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The AI Edge… at What Cost? How to Navigate the Ethics of AI
619 Plays1 month ago
In this AI marketing podcast episode, Dan Sanchez gets real about the ethical dilemmas AI-powered marketers are starting to face. What happens when your AI-driven efficiency starts threatening the roles of your coworkers? Dan shares a personal moment of hesitation on stage and uses it to spark a candid conversation about responsibility, leadership, and a human-first approach in an AI-driven world. He offers three powerful mental models to guide ethical decision-making and introduces the “Human Edge” framework to ensure people don’t get left behind.
Links:
- My Favorite AI Tools ChatGPT - https://openai.com/
- High Level Marketing Platform - https://danchez.com/highlevel
- AI Podcasting Tools - https://danchez.com/podtools
- n8n AI Automation Platform - https://danchez.com/n8n
Timestamps
00:00 – The ethical question haunting AI-driven marketers
00:40 – Real-life tension on stage: avoiding the hard answers
01:40 – Why fear is a good sign: values over tools
02:30 – Three mental models for navigating the AI dilemma
04:40 – Introducing the “Human Edge” framework
05:50 – The call to leaders: Don’t go AI-first, go human-first
06:50 – Klarna vs. Salesforce: Cautionary tales and best practices
07:30 – Practical advice for marketers and executives alike
Recommended
Transcript
The Uncomfortable Reality of AI Productivity
00:00:00
Speaker
I've been wrestling with a question. Maybe you have too. What if your new AI superpowers lead to some of your coworkers getting laid off? What if your boss looks around, sees your 10x productivity as an AI driven marketer and starts to see some of your other teammates is just overhead?
00:00:19
Speaker
If you've even felt a twinge of guilt over this topic, you're not alone because this isn't just theoretical anymore. Like this is becoming reality. I had a question live as I was speaking on stage from the crowd just two days ago.
00:00:35
Speaker
And I found I was kind of dancing around this the answer of how to handle this ethically as somebody who's even advocating for AI-driven work in general. And I found I danced around it. i didn't really have a good answer. So I wanted to record this one episode as an answer to that question, not only for myself, but for you.
00:00:54
Speaker
as people who are starting to use AI to become so much more productive ah that they can move faster, build better, and work smarter? How do we deal with that when it comes to the ethics and the fact that it might make some of our coworkers obsolete?
Ethical Implications of AI in the Workplace
00:01:10
Speaker
Welcome back to the AI-Driven Marketer. I'm Dan Sanchez. My friends call me Danchez. And today is not a practical deep dive. Today is but a very practical question that I think we're all going to have to wrestle with and give an answer for.
00:01:24
Speaker
And that is dealing with the ethics of becoming much more product productive with AI and looking at our coworkers as somebody who aren't maybe and maybe not they're not keeping up and we want to be able to keep around.
00:01:35
Speaker
So how do we actually address this ourselves internally and then with others as they question our are ah publishing AI content or talking about what we're doing with ai The first part is I just want to reframe the question.
00:01:51
Speaker
The question is like, how can I learn AI when it might get my coworker the boot, right? That's that's the question. Like, how could I do this if it leads to this bad outcome? But I want to reframe that question for just a second.
00:02:02
Speaker
This really isn't about tools so much. It's about values. The fact that we have a healthy fear about learning this stuff and what the outcomes of it might be is actually a really good sign.
00:02:17
Speaker
that we care, right? There's a reason why it feels ah uncomfortable when you wrestle with this question. It shows that you care. It shows that you actually have the right values.
00:02:28
Speaker
So I want to offer three mental models that we can kind of use in order to navigate the question. The one is what I'm calling the lifeboat analogy. AI is like the rising tide.
00:02:40
Speaker
It isn't unethical to learn. It's practically going to be survival. Refusing to adapt doesn't stop the wave of it coming. It just means that we're actually going to be able to float when it comes. And I'm over here with the AI-driven marketer show trying to throw as many lifelines out as possible.
Leadership's Role in AI Integration
00:02:57
Speaker
The next mental model is that AI doesn't replace people. It replaces tasks. It only replaces people when leadership chooses to do so. which is why I'm advocating for companies to keep the people and redeploy them in more helpful ways, wherever it makes sense, re-educate them. So they also become AI driven and help them to learn and grow. Keep the people, especially if you're able to,
00:03:22
Speaker
ah like redeploy them and get more productivity out of them, you should be able to get more done and become more profitable, right? So instead of cutting costs to improve margins, AI should be used as a way to do more for much less.
00:03:38
Speaker
And my last mental model is that if we don't do it as the people who actually care, then we're leaving it for the unethical people who don't care, right?
00:03:49
Speaker
So we wanna be the ones advocating and pushing for the new tool because the new tide is coming. The wave of AI is here and it's good it's going up. you know So it's like, it's not slowing down.
00:04:01
Speaker
If we're not the ones who learn how to leverage it, lead our companies with it, then we leave it to chance of who's going to be leading this new endeavor into ai And I don't know about you, but I'd much rather be the one advocating for people and their strengths um while letting AI augment a lot of the tedious work that they're currently doing so they can be elevated to do more work, creative work, and more people-oriented work, the things that AI just can't possibly do.
Human Traits vs. AI Capabilities
00:04:28
Speaker
I'm personally even pushing this idea called the human edge framework because I've recognized there's a lot of things that AI can't do. AI can't have core beliefs. It's given core beliefs.
00:04:40
Speaker
AI can't have experience. It can't have judgment and discernment based off real world experience because it's never lived before. It's never actually had to do the hard things and felt the pain of doing them.
00:04:53
Speaker
It only pattern matches. It only looks for what's likely to come next after that word or that image or that pixel. That's all that it does. It needs your discernment. It needs your taste. It needs your experience in order to do well.
00:05:07
Speaker
it does It can't rep replace step in for human-to-human relationships. It can't be a person. It has no personhood. And because of all those things, we still need humans at the helm making this thing run.
00:05:20
Speaker
That's what I'm advocating for. I'm advocating for the human edge. I'm advocating for companies to keep all their employees, helping them become AI-driven so that company can go farther, faster, and smarter together.
00:05:37
Speaker
So stand with me as I advocate for these things. And I think it will make a difference. I think not all companies will just lay off and right size their organizations because of the new gains, but can actually drive farther.
00:05:50
Speaker
Eventually, they're going to grow and have to hire those new people back. So let's advocate for companies keeping people, redeploying them into better spots, helping them educate and become more AI driven themselves.
Human-First Approach to AI
00:06:02
Speaker
Now, if you're a leader, I'd highly recommend sitting down with your team and inviting them into the process early and often. Like have the conversations about what it means to be AI driven, what your values are and what you intend to do as a leader.
00:06:16
Speaker
If you're a CEO listening to this podcast, please sit down with your whole organization and talk about how you value people. Do not use the terms we want to become AI first. No, you want to become human first.
00:06:27
Speaker
it it screams It screams that you don't care about people when you talk about becoming AI first. So please, like, leverage your people. Educate them. Redeploy them.
00:06:38
Speaker
Maybe some attrition happens and you don't hire
AI's Impact on Customer Service
00:06:41
Speaker
back as fast. That's fine. That's what Salesforce is currently doing, and they're doing a good job of it. They're just hiring a little slower because of the new productivity gains they're seeing on code and customer support.
00:06:51
Speaker
Don't let everybody go. Don't be like Klarna, the company that let their whole... customer service go. And now they're trying to hire back because, of course, maybe on the first tier, AI does okay. But on the second and third tier support calls, humans were doing much, much better.
00:07:05
Speaker
And Klarna's had a horrible run at it over the last couple of months with their service. Don't do what Klarna did. Do more of what Salesforce is doing. Do more of what Dave Ramsey is doing in keeping people.
00:07:17
Speaker
So sit down with your team, invite them in early and often to the conversation. Talk about how you're using AI to enhance them, not replace them. And if you're just a marketer at the bottom of the totem pole, then advocate for a human ah human first approach.
00:07:34
Speaker
It might be AI enhanced, it might be AI driven, but advocate for that human first approach within your team, within your company. Do it wisely, do it humbly.
Advocating for Ethical AI Use
00:07:45
Speaker
don't Don't be a jerk in advocating for these because I don't know what it is with advocacy. Advocacy like ah has become a word that means like be a jerk because we're fighting for what's right and justice gives us the right gives us permission to be angry.
00:07:59
Speaker
and mean and a jerk when it comes to advocating for your position don't do that do it humbly do it graciously do it peacefully but advocate for it nonetheless so that's kind of where i've landed with this thing and this is going to be an ongoing conversation if you're feeling the tension in this if you're feeling there is some issue and some ethical concerns when it comes to embracing ai good.
00:08:27
Speaker
You're the kind of person that I want leading the charge when it comes to adopting AI, helping teams adopt AI, and leading the future of marketing because it shows that you care.
00:08:38
Speaker
Let's go at this thing together and make the difference with AI we want to see while being human first, but AI driven. In fact, I think that's a phrase that just needs to become a thing, right? Human first, AI driven. There you go.
00:08:54
Speaker
So stay human and let's build this thing together.