Transcript
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Speaker: Welcome to Rest and Recreation, the work-life balance podcast from Abysida. I'm your host, Michael Millward. Today, I'm going to be finding out about rediscovering purpose beyond work when career identity breaks down from Avi Madara, the optimistic futurist who coaches people on human engagement in an AI world.
Speaker: He is also the author of The Future of Purpose, Finding Meaning Beyond Work in an AI World. Avi is based in Israel, a place I have not visited.
Speaker: If I do get the chance to go to Israel, I will do as I always do and make my travel arrangements with the Ultimate Travel Club, because as a member of the Ultimate Travel Club, I will be able to access trade prices on flights, hotels, trains, all sorts of different holidays, and a wide variety of other travel purchases.
Speaker: You'll find a link to the Ultimate Travel Club in the description which has a built-in sub discount on the membership fees. Now that I have paid some bills, it is time to make an episode of Rest and Recreation that will be well worth listening to, liking, downloading and subscribing to. Also one that you will want to tell your friends, family and colleagues about.
Speaker: As with every episode of Rest and Recreation, we will not be telling you what to think, but we are hoping to make you think. Hello, Avi. Hey, Michael.
Speaker: Thank you so much for having me on your podcast. it's my pleasure. When people say that to me, I always ask them to wait until they've had the the podcast with me. You might not feel the same way. I'm i'm looking forward to the tough questions.
Speaker: Oh, good. Can we start, please, by you explaining a little bit about your career and how you got involved in in AI and the human side of AI? Sure, absolutely. I'm a ah data analyst and technologist by ah trade. And as AI picked up in the chat GPT world and automation and robots, I came to realize that there is a very profound and gaping hole or lack in the conversation.
Speaker: Everyone's talking about industrial revolutions and about economic structures and models and how are people going to make a living in an AI automated world. But very few people are speaking about the actual impact of AI and all this automation in the world.
Speaker: And when I say very few people, there are for sure people that are speaking to it at very high levels, but We don't see at the social level, at the socioeconomic demographic level, at the political level, anyone talking about the aspects of the impact on humanity as a whole, as opposed to just the technical aspects of investment and income and finance.
Speaker: That troubled me, and I decided to take the deep dive and really address that and seek seek solutions and hopefully have a good impact.
Speaker: Lots of people who are very enthusiastic about AI, other people who are perhaps a little bit more reticent. You're quite right. I think we haven't really engaged with the people who will be potentially most effective in a negative way by the advance of AI.
Speaker: I think we're all going to be affected. It does not necessarily have to be in negative ways, but we just have to be prepared. We have to be able to see what our new reality is when we have potentially more time on our hands. Back in the computer ah revolution where people were promised that they'd have more time on their hands, they actually didn't because they were just expected to have higher and higher productivity.
Speaker: But today, AI is so pervasive and so across the board and so universal, it's affecting everyone, not only across all industries, but just the speed at which these things are happening. So when you talk about the luddites or we talk about the printing press,
Speaker: or even like robotics in production lines or cars replacing horses. All those industries and all those revolutions gave us humans some, you know, 10, 20, 30 years to transition into into new jobs, into new careers, into new realities of the world. But...
Speaker: AI literally changes overnight every day, again, across all industries and sectors. The key really is for us to to stay connected, one, with our humanity and to realize that there are things that ai cannot replace.
Speaker: There are things and problems in the world that need solving that we should definitely and already are leveraging AI to bring better situations to the world and solve critical problems, whether it be hunger,
Speaker: or poverty, or certainly in the medical and pharmaceutical world, all those things are things that AI contributes. And then the question is, where do we fit in?
Speaker: Not only in in guiding the machines, but also in our interpersonal human connections with one another. AI, artificial intelligence.
Speaker: Well, what does it mean from your perspective? How do you define artificial intelligence AI? i don't know if I would i would necessarily find it. It's not it's not ah an artificial intelligence. I've seen definitions of it being actually just automated high-speed data manipulation and data analysis.
Speaker: It's not intelligent as far as human emotion is concerned. It's not intelligent as far as ah ethics are concerned. And no matter how many tries there are in forming and in creating, if you will, a constitution of sorts, which is one of the things that Claude Anthropic has as their mission and their worldview is to create these ethical ah standards.
Speaker: But the bottom line is Artificial intelligence is really about the ability to process vast amounts of information quickly and also to optimize, to optimize processes that we don't necessarily, as human beings, can see as easily or as quickly.
Speaker: So it's not necessarily an intelligence per se, it's it's more a capacity to ah process information and data ah quickly and in huge volumes.
Speaker: I'm relieved that you said that because I don't think artificial intelligence is intelligence. It's about data processing. We are starting to see AI being used in all sorts of different jobs. And I will talk to people who will tell me that they they never write a letter. They ask AI to write the letter. They ask AI to tell them what they've got to do in their presentation. But nobody really has ah examined the human aspect of this evolving technology. What you see as the big impact so far that we've seen on on humans and human relations?
Speaker: the The scariest thing that I've seen so far are really a couple. One is there was an MIT study done earlier this year where it showed that people were given the task of writing writing some long prose, three, four thousand words of an essay or a research paper.
Speaker: The people that used AI, it might have been ChatGPT specifically, and they're they're all basically the the same human impact either way. So it's not you know one company against the other. it's It's really about the algorithm and how it works is that the people that used AI to even just assist with and even responsibly and engaging with and having the conversation with the AI platform itself had between 15 and 25% less neural pathway development and use during their creation of that document.
Speaker: And the people then as compared to the people that didn't use AI at all. So that's, that's one. Two is. Well, well, before we go on to number two, That is really interesting that AI will give you the answer or give you a suggestion of what the answer might be, but you actually, by using AI, learn less.
Speaker: Is that what you're saying with the neuropath words? If the... yeah If the neuropathways are used less during the creation of the essay, does it mean that people who use AI to create the essays for their college work or university work, for example, or school work, will actually be learning less than someone who doesn't? That actually touches on the second point that I was going to make, but it's not a matter of learning less. okay People that are using the AI, should we choose to engage with it and learn from it? and not from the AI specifically, but from its output, then we're going to learn that material.
Speaker: We're not going to not learn because we used it. But what is happening there is that the ah brain activity is that much less than it would be or that it is when people are not using the AI and actually are doing the research and the writing themselves.
Speaker: right It's not a matter of learning less. It's a matter of, of and it's not even a matter of absorbing less. ah We might absorb just as much using the AI, but the actual physical neurological activity of needing to think, needing to compose, needing to put together ideas on our own, as opposed to allowing the machine to do that for us, is what's affecting the lower brain activity. And that then affects an atrophy, in essence, of the brain, because you know that was one exercise before.
Speaker: you know, AI is really, as popular use is concerned, has only been out for a couple of years en masse. i It was, you know, November of 23 that was the big push out. It grew by 100 million. ah I don't even think it was a month. It was like 100 million a day of people started to use it. The concern is the atrophy of the brain. It's not necessarily learning less. yeah But by virtue of that, then then yes, perhaps as a secondary effect, that would be... ah a lower learning of some sort as well. Yeah. Someone could create the assignment, hand it in, get a pass.
Speaker: But if they've used AI, might not be that they've learned less, but they might not be able to explain and everything in the assignment in the same way as someone who hadn't used AI.
Speaker: Absolutely. Another point is that the challenge that we face now, and you being in HRS, is what happens to the people that have had decades of experience in whatever work they're doing? So you might have a lawyer or an accountant or even a journalist, what have you, and they have you know, these 10, 20, 30 years plus of experience.
Speaker: And now all of a sudden all the entry level positions are basically being filled by AI. As a result, there's no opportunity for young people to gain experience. The older people are, you know, leaving the fold. How do the younger people gain that experience?
Speaker: Especially if those younger people, you know, there's this cliche that people say, know, AI is not going to take your job. AI is going to take your job only if you're not using AI. If people are using AI, not just not necessarily in a scenario where people are being replaced by AI, but even people that are actually using How do they gain that life experience that informs higher level decisions within an organization? It's a big challenge.
Speaker: I did a bit of reflection having recently passed one of those big anniversaries of the length of my career and thought about all the things that I did in my first job and realized that every single activity that I did in my first job is now done by a computer. Sure. Even the photocopying that we had to do, people don't use photocopiers in the same sort of way they use a printer. They press a button on their computer at their desk and the document they want is created the number of times that they want to create it. There's no reason to photocopy it and everyone does that from their desk. Yes, I totally understand about this AI taking over entry-level work and that creating a career problem people staying on education longer in order to enter the workforce at a higher level with all of the theory, but none of the experience. So the other point I was going to make is on the topic of literacy. Let me ask you.
Speaker: How would you define literacy, someone that is literate or literacy in general? Someone who can express what it is that they want to express to other people when they are not there.
Speaker: Beautiful. Okay. And so that you can get your idea across to someone else in a written document because you can't be there in person. that's ah That's a very good definition. that I'll call it a yeah a mid-range definition is as far as what I was going to and will describe. The Webster's definition for literacy is the ability to read and write. UNESCO, on the other hand, came up with a definition that is along the lines of what you're describing, the ability to read and write and absorb information in order that we can impact and affect change outside of us.
Speaker: So what you're talking about being able to communicate an idea, so they go one step further. And they say literacy has to have some kind of positive impact on on humanity and on the world.
Speaker: And that's that's the the point of and the the need for for literacy in the world. So now the question comes back to AI and writing and engaging with it in a way that doesn't keep us literal.
Speaker: So studies have been made, for example, comparing what happens when people read as opposed to absorb information by audio or by video. And the actual physical activity of reading goes back to that idea of brain development.
Speaker: And the brain development is... not only critical for our ability to be literate in that way that you described it or that UNESCO describes it, but it also impacts and enhances our ability to be empathetic, to engage socially, to think through ideas and to understand complexities and nuances in different situations.
Speaker: Whereas if we give it to the AI or we give it to and just watch a movie, we don't necessarily develop those, again, neural pathways that give us that deep emotional strategic ability to engage with one another as human beings.
Speaker: And that's potentially another threat to humanity is that if we read even less because we're relying on the AI to give us the information,
Speaker: then we're in an even bigger trouble. And what we really need to do is push for and continue the the need and the enhancement of literacy around the world, because that's that's going to be critical now. Yes, I see your point. It's a little bit like being at school and being told the more that you read, the better you will be able to spell.
Speaker: Reading has an impact on lots of different areas of life. It's almost as if human beings become somewhat obsolete if they choose to be reliant on the AI.
Speaker: What do you think is the solution to this? How do we reconnect with ourselves and find value? One thing that I'll point out right now is that because of the speed and universality of the transition that we're in with AI, this is not a an industrial revolution.
Speaker: It's not like the Luddites that you described or, you know, telegraph to telephone, etc. This is really a sociological civilization revolution. And the closest thing that I would say comes to that is by...
Speaker: comparing in history not even the printing press that allowed for information to travel across borders and more easily. It's more comparable to the Enlightenment, where people, they took upon themselves, they weren't necessarily given the authority through you know the king or the church back during the enlightenment but Enlightenment, but through revolution, they took upon themselves the ability to question authority.
Speaker: And here, the the model is is similar. And we have to start to understand that these are our transitions. This is a transition in the world that is affecting everyone and at the same time.
Speaker: And once we come to that realization, then we as a can move forward. But It's very similar to anything else in life, though. I'll tell you a story. There's a motivational speaker that I heard was talking about how he was walking down the sidewalk somewhere.
Speaker: And second there was couple of people sitting on a wood porch outside of a a house. And he saw a dog lying on the porch and it was moaning. So it went to, this person went up to the people that were sitting there and asked him, asked the people there, why is the dog moaning? He said, well, he's lying on a nail.
Speaker: and So why doesn't he move? Because it doesn't hurt enough. Point being, we don't want to get to the situation where it's just so much pain that people don't have any choice but to make change, but it's very much a self-awareness thing.
Speaker: Each individual really will need to take initiative and make themselves, put themselves in a position to actually deal with the change. And the change is is now. This is not 10-year heads-up kind of thing. This is something that's that's happening ah as we speak. And certainly large amounts of the population are going to be directly affected. Worst case scenario, a couple years. Best case scenario, 10 years is what people are saying.
Speaker: And that's where the politicians, and this is one of my concerns. There's nobody running on a platform right now that I've seen. in And I follow a little bit of English politics and in America and here in Israel. And there's no one running on the platform of AI on the societal level.
Speaker: People are talking about investment, talking about the finance aspects of it, the infrastructure. But I haven't seen any politicians talking about, this is my platform. How do we become...
Speaker: an AI ready and safe world as far as education is concerned, as far as human purpose is concerned and so on. So so it's it's really both aspects. It's one that is personal initiative and two is just government government um level intervention.
Speaker: One of the things that you see a lot ah of is politicians saying, we need to be at the forefront of the AI revolution. We need to invest in the technology.
Speaker: I do some work with one the universities here in the yeah UK. And one of the lectures that I do, we mention the agricultural revolution in the United States, where tractors, combines, all sorts of various different equipment became very readily available for the big farms that exist within the United States.
Speaker: When that happened, you didn't need the big farming families, you didn't need the big labour force within the agricultural industry because the machines took away a lot of the work. So we're talking about something similar to AI and it can make all sorts of comparisons. But you still had the people.
Speaker: You can track the growth in secondary education and connect it to the expansion of the use of machinery in agriculture. Because you then educated people to a higher level,
Speaker: you then needed jobs for those people. So you then see a rise, an increase in the number of doctors, so improved healthcare, care improved legal systems, and lots of office jobs as well. So you then see the rise of the middle class. right okay The advent of agricultural technology led to is so a change in society, which spread around the world. And we now see that, okay, if you are in the developing world, one of the measures of your success of your development is, do you have a middle class? Do you have people who work inside, sitting down at a desk using a computer? That's one of the advances of the middle class.
Speaker: What I've seen now, not politicians, but thought leaders talking about what work is going to look like in an AI world.
Speaker: In the yeah UK, we have a campaign called Make Britain Make Again. There is a a pressure group to try and get people to connect with manufacturing type skills in the areas that AI cannot do.
Speaker: So building a house with AI, some elements of it could be possible, some elements of repair, but you know, become a plumber. become a joiner, become somebody who works in stone. We're going to see, I think, a return to people doing the manual type works, craft type jobs, where you need to learn a skill in order to implement them. And that will change the whole of society because we'll have an increased appreciation of handmade rather than just machine made. Absolutely. The only question i would have for you there is...
Speaker: what is the demand for those trades? You might have the AI do the the planning for the building and you know where to put the wiring and the efficiencies and insulation and environment and all those things. They still need the plumber to crawl under the you know crawl under the sink and fix yeah how many buildings do you need? yes How many, you know,
Speaker: plumbers and electricians even, that have learned these traits, do you actually need in society? That is the question that we don't actually know the answer to as yet. In the UK, we have the welfare state. You can see that when we had the welfare state with old age pensions, the number of children that people had reduced.
Speaker: Because firstly, you had the welfare state, the National Health Service, children didn't die in infancy as much as they used to. So you would have enough children. Because of investing in pensions, both state and private, you didn't need to rely upon your children to fund you through your retirement in the same sort of way. So we we see ah growth in social care, similar to the things in Israel, at the UK, Western Europe. That changes people's behavior. So you end up with fewer children in families.
Speaker: That then means that you've got more money to spend on those children, better education. They're going into more higher level careers, I suppose, which are now being replaced in some cases by AI.
Speaker: But we don't know how many buildings we will need. And if we don't need the buildings, then we don't need as many plumbers, joiners, bricklayers. But I think it is one of the things that people have got to rethink what they mean when they talk about a good career. oh yeah A good career used to be, and still is in lots of ways, sitting down inside at a desk. You're a manager. You're a professional.
Speaker: As we move forward, we've got to reinvent ourselves in careers that cannot be done by a computer. We will probably surprise ourselves as to what can be done by computers, but then will also, as you were saying, recognize that the computer can't show empathy or make a decision based upon the unique circumstances of the situation. Well, that Absolutely. I would add, we know that the demographics of the post-Second World War baby boom. Yes. so So, you know, the population is aging, as you pointed out. The growth rates are are going down. So how many new buildings are needed? The other thing is that you know As you know, the farming revolution or auto automobiles and all the different industrial revolutions that we've seen over the last 100 plus years formed and informed the educational system.
Speaker: yeah So you could go into university or college and then you'd come out three, four, seven years later and you know that you'd have a job for 40 years. yes But careers today are a couple years. Yeah. Maybe. Key is to make ourselves AI-proof. Does that mean? and It really goes across three different realms. And this is one of the things that I do when when i work with people in in my coaching practice, is that I help them take their purpose and apply it across the areas that AI can't touch. So interpersonal, social type of industries, care for the elderly. And I'm not talking necessarily about being nurses or or being, ah you know, at home full-time carers, but just companionship and being able to work with seniors that way.
Speaker: So many projects in the world that can use the interpersonal skills, they dealing with homeless, dealing with hunger, dealing with poverty, all these different things. So that's that's one just straight person to person. The other is leveraging AI, becoming you know so expert at using the tools, then using them to make ourselves more productive and even make the AI more productive because we can inform it with decision-making, with strategic and with news nuances, et cetera.
Speaker: And then the others are just understanding that this is what AI does and we're not we're never gonna be able to process as much information um and analyze as much information as quickly as as it does. And so be it.
Speaker: The biggest challenge, again, as we started at the beginning, is how much time do we have? We don't have those 10, 20 years to figure this out as individuals even, let alone society. you know We've got to really jump in and and work with it right away.
Speaker: You coach in this area. yes How can people gain access to your coaching? Sure. So I offer actually a 30-minute free session to help people find their purpose. It's really ah a deep dive and and help people find their purpose. Then as a continuation of that, I get into the application of that purpose across the different ways of of approaching AI, as I mentioned. But that free session is is available, no obligation. and people can go to futureofpurpose.org to book a time.
Speaker: and I'll help people discover their purpose. And in that way, we can get in touch. That would be great. It's been a very interesting discussion, Avi, and I really do appreciate your time. I think I've got a a new perspective on this AI thing. It's really made me think. Thank you very much. Okay, Michael, thank you Thank you so much for for the time and the challenging questions and keeping me on my toes.
Speaker: It's been great. Thank you. Appreciate it. All right. Thank you. I am Michael Millward, Managing Director of Abbasida, and in this episode of Rest and Recreation, I have been having a conversation with Avi Madara, the optimistic futurist.
Speaker: You can find out more about both of us at abbasida.co.uk. There is a link in the description, along with links to Avi's various websites and profiles. At Rest and Recreation, we believe in health and happiness.
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