AI and the Future of Work: What Matters to You (Ep. 116)

Ohhhhh the AI thing. It’s bananas. It’s crazy. It’s going to destroy humanity. And it’s so much fun.  Today’s podcast – how AI will affect the future of work. But not in a bloviating, imaginary way, which is how much of the AI discussion is happening (paired with doom and gloom of the end of the world). But more of a measured, tangible and smart way to approach it, from corporate leadership to the individual being affected.  It’s not hyperbolic to say that AI is similar to the rise of human life on earth. That sounds wild, but it’s also accurate. This is a pivotal point not just in the workplace, but in how society operates. It’s not going away. On board yet? Good. Let’s get to the bigger things.  Those bigger things include YOU. AI has been around for a while, behind a nice user experience model (thanks, Google!) that has allowed for some adoption. With the explosion of ChatGPT, many people are rushing to dictate and use some AI models to influence what they are looking for.  Initially, this will create a lot of noise in the marketplace (“Robot – write me a blog!”), but as we get past the newness of this, it will then influence workplaces in larger, more dynamic ways.  What’s important to note here, and this is the crux of the podcast, is that while AI will change everything about work, it’s up to us, as individuals, to control our positioning in this new world.  Yes, corporate leadership is looking at how to leverage AI (and they should). But you, as an individual, should be spending your time learning about it and using it, because without doing so, you will be left behind.  We all have a lot to learn … AI is no exception. Your future is dictated by choices today. More to come on AI, but here is a good start. Your Title Goes Here Your content goes here. Edit or remove this text inline or in the module Content settings. You can also style every aspect of this content in the module Design settings and even apply custom CSS to this text in the module Advanced settings. Click Here for an Unedited Transcript of the Podcast I’m Jim Frawley, and this is Bellwether. Welcome to Bellwether. Thank you for being here. Episode 116, 17, something like that. We’re talking about ai. If I had my robot working, I’d know what episode it was. Um, <laugh>. Let’s talk about AI in the future of work. It’s not something that we can ignore. It’s something that I’ve wanted to talk about for a long time on the podcast. I’ve talked about it a little bit, but I haven’t really done a dedicated episode on it. 0:53 Uh, I speak a lot to clients about it. I speak a lot to non-clients and audiences about it, and it’s, um, it’s a very exciting time. This is great. Um, what I wanna cover today, I’m gonna give you just a brief overview to level set because there’s a lot of noise flying around in terms of what AI is and how it’s transforming and all of that good stuff. Let’s talk about how AI is affecting work today. 1:15 Let’s talk about how it’s work affecting you and work tomorrow. And then we’re gonna wrap it up in a nice little bow and, and we’re gonna set you off on your way and it’s gonna be great cuz you’re gonna be ready to deal with it. Um, here’s, here’s just a level set on ai and what I think about ai. This is, I’ve heard it said this way before and I completely agree with it. 1:36 It’s similar to the rise of human life on earth. And that’s not hyperbolic. Like this shit is legit and crazy and important and huge and it will not go away. And so we can’t really put our head in the sand. Can’t put your head in the sand. Silly ostrich. You have to embrace it. You have to adjust to it, and you have to get prepared for it. And right now it’s kind of irrelevant, right? 2:07 It’s all just doing small tasks that it can do for you. Is, is the way most people have imagined it. Social media content and writing kids books and creating pictures and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And basically it’s just being used to create noise. That’s all it is. It’s just a lot of noise. We’re seeing all the social media content, apparently. It’s also writing Valentine’s Day cards. That’s great. We’re using it in these little things. 2:27 Creating your meal plan and your workout plan and all this stuff. And there’s all kinds of things that you can do, uh, where it’s basically gonna compile information and it, and it’s great. Okay? That’s wonderful. Uh, but this will evolve and grow. And it’s starting to do that into ways that have much more meaning. And that’s what I wanna talk about today. I want to talk about that much more. Meaning let’s chat about you and let’s go. 2:53 All right? Because this affects everybody and full stop. This affects everybody. Um, and so, so that’s it. So let’s talk about the current state, right? It’s creating noise. A lot of industries have already embraced ai. They’re doing work with it. It’s not, it’s been around for a lot of auto automation. Google’s been doing it. Think about your maps and all these types of things. The apps, it’s been around, it’s made life easier. 3:16 The challenge AI has always had is we, I mean, this has been talked about for decades. The challenge has been human adoption and user experience was the big play for ai. And Google was very good about that. And they’ve done it. Apple’s very good about it. Um, but now it’s kind of evolved. Humans have caught up a little bit. And so now it’s, you know, the timing is ripe for this kind of thing. 3:42 And, and ai, uh, OpenAI and chat, G p t and all that stuff is, you know, we feel like we’re ready to jump in. And this is kind of the new one, and it’s just the starting point, but it’s been around for, for a long time. So, um, and OpenAI has been around for a long time. They’ve done a lot of work too that, that you’re probably familiar with. So, um, a lot of misconceptions about ai. 4:03 Um, but I think the reason we have so many misconceptions is because we don’t fully appreciate the scale of what’s possible with ai. Most of us are just kind of getting, catching up and getting up to it. The people who have been really knee deep and and arms deep in AI for the past, you know, bunch of years can talk about this scale. Will it destroy humanity? Some will say yes, I think probably not. 4:28 We’re adaptable people or we’re at least 50 years out from that as it goes. Um, <laugh>. But, uh, but AI will make life fundamentally different within the next 10 years, if not five years, if not three years. And so what is important to remember is that humans are adaptable and it’s very unsettling. AI is very, very unsettling in the workplace and what it’s going to happen. And will we remain relevant for our individual, right? 4:57 There’s the macro and the micro and we’re gonna talk about individuals and everything else. A lot of people are going to be left behind in this. And so I don’t want that to happen to you. I want you to be, uh, I want you to be there, but we are adaptable. Um, some people are n...