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How anthropology can make us more effective innovators with Dr. Fabio Mattioli
66 Plays3 months ago
Amy and Karthik are joined by Dr. Fabio Mattioli, a Senior Lecturer in Social Anthropology, a senior lecturer of social anthropology at the University of Melbourne, to discuss the cultural side of innovation. Where do companies go wrong? What does it mean to really invest in a founder? And how will AI impact innovation?
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Transcript
Introduction by Amy Huris
00:00:10
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Innovation Matters, the sustainable innovation podcast brought to you by Lux Research. I'm Amy Huris, one of the co-hosts and director of predictive anthropology here at Lux, and I'm joined today by my colleague Karthik Subramanian and by our special guest Dr. Fabio Matioli. Fabio is a senior lecturer in so so social anthropology from the University of Melbourne and Welcome, Fabio. we're We're super excited to have you. Thanks for joining
Is Fabio a cricket fan?
00:00:37
Speaker
us. Hello, everybody. and Thank you, Emmy, for having me. ah Before we get into the questions, maybe I just wanted to ask, because you're in Australia, i ah you know I have to ask a cricket-based question. like Do you follow cricket? I don't. I'm Italian, and unfortunately, among my many, many, many faults, cricket is not one of them.
00:00:55
Speaker
I wanted to have some Australia India banter before we kick things off because I'm also the sports correspondent for this podcast. But ah I guess we'll just get right into the answer. butm Exactly the wrong
How do economic processes shape technologies?
00:01:07
Speaker
person.
00:01:07
Speaker
but but um
00:01:11
Speaker
Okay, so I guess, I mean, to get started, Fabio, I'm wondering if you can give us a little a little bit of a background on your area of expertise. um Although Lux has a team of anthropologists anthropological researchers um that provide cultural insights on consumer beliefs and behaviors, I think you have the distinction of being the first anthropologist we've interviewed on this podcast. um So can you tell our listeners a little bit about the discipline of anthropology and you're the particular area of anthropology that you focus on in your research? Absolutely. So anthropology historically has been connected to the study of human diversity and that is meant often that back in the days people would go off to very far places and study groups of people who had not been encountered before in the west.
00:01:58
Speaker
And today we do that, but we stay at home often. And so I work typically with computer scientists, with airline pilots, with startup founders. And so I try to understand how they see the world, the kind of challenges they face, and I try to write and analyze their lives from their perspectives.
00:02:18
Speaker
and by thinking about not only the individual aspects of what they encounter in their everyday lives, but also the kind of systemic, cultural, larger societal issues that then end up in generating or not specific kinds of innovation.
Why is anthropology relevant in innovation?
00:02:31
Speaker
And my specific area is in economic anthropology. and And so I study a lot of how economic processes shape new technologies and new innovations. And what kind of things move forward are not often or not always um because of their disruptive potential, but often because of the specific economic arrangements that they tap into or that they are behind them, if you want.
00:02:55
Speaker
Yeah, I think this is particularly relevant for us here at LUX because we're we're really focused on human-centric innovation. This is, I guess, one of the questions I wanted to ask um about how the discipline of anthropology is is relevant to or important for studying innovation. This is something that comes up often when I talk to system engineers or other engineers. And you know in aviation, there's a long history of really designing very complex systems that actually have to work. right So you have to to find ways to make them functional at different levels.
00:03:28
Speaker
But often these systems are designed by engineers, and so the the approach to designing a system is not necessarily the user on the other end of the spectrum. It's the engineer, what's possible at a certain moment in time, ah how an engineer thinks that a system should be designed and put together And then the human on the other end of the spectrum that has to adapt to the system and so typically in an airplane you have to learn to use all this kind of checklist all these technologies that maybe are placed in areas that is not congenial to you.
00:04:00
Speaker
but you go through very rigorous training and you become a phenomenal at it, right? So that's been the kind of approach to system design up until maybe 10, 15 years ago, when suddenly more technologies, more ability to collect data suggested that there was a potential for shifting the paradigm around.
00:04:18
Speaker
and now started building innovation, new technologies and the likes based on what people actually do or need. And so instead of saying, I'm a system engineer, here's how I think this should be designed, now increasingly companies of all kinds are going out there and saying, hey, what are my is my user base needing to do? Or how are they doing a certain thing? And then building a kind of innovation and technology around that practice that is already out there.
00:04:44
Speaker
which is very smart because it lowers the adoption cost and makes it much easier than to use that technology without having to then rebuild an entire training system around. Maybe ah one of the things that could be interesting here is that enterprises are particularly well suited for that because ah we that's our bread and butter. right We go into community, we talk to people, we observe how they do certain kinds of things.
00:05:10
Speaker
and so We don't rely only on what people say they do, but also we specifically try to look at the various ways in which they put certain things in practice. so You know, things like if you're a mom in the morning or a dad in the morning and you need to run out of your home, what you need is often some kind of food that you can give your kids in the car because you're always late and chronically, you know, we're all over busy, et cetera. And so maybe instead of having a yogurt in a big pot, what you need is a yogurt in a smaller container you can bring along, right? You can still have health food.
00:05:41
Speaker
but still bring with you. And that's maybe something that you you wouldn't be able to say or to talk about because it's kind of something that you do and you think that you need. But if you have an anthropologist with you, you kind of observe and realize. So this is the kind of some of the kinds of innovations or products that have seen the market because anthropologists were in a community observing how people were doing things.
00:06:03
Speaker
and having that kind of you know ability to then redesign and translate those needs into design outcome or you know new kinds of systems overall.
How did anthropology integrate into business?
00:06:14
Speaker
Do you have a sense of when businesses or corporations started to focus or or or hire anthropologists or begin to take an anthropological approach to designing products or ah to innovating? Because I think traditionally anthropology as a discipline was really about you know speaking among academics, writing, publishing academic books, and those books tend to be less but more theoretical and um not not as focused on applied research.
00:06:43
Speaker
So this is kind of like a shift um where the the theories and methodologies and approaches used in academia are actually very applicable um to but to the business context. And do you have a sense of when that shift started to happen? or um Yeah. happening It's still happening, of course. And there's never enough anthropologists out there. But if you want to think about historically how discipline has evolved, in the 60s and 70s, especially in and a couple of places in Europe, um you know applied anthropologists and design anthropologists were very um ingrained into rethinking how new technology would be using the workplace. And so you got projects in Norway, in Scandinavia, in the UK, to think about, OK, we've got this new wave of technologies coming in. How are we going to
00:07:34
Speaker
transform them so that they don't you know it doesn't power complete large parts of our workforce and that was led often by unions as well as but some very socially oriented businesses in the u.s you know xerox was probably the one of the first um large research centers slash business unit.
00:07:53
Speaker
hire an anthropologist among others to create design thinking as we know it today and and to solve specific business problems and so they would both look internally how the organization was doing but also then go outside and be like hey still case you need you know a rethinking of how people use your spaces so you can adapt your products to the modern office here is anthropologist doing that.
00:08:17
Speaker
And so that kind of shift started nearly in the 70s in the US and was much more commercially focused. And you can see it still happening today, you know, Google, as you mentioned, you know, consultancies, and design companies, they all um have discovered the usefulness of anthropology. and In fact, even the army is hiring anthropologists, which is a bit controversial, as you can imagine. do and not necessarily something that you you feel too comfortable about. But it's definitely something that is is being increasingly recognized as a key skill, especially in the age of AI and um new technologies that are very disruptive. Right. Yeah, I want to come back to the question of AI in ah in a minute. But I was just curious, Fabio, in terms of you know going back to your point of you know anthropology as as something that companies have you know integrated into their workflows. You mentioned, I think, about 10, 15 years ago. I think it was when they started it. But all of these big multinational companies, they work for consumers at the end of the day.
00:09:17
Speaker
And when they are developing products, of course, they will have internal discussions on how a consumer would perceive the product, maybe not as a full-fledged, you know, anthropological team telling them, hey, this is what a consumer thinks about your product. But in your experience, why has it taken so long for companies to integrate anthropologists into their workflows?
00:09:35
Speaker
Well, you know, companies are complicated. And so there's lots of layers of people involved. And so, you know, the marketing team will think that the best thing since sliced bread is this and the accounting things. No, no, no, we know what the customers who are paying for it want. And then there is the user experience team who thinks, oh, we really need a new font on our website. And so to get a sense of where does an anthropologist fit when it's not coming from, say, a business school, and so, you know, maybe the leadership doesn't immediately know what to do with you, it might take a little bit of time. And often, you know, the consumer um and the people who pay for it and the users might not be the same person and some of these insights might take a little bit longer also to get instilled into an operational, um you know, change. And so and often it's tricky to once you get the quality of data than to know what to do with it.
00:10:28
Speaker
And so I think also on the academic side, um there had to be a bit more of an awareness of how can you translate those data into something that that can be actionable, right? So there was ah but there's been a sort of a mutual, ah I guess, process of understanding and translation through different kinds of businesses and more and more anthropologists who couldn't find jobs in academia. So they were looking around like, what else could we do?
00:10:54
Speaker
And you know maybe they got a little bit frustrated with the kinds of publications that we were putting out there and say, well, can we have a different type of impact on the world? And I think that kind of shift really accelerated over over the past 10, 15 years.
What makes startup ecosystems sustainable?
00:11:06
Speaker
Awesome. Yeah, so we've been talking kind of about anthropology as a discipline broadly, but I want to shift a little bit to focus more closely on the research that you're doing, Fabio. I know you've um done ethnographic research on startups, on innovation ecosystems. I was wondering if you could tell us a little bit about that um and what you think um determines whether an innovation ecosystem is is sustainable. That is such a ah ah great question and one that I wish more people asked.
00:11:36
Speaker
Because you see a lot and the discussion or the perspective that, you know, to just have more innovation, you need to throw some money at accelerator programs and create an ecosystem. But nobody really says what an ecosystem is, really, or maps them out into what makes an ecosystem more or less successful, besides saying, oh, if we have more money, surely we'll be more successful.
00:11:58
Speaker
But then really it's a question of what does it mean to have a successful ecosystem? Is it to have a billion-dollar company, to have multiple unicorns, to have you know companies that move from, say, Melbourne to Y Combinator or the Silicon Valley? Or is it to have people who produce meaningful innovation that have a social impact, that are happy and doing so in the process, they don't burn out?
00:12:20
Speaker
and they are supporting each other in ways that are respectful of diversity and you know different styles of thinking and doing things, or different genders, different you know anything, racial and ethnic identities. i mean These are they two very different ways of thinking about innovation and success. and so I think we have lots of metrics that classify the first, you know how much ah billion billion companies you have produced in a certain space, and quantify the second gets much trickier.
00:12:50
Speaker
And so my research was really about thinking, how did companies and startups move from one support system to the next? And so from one accelerator to another accelerator, and what happened in that process? And what happened ah when they faced the so-called value of death, ah where they had some initial investments, and then suddenly nothing happened, didn't have enough traction. So they had to find something else to keep them going. And so what drove them out of the market, you know, we know that between 90, 85, let's say, and 90% of the startups fail. And so why is that the case? And is that really a good way of investing, especially the public money into, into things? And so one of the things that I found was that a key driver, a key difference was in the kind of support that they got. And so if the accelerator saw them as an investment,
00:13:44
Speaker
So treated them as basically you have to convince me first and gave them tough love and ah and everything else. It was very, very hard for startups to actually go through with it because they needed support. They didn't need necessarily and ah being evaluated every step of the way.
00:14:01
Speaker
And accelerator programs are not necessarily designed with people who are good teachers. One, i and then two, where people necessarily know the specifics of a business. And so what I found is that in a lot of accelerators, they were actually wrong advice given out to specific businesses. And so a lot of what made also a startup successful was something that you could call the resilience, but it's really the ability of saying, okay, I'm going to take this advice and more, but ignore like maybe 95% of the other stuff that I'm getting. And then I say, because in accelerator, you're putting a position of, of very low power. And so you you kind of feel that you can't say no, right? To your mentors and, and it's so negotiating that kind of dynamic where you depend on folks for connections, for money, you have to make them happy.
00:14:50
Speaker
But also on the other hand, maybe you know a lot of the advice you're getting is not right for you. um That's where really that kind of ability and that kind of different type of support was really drove some ah businesses forward and and made others go collapse. So the the the kind the startups or companies you were examining had left a particular accelerator because things weren't working out and they they moved to a ah different one. Is that the case?
00:15:17
Speaker
Yeah, so they might have finished one. And then at the end of it, there is there was ah an evaluation process and maybe say out of 10, only two or three would get the second transfer funding. And maybe out of 10 that started, three would drop out for different reasons.
00:15:35
Speaker
And at that point, um you know what you saw in those that were successful was that they were they had been able to pick and and choose the kind of advice that was good for them. So it wasn't necessarily the companies that actually followed the advice of the accelerator program.
00:15:50
Speaker
um And so it was it was an interesting sort of balance between um you know different fantastic ideas, some of which where people had burnouts and so they couldn't really go through with it. And and in other environments where actually the accelerator programs provide a more supportive um type of advice and guidance, et cetera, you know companies that maybe had you know similarly good ideas, maybe not the most groundbreaking ones out there, but they were much in the best, better place, much easier for them to actually go through and get the next round of investments at the end of the continuation of their program.
00:16:31
Speaker
That's fascinating. I mean, I think it speaks to this idea that like autonomy is very important to maintain despite being part of this innovation ecosystem, the ability to make decisions and to feel that they have like a sense of leadership they they have their own leadership, I guess, in a way.
Challenges of accelerator programs in startups
00:16:48
Speaker
Absolutely. absolutely and it's ah it's not something So youre you're you get into the accelerator program with the idea that you've got some brilliant idea that maybe you've struggled so far but now this is going to change everything. right So it was pretty common for companies that got into accelerator programs that haveve had um some early validation, some early investments and then kind of struggle for a while until they got into the accelerator program. So it's very few companies that just are great idea, great funding from the beginning all the way through the end. right They often have these add-on flows where and they struggle to get the next customers or they don't have customers or they
00:17:23
Speaker
their customers come up with one idea, and then turns out they can't scale up. So there's different kinds of levels. And and the companies I was working with, they were typically pre-series A, they were very early stages. um And so in that context, getting into accelerator program was a very big deal for them, because it gave them a sense of validation, and you know, funding to move forward, and really also a purpose of here, I'm going to change what I'm able to to do with this company.
00:17:51
Speaker
And then they got into accelerator program and you know they they've been been told they're the smartest people in order for the first, I don't know, two weeks. And then suddenly they're like, right, now let's tell you what everything is wrong with you. And it's tricky, you know, especially when you're not an expert on the in the field. And maybe your role in the accelerator program has been that you have made some money in a different company. And, and you know, but that could have been for a number of different reasons, not necessarily, it doesn't necessarily make you a good teacher or mentor in that way. And so the trick of it is that, you know, actually, the programs aren't themselves startups, so they don't have necessarily that structure in place in the first instance. So they make it as they fly, if you want. And then at the same time, you got startups were expecting them to to tell them how to turn things around, how to become the next unicorn.
00:18:46
Speaker
And so there is a really tricky power dynamic there that it made it actually very unsustainable, not because the business itself doesn't work, but because they, you know, the way in which you get there, it's simply too torturous, too complicated, too hard ah on you mentally or, or otherwise. And so that is something I think that has not been really widely explored. and We don't have a lot of attention into how we can create more inclusive and more sustainable, I guess, accelerator systems, um because the entire deal of the accelerator program is we're going to shoot you through a ah big thing. And then if you make it, you make it, if you don't make it, then, you know,
00:19:29
Speaker
You're better off knowing it early. but That's not how it works. Yeah, I was ah sticking to this team. I was just curious to know because, for example, I'm part of the energy team and we cover a lot of fusion companies and fusion as a technology, of course, you know, long commercialization timelines and not just long, but unclear as to what its role is going to be or even if it's going to make it.
00:19:50
Speaker
So if you are a company that's a startup in a domain like Fusion or in a domain with unclear timelines and you're in an accelerator program and someone comes and tells you, you know I don't trust you right because I don't know what's going to happen with you, what kind of dynamic are you seeing from startups that are you know part of these domains that have unclear commercialization timelines or so severe are technical challenges and how are they trying to address these solutions within these accelerator programs?
00:20:19
Speaker
They would often try to pitch themselves as something else. And so instead of saying, yes, I'm a fusion company. Yes, the timeline is completely unclear. Yes, technology is weird. But if we make it, we're going to make a million dollar you know a day or so. um What they would do is because they depend on having support and validation at early stages, they can't really play the long term game. And so they would need to either have somebody who backs them very strongly from early on. It's like, yeah, I'm going to be in your corner and no matter what happens. And financially, that's hard to get by. Sometimes you get that kind of super strategic investors who are really thinking long terms. But it's very, very, very rare. So if they can't find that, and if the accelerator doesn't have somebody like that on the board, then the second thing they would do is often they would try to to pitch themselves to something else, like really trying to work out that bigger problem, right? And so I've seen so many startups that had nothing to do with AI.
00:21:14
Speaker
And back you know in 2019 and 2020, they started to say, oh, I'm an AI company because that was the way in which they could still survive as a startup that was maybe trying to address something else. um But it is very tricky. I mean, big problems haven't been solved because they're big problems. So the idea that you can have a startup that in 15 weeks or or less can solve a big problem is a bit you know, utopistic. And so maybe it works in places like the Silicon Valley, we've got so much money floating around that you just demonstrate that you could do something. And then there's the next billionaire comes around and says, hey, here's another 200 millions go and do something without. But if you don't have that kind of crazy availability or visionary environment around you, it's just, you know, very, very hard to see a small startup tackle a large problem that requires ongoing investment.
00:22:08
Speaker
that requires, you know, large infrastructure that has competitors out there that are placed right so aviation is an example of that you have no AI in aviation, among other things because of regulations but also because the capital that are invested.
00:22:22
Speaker
in aviation are just enormous to make something fly. And so it's just very, very hard for a startup to break into the most meaningful of problems.
Are strong teams more important than technology?
00:22:32
Speaker
And if if you look at the other side, rather, if you're an investor and then you're going in and a company says, you know, I am an AI company when you're actually not an AI company.
00:22:40
Speaker
I feel the second time you're going to a pitch session, for example, you're already skeptical going in, you know, what are they going to throw at me now? Right. And we have a lot of clients who are, you know, venture capital firms, and they're also looking for startups to invest in. Lux also has our own methodology for evaluating startups.
00:22:55
Speaker
But I was just curious what advice you may have for our clients who are typically our listeners as well in in terms of like what should they look to dissect or or take out from startups that make specific claims or startups that have you know a lack of clarity in in terms of positioning themselves because they need funding to prove something. But if they say this is what they're working on, they're not going to get the funding. So you've got to say something else. So what what nuggets have you seen that you know investors are looking to pick out? One key thing was the team. and I think that is something that, no matter what you end up positioning your startup in, and comes with you. and so Startups that had strong teams, um that had experience in running some kind of business, that had the ability of and working together well, um I think they really were interesting in terms of investments. because It showed that even if you needed to pivot, you could ah work out what the next phase was.
00:23:58
Speaker
And so that was ah a key aspect. And that's a skill that you could also have as a solar startup, for instance, solar founder. um If it's somebody that can work through complex problems and and see what's the next bit to build on, I think that was something very important for investors.
00:24:13
Speaker
at least so the most um I think substantial deal and you know collaboration I've seen go move forward were ones where there was really a synergy and ah and a level of trust almost that you know we understand that you are somebody that can work through the next bit of problems and so even if it doesn't work immediately at least out now, we can see that happen in the future.
00:24:36
Speaker
So that was one of the things. um Obviously, it made a big difference to have some kind of mentorship structure around the startups. And so I think from an investor perspective, if I know that, hey, Fabio is creating this new startup, and maybe he's a solo founder, but he's got these people that are mentoring him through that process. Again, that kind of de-risk the whole process because you have a sense of having the right expertise in the room that can drive this forward. I mean, ultimately, the world is changing so fast that it's likely that when you invest into a startup, the technology underneath it will radically be shifted in a short time frame. And so even if they have a technology, which is not always the case, often you have a pizza and ideas, a blueprint, and maybe a proof of concept if you are really advanced and but nothing more. um So you know the the actual technological solution in most cases might be evolving quickly. And so I would probably not put too much
00:25:33
Speaker
you know Focus on that um ah again depends on the sectors sectors might be very different some areas having that one technical thing really makes a big difference yeah i'm thinking about bio and some specific manufacturing systems but generally speaking thinking a lot about who this the founder is.
00:25:51
Speaker
and What support have in place what has been their life history how can you see things differently and build on them and show that kind of ability to constantly add to their part of the company that was an important thing for many investors that are working.
00:26:04
Speaker
That's interesting because it brings back the the human angle, right? that It's the people. It's not just the technology, right? Which is something that everybody says, like we invest in people not in companies, but actually they don't do. so i think It's fascinating that it's kind of the mantra out there, you know, we invest in people, we're we are giving money to people, but not companies. But in fact,
00:26:26
Speaker
You know, still, if you pitch yourself as an AI company at the early phases of the AI boom, you had all those opportunities that were not available if you were a boring, so quote unquote company it was perceived as a service company, although you maybe were much more profitable, right? So so we had companies that they made very small margins, but in a lot of products.
00:26:47
Speaker
And so they were actually super profitable and they were not picked up necessarily the same way than the companies that promised you a new technology or a new AI thing. And I think that was an interesting thing to see play out in real life.
Will AI replace pilots in aviation?
00:27:01
Speaker
I want to talk about the the the issue of AI because this is another area that you've done research on and you've worked on autopiloting in the aviation industry, is that correct?
00:27:10
Speaker
I worked on building a system that ah essentially is like a theory for planes that enable pilots to receive and the right kind of information they need if there is a medical emergency board or if there is a diversion that is necessary and so they don't have to contact a million people or look through a million different documents or apps, they can have a centralized system that provides them with the best.
00:27:34
Speaker
outcome. um And interestingly, we built it, we built a proof of concept, then they wanted, you know, we had some people who are interested investing in it. And then we went to test and scope the market. And one of the things that we found is that pilots loved it. But there was no commercial interest because it didn't solve a commercial problem. And so this useful piece of tech will probably never see the the light of day. and And then what we did was essentially we started thinking about applying similar technology and training to build something I essentially virtual trainer, if you want to call it that that enables to pilots to shorten the training time and to have the support they need when they need in between sessions, if you want. So that's kind of the research that I'm doing at the moment.
00:28:21
Speaker
Awesome. son So I guess AI is it's on everyone's minds these days, so we might as well talk a little bit more about it. I'd i'd like to get your take on, um I guess, some of the the the ethical concerns or the challenges that you see um society facing with the proliferation of AI and you know how humans and AI interact.
00:28:44
Speaker
You hear a lot that AI is going to replace humans, and that is definitely something that is the forefront of of my mind, is the forefront of of a lot of discussions that we have with pilots as well, who and know how you know how much you know about this, but companies like Airbus or Thales, they've been trying to basically get rid of one of the pilots in the flight deck for a long time. And now they have some technologies to be able to do so. Some of the newer planes have been designed with the idea that in cruise and sort of phase of the flight and potentially in the whole flight, you could get rid of one of the pilots.
00:29:16
Speaker
And surprise, surprise, ah pilots don't love the idea. They don't think it's it's the smart. I don't love the idea personally. So when I started this research, I thought, what else could we build that uses AI and some of its capabilities, but without getting rid of humans who are crucial to the safety of an aircraft? And so I think that is an approach I would like to see more of because there is a lot of temptation to use AI to replace humans. But in fact,
00:29:46
Speaker
When you think about what AI can or cannot do today, in most of the times, it's not as accurate or as fast or even as productive as humans. I know some people out there who think the opposite, and maybe we'll get there sooner rather than later. But and there's lots of ways in which AI can enhance humans. And that is something that commercially is maybe slightly less appealing, but it has enormous potential.
00:30:11
Speaker
um especially because if something goes wrong and it's an AI system and you don't know why it's gone wrong, it's going to be hard not only to fix it on the spot, which is, you know, if you're flying a plane is a problem, but also it will be hard to learn about what happened. And so it's it's the risk of replacing humans that you're not only introducing new mistakes potentially in the workplace, but also that you don't necessarily know how to fix it moving forward.
00:30:40
Speaker
And that is, I think, a key concern. The concern is not just that we're going to lose one of the pilots, it's going to be less safe, but also how are we going to train the pilots if, you know, you eliminate the kind of training opportunities by having two people who talk to each other, who continuously reflect on what's going on in the flight deck. And the same thing, you know, talk about lawyers, have lawyers, friends in New York City who are saying, before it took me eight associates to review these documents now, two associates and the judge of it to do it.
00:31:09
Speaker
And I said, oh, does that work OK for you? It's a problem because now we don't have any more missing yard if people can look over what has happened or the outcomes of all this, right? And so the risk is that we're going to replace entry-level positions and then we'll find ourselves unable to monitor what's going on there. So I think the real direction where I'd like the scientists to go into is to supplement and enhance people's ability to do tasks, especially tasks that maybe they weren't so happy to do in the first place because they've been proliferated with you know cuts or other kinds
What can we learn from developing countries' innovations?
00:31:45
Speaker
of things like that.
00:31:45
Speaker
Yeah, I guess the the objective is to take out all the mundane tasks. So for example, if you want to go through an Excel file with like 100,000 rows of data, you would rather have chat GPD to it instead of you going through you know three ah hours of your life and then realizing it yielded nothing. um But I was just curious to know from Yeah, of course. I have had personal experience doing that, so I don't recommend anyone doing that. um But ah speaking of, you know, AI innovation and the human side of things, I was just curious because, um and this, I think, ties back to the start of the conversation when you said, you know,
00:32:26
Speaker
I feel as humans, where are you know the the where were from, how we are raised, that side of things shapes our thinking and shapes our way to seek solutions for specific problems. so but when you you know As an Indian, when I came over to the Netherlands, I realized you know Dutch people think very differently. I may solve a problem in one way, but Dutch people completely solve it in a different way. right How they view sustainability innovation as a premium is not how you know someone else may view it.
00:32:54
Speaker
And so I was just curious to hear your thoughts on that side, like in developing economies, for example, ah and you know, you have AI coming in, it's making the tasks easy for you. um But everyone also says, you know, that sustainability is a premium, you know, we can't afford sustainability right now, because we have other things on our plate. So how are they viewing innovation? How are they viewing the role of AI in all of this?
00:33:17
Speaker
ah from your side of things because I have been on that boat myself and when I talk to people they they're like sustainability is not gonna happen here bro. that That's the dialogue that I hear. So I was just curious to hear what do you said there. I think in a lot of developing countries there's a lot of innovation that is happening. It's just not framed as innovation with the capital I because it doesn't look like a startup or doesn't look necessarily like AI.
00:33:42
Speaker
And so when you go to places like saying what is now known as North Macedonia, and which is the country where I did most of my field work um during my PhD and a little bit after, um there you had things like very sophisticated ways of calling up taxis and you know just giving a call to different um you know stations that would sort it for you at times where ah it would be so much Closer to uber um that you actually didn't need uber in fact you still don't have uber there because you don't need it right you have other ways of managing that kind of innovation.
00:34:17
Speaker
And, you know, but lots of places are like that and have other ways of of solving problems that are just not recognized as innovation, because maybe there isn't investment, they've not been tech based, etc. So the first answer to your question is, there's a lot of things that we could learn by simply looking at how people in different places have solved problems by relying on other informal solutions, by utilizing tools that are maybe more sustainable in nature, because they didn't need, you know, a computing farm to be solved with.
00:34:46
Speaker
And so in that sense, I think a lot of the sustainability problems that we are ah seeing today are created also by the attempt of driving innovation in specific ways. And so you have more consumption of carbon emissions or other kinds of resources because we have preferred a certain kind of innovation over another one. And that innovation looks more like it's a piece of tech.
00:35:09
Speaker
um versus its people finding ways to solve a solution through informal means, et etc. So number one, we should all learn from developing countries and the kind of innovative aspects that people are coming up with every day.
00:35:24
Speaker
And then two, in terms of AI, I think it's a fascinating area because AI requires, um it in some ways, is making access to skills and certain kind of abilities a bit more democratic, because it's giving a lot more people abilities, superpowers, if you want.
00:35:43
Speaker
And you can become an AI engineer in a in a way that, yes, requires investment, but it's a bit easier. And a lot of developing countries have already a long tradition of AI and IT, especially as subcontractors, that was not always recognized. So there's this fascinating work by Lily Ranin.
00:36:00
Speaker
called Chasing Innovation. It's a book about India and startup culture there, which I highly recommend to anybody listening here, and details how startups in India were not always perceived as adding value in the same way as their, you know, mother company somewhere else. And so Google maybe, or other companies like Google who subcontracted pieces of work to India, would be seen as the one providing the design and adding value, whereas those actually doing the work of automation and whatever would not be seen in that way.
00:36:30
Speaker
um But in any case, the point is that with AI, this is changing a little bit because suddenly all these folks who until now have been treated as um you know unskilled labor can have pathways to generate new forms of innovative
Why must businesses prioritize ecological sustainability?
00:36:45
Speaker
technologies. Now, whether that's going to add to sustainability or not, it's it's a bit of a different question, I think.
00:36:53
Speaker
um I think it's, you know, it depends on what you value also in society. So maybe it's more of a value shift rather than an innovation question. Because ultimately, you know, I live in Australia. Australia has massive bushfires every year. If you bought a villa in the middle of these beautiful valleys and it burns out, then you have nothing left, right? It doesn't matter if you're a billionaire or not. I mean, suddenly maybe you should think about it a little bit more, because yes, maybe you can afford the business side, but then, you know, you're going to lose all your property. So maybe then suddenly start becoming a bit more of an impactful question. and All the coastline is eroding, right? So you've got all these mega mansions along Sydney um coastline and all those are going under. And so what are you going to do about it? And so all this kind of sustainability question from an ecological perspective, I think are hitting home a bit more now.
00:37:45
Speaker
um And so what I'm expecting to see is that increasingly business leaders, investors and people who think about money will be forced to make some of this kind of thinking as part of their, um you know, the core values that they really are looking for in terms of investments or products because it's going to start impacting them as well as everybody else.
00:38:06
Speaker
So in some sense, I don't think there is a choice there between sustainable there or not. But it's something that will need to be operationalized, I guess, across the board.
00:38:18
Speaker
Awesome. I think that's a great note to end on. I just want to say thank you again, Fabio, for joining us. This has been a fascinating conversation. To our listeners, if you enjoyed this, please like, subscribe. I don't know what else to say. Share. Share. And of course, leave comments and five stars. We will really appreciate that, of course. And if you are a client of Lux Research and you're listening to this podcast, please feel free to get in touch with our predictive anthropology team.
00:38:47
Speaker
We have a great um yeah you know team of anthropologists who are looking at burning questions um that consumers are asking in terms of a variety of products, including nuclear energy, one of my favorite topics. So ah feel free free you to check us out um at luxresearchinc.com. And yeah, I guess we'll see you all in the next one. Thank you so much for joining, Fabio. Thank you. It was a pleasure.
00:39:10
Speaker
Innovation Matters is a production of Lux Research, the leading sustainable innovation research and advisory firm. You can follow this podcast on Apple Music, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you want more, check out www.luxresearchinc dot.com slash blog for all of the latest news, opinions, and articles. so