The AI Revolution 

I started recognizing the fact that this kind of technology was really going to disrupt the talent industry. Recruiting and jobs and career paths were going to be affected by this because you didn’t have to memorize things anymore. You could just ask Alexa or Siri and get the answer. That really changed the way I looked at education because our educational model had been primarily focused on memorization. And it also changed the way I thought about careers and jobs. How many times have you had a job that is all about memorizing things? Well you don’t have to memorize these things anymore. That all rolled together and started this book. And I started thinking about the concept of “Okay, so what does the team look like in the future?” And that’s where I coined the phrase “There is AI in Team” and I started writing the book.

The Human – Machine Relationship 

What we’re seeing now with ChatGPT and with our platform Soffos Chat and other tools like it is a revolution in not just automating a task, but in AI being a part of the thinking process that makes up the task. This is how I envision the future evolving, and I’m actually already doing this now, when I work with our chat engine. 

The chat engine is a thinking tool. It’s a thought processing tool. It’s not doing the work for me, but it’s a place where I can bounce ideas. And one of the things I keep emphasizing here is that it’s going and doing things and coming back to me with results and then I’m thinking and I’m doing my part too. It’s a partnership, it’s a relationship that’s happening here. 

The more I ask it things about a specific topic or a specific area of interest, the better it does at retrieving the information because it’s starting to figure out the kinds of things I’m looking for. There’s a lot of science and a lot of math behind it. But there’s also a lot of human character or human processes that AI is doing that’s not exactly what human beings do, but it’s similar. And it’s similar enough to where we can’t quite figure out exactly what’s happening on the inside, not even the people that created it know actually what is happening. They have an idea but they’re not really quite sure. Now, the fun part about collaborating with robots and AI, at least as we’re moving into the future here is that the playing field is leveling. And so not only do we have robots that can lift heavy objects and do dangerous things, and you know, help in the manufacturing process. But now it’s technology that allows human beings to be enhanced as well. And so you now have the ability to do things that as a human being we couldn’t do before, not just physically but mentally. 

AI, Diversity and Inclusion 

This is leading to things like there’s a device, a pair of glasses now that you can get that if you are deaf and you can’t hear or you’re hard of hearing, you can actually watch someone’s lips. It will lip read for you and put the text on the glasses so that you can read and be a part of that conversation in a way that you couldn’t before. That’s pretty amazing. That’s leveling the playing field. That person is not disabled, not impeded, doesn’t have the obstacles that they had yesterday once they start doing this.  

And so these things when you combine it all together means that diversity and all those things that we talk about in the workplace and in life start closing in and we start becoming more enabled as human beings to be able to participate equally than we were before.

Human – Machine Collaboration 

So now I’ve got a team of people, we’re designers, we’re product designers, we’re building a web app, let’s say. And so we’re all designing, we’re sketching things out on paper, and we’re like, okay, now will this work? And you hand it to the AI and say “Do us a prototype real fast.” And you know, a couple minutes later, not hours, not weeks, not years – A couple of minutes later, it’s got a working prototype that we can go “Yeah we like this part. We didn’t like this part. This didn’t work exactly the way we thought it was gonna work. Let’s try that again”.  

So we go back to the design, and we’re bouncing ideas. We may be talking about marketing messages at the same time. We may ask the AI to find out if anybody else is doing this. We think this is a great feature, but we want to make sure nobody else is doing it and it goes out and does the research for us while we’re actually sitting there designing.  

That’s an enabling factor that a collaborative workspace with AI brings to life and so that’s a pretty phenomenal thing because it allows us as human beings to focus on the creativity and the desire to build things, but faster and more efficiently.  

AI Fears 

There’s this inherent fear and a lot of the fear is just because it’s new. It’s something that we are putting our own images on and so we’re looking at it saying it could lead to something disastrous, or it could lead to me losing my job, or my livelihood or affect the way that I do things. And so, we project our own image onto AI and say AI is going to be like the worst possible part of us. Now, I tend to look at it from the standpoint of wouldn’t it be great if we looked at it as if it was the best part of us?  

So there’s an opportunity for us to flip the mirror and look back at ourselves and go “Oh my goodness. It’s not the machines that’s the problem. It’s the human beings.” And if we get better at being human, if we get better at being collaborative amongst ourselves, if we’re more inclusive and diverse amongst ourselves, maybe the machines will be too. So that’s one aspect of it.  

AI and Data Privacy 

Then there’s data privacy, and we have this problem with everything we’re doing right now. It’s not just AI’s fault. It’s just data privacy in general. We’re either giving too much out or we’re not giving enough out or we’re giving the wrong things out. And we’re making it so the data that’s associated with us is a controlling factor over us.  

Well, same thing goes with AI. We want a mentor or a companion, a collaborator that knows enough about us that it can actually collaborate with us personally. Just like as if it was another person. But in order to do that, you’ve got to share information about yourself. So there’s that issue and that’s something I believe that really we have to resolve across the board not just for this.  

The Cultural Aspect of AI 

Then there’s the cultural aspect of the whole thing. Some people love tools, some people love to use social media, a lot of people love to use the latest cell phone or latest TV or the latest computer or whatever the case is. They’re the easy ones.  

[It’s tougher] with the ones that are reticent to either adopt new technology, they’re comfortable with what they have, or they see it as an intrusion. So, it’s affecting my culture. 

And then there’s the way the corporations and organizations [are] set up where, again, it’s about authority, it’s about control, it’s about power. “If this thing is allowed to come into our organization, what will it do to me“ is what a lot of people are [thinking] and I can see that as being an issue.  

One of the things that’s interesting is Isaac Asimov, who is a science fiction writer, wrote down the Three Laws of Robotics back way-back-when in the 50s. And the first law is, “a robot shall not harm a human being.” Okay, well, if we were to apply that law universally to humans and machines that would fundamentally change the way we do every business operation. Period. And so, if AI is now [joining] Boards of Directors, and CO-CEOing, which by the way is happening, and they have a voting right, and if they were to have to follow those Three Laws of Robotics, could a company manufacture something in a way that harms human beings? The answer is no. The law that is in place wouldn’t allow them. Technically, there’s laws in place that [prevent] us [from doing ]that now, but we still do it. So again, it’s all about reflecting that mirror back on ourselves and saying, “What is, who is the real issue here?” The real issue is not the machine, it’s the people” and that’s a tough thing for people to swallow. So from a cultural standpoint, it’s a tough thing.  

AI and Education 

The other thing that it’s making us to do is it’s making us rethink the skills that we need as human beings to be able to evolve and grow in this world as a result of the impact of all of these technologies. And so that requires reskilling and upskilling. It also requires looking back at the educational system that we currently have and saying: “Is our current educational model still applicable to this future state world that we’re living in?”  

We have an opportunity with these chat engines, especially if they’re reinforced with good solid educational materials, as source materials, these engines are available 24/7. I mean, I can remember you know, working on papers until well after midnight, and my teacher is certainly not going to be on call at that point in time, but now I could go to chat. And I could ask “So when you explained this, I thought I understood but I didn’t understand. So now can you simplify it? Can you break it down into smaller steps?”  

One of the things that like about the chat engines is that it will summarize and paraphrase and simplify things. And so if I’ve got an 800 Page reading assignment, I can either go by CliffsNotes or look online to see if somebody else has done a summarization. Or I can ask the chat engine to do summarization. And not only that, but if there’s a section I don’t understand, I can say, “can you simplify this or can you rewrite this in modern English so that I can actually understand it?” So it can adapt to me. And if it gets used to me asking it to do certain things, it can learn that hey Ken’s a little slow in the history area, so we probably better slow things down a little bit. Make sure he’s understanding it.  

For teachers, it’s really a powerful tool. You’ve got more comprehensive feedback, you’re able to do all open-ended questions and no more of this multiple choice true-false stuff. But by the way, this is all generated in less than 20 minutes. So now your teachers are freed up instead of having to spend a lot of time writing these assessments and these lessons and things like that, they can focus on how do I facilitate the classroom? How do I get the kids engaged in this in a way that makes sense? And oh, by the way, you can work with the chat engine to figure that out too. What’s a great activity for five-year-olds to teach them American history? What’s a great activity for junior high school students to keep them interested in chemistry? So the focus now is more on the creativity of the teacher and the ability to do in classroom observations and assessments and coming up with those kinds of activities and not just studying for the test.  

You’re seeing an amazing thing happening here and it’s universal access. So you have the opportunity for kids in any walk of life, as long as they have access to a device that can connect to this technology, they can have the same level of teaching and instruction as anybody else. The ability to have access to it that’s an amazing thing because that’s been one of the fundamental blocks of education and advancement in the world forever. It’s always been, there’s those that had access to the books and those that did not.  

Future Predictions 

From a medical standpoint, from a healthcare standpoint, we’ve got an entire generation that’s getting ready to retire and they’re going to need companions as time goes on. And these devices, between the robots and the chat, I think will enable them to have additional care and additional companionship that they wouldn’t have otherwise.  

For people in the middle, this is going to transform the way we do business. But I think it’s going to do it in a way that enables more people to participate in the creative side because they can get around their limitations and progress beyond that. And then for the kids, so you’ve got a generation coming into play here, they just presume this is going to happen. This is already here. So it’s not a big surprise them. So I think that one of the things that we’re going to see is that as time goes by in the next five to 10 years, this will be so proliferated and integrated into everything that we do that it will not be oh the AI or oh the robot or oh this is just going to be Yeah. You know how many people think about a landline when you’ve got a cell phone in your pocket all the time. And it’s just something now you’re just worried because you left it someplace.  

How AI Will  Make Humans More Human 

So, those are the kinds of things it’s going to impact. It’s going to change, it will change everything, but it may actually drive us to a point where we’re more human. And here’s why I say that: You know a lot of people worry about it faking, you know, human speech and human connection and you won’t know whether it’s a human or AI and I say “Yes, so get on a plane and go talk to that person in person! Go walk over to somebody’s house and talk to them face to face, quit texting, and doing all that all the time for your normal communications and connect with a human being” 

Deals are going to be done not by doing it over the internet, you won’t know for sure. It’s far better to go up and look somebody in the eye and shake their hand and say “Yeah, let’s close this deal. We both sign the signatures.” I think there’s going to be a need for more human contact than ever. And so the side benefit that’s the ripple effect that happens out of this, the unintended consequence may be that we become more human than we are now. 

Don’t Hide From AI  

A lot of people have said, but I’m going to say it again: It’s not AI or robotics that’s going to replace your job. It’s someone who knows how to work with and use AI or robotics that will replace you. And so your biggest way to get around this risk is go learn about it. Work with it. Use it in things that you do every day, get comfortable with it. And know how you want to use it where you want to use it in your life. It doesn’t have to be for everything. But it can be something that helps you so that you don’t get replaced by someone who is willing to embrace it.  

The biggest risk companies have in the whole thing is not getting involved with it, because it is happening and if you choose to hide from it because you’re afraid something is going to go wrong other companies will take over and you will find yourselves in a position where you wish that you had taken a chance and figured out how it could work best for your company. So get involved. Learn about it. Talk to people about it, talk to your friends, talk to your peers at work and discuss it. This is something that has to be talked about and we have to figure out how it’s going to work for us. So the message is: Go be a part of it. Don’t hide from it and enjoy it because we’re going to build a better place. This is going to transform and enable us as human beings and machines to work together as partners to build a better future for everybody.