, if you had fifteen employees, what would you
28:26
Speaker 2: do differently? And then it's like, oh, wait, you will.
28:29
Speaker 1: Does it also have to do with time, like if
28:31
Speaker 1: we send our twin to something, or if I now
28:35
Speaker 1: have an assistant that I don't have to pay to
28:37
Speaker 1: do a ton of administrative work, it frees up my
28:40
Speaker 1: time to be more creative.
28:41
Speaker 2: Totally the types of problems that you have to get
28:44
Speaker 2: to focus on and put your energy towards. If you
28:47
Speaker 2: can have an AI dealing with more of the repetitive
28:49
Speaker 2: things or the non critical thinking parts of whatever it
28:52
Speaker 2: is that you work on, that's really helpful.
28:55
Speaker 3: If you think of just how helpful has email been
28:58
Speaker 3: in our world, and you can't even if it's very
29:02
Speaker 3: challenging to even put a measurement and quantify how transformation
29:06
Speaker 3: it is.
29:06
Speaker 2: Transformational it is that we don't have to package up
29:08
Speaker 2: a letter or fact something. So when you think about it,
29:12
Speaker 2: if you had an assistant in every kind of lane,
29:15
Speaker 2: how game changing that would be. It becomes immeasurable. And
29:18
Speaker 2: again it's hard for us to imagine because we don't
29:20
Speaker 2: have it yet. But then it eventually becomes email where
29:23
Speaker 2: you're like, I don't even I can't even talk about
29:26
Speaker 2: what email did to my life because there's just no
29:28
Speaker 2: other way I could have existed.
29:30
Speaker 1: So, according to the McKinsey Global Institute, by twenty thirty,
29:33
Speaker 1: which is in seven years, more than eight hundred million
29:37
Speaker 1: jobs will be replaced by technology. How do you think
29:42
Speaker 1: this is going to change work in the immediate future
29:45
Speaker 1: for people?
29:46
Speaker 2: Yes, so I think we will start to see the
29:49
Speaker 2: automation of tasks within jobs. So it's very challenging. Regardless
29:54
Speaker 2: of what job you do. You're a marketing analyst, you
29:57
Speaker 2: are a financial stock work, whatever it is, it's hard
29:59
Speaker 2: to have an aisystem that can just come and do
30:02
Speaker 2: all of those tasks. That would be a different level
30:04
Speaker 2: of AI that people debate do we have it, will
30:07
Speaker 2: we ever have it? That's different. What you're likely to
30:09
Speaker 2: see is certain tasks within your job get automated. And
30:13
Speaker 2: so if say twenty percent of your job can be
30:17
Speaker 2: done by AI, and now you have eighty percent less
30:20
Speaker 2: and maybe or to do or maybe seventy percent, we
30:24
Speaker 2: will likely see companies move away from hiring people full
30:27
Speaker 2: time because if you don't, if you know AI is
30:30
Speaker 2: going to disrupt their role, by the end of the year,
30:31
Speaker 2: it's going to look different. You're much less likely to
30:34
Speaker 2: hire for a full time role, You're much more likely
30:36
Speaker 2: to do more contract based. So it means most of
30:39
Speaker 2: us will end up in the gig economy. And we
30:41
Speaker 2: see gig economy as like food delivery, but it will
30:44
Speaker 2: be lawyers. Everybody will be in the gig economy. And
30:48
Speaker 2: so maybe you work for three or four different companies
30:51
Speaker 2: doing the sixty percent of your job that require just
30:55
Speaker 2: your critical thinking skills and your strategic management skills, and
30:58
Speaker 2: all of the rest is automated to we eye. So
31:00
Speaker 2: it fundamentally changes the nature of work and what we
31:03
Speaker 2: consider work.
31:05
Speaker 1: That is fascinating because it's going to change healthcare. That's
31:09
Speaker 1: going to be such a domino effective.
31:10
Speaker 2: And I'm quite vocal about we need to understand what
31:13
Speaker 2: do we need to decouple from our current systems that
31:17
Speaker 2: is setting up for people to fail in the future.
31:19
Speaker 2: If you attach healthcare to somebody's job, and we know
31:21
Speaker 2: work is going to look very different, that's an obvious
31:24
Speaker 2: thing that we need to zoom into.
31:26
Speaker 1: What else do you think we need to decouple.
31:29
Speaker 2: I think identity from work is a big one.
31:33
Speaker 1: Oh, work is my identity.
31:36
Speaker 2: I just only want to be work. I don't want
31:38
Speaker 2: to be anything else.
31:39
Speaker 1: But work.
31:39
Speaker 2: Just please associate with ever whatever you see on my
31:42
Speaker 2: LinkedIn I hope want to be that why identity?
31:45
Speaker 1: That's funny.
31:47
Speaker 2: I think you know technology has something to do with that.
31:50
Speaker 2: In a world where the workforce is going to continue
31:53
Speaker 2: to be disruptive or disrupted and people start to have
31:58
Speaker 2: more transitions in their career, we already know that from
32:01
Speaker 2: our parent generation. That idea that you do one thing forever,
32:04
Speaker 2: that's changed and we've already adapted to that, and we
32:06
Speaker 2: kind of look back at generations when people work for
32:08
Speaker 2: the same company for twenty five years, we're like, wow,
32:10
Speaker 2: now it's three years, five years, and that transition it's
32:13
Speaker 2: only going to pick up. So kids in school today
32:17
Speaker 2: will likely hold seventeen jobs across five different industries. So
32:22
Speaker 2: you can't be just one thing. So we have to
32:24
Speaker 2: move away from the idea that you are your job,
32:27
Speaker 2: because your job is going to be something that always changes,
32:29
Speaker 2: as are the skills you're going to need to bring
32:31
Speaker 2: to the workforce, and the workforce is just going to
32:33
Speaker 2: look entirely different if day. By twenty twenty eight, most
32:37
Speaker 2: people are in the gig economy and you're a marketer
32:40
Speaker 2: and you work for five different companies doing all sorts
32:42
Speaker 2: of different things. You're technically actually an entrepreneur because you
32:46
Speaker 2: yourself are the company. So much of how we think
32:49
Speaker 2: about work is going to change. Another thing is a
32:51
Speaker 2: lot of the jobs that exist today will be changed
32:53
Speaker 2: if not automated. So you could be setting people up
32:55
Speaker 2: for failure by saying, you know, I want to be
32:58
Speaker 2: this one job that might not even exist anymore or
33:02
Speaker 2: look different. And I think it also gives us a
33:04
Speaker 2: lot of anxiety, this idea. When you couple your job
33:07
Speaker 2: to your identity, your worth becomes measurable in terms of
33:12
Speaker 2: something external to you. And I don't think that that's
33:15
Speaker 2: a way to live peacefully or joyously. I don't think
33:19
Speaker 2: anything positive comes from that. From your identity being something
33:22
Speaker 2: that other people can value and it's compensated, your worth isn't.
33:26
Speaker 2: It shouldn't be tied to that, and so I think
33:28
Speaker 2: we need to separate from that.
33:30
Speaker 1: You actually wrote for Vogue about how modeling even needs
33:34
Speaker 1: to prepare for AI's prevalence. What does that.
33:37
Speaker 2: Mean if even something like modeling, or in the entertainment
33:41
Speaker 2: world or a modeling world, if we see less people
33:44
Speaker 2: and now it's kind of AI that I do think
33:48
Speaker 2: automation in that sense. I mean, if you look at
33:50
Speaker 2: social media and in many ways are we less human
33:53
Speaker 2: because we do filter and edit ourselves so much to
33:56
Speaker 2: the point where it's kind of changed the global psyche
33:59
Speaker 2: as to what we try to strive to be and
34:01
Speaker 2: how we present ourselves. And I don't think that that's
34:03
Speaker 2: a good thing. And so in a world where maybe
34:05
Speaker 2: we automate something like fashion modeling, the standards become even
34:09
Speaker 2: more unachievable, and I don't think that that's a good
34:13
Speaker 2: direction to go in. But there's also a future where
34:17
Speaker 2: so maybe things like fashion modeling becomes more automated, but
34:20
Speaker 2: it also becomes more personal. So you don't try to
34:23
Speaker 2: see how clothes look like look on other people. The
34:26
Speaker 2: AI model you see is you, and that's who's in
34:29
Speaker 2: the close. And so there are those different versions of
34:34
Speaker 2: what could happen. And so when we look at the future,
34:37
Speaker 2: it's so important that we break free from the frameworks
34:40
Speaker 2: of the present because those limits don't have to evolve
34:44
Speaker 2: with us. And so maybe there is a world where
34:46
Speaker 2: that is what happens for modeling, and we actually just
34:49
Speaker 2: a couple the idea from you know that people other
34:52
Speaker 2: people need to represent what we should look like in clothes. No,
34:55
Speaker 2: maybe you should just be your own champion and see
34:59
Speaker 2: how things look on you you automatically, and so that's
35:01
Speaker 2: also a world that could happen.
35:04
Speaker 1: So what are your predictions with social media, because this
35:07
Speaker 1: is fascinating to hear you think it's going to get
35:10
Speaker 1: way more personal.
35:12
Speaker 2: Social media is an interesting one. I think we're going
35:14
Speaker 2: to look at social media in the future the way
35:16
Speaker 2: we looked at cigarettes. We didn't realize the widespread societal harm,
35:22
Speaker 2: no way, the level of harm, the ability to scientifically
35:27
Speaker 2: realize that there was measurable harm done. I think it's
35:32
Speaker 2: going to be something that a massive light bulb goes off,
35:35
Speaker 2: and I think it already is and we already have
35:37
Speaker 2: this sense but something isn't right. The environment doesn't feel good.
35:41
Speaker 2: We know it's been linked, especially for teen girls, depression,
35:44
Speaker 2: and I think once all of the data comes back,
35:46
Speaker 2: we're going to really view this last decade as the
35:50
Speaker 2: dopamine generation, the way we view our parents' decade as
35:54
Speaker 2: the nicotine generation. And so I think we're going to
35:57
Speaker 2: really transform social media and put limits in guardrails. And
36:02
Speaker 2: that's actually something that I look forward to It is
36:05
Speaker 2: so unfortunate that we all have to be in this
36:07
Speaker 2: massive group chat social experiment that isn't necessarily going well.
36:13
Speaker 2: But I do look forward to seeing how we're going
36:16
Speaker 2: to evolve through it and what's to come. And so
36:19
Speaker 2: we are starting to realize that it isn't necessarily healthy
36:22
Speaker 2: to have a bunch of people rate how you look,
36:27
Speaker 2: or have filters that can create the Eurocentric version of you,
36:31
Speaker 2: and that's what we should subscribe to, or just have
36:34
Speaker 2: the dopamine of spot machines designing things that we interact
36:38
Speaker 2: with every day with similar frameworks isn't healthy. So I
36:42
Speaker 2: think we're going to grow. We're in the growing pains
36:44
Speaker 2: of social media, but I think we'll break free from it,
36:48
Speaker 2: and I think that that will hopefully be amazing.
36:51
Speaker 1: I hope so too. I think, to kind of put
36:53
Speaker 1: it in very simple terms, our touch screens have made
36:56
Speaker 1: us lose touch. We're talking about body image, and I
37:00
Speaker 1: think you have such an interesting perspective having been a
37:03
Speaker 1: model and now being a futurist. How do you think
37:07
Speaker 1: history is going to reflect back on the Kardashians and
37:12
Speaker 1: maybe their almost like representation of what those what the
37:16
Speaker 1: values are.
37:18
Speaker 2: I don't know if history will look back on the
37:21
Speaker 2: Kardashians or look back on society and who we chose
37:25
Speaker 2: to seek influence from. It's less about them and who
37:29
Speaker 2: we have decided to strive towards and become. And of
37:35
Speaker 2: course the culture is built into technology. Technology is a
37:39
Speaker 2: reflection of culture. So all of these things kind of
37:41
Speaker 2: reinforce themselves. When it comes to their Kardashians, they are
37:44
Speaker 2: people that were very skilled at leveraging the tools of
37:48
Speaker 2: the moment and becoming the people of the moment. And
37:52
Speaker 2: that's maybe more of a question if we think as
37:55
Speaker 2: a society that's not the best version of us. I
37:57
Speaker 2: think we also need to look back on ourselves. Why
38:00
Speaker 2: is that we seek influence from time and time again,
38:04
Speaker 2: So that's kind of how I think I would view that.
38:07
Speaker 1: I think that's a great way of putting it. What
38:10
Speaker 1: type of regulation do you think is likely? Because I
38:12
Speaker 1: was reading that the White House put forth an AI
38:14
Speaker 1: Bill of Rights, which is basically a blueprint for the expansion.
38:18
Speaker 1: But where do you think the safeguards are going to
38:20
Speaker 1: come in?
38:21
Speaker 2: I think we will hopefully move towards a future where
38:25
Speaker 2: the way we have the FDA and we make sure
38:28
Speaker 2: products are safe before a bunch of people use them
38:31
Speaker 2: or ingest them or interact with them. I think we'll
38:33
Speaker 2: hopefully have systems like that where we have auditors. We
38:37
Speaker 2: audit our taxes, which is so annoying for everybody, but
38:40
Speaker 2: things that are making life or death decision for people.
38:42
Speaker 2: If you go to jail and spend more years or
38:44
Speaker 2: less years, we just kind of just throw our hands
38:47
Speaker 2: up and leave it to an algorithm. So I think
38:50
Speaker 2: we'll have more regulations there, We'll have auditing. Maybe we
38:55
Speaker 2: might even see some companies that have really powerful eye
38:58
Speaker 2: systems have to get so amount of approval. And then
39:02
Speaker 2: I also think we'll hopefully arrive at a time where
39:05
Speaker 2: we or get to a point where we see where
39:07
Speaker 2: AI shouldn't also play a role. Like I think, just
39:10
Speaker 2: because technology can exist and it can make things more efficient,
39:13
Speaker 2: it doesn't always mean that it's the right solution, or
39:16
Speaker 2: that everything needs to be digitized or automated. And I
39:20
Speaker 2: hope in the future we recognize there are certain basis
39:24
Speaker 2: that we want to maintain as uniquely human, and hopefully
39:28
Speaker 2: that becomes a part of our infrastructure.
39:31
Speaker 1: I've heard people talk about an ethics committee for social media.
39:35
Speaker 1: It sounds like it would kind of work for AI
39:37
Speaker 1: as well. I think it's hard because it's global, so
39:40
Speaker 1: it's not just like we're appointing a national ethics committee
39:43
Speaker 1: to discuss issues of technological advancement. Is that something that
39:47
Speaker 1: you think is viable.
39:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think we should have national committees, will have
39:53
Speaker 2: international committees. Hopefully we have that in many ways, like
39:58
Speaker 2: the United Nations is a team of member states that
40:03
Speaker 2: kind of approach different challenges, global challenges as a team
40:08
Speaker 2: as a group, and I think we'll need that as well.
40:10
Speaker 2: Some people call it, you know, like a SERN for
40:13
Speaker 2: AI or different governing committees, and I think that that's
40:16
Speaker 2: quite essential because yes, AI doesn't stop at the border.
40:21
Speaker 2: We know technology is largely borderless, and that's in some
40:24
Speaker 2: ways it makes it so great, but it also can
40:26
Speaker 2: make a certain country's approach to AI irrelevant if not
40:29
Speaker 2: everybody sees it the same way. So I think we
40:32
Speaker 2: do need to get on the same page with AI.
40:35
Speaker 1: So in line with ethics, there's this theory that AI
40:38
Speaker 1: is learning off of human data so that it will
40:40
Speaker 1: have all of the biases that human beings have. And
40:45
Speaker 1: I was listening to this hard for podcast about it
40:47
Speaker 1: and they were saying that the fear is that it
40:49
Speaker 1: will not only replicate those biases, but bury them in
40:52
Speaker 1: a way that it will make it hard for humans
40:54
Speaker 1: to find them. That was sort of mind blowing to me.
40:57
Speaker 1: I think that ethics are actually at the at the
41:00
Speaker 1: root of things that ethics are what is really terrifying
41:04
Speaker 1: to people. Are you a proponent for all of us
41:07
Speaker 1: being in the conversation of how this tech will be used?
41:11
Speaker 1: Like what power will I as an individual have?
41:15
Speaker 2: M I think technology and AI needs to be a
41:18
Speaker 2: language that everybody is fluent in and everybody understands how
41:22
Speaker 2: AI makes decisions about them when they're interacting with an
41:25
Speaker 2: AI system. And I don't think we should just allow
41:29
Speaker 2: tech to be something that gets developed in a box
41:31
Speaker 2: by a few people who just get to decide how
41:34
Speaker 2: our future is getting coded. I don't think that that
41:36
Speaker 2: is how things are going to end up. Well. So
41:39
Speaker 2: I do think tech education and that's why it is
41:41
Speaker 2: so important that it starts in school. I mean chat TOBT.
41:44
Speaker 2: We saw a lot of schools try to quickly ban it,
41:47
Speaker 2: and I think that that's actually very disappointing. CHATGBT that's
41:51
Speaker 2: going to be a part of student's future, and we
41:54
Speaker 2: also want them to learn how to use it safely.
41:56
Speaker 2: And when you ban AI, you ban an opportunity for
41:59
Speaker 2: people to learn and how to learn and to understand
42:02
Speaker 2: to speak to AI in particular, not only automating biases
42:07
Speaker 2: but making it more challenging to discover what those biases are. Yes,
42:12
Speaker 2: that's two very real challenges. One being in the box.
42:16
Speaker 2: We don't actually understand how AI makes the decisions that
42:18
Speaker 2: it does. So it takes all of this data, and
42:21
Speaker 2: then we don't understand how it waits all of the
42:24
Speaker 2: different data. It just gives us an output, so we
42:26
Speaker 2: know what we sent in. We don't know what it's doing,
42:29
Speaker 2: but it comes out with a yes, this person trautor
42:31
Speaker 2: shouldn't be granted the mortgage, and we don't know why.
42:33
Speaker 2: And that's where it just becomes easy to just kind
42:35
Speaker 2: of put your hands up and say, well, it's probably right.
42:38
Speaker 2: It's AI. It has all of these statistical mathematical tools,
42:42
Speaker 2: so it's probably has the right answer when that might
42:45
Speaker 2: not be true at all. And yes, AI doesn't just
42:49
Speaker 2: automate biases, it can amplify them.
42:52
Speaker 1: Unfortunately, what unsettles you the most about this tech?
42:57
Speaker 2: I think we all feel very overwhelmed by this moment,
43:02
Speaker 2: And what makes me the most fearful is that we
43:06
Speaker 2: become so overwhelmed by it and we can't agree on
43:10
Speaker 2: what future we want with it, that we end up
43:12
Speaker 2: not actually doing anything. So we all know we want
43:15
Speaker 2: to regulate it, we all know there needs to be safeguards,
43:18
Speaker 2: we all know we want an ethical lens to AI,
43:21
Speaker 2: but because it's challenging as to how we do that,
43:25
Speaker 2: that we just end up never agreeing and we don't
43:27
Speaker 2: actually end up doing anything. And that's something that I'm
43:30
Speaker 2: quite concerned about, and I hope that that's not what happens.
43:34
Speaker 1: I'm a little concerned because I read Hillary Clinton's last
43:37
Speaker 1: book and she was asked by somebody like, what, knowing
43:42
Speaker 1: all the information that you know, she's privy to information
43:45
Speaker 1: a lot of us don't have, what are you most
43:48
Speaker 1: concerned about? And she said, regulation around the Internet, that
43:53
Speaker 1: we're so behind, I'm afraid we will not catch up.
43:57
Speaker 1: There's still no regulation around the inner We saw with
44:01
Speaker 1: the hearings with Mark Zuckerberg, the questions that politicians were
44:05
Speaker 1: asking like they had no idea for the most part
44:10
Speaker 1: what they were talking about. If we're so behind on
44:13
Speaker 1: the Internet, how are we even going to start with AI?
44:17
Speaker 1: I'm very concerned about that.
44:19
Speaker 2: Yes, so if we look at the Internet as the
44:23
Speaker 2: example for how to approach regulation and keep people safe,
44:27
Speaker 2: you can just hit unsubscribe because nobody's learning anything from them.
44:31
Speaker 2: We need to just forget that as that That in
44:34
Speaker 2: itself was a blackmare episode, just people being like, how
44:37
Speaker 2: do you turn on the Internet. That's just where we
44:40
Speaker 2: don't need to go. The good thing with AI and
44:43
Speaker 2: the positive, the positive of this moment feeling so alarming
44:47
Speaker 2: to people and everyone just suddenly waking up to AI
44:50
Speaker 2: is you do have a lot of people saying, one,
44:53
Speaker 2: we all have the PTSD of the internet and social
44:55
Speaker 2: media and nobody doing anything about it. So we're approaching
44:58
Speaker 2: AI in a very different way. People family members talking
45:02
Speaker 2: about AI ethics at dinner. I've been on daytime talk
45:05
Speaker 2: shows talking about automation, and our public discourse is now
45:10
Speaker 2: around how to be build a system with AI that
45:12
Speaker 2: we all want to be a part of, and I
45:14
Speaker 2: think that that's fundamentally different than how we approach the Internet.
45:17
Speaker 2: We all just kind of woke up and we're like, actually,
45:20
Speaker 2: this is crazy, This Internet and social media and this
45:23
Speaker 2: is nuts and nobody can get along and what I
45:25
Speaker 2: don't have a good places to put this platform. We
45:27
Speaker 2: all just kind of woke up in this nightmare. But
45:30
Speaker 2: with AI, I think we're still We're early enough that
45:32
Speaker 2: it's not too late, and people do seem motivated to act,
45:36
Speaker 2: even if it is a little bit intimidating.
45:38
Speaker 1: If you could share one piece of advice with people
45:42
Speaker 1: around AI, if somebody were to listen to this podcast
45:46
Speaker 1: and leave and do one thing, what would it be.
45:50
Speaker 2: I would say that the absolute best thing you can
45:52
Speaker 2: do about the future is prepare for it, and so
45:56
Speaker 2: it's to do that you have to lean into it.
45:59
Speaker 2: You have to learn about it, but then you can
46:02
Speaker 2: also shape it. I think everybody has a role to
46:05
Speaker 2: play in helping us build and walk toward the future
46:08
Speaker 2: we want to be a part of. But to play
46:10
Speaker 2: that role, you do have to lean into it and
46:13
Speaker 2: see what could be possible. But the more voices we
46:16
Speaker 2: have shaping our future, the absolute better it's going to be.
46:20
Speaker 1: I think from the tech conference I went to, everybody
46:23
Speaker 1: was just saying, engage with it, play around with it.
46:26
Speaker 1: They were saying that it's not that AI is going
46:29
Speaker 1: to take our jobs. It's people who learn how to
46:32
Speaker 1: use AI that will take jobs. So yeah, be the
46:36
Speaker 1: person who learns AI totally.
46:39
Speaker 2: And I would say with these systems in particular, if
46:42
Speaker 2: you have a smartphone, and if you send emails, and
46:45
Speaker 2: if you are able to stream a few things on
46:48
Speaker 2: streaming platforms, you have the skills to work with AI.
46:51
Speaker 2: That's what's made these systems so disruptive but also so accessible.
46:55
Speaker 2: If you can do any of that, you're good. You're golden.
46:58
Speaker 2: You can work with these systems.
47:01
Speaker 1: A few rapid fire questions for you, Okay, a way
47:04
Speaker 1: that you've learned to use chat GPT that you can
47:08
Speaker 1: impart on everybody.
47:10
Speaker 2: I use chat GPT to provide me with perspective on
47:16
Speaker 2: how I could bring an idea to market. So I'll
47:19
Speaker 2: have an idea for like an op ed, and I'll
47:21
Speaker 2: kind of state my idea to chat GPT and ask it,
47:25
Speaker 2: you know, what do you think or what do you think?
47:28
Speaker 2: I'm trying to tell the audience and wait.
47:31
Speaker 1: How do you word it to chat GPT?
47:34
Speaker 2: I will word it. This is the an idea I
47:36
Speaker 2: have for an op ed that I think people could
47:38
Speaker 2: find valuable. For these reasons, I'm going to write you
47:41
Speaker 2: the opening paragraph or just kind of a synopsis, and
47:45
Speaker 2: then I send it and I say, what do you
47:47
Speaker 2: think I'm trying to communicate to people with this? And
47:51
Speaker 2: when it responds, and sometimes it's it's still just a
47:55
Speaker 2: statistical modeling language model. Sometimes it responds and it's entirely unhelpful,
48:00
Speaker 2: And sometimes when it tells me something and I'm like, wow,
48:02
Speaker 2: I actually didn't think about that, and I do see
48:04
Speaker 2: how that could have been picked up or it's something
48:06
Speaker 2: that I should interrogate more in my writing. So I
48:09
Speaker 2: use it more as on an ideation level than outsourcing
48:14
Speaker 2: a bunch of written material.
48:15
Speaker 1: To What is your most used social media app?
48:19
Speaker 2: It's YouTube. And the reason why is I spend so
48:24
Speaker 2: much time screaming mindset, mindfulness and guided meditations that if
48:30
Speaker 2: you were to look, if you were to look at
48:32
Speaker 2: my hours spent on my phone, it's insane. Sometimes it's
48:35
Speaker 2: like fourteen hours. But it's because I'll go to bed
48:37
Speaker 2: with a bunch of guided meditations, I'll wake up. I
48:40
Speaker 2: constantly have programming, meditative programming around me. So by default
48:46
Speaker 2: it is YouTube.
48:47
Speaker 1: So that's actually perfect for my next question, which is
48:49
Speaker 1: what boundaries have you set? When it comes to your
48:51
Speaker 1: devices intense boundaries.
48:55
Speaker 2: Really, I'm very very intense about social media in my phone,
49:00
Speaker 2: so I don't check social media past eight pm. The
49:04
Speaker 2: only platform I would sometimes make exceptions for is Twitter.
49:08
Speaker 2: Now Twitter has kind of changed. Maybe Twitter is like
49:10
Speaker 2: eight thirty. But I don't go on video or image
49:14
Speaker 2: based social media platforms TikTok Instagram past eight pm. Ever,
49:18
Speaker 2: I also stop checking email, put my phone on airplane
49:21
Speaker 2: mode before I go to bed, or if I'm listening
49:23
Speaker 2: to YouTube, I let that run, but there's no checking
49:26
Speaker 2: of anything else. I do not check social media. So
49:29
Speaker 2: I wake up, I do a guided meditation, I put
49:32
Speaker 2: on music, dance, I go to the coffee shop. I
49:35
Speaker 2: have my mindfulness on. I make a conscious decision every
49:38
Speaker 2: day when I'm going to engage with social media. And
49:41
Speaker 2: sometimes I get home from the coffee shop and I'm like,
49:44
Speaker 2: you know what, it's actually not going to be social
49:45
Speaker 2: media to day. I need my full brain. And we
49:47
Speaker 2: on know, social media fragments us. We feel like we
49:49
Speaker 2: can't think as clearly. Sometimes social media never gets opened,
49:52
Speaker 2: or sometimes my phone stays in a different room, or
49:55
Speaker 2: I make a decision, Okay, I think I'm ready to
49:57
Speaker 2: check this platform. But every day it's a conversation with
50:00
Speaker 2: myself because social media isn't the default radio frequency that
50:05
Speaker 2: should be in the background of our day. To me,
50:08
Speaker 2: it's a conscious decision. The way you choose to hang
50:10
Speaker 2: out with a friend or make a phone call social media.
50:13
Speaker 2: I have that same. Does this fit in my day
50:15
Speaker 2: to day? Do I have energy for this? And yeah?
50:17
Speaker 2: So I'm very intense with my boundaries around my devices
50:20
Speaker 2: and social media.
50:22
Speaker 1: Thank you for sharing that I personally needed to hear
50:24
Speaker 1: that you're welcome.
50:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, it took me while. It wasn't always that way,
50:28
Speaker 2: but it's changed the game for me. Yeah, I actually
50:30
Speaker 2: get anxious, Like today, I didn't get to wake up
50:33
Speaker 2: and meditate, and then I ended up on my phone
50:35
Speaker 2: earlier and I already felt like kind of in distress
50:39
Speaker 2: with it.
50:40
Speaker 1: Me too, I feel that way. I took a vacation
50:44
Speaker 1: and I was off my phone for three days and
50:47
Speaker 1: I had never felt better. I was shocked.
50:49
Speaker 2: Afreed, Yeah, Freed.
50:51
Speaker 1: What's your hot take? What is your most controversial opinion?
50:55
Speaker 2: Do you think on a tech hot take that maybe
50:58
Speaker 2: throws people off? I think eventually we will pass down
51:02
Speaker 2: our memories in our wills, the way we passed down
51:05
Speaker 2: homes and inheritance. I think we will eventually be able
51:10
Speaker 2: to and be already here starting to like the fact
51:13
Speaker 2: that in one hundred years, children of the future will
51:16
Speaker 2: be able to see how their grandparents waited in on
51:18
Speaker 2: cultural moments. All of that is going to be a
51:21
Speaker 2: part of the Children of the Future. They're kind of
51:24
Speaker 2: dictionary of the past. But I think we'll eventually have
51:27
Speaker 2: the science and the technology to be able to pass
51:29
Speaker 2: down specific moments in our family and to our children
51:32
Speaker 2: and grandchildren, which I think is going to be wild.
51:35
Speaker 1: That gave me chills. Is there a book that you've
51:38
Speaker 1: read that has changed your life?
51:40
Speaker 2: Sapiens? I think is a Month for Everybody by you all,
51:45
Speaker 2: Norah Harari. I think that's an absolute game changer. Actually,
51:48
Speaker 2: if I could be reincardinated to somebody, I think it
51:50
Speaker 2: would be You've all know Harari. He is just such
51:52
Speaker 2: a brilliant mind. So that's been a game changer. I
51:55
Speaker 2: love educated. I thought that one was really good. I
51:58
Speaker 2: think At the Exponential Aid by a Zema SR is
52:01
Speaker 2: another potentially interesting because if you do feel like we're
52:05
Speaker 2: living in a time where you just can't even keep up.
52:08
Speaker 2: Everything is just exponentially fast and increasing. Yeah, it kind
52:14
Speaker 2: of takes you through all of the different ways that
52:16
Speaker 2: that's very true. What are another ones? If you like
52:20
Speaker 2: understanding that the global landscape of AI, how countries are
52:24
Speaker 2: competing AI superpowers is one that is quite interesting if
52:29
Speaker 2: you're just starting out how to talk to robots, if
52:31
Speaker 2: you just want to understand what the heck is AI?
52:33
Speaker 2: And where do I even begin?
52:35
Speaker 1: So I do a pretty smart question. Okay, tell me
52:40
Speaker 1: when to stop? Okay, stop, This is an interesting one
52:44
Speaker 1: for you. What is your earliest memory or example of
52:47
Speaker 1: what success looked like and how did it impact you.
52:50
Speaker 2: That's a really great one because I often say the
52:55
Speaker 2: thing I would do differently in life if I could
52:59
Speaker 2: go back, is ask myself earlier, what does success look
53:04
Speaker 2: like to you? Because I spent so many years not
53:06
Speaker 2: defining it and outsourcing that to other people's versions of success.
53:12
Speaker 2: I have a strange relationship with that question because I
53:14
Speaker 2: think that that's the thing that I needed to do
53:16
Speaker 2: differently redefine it for myself. I think, even more recently,
53:20
Speaker 2: as I started to kind of break free from that
53:22
Speaker 2: other world, didn't insert myself as a futurist and in
53:26
Speaker 2: many ways a creative The first talk that I did
53:30
Speaker 2: where I wasn't sure if anybody would show up, and
53:33
Speaker 2: it wasn't a pact house at all, but how right
53:37
Speaker 2: it all felt, and getting that sense of whoever it
53:41
Speaker 2: is you think you're becoming, you're taking the right steps,
53:44
Speaker 2: and feeling that kind of sense of relief, which was helpful.
53:47
Speaker 1: What is the smartest decision you've ever made?
53:49
Speaker 2: To quit my job, consultant?
53:57
Speaker 1: My goal today was that this conversation left you feeling
54:00
Speaker 1: empowered to take on the future. As I was listening
54:04
Speaker 1: to Shaneada, I kept thinking about this line from Back
54:06
Speaker 1: to the Future three.
54:08
Speaker 2: Your future hasn't been written yet, No, it had. Your
54:13
Speaker 2: future is whatever you'll make it. I'll make it, I'd
54:16
Speaker 2: put one.
54:17
Speaker 1: It's so true. The best way to predict the future
54:19
Speaker 1: is to create it. So let's go make it a
54:22
Speaker 1: good one. And if the future really is now, then
54:25
Speaker 1: the line that I say at the end of every pod,
54:27
Speaker 1: which is an ode to Larry King, makes more sense
54:30
Speaker 1: today than it ever has before. Today's a good day,
54:34
Speaker 1: to have a good day. I'll see you next week.