479. Chris Rhyss Edwards

Check out host Bidemi Ologunde's new show: The Work Ethic Podcast, available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

Email: bidemiologunde@gmail.com

In this episode, host Bidemi Ologunde sits down with Chris Rhyss Edwards, a writer, doctoral researcher, former Australian Army combat engineer, and the founder of FOLQ.ai to explore why so many people are turning to AI chatbots for emotional support before they ever speak to another human. Drawing from lived experience with PTSD and his research into conversational AI and mental wellbeing, Chris examines a difficult but timely question: what does it say about our world when people feel safer talking to machines than to each other? Together, they unpack silence, stigma, loneliness, trust, and the rise of AI as a "first listener." Is this a breakthrough in access and support, or a warning sign about the systems and relationships failing us? And how can AI help without replacing the human connection people still need most?

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:16

Thanks for joining me once again on another episode of the Bid Picture Podcast. I have a special guest from all the way down under. Over to you, sir.

SPEAKER_00 0:25

Hey, how are you going? And thank you for having me, by the way. I was watching a couple of your um previous uh interviews. And um, yeah, you seem, as I just said to you in the preamble, we seem like we're similar nerds.

SPEAKER_01 0:39

Yeah, yeah. And it's always fascinating to talk to people from different backgrounds and different parts of the world, and to kind of jumpstart um the conversation here. Um when you hear that millions of people tell AI chatbots things they've never told a human being. What is that thing that comes to your mind as what could be the real story behind this content?

SPEAKER_00 1:08

Oh, honestly, like I walked away from really good six-figure jobs working for like the likes of News Corps and Kleminger and these big guys to come to university to do my PhD in artificial intelligence, specifically generative AI. So, like Chat GPT, Gemini, these platforms, replica, character AI, whatever, because people finally found that they had a safe place to actually have a conversation that they didn't feel they had the courage or confidence to have with people that they care about the most. And um, you know, it's only been around for like three, four years. Like ChatGPT came out in November 2022, and um I I'd been married um at the time, and if I'd actually had that platform to actually have that conversation that I need to have with my wife to practice it, rehearse it, I would have absolutely done it. Like, so I understand, I deeply understand the need for these platforms is giving people a safe anonymous space where they feel they can actually have courageous conversations almost with themselves. Um, so I think it's um it's it's an amazing time in history. Like um, we're most socially isolated we've ever been. World Health Organization says that one in eight people have a mental health um issue that they're not uh able to get or not willing to get support for. And the World Health Organiz uh organization also said that we have um a loneliness epidemic uh globally. And um and for me that's heartbreaking, right? Like there was this research that came out in Australia uh last year that said guys my age, so I'm mid-50s, um, one in three of us doesn't have someone we could call if we're having a tough time. And that you know, in that in coming from the veteran community, right? Like this is why I'm covering in tattoos and bad jokes and bad haircut, um, I'm ex-military, right? So um in our community, if we don't have someone to talk to, it results in a huge amount of suffering and suicide. So it's one of the leading causes of um veteran suicide in Australia. Um, in America, it's one every hour, in Australia, it's one every four days. Um and um yeah, just the fact that you hear from people after we've lost someone that um they just needed to get something off their chest. Um, and I think this is what this technology is enabling. So, yeah, and that's both for good and evil, but it is what it is, but I think it's better than nothing.

SPEAKER_01 3:52

Right, right. And I agree with the way you characterized it, saying people use it to get things off their chest. And I read a lot of research and articles on how people of different age groups, from kids in middle school and secondary school to adults and CEOs and even retirees, use Chat GPT to kind of formulate an idea in their head, and then they present it in a conversation with someone else, either in person or on email or text message. And some people are using it to argue with their partners and some people are using it to have a conversation with their teenagers, grown grown-ups using ChatGPT and all the other AI models to have to set up a conversation saying if my teenager gets back from school at 4 p.m. and they don't want to talk to me about anything, how do I start a conversation with them? And that's oh, see, go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 4:53

Yeah, so in this is this is actually the best use case of this technology I've ever seen. Um so I know I'm very um into a lot with the veteran community here in Australia and some of the stuff in the States. And my big sister, um, when I first launched our platform, so I built a large language model platform called Folk to actually help people actually have these conversations. And I asked my sister to send it out to a few friends, and she's got a couple of really good friends who are ex-military as well. And I got this incredible email. Oh my god, it was like breathtakingly beautiful. It's um about 10 p.m. on like a Wednesday, not Tuesday, Wednesday night, and it was a fellow veteran who's also a former combat engineer like myself, and he said, My 16-year-old has just broken up with her first ever real boyfriend, and I asked Chat GPT how uh sorry, I asked your platform and at Chat GPT how to actually um have that conversation. And he said, Can I just say, like, he goes, your platform actually gave me a much more nuanced answer. Um, Chat GPT gave me like his five steps, and I tell you, I slept so well that night because I just you know, I've written a book about this, I'm doing my PhD in this stuff. Um, my I've invested quite a bit into building the technology for the next generation so that um people can ask um these really important questions in a safer way. Because at the moment, like Adam Rain incident that's just been settled out of court in the US, uh, the kid that died in Texas um late last year or a year before, um these technologies aren't um they're not future proof yet. Um we need to do much more work like to make them safer for people because we're not gonna stop turning to technology for answers. Um if it's there, we're gonna use it. We just need to make it safer.

SPEAKER_01 7:03

Nice, nice. So um for people who are just listening to you and meeting you for the first time, um how do you describe what you do in one or two sentences? Oh geez.

SPEAKER_00 7:22

Okay. Um wow, that's first time I've been asked that. Thank you. Um I'm I'm a nerd, like like yourself, I'm a nerd. Um I've always been enamored by ideas, and I either study them, write about them, or build companies around them.

SPEAKER_01 7:41

Yeah. Nice, nice. And I like how you simplify. I know it's not simple, it's never simple. I fully understand that because when I got into podcasting, I want to say five years ago, yeah, January 2021, I started it more like a passion project from that my nerd, nerdy background, saying, Well, I know all this bunch of stuff, basically useless information, and I would like to share my useless information with other people who care to listen. Well, what is the best way? I thought about writing blogs. I have a blog, actually, but then people wouldn't necessarily want to read it. If anything, my blog, my blog is to consolidate my ideas, which I then present on the podcast. So podcasting came up and said, well, people can listen to different things while doing other things. You can be driving and be listening to something. You cannot be driving and be reading a blog article. That's not possible unless you're not the driver.

SPEAKER_00 8:39

Okay. So let me ask the um, because you want to share interesting ideas. Let me ask you the question you asked me. What is you described in one or two sentences?

SPEAKER_01 8:50

So this is something that has evolved over time and way from way back in the day when I was in secondary school, saying, I want to add value to other people. That's like the big umbrella.

SPEAKER_00 9:05

Can can I stop you right there? Yes. Um, do you know Benjamin Franklin? I think it is, or um Thomas Edison quote, seek not to be a man of wealth, but to be a person of value. When I first read that, I don't know who it's attributed to, that changed my life. So, and thank you for what you do. Right. So keep going. Right, right.

SPEAKER_01 9:24

And I started to realize the the best way to add value is to simply be of help as much as possible. And one thing my grandpa used to say before he passed, because I would spend so much time with him, even as a teenager, he would tell me stories of when he was a younger man and when he was a kid growing up in his dad's house. And every story, in one way or the other, would end with this one line if you cannot solve someone's problem, don't add to it.

SPEAKER_00 9:57

Don't add to it. Yes. I remember my sergeant playing that to me, you know.

SPEAKER_01 10:00

Right. Yeah, yeah. And of great advice. Of course, I didn't understand what that meant back then. I was just like, okay, maybe it's something old people say to young people. And then now, growing up now, and now I have kids and I'm married and so on and so on, every relationship I have boils down to one or two things. Simply, if I cannot help this person overcome this problem, I'm not going to add to that problem. So to bring it full circle back, some I describe myself as someone who seeks to add value to other people, whether through a podcast, a blog article, whether in an organization, whether as a consultant, whether as an employee, whether as a neighbor, whether as a fellow driver on the road, ETC ETC. So yeah, value adder.

SPEAKER_00 10:51

So how do you do that? Um, how old are your kids, by the way?

SPEAKER_01 10:54

So six, two, and then less than one year old.

SPEAKER_00 10:57

Oh, wow. Okay. So now here's my here's my challenge to you. Answer the question one more time. How do you add value to the six-year-old and the one-year-old? And with what you're doing right now, how do you demonstrate that what dad's doing is meaningful and impactful to the world?

SPEAKER_01 11:16

Yeah, so the the six-year-old has gotten to the age where he understands, he calls it my radio because he knows the radio. And I still try to remind him, well, it's a podcast. And then he goes, What's a podcast? And I'm like, Well, I kind of talk about your topic and people listen. So he goes, So, like the radio. And I'm like, Well, you have your point. So I tell him, Well, I'm teaching people or telling people my perspective on this topic, and then sometimes we listen together before he goes to bed, pick an episode, we listen for like 10 minutes, on the way to school, we listen for another 10 minutes and so on. So he likes to listen to all these different topics and all these people I talk to. And I'm starting to realize he sees the value because now he's picking up on knowledge acquisition. Because he listens and he asks me questions on the episodes he listens to.

SPEAKER_00 12:13

How does that feel for you as a creator? So it's that must be amazing.

SPEAKER_01 12:17

Yeah, it's like the highlight of my day, and every night before he goes to bed, he goes and breaking my heart, man. Yeah, and then he goes, he comes and says, Well, can we listen to your radio before we go to Animal? Sure, why not? Let's go listen to my radio.

SPEAKER_00 12:33

That's what look as a creator. I've written five books, I'm doing my third degree, I've written uh launched a couple of companies. I but I love creating, right? But there's nothing more beautiful when you create something that resonates. Like your six-year-old asking you, Dad, can we listen to that? And the the knowledge um that you're actually putting into that brain at six is so far ahead of the rest of his six-year-old mates, right? Like you just give yourself a quick pat in the back for that. That's amazing.

SPEAKER_01 13:05

Thank you, sir. Thank you, sir. And even my two-year-old, he calls it daddy's story. So it's like I'm telling him bedtime stories, but he's listening to it from a phone, an iPad, and in a way it calms him down. And sometimes he looks at my mouth, sees that my mouth is not moving. The sound is coming from the phone, but it's my voice. So to him, it's like magic, and then he goes, hmm, daddy story. I know, yeah, daddy story.

SPEAKER_00 13:34

Well, it's so can I ask? I mean, because I'm turning this interview around to you. Why'd you start? What is it about? Like you wanting to actually transfer knowledge and make an impact?

SPEAKER_01 13:44

Yeah, so like I said, I like to learn things. I would read something up on maybe Wikipedia, a random article, and then I start to click and click and click, and before you know it, I'm reading about 16th century astrology. And all that started from something completely different, and then I'm just like filing it away in the back of my mind. And before you know it, I see something else in a newspaper two weeks later, and then I'm making connections to something else I listened to on a podcast two weeks ago, and then I start to realize there is not much new information in the world. We're all just recycling the same set of information. So AI, for example, is well, someone thinks a computer can't solve two times two. Okay, how about we get the computer to solve algebra? Okay, how about we get the computer to do way more things?

SPEAKER_00 14:44

Oh, you've just got me on my the reason I'm doing my PhD, right? Because you're a fellow nerd, so I can go down this nerd rabbit hole with you. Um what we found out, and I've sp yeah, I spent three and a half years investing in this space before I wrote the book and everything, um, to actually understand that based on semantic and thematic analysis from what you type into a chat bot, like chat GPT, and then prosody, which is the emotional layer of how you say what you say, these technologies are 50 to 60 percent more empathetic than humans, right? So they're actually more able to actually understand our state in real time than our best friend or our partner. So when you were saying, like when you're your kids sitting there going, all right, I can see your face isn't moving, but there's stuff happening over here, what the hell is going on? Like we've got to a point in society where um I actually honestly think technology is I'm not worried about Skynet, you know, the end of the world, the cyborgs, whatever. But I am um I am a little bit concerned about the fact that um we can't connect like you've done with your kids, technology to human need in real time. So this is dad's podcast, this is dad's radio, it's fine. This is an expression of dad, it's not dad, right? Like, and I talked to the former minister for IT of Estonia a couple of weeks ago, a couple of months ago, and he was saying like our AI and our ability to turn to AI to ask questions, it could become the next God because it can answer those questions. And I'm a man of faith, like I've got dirty great big tattoo here and rosary beads around my neck and everything. Um, but I kind of understand it. Like, so if we don't have people like you talking to your kids about, okay, it's just one um thing. Like it's not it's not the be all end all, it's but it's it's something you should understand and uh understand how to actually integrate into your life without overwhelming it. And so, yes, I applaud what you're doing, and um, I also applauding myself and my team for what we're doing, trying to make that technology safer because it's there now. Um, Harvard Business Review said six months ago, um, in the last 18 months, so that'd be the last 24 months, the top three use cases for Chat GPT became existential. How do I deal with this? I'm lacking purpose, I'm arguing with my wife. I've tracked well over 15,000 conversations on our platform, and people are just really asking the question that they just don't have anyone else to ask, right? Like, and uh you know, I think this is it's I I think it's better than nothing, to be perfectly honest. Um, it is it complicated? Sure, yeah. I wrote a book about it um uh to actually explain why it's so complicated, but it's like caveat emptor, the whole Latin phrase for buyer, beware, is that um yeah, use it, but use it with some guardrails kind of and scaffolding in place, and don't let it be the only information source because I um asked a friend the other day to use a competitors platform and ask it a specific question to his specific issue. And do you know what hallucination is in AI? Making up making up stuff so yes, yeah, making up stuff, yeah. So one-on-one equals seven, you know, type stuff that it does based on um the way token uh tokenization works. I asked him to ask a very literal question that he'd normally ask me or his wife. I said, Type it into these three platforms, um, ours is one of them, and come back to me. And he got back to me within like an hour, and he's like, Oh my god, because they're trying to um exhibit human behaviors, right? These platforms they're designed to think like we think, but they don't have the human experience. Like a tree is in a park, I'm in the park, that's where I met my girlfriend, that's where I get my favorite sensation of coffee because there's a nice coffee cart there. All of that context is lost on AI now, but give it five years, different game.

SPEAKER_01 19:15

Wow, wow. So one of your books is The Silence Paradox, and I I got fascinated as I was doing some basic um research before the conversation saying, what exactly is the silence paradox and why does it matter now, February 2026?

SPEAKER_00 19:35

You know, actually, we've talked we've touched on this a couple of times. Um you and I are both, as I've said multiple times, nerds, we like ideas, right? And ideas are how the world has changed, right? And then the value of what a man is, um, is go back to the Edison or Franklin quote about seeking not to be of wealth but to be of value. Um when I started writing so I've written five books now, and every single time um I've gone out, I haven't met to write a book, I've just wanted to understand something, and so I've deep dived and I've I've met with people so much smarter than me and just said, like, what do you think about this one thing? And it's been um captivating, like just an incredible journey. So the silence paradox from a psychological point of view is the fact that um we are silent to the people we love the most, um but we're talking to machines because we don't have the courage to have those conversations with the people we love the most. Like that's I've probably never phrased it like that before, but that's essentially the truth. Like, I've got a um uh professional colleague in the US who works in cyber relationships, like as a psychologist, whole new profession. Like people who are leaving their wives and husbands to um because they're in love with a AI that doesn't push back, doesn't argue, it's um the oh my god, it's uh that to me terrifies me, right? So that's why I wrote the book. Wow, wow.

SPEAKER_01 21:14

I I read so many articles about someone. They started by talking to Chad GPT, and of course, Chat GPT would tell them what they want to hear, and then they went from the free version to the$20 version, and then from the$20 version to the$200 per month version, and then that person broke up with their partner, I believe they were married, so she broke up with her husband, and then she started to realize it was getting to the point where it was unsustainable, and she would she she quit her job because every hour of every minute at the job, she was chatting with Chat GPT. And when she realized she lost her job because of that, then she canceled the subscription and then got back together with the And then I think now she's she's not no more using any device at all. Just so that she doesn't mistakenly sign up on Chat GPT or something like that.

SPEAKER_00 22:12

So two things that just immediately popped to mind off this. As I said, we've tracked 15, 10,000, 15,000 conversations, right? We don't know who it is. We just know the conversational threads that people are having. But I was talking to a industry expert in the States just at the end of last year, actually, just before Christmas. And he said that the CEO of Replica and Character AI, which are the two big companion bot platforms on the planet, he said they're invited to weddings between a human and their avatar every day. Like, and it's it's just seriously, man, it just it it does my head in. But um, and here's the second thing that came to mind. Um, I had asked um friends when we launched our platform a few months ago. I said, Um, could you go and use it and tell me what you think? Like, does it work? Is it visually stimulating, user experience good, whatever, blah, blah? And um my mate's wife actually pinged me, um, and she said, I walked, um, I walked by his office, um, second bedroom that's used as the office, and I heard him having a conversation, and I thought he was having an affair because he was talking, she didn't know he was talking to like ChatGPT and our platform and Gemini and uh replica or whatever, but he was um he there the ability of these technologies to engage us in ways that if we don't take it seriously, could be really dangerous, you know. So we talk about the 2% of society that I've got PTSD from the military, um, the 2% of us who walk around daily with serious mental health disorders from everything from mania or whatever, blah blah blah. If we don't take in and contextualize the information that's coming available to us in real time and we don't have the mental fortitude to actually think it through, isn't like, is that right? We talked about hallucination before. Um, and it's why I wrote the book because at the end of the day, yeah, you know, we used to turn to Dr. Google when we had symptoms, and now it's now turning to Chat GPT. Um and I wrote a book because I wanted to explain to like my uh my daughter, um, my friends, their kids, um, the generation who's growing up not knowing a world without AI, that AI is here to stay, but treat it carefully. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:54

Wow, wow. So, from your research about how people are using these chatbots, um, what are the most common emotional use cases? I believe you've seen some loneliness and anxiety and grief and shame and even crisis situations. And on top of that question, which of these use cases worry you the most?

SPEAKER_00 25:18

Oh, good question. Um you know, the um broadly speaking, I think people are unhappy. Um and I feel my hunch, because it's not usually said out loud, is that people feel isolated and lonely. And um if you read through the threads, um because we have no idea who's using our system, right? So I don't know if it's you on the system or it's me or whatever, but what I can get is common threads. And I feel that um strangely society feels really alone. Um and I understand the WHO saying the um loneliness epidemic underpins, they reckon, the um top uh sorry, five of the top ten causes of death that loneliness will actually contribute towards. And I see this in the data and it breaks my heart. Like I will sit here and sit down with the dev guys and just go through and say, like, what are we seeing that's an outlier? What do we need to build to make sure that whoever's asking whatever random question, we have the answer for them. And yeah, if you were to do a word clout, I would say loneliness and unhappy are really common threads. And that's oh my god, we're in the most abundant time we've ever been on this planet, right? Like, yes, we still have more slaves now, today, than we ever have in human history. And most from you know, your home country, right? Like the rare earth minerals and stuff. Um, we have climate things and everything. We have um, but we have more money in our pocket, more employment, more medical health care, and everything else. But people are really unhappy and alone. That's heartbreak, man. Wow, wow.

SPEAKER_01 27:20

I believe I read it, or maybe I listened on the podcast saying there are four fundamental human emotions um fear, anxiety, sadness, and disgust. And social media platforms. Oh wow, yeah. Social media platforms take advantage of those four to basically fear and join disgust and sadness, yes. Oh wow. So social media platforms take advantage of those four to keep people on those platforms as long as possible. Um, if you are on Instagram and Facebook and so on, and you see something that makes you afraid, you're more likely to stay on the app and engage in those conversations. Same thing with Twitter. Engage in conversations where something is making you afraid, and then you basically pick a side, and that keeps you on the app. And guess what? The advertisers would basically see the number saying, Well, two million people use our app. They don't know why two million people use the app. It's the platforms that know, well, this is what we are doing to keep two million eyeballs on the app so that advertisers can advertise to them while they are in the middle of engaging in fear, anxiety, sadness, and disgust. And then to now introduce AI to that conversation. Well, AI platforms now, when you ask them a question, they basically prompt you to keep asking them, to keep asking follow-up questions.

SPEAKER_00 28:45

Yes. So the um it's so one of the things we're building at the moment right now with my dev team is to actually um minimize dependency. So to get you off the platform and say, oh, maybe this is a conversation you should have with French, or maybe you should go to this person, or maybe look at this website. Because what ChatGPT, Gemino, all the guys are doing, is they're actually just using every conversation you have as training data to make their system better. But it doesn't mean that it's better for you in that context right now. I think the AI will be looking at in three to five years, where I think there's a good chance we'll probably have AGI for your listeners, artificial general intelligence, the ability to compute, process, understand context like a human does. I think that can um happen in the next few years. But until these platforms um can um read you in real time and understand, like um when somebody says I'm lonely, like this is horrible use case. Oh my god, this breaks my heart every time I talk about this. Um somebody in the States last year um was talking through having a really tough time, um, break up whatever um, you know, emotional turmoil in their life. And then they asked, um, I don't know if it was Chat GPT, so sorry Sam Altman, my apologies. Um, but they asked one of the platforms, where is the tallest bridge around me? After they'd been talking for two hours about um signs of depression, maybe not suicidality, whatever, but um they were clearly suffering, and the system isn't smart enough to know you don't tell someone who's suffering to go and jump off a bridge or to give them directions to a bridge. So when you talk about things like platforms that are actually um trying to encourage you to stay online longer so they can learn more from your data and everything, um that's one of like ten issues that we need to address in the next few years because um it is Google became a verb, right? Google became a verb within three, four years. Um I was there for like I got my first mobile phone in early 90s, I got my first email address when I left the military, early 2000s, I was there when Facebook, Google and all launched. But I remember a world before these technologies weren't just embedded in everything. Like, and I look at my mates' kids, uh my goddaughters, and they don't know a world without all of this stuff, right? Like, so they don't know. I honestly, and I'll say this very judging, they don't know a peaceful um world. Like, so I I know I'm a hell of a lot older than you, but during the 70s and 80s, we used to ride our bikes. Um mum would kick us out of the house oh dark hundred in the morning, and y you weren't expected to be home until that evening, and you came home bloodied and splintered and damaged because you're trying to make like bike ramps and stuff. And now the world has become far more complex. Um, and so look in Australia, um, a few months ago we rolled, sorry, two months ago, we rolled out a no one under 16 can be on a social media platform, right? And I was speaking to um the uh e-safety commissioner about this uh at the end of last year, and I I get it because I didn't know how kids have been harassed by other kids using these platforms. Because for me, it's fairly benign. I don't I don't have Facebook, Twitter, I use LinkedIn, that's about it. But um the fact that these uh technologies are available and like this whole new TikTok deal with the US is going to change the game dramatically. Um, that if we don't have conversations like these, and we don't have people like us actually weighing in on other conversations with the people who make the decisions, the laws, the whatever, then I think we could be in trouble. Wow.

SPEAKER_01 33:02

Wow. So because of your veteran background, I wanted to ask a veteran-specific question. Um for veterans specifically, what kinds of support feel credible? And what makes some of these programs that are out there miss the mark?

SPEAKER_00 33:24

Oh shit. Okay. Oh, sorry. Yeah, no, just swearing. I'm an Australian, um, and I'm a veteran, I swear like a trooper. Um, I testified in front of a Senate committee um in 2019 about the fact that um so one thing I'm very deeply proud of in Australia is that we are the only nation on the planet who has such a huge percentage of its defense budget to pay for veterans, veteran care. Like I'm on a um uh pension because I've you know, excuse my French, a little bit fucked for my service and my life. And um, and I'm grateful it's there. And I've gone through rehabs and stuff over the years trying to sort out my stuff. I'm really grateful. And when I sat in front of this committee in 2019, and we had um, we call them ex-service organizations um in Australia. So, like anyone who supports a VA in the States, like Australian version. And I um I was one of the last people, I was the CEO of my own startup back in 2019, and all these guys, um, it was all guys too, representing veteran community, and all of us had served. So we've all worn uniforms, multiple medals, and everything else in the room. And no one could actually, until I got up and I'm not blank smoke at my own, but but um I just said, seriously, I've just heard the five biggest ex-service organizations in Australia say this is what we've done, whatever, but not a single person used data points. How many people did we reach? What was the cost of that solution, and did it work? What's the long-term kind of outcome of this? And I so I said in in front of uh Senator uh Jim Nolan, Vail, we lost him a couple uh a year ago, um, and um he was like, he came up to me after, and he said, that was probably the best question of the day, because um for me, um I did a video uh last year, Anzac Day, which is our um like uh Remembrance Day type in Australia. So yeah, so um I did a video for a group called Saint here in Australia, and I was walking around the streets and they were videotagging me, and it's not something I like doing, but um they asked me on camera what works for vets, and I said this, you know, like find another vet or find someone else who has a clear kind of you know you get us, you know, um, and um be able to start a conversation like you do in a bar, like we used to do in the 80s and 90s, you go and plop yourself down in a bar, grab beer, and you end up talking to the people beside you, and the number of times those conversations turn to something really beautiful, and the and a bunch of other times they're just pointless, right? But um for me, um talking uh to people like yourself um is a definite win. Second thing is forums uh like Sane in Australia and open arms and those guys. Um and I think for vets, um I think the other thing that we don't talk about enough is because we were driven by purpose, um, so you got out of bed every day to achieve a goal, right? Like defense of nation. Um, I think uh one of the things I've only just landed into recently is community volunteering, um, where you feel you're doing something for other people. Exactly back to your point about being a value, right? And as soon as you give men, and I'm I'm definitely saying this is very distinctive to men, especially in my age bracket, if you give them a reason to get out of bed and a reason to fight, like everything changes. Wow, wow.

SPEAKER_01 37:26

This is in line with what I've heard um across different platforms, different industries, even within the cybersecurity community. Um, you set up a conference and then you get people to show up at the conference to talk about whatever it is they are saying in their industry. And of course, no one just goes to a conference and only talk about the topic of the day. People get together and after attending the conference for the whole day, they go have a beer or two, and then they talk about other things, not just what they came to the conference to talk about. And from there, you start to meet people and you see someone on LinkedIn, and then you meet them at the conference, and then you see them again on LinkedIn, and the whole thing changes compared to if you only see them on LinkedIn without meeting them in person. Which is why I always recommend to everyone that cares to listen, network any chance you get, but also prioritize meeting in person. Because you get to know people when you meet them in person, not just when you talk to them by email or text message or phone call.

SPEAKER_00 38:34

I so agree. Like I um I spent 20 years in the corporate sector before I launched my own startup and started becoming academic, and for those years was in professional conference organizing. So I was the program director for the biggest conferences in my sector in Australia, New Zealand, right? And I used to say to people when I was MCing the events, being up on the stage in front of thousands of people like all around the world, it was awesome. If you don't have three ideas, um, when you leave this conference, if you don't have three ideas that you didn't have before, you haven't met three companies that potentially you could work with, or you haven't met three people that you actually want to follow up with because for whatever reason, um, and I would force people into that like all the time. And it was, and for me professionally, like I've got friends from NASA and Google and Tesla and professional colleagues, I should say, and just from just random, like having the courage to walk across the room and say, So, you're the chair of the board of Tesla. Tell me about what's going on in your world. And it was um it was awesome. And I honestly, I this is back to our point earlier. The younger generation who's grown up with all this tech without human access to actually have big conversations will never develop those tools, uh those skills, unless we train them to. Right.

SPEAKER_01 40:04

Because now the kids just want to be on TikTok and Instagram and play their video games and yeah, even losing social skills. There is this, I believe it's a it it has a scientific term now. Something about something gaze, um, like a teenage gaze or something, where you're talking to a teenager, you're talking to a teenager trying to have a meaningful conversation, and they're just staring at you blankly out of maybe anxiety of engaging with you in conversation. And maybe the pandemic has some responsibility for that, or maybe video games and social media have some responsibility, and then a combination of all the different things, and how um during during the pandemic, teachers wore masks and they were teaching kids, and then the kids also wore masks, so nobody was exchanging facial expressions. Yes, maybe maybe that played a role. Who knows?

SPEAKER_00 41:05

What's interesting um in that, um, and I agree with you a hundred percent. Um, I watched a TED talk a few years ago. This guy was saying during the 80s, we watched TV shows like Dallas, right? And they had like three storylines, maybe five lead characters, whatever. And then we get flash forward to early 2000s, we have Sopranos, we have 10, 15 storylines, multiple nuances, like a whole heap of stuff going on in real time. And um this the guy who uh delivered the talk was saying that our demand for more um is in more complexity, more storylines, keep me actively mentally engaged, has increased exponentially, faster than the human capacity to actually process it. So when you think about, as you were just saying, young people who've grown up with they've got Google in one hand, TikTok in the other, ChatGBT in the other, they're constantly stimulated, they're doom scrolling on Facebook in the evening and everything, and they don't know how to be quiet and still. And so this is when I um when my first wife and I um split up back uh years ago, I went away to the Blue Mountains in Australia, which is a beautiful area, and I did a seven-day um guided meditation retreat where you couldn't look someone in the eye and you can't speak. And it's all vegetarian food, which is the hardest part because I own my burgers. So um I could not look someone in the eye for seven days. Um I couldn't speak. I was eating really beautiful food, but we started from sitting in the room, uh, two hours a day, three sessions. Um the last day we're in the room for probably um I'd say seven, eight hours sitting dead still, um processing whatever's going through. And over that week, I listened to um I listened to the whole room. Sometimes it's probably 200 of us. And I listened to the number of men in roughly my age bracket who would just start sobbing um because they'd never sat with stuff before, right? Like and this is the interesting part, nobody in that room was under 40. Because that kind of that level of um introspection comes from life experience, right? Like, so what you're saying right now, and what we're discussing right now, I think needs to be in the hands of 18, 19, 20, 25 year olds desperately, desperately, because it it does feel like old men trying to tell you how to live your life. But if I could go back um and look at the 18, 19, 20 year old version of me and how haphazard my life was, and have someone like you or I actually have this conversation. And say, hey Chris, um a bit, what about this? Maybe you consider this and it'll make your life just five percent smoother. Um God, I wish I had that opportunity. Wow.

SPEAKER_01 44:15

So it's it's very rare to be introspective at any age, but then like you mentioned, at a certain age, it becomes even more it becomes deeper. Because now you're thinking back, when I was 25, if I had made this one decision differently, my life could have turned out so much more differently, completely. So, okay, question to you.

SPEAKER_00 44:43

What how old are you um being? Almost 40. Okay, cool. So what is the one if you made one decision better over your 40 years, um, what would it be?

SPEAKER_01 44:55

Hmm. So lately I've been thinking about this um question. I guess when you're almost 40, you start to think about these things, but maybe that's just me. Um it's more along the lines of deciding. So I want to say there are so many different pivot points in my life, but the one that jumps out the most is deciding to come to the US. And then when I came, I had acceptance into four grad schools.

SPEAKER_00 45:28

Oh wow. So you are a very perfect.

SPEAKER_01 45:32

So I applied at different times, and because the way the admission process was, you could, you know, set a role. Most of these grads programs had a roll-in admission. And I was lucky enough to get accepted to four different programs around the same time. And it was one school in Florida, one in Chicago, one in Pennsylvania, I believe, and then no, two in Chicago, one in Florida, one in Pennsylvania. And for whatever reason, because my dad had it has a friend in Florida, I decided to pick Florida. I wasn't worried about the weather because most people will pick Florida for the weather. It's less colder than Chicago and Pennsylvania. I wasn't worried about the weather, I could have easily picked Chicago or Pennsylvania. But for some reason, I was like, okay, these four schools had the program I wanted to come to. They had everything checked, my boxes, and it just came down to, well, my dad's friend lives in Florida. Come to think of it, around that same time, we had an uncle who lived in Philadelphia. He still lives in Philadelphia. But for whatever reason, I decided to come to Florida. So if I had picked Chicago or Philadelphia, my life would have turned out completely differently. Even depend even in Chicago, there were two schools in Chicago. If I had picked one or the other, what what how do you actually think?

SPEAKER_00 47:11

Because like you're obviously like knowledge driven and you're a nice person. Um so you're going to these places. What do you think would have actually really genuinely changed if you'd actually chosen left instead of right?

SPEAKER_01 47:25

In terms of the people I would have met, the opportunities that would have come up, because in Florida I studied the program I came to study, and along the line, I did research with certain agencies in the US government. That might not have happened in the three other grad schools. Or maybe that might have happened, who knows? Because that singular research I took part in in Florida opened my eyes to the cybersecurity industry I'm in now, and not just cybersecurity, but specific components of cybersecurity that has to do with the military, that has to do with intelligence agencies, that has to do with and so on and so forth. All that may not have happened in Chicago or Philadelphia, or maybe the same thing would have happened in a more intense way.

SPEAKER_00 48:23

Isn't it funny? Like, and I'll I'll tell you this as a piece of my life advice with 15 years on the planet longer than you, is that you start asking these questions or pondering this stuff more as you get older. Like, because you go, Oh, what if I'd just turn left instead of right? What if I'd said yes instead of no? Um, and it's it's a wonderful part. Like, I'm a big uh fan of the Stoics, Marcus Aurelius, Julius, Caesar, Seneca, um, and I sit there and read um uh memoirs. Um is it memoirs? Yeah, um, pretty much um once a week, and just open it up like the it's the sober equivalent of the um AA Bible. You read a quote, and it's a quote can shape you for a day. And I read stuff like that, and because I'm a a a huge nerd, I try and read a book a week, I would pick up um I think it's memoirs. Is it meditations? Meditations, sorry, that's the book, yeah. Sorry, yes. Yes, you're dead right. And I would read that and open up to a quote I'd never seen before for some just random happenstance of time and space, and that would shape my day, my week, whatever. And what that reminds me is that uh we're constantly learning, right? Like there's always going to be new stuff thrown at us. Um, it's our um amenability to the idea of like, okay, that's that's a challenge. Like, um, whether it's seeing new movies, reading new books, um, listening to different podcasts with alternative views, whatever. I I kind of really like the fact like I'm I'm still circling back to the whole thing about I believe, because you said you wanted to be a man of value, and I believe you are, that um our job is to actually support the next generation, right? So when my um mum uh pretty much kicked me out of the house at 17 and joined the army, uh, she was just like she knew it was the best thing for me. I need to leave this retirement village. We grew up on the poverty line. My best option, because I wasn't academic at the time, was to go to the military, public service. And um she set us up to succeed. She put a roof over her head, we had food in the fridge, education was important, service to country was important. So my sisters and I had 60 years of public service between us, right? My mum had 10, 12, whatever it was. And I just I believe that what she did for us is exactly what you and I need to be doing for the generation behind us. Your kids, the kids in between those kids, is to actually start conversations where we just go, hey guys, um, yeah, what you're thinking right now, not of all of it's valuable and real, but maybe here's a few contextual things you could think about, like not worried about being an influencer on Instagram or TikTok, being more involved in actually doing something in your local community. Um mowing a lawn for five dollar, you know, weekly um what do you call it in States? Um Lemonet stands. Will you give someone like sorry?

SPEAKER_01 51:36

Lemonet stand or selling lemonade.

SPEAKER_00 51:38

Oh, yeah, so stuff like that. Yeah. So giving people the sense of working, you know, to pay their weight. I just um yeah, as I get older, I think more and more about the fact of my obligation that my mum entrained into me um to actually give back. Yeah. Nice, nice.

SPEAKER_01 51:57

So to kind of start wrapping off here, um, I want to be mindful of your time. Um, looking into the future, let's say the next two to three years, um, what do you think AI is going to shape? In what way do you think AI is going to shape society? Is it going to encourage or is it going to cause greater isolation? Or do you feel a correction is coming sooner or later where people would start to realize well, we need to rebuild community the manual way?

SPEAKER_00 52:34

Damn. Big question. Um two parts to that. I think AI is going to be hopefully the impetus for us to reconnect. So I think what happened with COVID, I was living in Estonia at the time when COVID hit the world, uh, working on a um government health project. And um what COVID did was bring family units close together. So what we have, so in Australia, we have the largest Greek population outside of Greece, right? In Melbourne. Um and um so in Greek populations, I've got a bunch of Greek friends, um, granddad, grandmum are very intrinsically locked into raising your kids. Like so your six-year-old and your two-year-old, mum, uh, grandmum, granddad are there the whole time, right? And what COVID did, at least what I've seen from Australia, UK, and US, is um because we were forced to work from home, be around our partners the whole time, give our kids a bit more attention because we didn't have the three hours travel time, whatever it might be. I think what we saw with COVID was people reconnecting. And I think the one thing that I hope that happens with AI, um, we's Segway in the next couple of years is AI gives us the confidence or the tools to have the conversations we really want to have um with the important people in our lives. So I don't, you know, we'll have AGI in the next three to five years, a version of it. Like we've had Eliza, it was 1965, which was the first AI ever built. Um and it was a false AI, but that was the point. It was to try and fall the Turing test. Um, but I think where AI is now, like, if the back to the conversation I said I had with my um sister's friend who's uh vet, he said to be able to actually have access to technologies that help you perform better in the world, be happier, sleep better, um, make the world different, be of value. I mean, I think that's that's where AI is getting to. So in 20, would have been 2010, 2011, when the big data boom kicked off, um, which would have been during your study days, um, that um in Australia we overinvested by about 50% more than any other country in the world. Uh, because we were looking for the promise of what big data is going to do for us. And we're kind of experiencing the same thing right now, like these trillion dollar valuations for open AI, whatever. But what we're missing is the essential um element that we as a company we're trying to get right, is how do we make it safer? And how do we make it like you and I having this chat right now, where I feel safe to disclose this to you, um, not knowing where this is going, um, because I'm not worried about data sovereignty or whatever. But I I like the fact that you ask meaningful questions. Thank you, thank you, um, really important segues, and you get me for this moment in time. And if that technology gets there in the next couple of years, it's gonna be a game changer for I think mental health in general.

SPEAKER_01 55:42

Wow, wow. That is so profound. And like I said, these are the kind of conversations I want to have. And when people listen to these episodes and then they were like, oh wow, I never really thought about it this way. Well, that is that is the point. Because you are over there in Australia, um, 10,000 miles away in Florida, and we're having a conversation like this. None of this would have been possible before technology came around. Okay, now we have technology. How are we going to use it to encourage conversations across 10,000 kilometers from each other? Or we could use the same technology to create deepfects and get people in our lives upset and so on.

SPEAKER_00 56:24

And that's it. Like I was on stage on a panel last week, and I said, Look, I'm a trained combat soldier. Um, you put a gun in my hand versus the angry teenager versus you know, whoever a potential terrorist, whatever, not trying to uh stereotype, uh, it means different things to me and a police officer, gun is to protect. We are the most requested peacekeepers in the world because we believe in uh talking it through and we don't escalate really quick, you know. So um I think the same thing with technology. The AI in the hands of your six-year-old, your two-year-old, uh, my goddaughters, my friends' kids, if explained to them in the right way, isn't going to be Skynet. It's gonna be like your like your uncle that I turned to, who gave me my first beer, showed me my first pornographic magazine when I was like 14, 15. Like, and that's the role you want it to play, right? Like you want it to be there for you when you need it, but it shouldn't overwhelm you. Wow, wow.

SPEAKER_01 57:28

This has been a really fun and insightful conversation. Thank you so much. And hopefully next time we would be able to set it up and then have another round of nerdy conversation.

SPEAKER_00 57:41

Well, thank you very much. This has been awesome. Um, as I said, like coming into this conversation, still with the flu, feeling sick as this has been very interesting. So um, yes, I'm happy to share it. So when you send me a link, send me a link, I'll push it out to my network. And um, yeah, it's been awesome. Thanks for having me. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 57:57

Talk to you soon. Bye. If you like this episode, please share it with a relative, a friend, a co-worker, a neighbor, an acquaintance, and so on. And then please leave a rating andor a review on your favorite podcast app. My name is PD Mio Logunde, and this is the Big Picture Podcast. Thank you for listening.