How AI Shapes Human Identity and Flourishing | Swapnil Shrivastava (Adobe)

Swapnil Shrivastava is a product leader at Adobe, where he works at the intersection of AI, creativity, and product strategy. He has spent over 23 years at Adobe, moving from engineering into design and product leadership, and today leads agentic imaging and AI-powered creative workflows for Adobe Express. Before that, he helped shape Adobe's creative tools from the ground up, and outside of work he studies Indian classical music and the bansuri.In our conversation, we discuss:Why AI is, at the core, nothing more than next word prediction, and why that fact does not make what is coming any less realWhy running an AI agent has gotten as addictive as coding used to be, and what that says about attention and controlWhat is actually left of a person's identity once AI can do most of the doing: judgment, taste, and the ability to set the objective the model is chasingWhy training everyone on the same intelligence risks making all of us more similar, not more capableWhy the loneliness cost of an AI-driven work life worries him more than losing a job, and what the old studies on touch and love still proveWhat he tells his teenage son, who wants to be a DJ instead of a coder, and the project he is building to teach AI how to carry Indian classical music forwardWhere to find Swapnil:LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/swapnil-shrivastava-2b493637Where to find Vlad:Website: vladmoskovski.comLinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/vladmoskovskiFree Somatic Intelligence Toolkit for LeadersAI gives everyone data. The leaders who stand out also listen to their body's intelligence. Download the free toolkit here: vladmoskovski.com/handbook-landing-pageTimestamps:00:00 Introduction, and why AI is just next word prediction01:09 The story behind the background: Adobe's decades-old office puzzle tradition04:43 Inside Adobe's "code red" moment on AI07:46 AI alignment and the idea of human flourishing09:36 Why running an agent while playing flute felt so addictive13:28 What is left of identity when AI can do most of the doing16:40 Taste versus judgment, and reading thought directly19:23 The patterns AI can learn, and who Swapnil is outside them20:23 Man as the measure of everything, and Sam Altman's line about kids never outsmarting ChatGPT23:14 The Nigerian call center story behind ChatGPT's word choices25:23 Advice to his teenage son, who wants to be a DJ27:51 The orphanage studies on touch, love, and what people actually need to survive29:19 The loneliness epidemic, and why it worries him more than job loss32:54 Manifesting the future: teaching AI to carry Indian classical music forward35:37 Closing line: "May there be resonance"