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Mind the Model: Episode 007: Natalia Talkowska
35 Plays1 month ago
📚 Resources & Links from this Episode
Book Natalia recommended
- The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin
Amazon AU: https://www.amazon.com.au/Creative-Act-Way-Being/dp/1838858660
Follow Natalia & the Creative Brain Club
- Creative Brain Club on Substack: https://creativebrainclub.substack.com/
Connect with Natalia
- Email: hello@natalkadesign.com
- Website: https://www.natalkadesign.com/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nataliatalkowska/
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Transcript
Introduction and Workflow Efficiency
00:00:11
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Mind the Model. I'm Nathan Guerra and as always I'm joined by my co-host Emily Krellin. Hello. How's it going Em? Yeah, it's going good Nate. um I'm so excited about the chat today and you know I had this plan in my head of what I was going to ask you about for our intro riff but I'm going to throw you a curveball. I want you to tell our listeners what we did yesterday 4 30 ah I called you from the car. And what do we do to really find efficiencies in our workflow of the behind the scenes of podcasting?
00:00:45
Speaker
Yes. Well, and so you're also showing our listeners just how prepared we are. So, um, basically what we did at 430 is we did an old fashioned phone call and then I recorded it because on my Google pixel is very handy and records calls. Um, and then I took that call recording, uploaded it to notebook LM.
00:01:05
Speaker
And, uh, we basically spent the entire phone call while you were in the car and I didn't even have to take notes, uh, just talking about the questions that we wanted to ask our guests today. Um, no, put it into notebook LM and then just said, can you clean this up and extract all the questions? And we had a bang out amazing, like really well done list of questions that we were then able to smash into our questions doc.
00:01:29
Speaker
So it was very impressive. Very impressive. It's the second time we've done it. And I think we're starting to get into a bit of a groove. a few episodes in, we're starting to find our feet. um But yeah, I just, I thought that was so fascinating.
Multimodal AI and Generational Preferences
00:01:41
Speaker
And um the question I wanted to talk to you about was like multimodal AI, which I think is getting a bit of um a hot moment right now. And multimodal is basically... interacting with AI rather than just typing in the you know the text chat box. So speaking to AI, and it's something I've dabbled a little bit with, um which is surprising considering you know me, I'm such a fan of voice notes on WhatsApp. Absolutely. It is definitely the generational difference here, right? Like I will type, I will tell talk to my phone and then have it type everything out so I can review it and then send it to you.
00:02:15
Speaker
But yeah, you just love a good voice note. it's So I'm surprised you're not my voice to text. Whereas I'm very like voice to voice, voice sending podcasts, many podcasts out.
Guest Natalia Takowska on Visual Storytelling
00:02:25
Speaker
um Well, you know, we have a wonderful guest today and Nate, I would love for you to intro and tell our listeners who we have joining us.
00:02:33
Speaker
Well, hold on. Before I do that, i um I've been playing again. So I just wanted to show you my latest creation. Oh, dear. This time it's not you, though, actually. This time it's me. So I know that's really hard to tell. is actually me. Is that like Diedra Della Smartos?
00:02:51
Speaker
Is that skeleton-nate? That is kind skeleton-nate. But actually, this was the original photo. so um Oh, love that. Yeah. Oktoberfest. Yeah. I Google posted a bunch of prompts that you could use to Halloweenize your photos. And I was trying to look for some inspiration. ever And that's was ah the one that came out. Unfortunately, when I sent it people, they were like, that's cool. But what is it? Because it doesn't look anything like me.
00:03:14
Speaker
So my creativity ah failed a little bit, which is a perfect intro m to our guest today. Today, we have the pleasure of speaking with Natalia Takowska, the creative force behind Natalka, where strategy meets storytelling.
00:03:30
Speaker
So she's worked with brands like Microsoft, Google, Deloitte, the UK government, really simplifying and communicating these big ideas that they have with the power of visual storytelling.
00:03:43
Speaker
um Now, what I failed to mention to her when I spoke to her last week is that I'm fairly sure I've been stalking her for about 15 years. I absolutely fell in love with her live scribing work back when I was living in the UK.
00:03:56
Speaker
It is incredible stuff. And honestly, I have been like stalking her is is maybe a a small word for the the amount of attention I have paid to the work she's done over the years.
00:04:07
Speaker
I'm very excited. um She is a six time TEDx speaker and the founder of a global movement called Good Souls. And she's on a mission to take and make business more human, creative and connected. Natalia, welcome to Mind the Model.
00:04:23
Speaker
Thank you so much for having me. I didn't know you were like following me for so many years. This makes me feel quite concerned because I don't know what sort of data you had access to back in the days. do no i Honestly, I'm fairly sure you've been sending emails out about the work that you've done for a very long time. So before even Substack, I think you were sending out emails. and I'm pretty sure i got on some sort list. know. And then I felt really not validated when I couldn't understand that newsletters, really no one responds. People just acknowledge or not, and they move on with their day. And in my head, I'm like, why is no one saying, thank you, Natalia? That's wonderful. How are you? So newsletter in my brain never really worked until something like this. You get all of that love now, 15 years later. So here you go.
00:05:08
Speaker
The validation is needed. That's why I speak and everything. Let's be honest. We all are seeking that.
AI in Ideation and Creative Failures
00:05:13
Speaker
Love that. Now, Natalia, we're going to start this off in our typical manner. We want to run you through a couple of quick fire questions. The first, what is your favorite Gen AI model and why?
00:05:27
Speaker
Ooh, I mean, i would lie if I didn't say ChatGPT is the one that I use the most on a daily. It has the most number of agents and it knows my soul the most, which is concerning and wonderful. So that is on a daily. Outside of that, so many more because it's part of my job to know and to test. Love it. And what's the last thing you use AI for?
00:05:46
Speaker
Oh dear, something, usually it's all about ideation and simplifying for myself. Cause as much as I do that with other clients, it's constantly distilling, distilling, navigating, organizing my brain, especially when you're neurodivergent or ADHD, it's a miracle.
00:06:00
Speaker
And do you have a particular prompting methodology or approach that you use? I would say that it it used to be like, hey, please can you please do this for me? And the kind of, you know, probably too much energy spent already on that. And I learned that the best way that I can improve my prompting is to learn how AI would like me to prompt or wants to prompt. So I kind of almost go inception mode where I asked it to teach me how to prompt and then the prompts. And then I put it into other models or into the same. But it's almost like instead of me trying to like, you know, voice note everything, I'm just more and more, i would say, sync synced. And I get what it needs to deliver the result that I need. But it's a constant dance, right? That's the AI. I think they call it the meta prompt where you're using AI to help you create a better prompt for AI. I love that. Last quickfire for you, Natalia. I'd love to know about an AI failure you experience. So what's a time where you asked and prompted and it just didn't really work out for you? Wasn't meeting the mark? What did you learn from?
00:07:02
Speaker
the Well, I would say, especially but beginning, not now when you have like all the banana and VO3 and all that stuff. I work a lot in visual ai but at the beginning, of course, mid journey or whatnot, and having the seven fingers, having a slob, having, you know, five eyes, looking at like from a worst nightmare that you've had as a kid. So just at the beginning, obviously just saying, Hey, please, can you make me a cat sitting on a rooftop that could,
00:07:29
Speaker
come up with really bad ideas mid-journey even more than ChatGPT because now all the models bring more, I would say, multimedia kind of response, right? But I was very kind of almost confused. How do I do this? So it's not seven fingers. Now it's kind of sometimes, yeah sometimes.
00:07:47
Speaker
yeah but Well, it's funny. we've we've we've We've had this conversation before, Nate and I, about how the image generation, it's not quite there yet. Like AI is great for text um because obviously that's what it was trained off of. but and yeah It's come a long way. You did get more than half them wrong when you were quizzed on whether AI images were real or fake.
00:08:09
Speaker
That is true. ah Calling back to when Nate and I were at South by Southwest, I tried to distinguish whether an AI, um generate or whether an image was AI generated or not. And i half the time I couldn't get it right. o So i like it is getting better. like this game. I would like to play it because I feel like I would nail it, but like, who knows? I saw a video of someone like catching a baby or something. It looked completely real. You don't have to be a certain age or background or something to not somewhere quickly believe that, yeah, might as well be normal video.
00:08:39
Speaker
Well, I think that time remaining of when we can sense if something's off is quickly disappearing like sand through our fingers. it's Today the worst AI we will you know play around with, and it's the exponential development and innovation that it's going through. um Speaking of ah visual applications of AI, wanted to send you a bit of a spicy question.
The Dual Nature of AI in Creativity
00:09:02
Speaker
Would you consider that AI is a force for creative good or creative evil? Ooh, right into the heart of it. I love the questions. Thank you, AI, for building it up. I would say, you know, straight away, to me, it comes to down to a tool or a thing or a technology. It's almost to me like non-biased Switzerland. So it's the same. I'm going to go there. A gun can be used for evil and can be used for good. It's a tool. It's an item man-made.
00:09:32
Speaker
you can shoot a pheasant, you can shoot into a target with your family, or you can shoot, we know, you know, the evil side of it. So I would say the same with AI. The problem is, I guess, that a lot of us don't have access to it. It's been kind of almost presented to us. And we know that the world is white and, you know, colorful and has a lot of different shades. So depending on which hands it is, that's the, you know, reality we're going to have to deal with. So The whole conversation around AI security and you know boundaries and things like that, I almost find sometimes futile because it's already in the hands of many. And um how do you control that? Right. So for me, it's for my world. It is the force for good. It is the force of please deal with my procrastination, laziness, tiredness, lack of focus as well and so on and so forth. Please help me to work faster. Please help me to figure this out because my brain stuck. So it's an endless force, but um kind of almost hoping that we all use it for good. It's as as I think impossible as hoping that the war will stop around the world, which since I remember in the history, there's never been time in the world that there hasn't been war.
00:10:50
Speaker
So it teaches us something right about our nature.
Balancing AI and Human Creativity
00:10:53
Speaker
Visual thinking and has always really been central to your approach and the work that you do. I'd love to understand a little bit more about how ai is changing the way that you visualize and communicate ideas. It's bringing this another crazy layer of almost...
00:11:08
Speaker
let's say, allowing you to expand it, to make it richer, to go with any sort of idea that you or your client or anyone you're interacting with might have. So I find that that's the main thing I'm trying to focus on rather on the it's taking my job, it's ah taking my space. Yes, it is in many ways. But then i am, I just spoke yesterday at one of the co-working spaces in Sydney, and it was all about change and transformation. And the entire talk was purely from universe level, that it's changing constantly at 7% every 10 billion years or something like that. to our skin shedding 30 to 40,000, you know, kind of skin particles a second to the fact that, you know, basically we're we're just constantly changing. So it's almost, let's say in the world of visual thinking, I find that there's quite a lot of resistance, which is understandable because of the chaos that it brings. For me, I'm like, okay, so the client had all these crazy ideas.
00:12:13
Speaker
sketching it out in this format or delivering it this format. would take more time, more effort. um Effort is good. I'm not, you know, diminishing that, but it just would stall us in many different ways or we wouldn't be able to express what they have in their mind. So for me, it's kind of almost like a superhero suit.
00:12:33
Speaker
Again, it's all about how I teach them to use it and I teach myself. So again, the tool, if it's not well understood, it can frustrate almost. And, um,
00:12:46
Speaker
My job as we go through this crazy journey is to constantly understand where's the human part and when is where's the machine part. And to me, it's this constant almost dance between the two, um at least the clients as well that work with us. Yes, they'll go in the brief.
00:13:02
Speaker
Can we do this with AI? Can we improve this with the AI? Can we see this with ai But they are very aware that it's a dance and ah there wouldn't be even almost a brief if it's just spit out to the AI because they come back to us and they say, we tried some stuff here and there, but it's a mess. So that is kind of where I sit a lot of with my work, humans first and always. And what is the dance like? And sometimes you might need 70% of machine, 30% of humans, 10, again, 60, we don't know, but um try to do the dance. I love that. And um speaking of your work with agencies, you do a lot of work with agencies regarding pitches.
00:13:47
Speaker
Have you seen an impact on how AI has shaped what the agencies are pitching? So is it in impacting like the efficiency of getting the pitch out the door or the creative output of the idea itself? I would say both.
00:14:01
Speaker
The only thing that I also, let's say we are aware of is whatever they come up with in the crazy ideation process. Imagine your dragons and everything. Let's say AI can do anything. I would say that then we need to always look at what's possible.
00:14:15
Speaker
What's the ah brief actually? What's the budget? We're going back to like the human side of things. So idea ideation usually gives a lot of inspiration to the client, to a client of theirs that they're pitching, because sometimes we're a bridge between their client and us and them. um So I think we always kind of watch for yes, let's go rich and wild with what's possible, but actually on the ground when you need to build, for example, an experiential piece of work in the middle of King's Cross in London for Samsung, let's say, and people need to, for example, walk through beautiful installation of of sound and color to learn about the new product. I'm just coming up with stuff. then how does that translate from what we came up with to everything that you need to consider? The team, the budget, the timelines, the you know agreements from council, everything. So that doesn't live in AI, right? so again, human machine dance constantly. I'd love to understand if you've kind of ah sensed any demographic difference in who's adopting it. um I would say the general vibe and tell me guys what's your insights because I'm curious to know about you know your side of the pond and what what do you think. But I think naturally anyone in communications, PR,
00:15:34
Speaker
marketing anywhere where the story needs to be kind of engaged with i would say whether internally with the team or publicly with the client and the audience that's where kind of i feel like people go for it and just throw it into the workflow more there's more resistance and there's more time and adoption again just spoke about this yesterday where it's that it's not enough to just present something, where are we embodying it? that's That's the bit that people forget. So the embodying it is missing, especially when I work in transformations. I work in two ends, right? I help companies grow with growth in whatever format that means to them. And I help them transform. Usually the massive companies need transformation because they've had years of doing things a certain way. legacy systems we know that right all that jazz culture so it's a bigger ship and slower to move and and there's more guardrails just like you said and there's more kind of nose for so anything to do with finance or upskilling the team or um you know safety or even coding and kind of developing things for the business that is so much slower yesterday we talked about
00:16:53
Speaker
Again, of course, I can't share the companies, but quite a substantial number of people in a tech company and they're using Gemini in their systems and they know that there's a lot of training that Gemini gives on AI. So you can literally click through lessons and videos and everything, jump in there and start learning. Cool. The problem that they're facing is, yes, we send people off to watch all these videos, but there's zero change.
00:17:19
Speaker
So what's wrong here, right? The embodying of that knowledge is missing.
Impact of AI on Storytelling and Communication
00:17:24
Speaker
Just like at school, if I teach you guys, so in these years, his you know, history happened and this was this battle and this was that battle. Great. But if you're not then doing something around that story, embodying in some way, practicing with another student, telling a story around it, writing an essay around it, whatever, researching it, if it doesn't stick in the brain, we're not going to do anything. The brain doesn't want to change at all.
00:17:47
Speaker
Yeah. You know, it's interesting you say that and it reminds me of a conversation we had with a previous guest talking about how culture is like the invisible operating system of a company and how truly what you're saying of like embodying the change of ai is how it will actually be, you know, integrated more. Because you think about, you know, different companies who are putting those AI videos, how to learn, you know, Copilot or ChatGPT or Gemini, and they just say, okay, employees, watch these videos, get up to skills, you know, up upgrade your skills and then go off and, you know, change the way you do things. But there's that change piece that's missing. um
00:18:26
Speaker
One question I had that is calling back to something you said previously is um that art of storytelling. And have you noticed a change in how storytelling has perhaps shifted a bit now that so many people are using you know, mostly the same large language models to help them write?
00:18:45
Speaker
Again, it's kind of, we agreed that, you know, everyone suddenly sounds better on email. Like when you think about it, we are not really anymore writing emails. We're expressing our thoughts. I need someone to do something. I need to agree on a meeting, whatever. But then we all started for a long time now. Let's not lie to ourselves. I said to everyone, guys, everyone sounds like from Oxford University suddenly, right? Everyone say says hyphens. Everyone's got, you know, Oxford comma. Everyone's so polite. Everyone's so neat. Emails used to be, anyway anyway I'll have, you know, I've been using the Oxford comma for a very long time. yeah i'm an big fanin at the oxford com
00:19:18
Speaker
I know that guys, but if I'm honest with you in London, it's almost like a meme that most of regular folk just wasn't doing that. Right. So, so in a way, kind of, you know, everything is getting polished and perfectified. And there's few stories I have ah around that, that actually starts to lock us in a so certain way. And we're messy by nature. Our brains are messy by nature. We are perceptive and you know, kind of chaotic by nature. Fuzzy as...
00:19:45
Speaker
CEO of Microsoft AI called it at Cannes Lion this year. So that is kind of a funny little mixture between storytelling in a sense.
00:19:57
Speaker
Everyone's better at it because they're asking how to improve it equally. The whole embodying thing, right? Like then let's say it comes down to pitch or presentation or believing or or running the production again, you know, for a certain experiential, you know, for for a brand or something. And that's where the skills are kind of like, o there's a bit of a stumble. So I would say that AI in a way is making us all smarter, faster, because we're all kind of, okay, that's how I put, you know, prompts. That's how I express a story. that's That's how I can write this email. I did never use that phrase. That's a really good phrase. I'm going to use it from now. So we're all learning, learning slightly, slightly. But the problem, if you want to go with it, because there's never...
00:20:43
Speaker
Nothing's everyone way, right? It's all yin and yang, it's all energy given and it's all energy, you know, ah kind of left. So when you do something, something's missing, right? Or you don't do something, something's coming. and ah And, you know, there's already studies around possibly we're all kind of heading towards faster dementia because of using our thinking process list and our own critical ideation and and being in that kind of chaotic, slower, let me think about what I want to say to this director. Let me... spend that painful three hours on an ideation with a client rather than spit it out. Okay, guys, there we go. We've got a strategy. See you next week.
00:21:27
Speaker
Brilliant, awesome, right? Everything's great. But behind anything, there's always has to be the other energy. So observing that, I think, is very important. I'm not saying now throw everything into the bin. Forget it. It's like with Internet. If I said to you, Nathan, turn off the Internet, of course not. Right. We are in this flow of change. What a fascinating thing. get Children do that all the time and and they want to. Exactly. Yeah. are We kind of, we get so into something, we get almost like, yay, shiny thing. Everyone's already there. Everyone's asking for recipes and how to speak to your ex, right? AI is becoming everything now, but forgetting even those data points on dementia and everything, but it's actually quite important to just notice what is that telling us? That's telling me that I feel smarter. My emails look neater. I am so much more powerful than my presentations and everything because that's what's
00:22:22
Speaker
AI claims, but I'm um'm losing this every day. And I am part of this game. I'm so part of this game. So it concerns me in that way. How can we, again, do the dance better? Because right now it's a bit like AI is on the main main dance floor and I'm standing by the wall. and So I find it so fascinating you you talk about that dance because it really just goes to show that like there's such an important human element.
00:22:48
Speaker
One thing that I wanted to ask you about, and Nate, happy for to build on this as well, is um you kind of talk about that struggle of like you know needing three hours to really nut through an idea to to get to the end of it. And something that is almost like the pain and the struggle is, do you find that's where creativity is is born? And is that something that AI can help augment or perhaps replace? Very good question. um I would say i like to keep it real, right?
00:23:18
Speaker
We all get briefs. We all have clients. We all work with people. Usually when it comes to the time that we spend on work and business, we live in a society that loves efficiency, that loves speed, that loves progress. And again, but on the other side of that, as I observe the world and I travel and I speak in a lot of different places, were exhausted by it.
00:23:44
Speaker
equally and we're tired and we're becoming more apathetic and we're looking up less from our phones and we don't want to socialize as much because it's tiring because it's too much. If I speak to another person, I'm going to like collapse and cry. So there's a lot of these two worlds happening right now.
00:24:01
Speaker
And with that, you know, we kind of almost, I think again, have to be like aware of what this dance is. Where are you standing here in that in that sort of space? um I have like,
00:24:13
Speaker
you know, to me, at least fascinating observations, even from Adweek, where i was speaking in New York just before Sydney, just a quick story. I pass West Village and I see tons of people in the queue, tons of people in the queue, all sorts of age, cool folks, you know, all sorts of gender. And I go to my meeting. I come back from the meeting. I think it's like three hours later and I still see even more people in the queue.
00:24:35
Speaker
So I go, oh, my God, I need to ask, is it like Madonna somewhere in a pop-up store or something? What's happening? And I go up and I'm like, guys, like, what is the queue about? Like, what are you standing here for so long?
00:24:46
Speaker
Oh, Claude AI has a pop-up and they give out free caps and toe bags. So that's story one, keep that in mind. And then stories two and three and four, as I observed that kind of that tiredness and that kind of you know exhaustion of it,
00:25:02
Speaker
People start putting tapes on top of their
Global Attitudes Towards AI
00:25:05
Speaker
phones to not be seen by the camera. i don't know how that is a bit of a, you know, truth or not. People tell me that they stop using Netflix and they're starting to buy Blu-ray and DVDs again because, as I quote, they don't want to be told when to watch something and and when it something is gone and for someone to tell them when and how they should watch um and so on and so forth. Or you see even posters, famous posters. don't know if you guys seen that campaign, which did really well. almost don't want to add to it, but it's a very interesting case study. Friend.com put tons of big, one of the biggest in New York kind of campaign on using one of those devices is on your neck and it claims to be your, you know, your friend to do your work, to walk with you, to talk to you, to, we know the drill, right? And it's been vandalized all over new york Because yeah with the craziest comments, if you go into Google, you know, kind of like, you know, I'm not even going to name and shame, but that's an observation. I'm constantly observing culture, right? So as in, are you the person standing the queue waiting for the toe back from Cloud AI, right? Nothing wrong with that. We're just observing, right? Or are you the person that's going to... emotionally right on that poster, but you can't take a bath with me or I'd rather call my mom.
00:26:20
Speaker
Right. And that exhaustion of like, please don't give me so much of that right now. So it's just, you know, again, we're messy. Coming back to that, we're messy. We are not our brains will not progress as fast as this. Forget it. They look the same for centuries. So to to as we experience this journey,
00:26:41
Speaker
everyone's forgetting that this stays the same. So the exhaustion will only continue. The isolation will only continue. That's why I'm so interested in as this evolves and I love the dance. I am so, so um talking and, you know, advocating connection humans. experiences in person, and that seems to be having another kind of renaissance as well slowly in pockets, but it will be bigger and bigger.
00:27:07
Speaker
How do you like personally balance that? Right? So, you know, between the human and and the creative and the AI, how how what do you do to to find that balance? I constantly, as it is it, do you mean with clients or in life?
00:27:22
Speaker
No, I mean, like you personally, so I mean, like, I mean, obviously, you know, AI is impacting the work that you do to some extent, you use it as a tool. um And yet you at the same time, you you talk about all this humanity and these people in the in the world and wanting to keep that kind of connection between the two.
00:27:40
Speaker
And I'm just kind of curious if you are consciously thinking about, okay, I should step away from not use it for this, or is it just an organic thing and a natural thing that you do? Like, where you? How do you manage that balance? Very good question. I would say at this point, it's a bit of a flow. So I'm also very almost kind of unaware in a way. Maybe that's a good question to ask. Let's be, let's note more how we're using it and how, where and what. I would say, especially when it comes to work, there's so many systems that we developed and agents and everything that it's just, you know, you're getting into that state of flow where, There's a human, there's a machine. So developing those things just like you guys are. Sometimes I fail, sometimes not. So that is more of a flow where I kind of don't overthink it. But when it comes to over of overall experience as a human, i you will see me every time if you meet me in person, there's always a little notebook with me.
00:28:31
Speaker
like I'm obsessed with notebooks guys in my other life I would have like a stationery shop and other other lives but you know so what I mean by that for example highly highly recommend if you want to go into creativity human but also looking at what are we the creative act by Rick Rubin one of my favorite books um so easy to read i bet a lot of people already seen it and you know it's easy to kind of consume but he talks a lot about you know the human creativity needs that moment needs that thought needs an observation needs pondering needs time needs a notebook needs a walk needs nature needs people needs interactions so i almost feel like if i lose this one day then that's that's the end of myself as in
00:29:18
Speaker
the creative force and energy that I feel that I have. And so i kind of like, you will, you will not take my notebook away from me if that gives you any sense.
00:29:28
Speaker
Okay. that notebook probably sounds like it's almost like you're anchored back to the real world. and Yeah. But then I like to keep it real guys and having a coffee somewhere in a cafe. I am too stopping myself sometimes when I'm like, you just spend this hour staring at your phone.
00:29:44
Speaker
Nothing was that important. And the notebook is lying next to you. So I just like to keep it real that I also find myself lost in the wiring of how technology is wonderful. But it's one of those I'm i'm fascinated how well they designed it for us to literally.
00:30:01
Speaker
not pay attention to anything. So I'm fascinated by attention, our brains, and how can we unwire this? And can we, because it might be even impossible. So look you talked to there a little bit about agents and things that you've been building. I'd love to learn a little bit more about what that stuff is. What have you created?
00:30:21
Speaker
Yeah, I'm a big fan. I kind of almost give them names and sometimes even faces, you know, like ah that's Jeffrey and he does my, you know, finances. So, so of course, I mean, so random, right? um I still have real tax people working with me and and and all that. But um I would say it kind of starts from looking at what is the biggest repetition in my work, right?
00:30:45
Speaker
what is taking unnecessary sometimes, you know, time that unnecessary meaning I'd rather spend it on the notebook and the idea ideation for myself or the client or where am I traveling next, whatever, then, oh i need I every week I send out an email to my team or, oh, um let's say I'm doing all these posts a week. How can I, you know, systematize some of the stuff or invoicing or whatever it is. So I just kind of look at the things that happened regularly in in the business. And then I tried to try a train again, try GPT to literally, and as you said, Emily, like I love voice. So we're all different and it's not an age thing. Can I just say, Nathan, it's a brain thing. It's how you like to communicate. So let's put these labels on because. Don't millennials shame me. No, as in like, I know someone who's 80 something and she's using voice. Yeah. So we're all good. We just receive and perceive message, you know, information differently. So again, looking at repetition, looking at what can be you know improved, looking what doesn't need my every week or everyday attention. And it's ah it's a hit and miss again, because like sometimes I'll give you an example, i don't know, assistant an assistant agent that puts my calls into calendar.
00:31:59
Speaker
I've had many, many now situations where the call was put wrong or it wasn't or something. So it's still Again, it's, you know, it's learning. So I used to have, for example, Essie who was working with me as a assistant years ago or something, you know, human, such a different interaction. Most of the tasks done in a way that you want to.
00:32:18
Speaker
AI and miss, right? So learning. You know, a lot of and your work with The Good Souls, it's um the purpose that I have found after reading up on it is to bring more human connection to a disconnected world. Do you see AI as part of the problem or part of the solution for that?
00:32:39
Speaker
It can be both again. but You know, I'm coming back to the whole Switzerland concept. Everything we create as humans, to me, inherently, doesn't have an evil or good in it.
00:32:50
Speaker
It is just it. It might be too stoic for some, but it is just it, right? um It's like with us, like we are born and no one is inherently evil when they're born as a kid, right? As a baby. It's just, to me, it's just...
00:33:04
Speaker
So how do we use it? Right. So the problem is that we get so quickly wired into using these tools that brings the isolation that brings for some reason, that's kind of what it creates in us. We become what is interesting for me, it's kind of we become fascinated about being more perfect, more let's say, and unless this is perfect, i'm not going interact or unless this message is not great, I'm going to send it in the dating app. Unless I, you know, know someone, I'm not going to meet them. We just become more and more enclosed. So that is the
00:33:40
Speaker
result of being wired a lot in technology. um But it's not to say that ah ai can help me organize the best and most wonderful get together of people. Right. So but at the core of it, if I look life before technology and life after because I'm one of those kids, 80s, it was easier to interact with other humans before there were phones in our hands, because that's all we knew.
00:34:07
Speaker
To that point, I mean, your work takes you kind of all over the world. You get to work in many countries. you're You're living in the UK. You're from Poland. You're here in Australia now with us.
00:34:18
Speaker
um What kind of differences are you noticing between countries? It's a great question because it's kind of everyone's asking me about it. When I'm in New York, everyone's like, how are they using it in UK? When I'm in Sydney, everyone's like, how are you guys using it in Europe? So it's it's very good to have that if that's part of you know anyone's experience. I think that, again, culturally, I do a lot of work around that with teams and with companies. and when we you know create an experience or brand story or something, it needs to land, right? But I mean, humans are everywhere, wonderful humans, and we're all everywhere sprinkled around, doesn't matter how far or how close. You know, always love that, for example, in Sydney, you guys ask for an old flat white and in London, ah you know, it's one, it's two shots and here's one shot. So these tiny nuances I love and I collect all the time, but on a serious level, we're all exposed to it. I would say that depending where you are there's bubbles, right? So if I'm in San Fran, of course, like everyone and their mother is already like married to AI. You know what I mean? If I go to Spain, a small town in Spain and I, you know, whatever,
00:35:22
Speaker
I'm sorry, but like, it's it's definitely not the same kind of bubble and speed everywhere, right? There's curiosity everywhere. There's wanting everywhere. um But I would say depending as well on the funding of the government and on the, you know, what is actually also the government saying? What are the people learning? What is in the media? Everything matters, right? Like, The way that something's discussed in New York, where you've got massive posters of ChatGPT everywhere with, you know, it's just logo.
00:35:52
Speaker
And let's say someone's with, you know, a lady is with a baby or someone's in the gym. There's no copy. There's no selling. There's no that thing. It's very much even cleaner than Apple, right? In terms of advertising, in storytelling. Right. So it's quite powerful. You look at this poster, there's literally the logo and someone's with a baby. So, right. And we, again, we were were discussing it in London. We don't have that. You guys don't have that. Right. Not because maybe they don't want to invest in these countries, but it's just bubbles. Right. And kind of where's the interest and and how people will acquire it as fast. Right. So, but then I look at the poster and I'm like,
00:36:29
Speaker
Does that really mean since AI that I have more time for gym? Does that mean that I have more time for my loved ones? Not necessarily. Actually, I would say that many times because the wiring of our brain is like, you know, we we just look look at the phone 500 times a day because that's the experience that they knew we're going to have. There's tons of, we know that behavioral data science behind using phones, using technology. We are...
00:36:55
Speaker
screwed in the way we are drawn to this thing, right? That's why all the latest technology is looking, you know, up and no phones and how can we interact in the future with anything in front of us a bit, you know, kind of sci fi, but it's they want to get rid of the phones at some point. We all know that. Right. um So I look at those posters and I'm like, I don't know if I have more time. I actually feel more overwhelmed a lot of the times and feels like so time is shrinking. That's everyone's experience recently that I that I ask.
Marketing Promises vs. Reality of AI
00:37:23
Speaker
So curiosity everywhere, but different adaptation and different, you know, conversation and on a government level and media level.
00:37:34
Speaker
<unk> Yeah, that makes sense. And I wanted to say like that how aspirational of OpenAI to share like posters and um out of home media of, you know, more time back with your family to go to the gym or spend with your kids when they're creating an app that is just sucking everyone's attention into it.
00:37:52
Speaker
and wanting to reward that attention. Ignore your baby, play with our app. Yeah. ah Yeah. It's, um, yeah, no, I, I find the attention piece so interesting. And, you know, we were speaking earlier about like just being at a coffee shop and being on your phone the entire time. Like social media has definitely done that to us and just the, the algorithms that are so highly attuned to keeping us engaged. Um, but I, I really do hear you on like, what can we, um,
00:38:21
Speaker
what can we use AI for to give us back time in our life to get back to that notebook of like, how, how can that bring us, back to where we can use sparks of creativity, of connection and belonging. Yeah, I don't know, maybe it's bit utopian, Emily, from you. you know um I don't want to kind of like you know bring it to the ground, but... Bring me back to reality. Anything, any change, we're already so in the change that if we want another change, we need to embody it.
00:38:51
Speaker
embody, embody, embody, whatever you do. i work a lot with neuroscience and, you know, behavioral science. And that's, you know, I can see that from a data point perspective, we're already kind of like, ah you know, we're already wired in. So if we want to rewire, there needs to be 10 times more of embodying the different change, the different habits to inquire, like, you know, to get those habits. So if we want to hang out more, we need to do it 10 times more. If we want to not look at the phone, we need to actively do it 10 times more than we think. And that's why there's like that muscle all these little tools, right? Like there's apps for it. There's the little physical things like brick and all that, like whatever you want to do, try your, you know, try what works for you, but not to kind of bring it too low, but it needs a lot of embodying, embodying, embodying. So that even if someone comes one time to a morning coffee with me for good souls and we gather, right? After that, everyone's like, oh, this was so great. was so great. this was so great And they don't know why they feel so great. Why do they feel so great? Because they just interacted with other humans because that's what we're wired to do.
00:39:53
Speaker
Doesn't matter the technology, almost forget it. We are wired to be together. There's energetic forces. I'm talking from physics perspective. if you know not to go to woooo on anyone if they don't want to in the morning but physically if you zoom into all of us we're all made of atoms they all interact um i'm a child of a physics teacher for 40 something years fascinates me my other life i would work for nasa and all that guy so i swallow that information all day long and it with that respect sitting in our little flats or homes isolated and kind of almost what the world is a bit creating let's be honest is fear-mongering it's wanting to isolate us and tell us that we're all different and we're scary and Don't trust your neighbor and everything. That's not the vibe. That's actually not the vibe. So um that is a huge other piece that probably, you know, we can't cover now, but the lack of trust between all of us and lack of interactions is making us more and more and more like, you know, separated. And that is the, to me, number one thing to pay attention
AI as a Partner, Not a Threat
00:40:54
Speaker
to. Well, that's a really perfect segue, I think, into one of our kind of ending final questions, which we'd like to ask people. And it,
00:41:00
Speaker
It really is. Do you consider yourself an AI optimist, pessimist, or realist? Realist. I'm Switzerland, guys. I am all about, you know, like there's a tool and let's look at it from all the angles. Nothing's ever super shiny for me because everything is yin and yang. When there's, you know, minus force, there's plus.
00:41:22
Speaker
Again, physics, physicist teacher and as a neuroscientist approach. Yeah. And one of the last questions for you, Natalia, if you can finish this sentence, AI will be blank for creatives in three years.
00:41:36
Speaker
Hopefully more of a partner than here I am, I'm going to take your job. It's not a very good sentence, guys, but I'm trying to keep it real how people speak about it now. I want to see, and I speak about that a lot, something called Made by Humans. And it's a utopian belief. that in the future, because we'll be so fatigued by and so used to AI everywhere, just another two in our pocket like everything else, um that work made by humans will be more expensive, will be more rare, will be more celebrated, sought for and experienced in person. Is there anything we should have asked you or anything you want to talk about that we didn't touch on?
00:42:19
Speaker
If you do find this interesting and you know, people who would like to, you know, who are curious to connect and everything can find me mostly on LinkedIn, email and website. And I consult, I speak and I coach all day long. So that's me.
00:42:34
Speaker
Natalia, thank you so much for joining us this morning. It was an absolute pleasure to have you and on the podcast. Thanks, Natalia. Thank you guys. That was a super fun. How about that chat with Natalia?
00:42:47
Speaker
Being a fanboy from ages ago, I thought that was everything I'd ever dreamed of that i could be chatting to Natalia. She was just so, I think, inspirational, but also pragmatic about her approach to everything. You know, she talked about being Switzerland and she really did embody that for me.
00:43:03
Speaker
I agree. And um I thought it was very interesting. You admitted to being a stalker of hers, but ah I just i see her as such a, almost like an interesting oracle of knowledge of how, um you know, the technology and AI as a tool can be integrated into our life.
Reflections and Reducing Phone Usage
00:43:21
Speaker
But I so loved her analogy of like the dance of the yin and the yang. yeah um You know, there's human and machine and trying to work out.
00:43:31
Speaker
I mean, no one has the answers really, but trying to work out what the preferred, um I suppose, methodology or like leaning too heavily on one or the other. It's it's a constant,
00:43:41
Speaker
I like that she said dance. I would say battle, but you know that has a negative connotation, but that dance and- I mean, I'm not a particularly woo-woo kind of guy, but I liked the idea that she talked about even of energy traveling back and forth.
00:43:53
Speaker
Because while AI is changing us and giving us to her point, more of a refined approach in our emails and changing how we come across.
00:44:03
Speaker
At the same time, we're constantly changing AI. Every question we put in, all the information that it's does digesting is us and our continuing evolving society.
00:44:14
Speaker
Yeah. And you know, it's funny because she was kind of talking about how AI will be used, hopefully, um to not replace us, but to really be a partner. um i had a friend, you know, recently chatting to me about this podcast and he was saying, you know, oh, how great would it be? You know, you could do a digital, you could create a digital twin who could do the podcast for you. And i was like, no, you don't understand. I so enjoy. why Why would I even, why would I look at that technology to replace what I love doing? um Yeah, so there's definitely a case to be made for that.
00:44:49
Speaker
Like, I'm all for a bit of woo-woo, if you don't know. And so that energetic back and forth. You're a crystal girl? Not a crystal girl. i do have a box of essential oils that I use when the house smells like dog. um But yeah, I am i so appreciate it. And, you know, it's so fascinating i getting, you know, to chat to people all across the world. And she was saying that coming from her experience in the yeah UK using a hyphen or a Oxford commas, now an AITEL, like,
00:45:21
Speaker
I've been using that my entire life. I'm so penantic about it as well. All right. So Oxford comma, yes. What about double space between after a period? Nope. Just one space for me. Yeah. I like the double space. It reads better. um Yeah. I think ah taking her inspiring quote of like finding AI to using AI to find ways to get you back to your notebook. I'm definitely going to put that into, a bit more of daily practice. um I agree with her though. You know, there there are times we just need to be quite diligent about putting our phone down. The pool is real. The pool is real. Yes. i feel quite uplifted after that chat with her. And, um you know, it's interesting, despite her saying that she's a realist in Switzerland, she does have a bit of an optimistic attitude about her. You're realist about AI and and an unoptimistic person, which is, you know, and it's nice to be able to pull those two things apart.
00:46:14
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. And, um you know, just to wrap it up, Nate, I um will be sure to include everything ah that she spoke about in the show notes, especially her um book that she referenced that she quite enjoys. But just a shout out to our listeners. We are so enjoying this journey of creating this podcast. And if you um have any questions you'd like to ask us about the show or Nate's, you know, AI creations and his creativity, be sure to email them to mindthemodelpod at gmail.com. And we'd love if you could continue to show your support by like, share, subscribe.
00:46:52
Speaker
Five-star reviews. Five-star Yeah. fivear reviews yeah all the above Put up a community notice board, all of the things. All right. Well, thanks, Em, for that final reminder for everyone. And remember everyone, the intelligence might be artificial, but the winds are real.
00:47:08
Speaker
Have good Thanks. Bye.
00:47:12
Speaker
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Speaker
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