The Train Has Left the Station

In this episode, I share a mind-blowing conversation with an Uber driver that perfectly captures why we need to be talking about these massive changes happening in our world RIGHT NOW.

This super-informed guy could talk for days about geopolitics and the "inevitable" collapse of civilisations, but completely dismissed climate change as a separate issue. Classic! But here's the thing - these massive disruptive forces aren't happening in isolation.

The train has left the station on both climate change and AI, and most of us haven't even realised we missed boarding.

Climate activists have shifted from "we can stop this!" to "how do we adapt?" after we hit that dreaded 1.5 degrees of warming last year. Meanwhile, AI is advancing at that "hockey stick curve" rate - slow progress for decades, and now suddenly BOOM - straight up exponential growth that's changing everything.

What happens when 75% of certain white-collar jobs simply vanish within months? When we can't trust if what we're seeing and hearing online is real? When our food systems start experiencing more disruptions?

I was completely oblivious until last year when I finally started paying attention again (blame the grief fog and solo parenting three kids!). But now I'm seeing what's happening and feeling weirdly liberated by acknowledging: yes, things ARE crumbling.

So let's stop pretending it's business as usual. Let's get creative, bring more women's voices to these conversations, and figure out how to walk this bumpy path together.

And maybe grow some veggies while we're at it (even if I'm historically a plant-killer!).

Continue your conversation with Lisa on Substack

Know someone who would love this episode? 

Share it with them here (um, and a hefty handful of stars would be greatly appreciated!) 

Transcript

All right, another episode of the podcast and I'm going to start today with with a conversation that I had with an Uber driver last night. And the fact that I have already recorded this episode, I actually recorded it in two parts and I've ditched it because this Uber conversation

absolutely epitomized why this is really, really important for us to talk about. So I was in the Uber, it was a shockingly bad night weather-wise in Melbourne and I was trying to get into the city. I was probably in that Uber for an hour and for what should have been a 20 minute Uber drive.

So there I was thinking, great, we're just stuck in this really terrible traffic. I'm just, yeah, talk, have a little chat. And wow, that conversation went in a lot of different directions. My new friend has two sons. You know, he was very proud to tell me that they were at university and he told me what they were going to be studying. And one was sort of, it was data sets or data science or something. And then the other one was studying accounting.

I don't know how long that degree is. I'd say minimum three years. In my mind I was like would I be encouraging my child to become an accountant?

in terms of like AI and where technology is going because I genuinely think all the time like I wonder what sort of jobs my kids are going to be doing. What I'll be doing to do to be honest in you know three or four years time my first child will finish school in four years. Okay I wonder what they'll be doing. Would accounting be something that you'd be thinking that's definitely something that's going to be needed into the future?

And so anyway, I just, was asking him more questions and the conversation went in all sorts of directions. I mean, we were talking Putin and Trump and the Mongols. Look, I could tell you all the reasons why we ended up in all these different places, but here's the crux of it. This guy, he's, he's children of first generation Australian. He's Indian.

born and he's been here for about 30 years. And he was talking about the craziness in the world and how basically we're watching the collapse of the U S and he's like, you know, civilizations collapse. It's what happens. Like history shows us this. This was just a conversation I was having with this Uber driver whose job he works at a milk factory. He's sort of in charge of

the and making sure that the milk is safe and healthy and is splitting correctly and all the pasteurization stuff. Fascinating conversation. And I said, yeah, but we're so global these days that a collapse of the US, especially for the developed world and it's all of us. And he's like, no, no, no, no. And he was then talking about

China and Russia he was talking all about why he believes Trump is trying to be friends with with Putin because he's like well he's exhausted all of the markets that American products can be sold to. He's a businessman he's looking at this untapped resource of Russia and I was like this is just this is wild.

that it's crumbling, like that this is that we are seeing a demise here, but he doesn't think it's a demise of capitalism per se, you know, and, we're all going down or, you know, this is a, a global kind of collapse. He, he absolutely thinks it's going to be, you know, centered on, on the U S and it's going to be interesting to see the ripple effects, but there won't be ripple effects everywhere.

And I was like, okay. he said, because capitalism will survive nature is capitalism. I'm like, Ooh, you know, tell me more about that. we were having these great chats. And I said, what you're not talking about is yeah, this extractive nature of this continuous growth cycle. It has limits. This is a

this is not a Lisa perspective. This is like a proven sort of thing and look at the impact that it's having on the planet. And he was kind of quiet. And I said, climate change is a thing. It's going to affect everyone. There will be nowhere that you can escape the impacts of climate change. And he's like, well, yes, that's something else entirely. I'm like, but it's actually really not because what's happening with the climate is happening in tandem with

the current state of geopolitics with the rise of AI and stripping out, you know, millions of jobs over the next few years. Like it's all happening. It's all happening together. And climate is a huge, huge driver of the disruption that we're going to be seeing more and more of. It's like not in, not in our lifetime. I'm like, mate, I think you're wrong. And I think that

you need to sort of check out the information out there right now because when people are, you know, cannot access basic food sources and all of that sort of stuff.

it's going to change a lot of things. And I said, it won't be when we're actually feeling like, you know, New York's underwater, that the disruption, when people realize that this is something that is actually quite real, but that level of disruption and movement and change is going to cause massive ripple effects.

globally. And he kind of couldn't meet me in that argument. Well, meet me there because I feel like this is the thing that we with any type of conversation.

We look at the headlines and conversation about what's happening in the world right now. We seek out the headlines. We follow the news wherever you get your news.

that informs us. And the problem with the climate movement has been it is just notoriously hard for it to get the airtime required and people look like radicals when they just actually sharing the science. And it was just so, this guy was so informed about so many things and yet climate was just kind of this like

And so this is what I wanted to talk about today. Last year, I realized as I was just starting to open up and listen to what was going on in the world again, that the train has really left the station with these two important disruptive factors. I literally cannot pretend that I know enough ins and outs and can follow what's going on in

in the international community in lots of different ways. I mean, it is dynamic. We don't really know what's happening. We will never actually really know what's happening, but I'm fascinated by it and I'm willing to have some conversations about it, but it's, it's.

What I, cause what I feel like I'm watching is this final tantrum almost of patriarchy and capitalism. Like it's just like, we will not go down. I'm not tired.

and it's causing chaos, right? But there's these two areas that I absolutely, I just, hadn't realized until I started to look at it last year that the train has really left the station in terms of where we're at climate wise, like the trajectory for warming on our planet and with AI. And so I thought, let's just talk about this so we can,

I'll give you my understanding and where it came from so that you can see how I've come to this like the hell have I been and I'm so glad that now I am somewhere that is kind of more informed or at least open-eyed and seeking out information that's going to help me.

and my little family and potentially all of us together kind of walk this crazy path that we are on whether we want to be or not. So the first, let's just look at climate quickly. I have followed Sarah Wilson for years and years and years. I mean, you might remember her from the I Quit Sugar days. She actually gave me a scholarship.

to learn at the Institute for Integrative Nutrition years and years ago. It's meant to make you a health coach. It didn't really make me a health coach, but it did open me up to, gosh, the mess that we're in with food, right? And so I started my own little, you know, work at myself to shift around the food that I was eating and that my family would eat. I've heard a thank for that. It was amazing. I've always...

been watching her. think she's very smart. I know some people find her really tricky to listen to and engage with. I am really grateful for the education that she gave me last year on her wild podcast when she did, which I've listened to always, but she did this series on collapse. She is a climate activist. And last year, the tone started to shift and it started to shift for

a few people that I follow in the climate space. And it was basically that it moved from, come on everyone, let's get everyone together and turn this around. We need to halt warming. know, amazing things have happened in the climate movement. Fricking amazing. Like where some things have got to the Paris agreement was a really big driver of a lot of that stuff. But there was just this

Wow, we've, we, we're not going to be able to stop this. Last year, we hit the 1.5 degree of warming that everyone was trying to aim at. Like that was sort of the max before two degrees when shit's really gonna be hitting the fan.

in really big ways. So let me tell you, Sarah Wilson and her wild podcast is a great, great listen. And there was a guy that she interviewed who I went and watched or I listened to his interview or his presentation at the Festival of Dangerous Ideas, Jem Bendel, who is seen as pretty extreme, but

has been a part of the deep adaptation. it's a, the movement was we need to start adapting to a different climate future. We missed the mark. We are not going to turn this around and it's going to change a lot. I will put the link to Jem's speech at the Festival of Dangerous Ideas. I think it's good because he spells out kind of in really very, a very real sense.

what this is going to mean for important things like our food.

think we need to get our heads around this and stop with the... We're almost desensitized to talks about climate. I think has happened. I think it happened to me. And I kind of, you know, it's one of those things like, God, there's nothing I can do. So let's just fingers crossed. And now I'm like, wow, I've got three kids. And what's going to happen to access to food, water?

Yeah, my son came out when the cyclone Alfred was hitting.

the North coast or the South coast of Queensland, North coast of New South Wales. And he just said, mom, it's just gonna be this a lot, isn't it? Like a 14 year old kid knows, they're talking to them about this at school, that he knows that more extreme weather events is going to be a part of his future. I can't even tell him it's not, it just is.

All of the science is there. If you think that climate change is still some sort of a hoax, you're probably not going to have a good time around here. So you don't have to listen and you don't have to try and convince me of anything because I've done my own research. I feel quite happy with where I've landed on this. The other thing that I want to share with you is a presentation made by Clive Hamilton from the Australia Institute. So

You know, Clive was another one of these people like, yep. So Australia just, we just actually now need to start thinking about adapting our cities, our towns, our infrastructure to this new climate future. Like we haven't made it. And, and, and so now is, is the time to start really looking at that. I, and, Sarah interviewed Clive on her podcast as well. And yeah, she was like, so

Clive, something I get asked a lot is where to live. And it's funny because you think, know, everyone's getting their bunkers in New Zealand, but why will New Zealand be safe from, like if one of the food bowls collapses? Anyway, the issue is immense and...

We can, I'm like, well, okay, I can just feel freaked out by this and the train has left the station. This is going to be different. It will be different for our kids. I grieve that they won't have things that we have. The problems for them are gonna be big and huge. And I can either just like sink back and think, my God, it's too big or I'm scared or just business as usual, or I can just start doing a few things that make me feel empowered around this.

And if you're following along in my stories on social media, you'll see like I'm about to be growing some vegetables in my back garden as someone who has never felt like she can ever grow anything ever. I can't keep indoor plants that aren't meant to die alive. I'm like, God, how am going to do this? I want to build a new habit around it. I want to just get curious to it. I want to feel like I'm equipping my kids with stuff and I'm not talking.

like full prepper vibes, but also like just acknowledging a reality. I mean, we can see, we saw in COVID when people were scared about not having toilet paper, what happened, right? Like this is not...

There's going to be very real consequences from this and it's absolutely happening in our lifetime.

And I think a lot of people, is where, know, we can shift the conversation to be a little bit more about the technology and AI and all this stuff. And then so people starting to put all their hope in technology to come up with the answers for us for what we know is like.

things aren't working.

I mean, the US has just pulled out of major, major international agreements on action around climate change. So we've now just kind of sped up faster what's going to happen.

It's just, it's absolutely mind blowing. And so then there's this kind of like, well, technology will save us. AI will come up with answers and you can go down a million different rabbit holes with that. But the truth is that the system, the way that we're doing things, are constant extracting the constant growth. It just, it's not working. And...

And we need some like really big fundamental shifts. But as I start to mention AI, let me tell you about where I got to with that last year. once again, I just wasn't really paying attention. I absolutely saw AI coming on board and was like, oh, that's going to have nothing to do with me. I'm a creative.

I, we don't have Google home or any of that stuff. I don't like it.

less automation, more creativity vibes. I mean, I was just, seeing what it was doing to the industry that I was working in and I was bored. I was like, here we go.

And then I started to do my research on what this technology actually was. And I started to listen in on conversations with these tech bros on podcasts. And I would just think.

hell is this? This extension of human intelligence. They are not talking about what I thought that they were talking about. And this is going to be so disruptive and we are not ready. I am not ready.

And we do need humans to jump on board with technology in order for it to be used and useful and have the transformative effect.

But it's going to, it's just going to infiltrate everything. so my conversation with a friend last year, I can't remember if I said this in the first episode. I'm just going to say it again really quickly in case I didn't. When I was at a dinner party and he was like, I was like, yeah, AI is the death of creativity. Craig, he's like, I'm like, Craig, I'm not interested.

And he's like, you don't get a choice. I was like, yes, I do. Watch me resist this technology. He's like, Lisa, I've been learning about this for 10 years. You honestly have no idea what you're about. I'm like, okay, Craig. All right, all right, all right. Tell me what you listen to. Tell me the books. Like where are you getting your information? He goes, okay, well, you can start with the Singularity is Nearer. You need to listen to Ray Kurtz's file. He is like the...

the guy that you should listen to on this. I'm like, singularity is nearer sounds. So sciencey and boring. So I downloaded the audio book and I started listening and what the hell.

What the hell? And then he's like, there's this, you you listen to Lex Friedman. I'm like, Lex who? He's like, Lex, Lex Friedman. This guy's like got millions of followers. He's wow. Okay. Not a part of the world of podcasts that I would naturally listen to. And so I found a few interviews. I listened to a few interviews. I mean, he's interviewed Musk. He, he, I listened to an interview that he did with Sam Altman, who is the co-founder of OpenAI.

which is chat GPT. And I'm like, wow, wow, these men are having all the conversations. Okay, this, this train left the station, this whole thing, this is out of the box. This is so much bigger on so many different levels. mean, super exciting for certain elements of life, you know.

especially biotech, but also scary. And hang on, who's making the rules around this? Is there anyone regulating this team? Hang on, so what? A lot of this is open source technology, which means that people can, you can use it and then you can grow from there. Like it's just, and so what about if the baddies get this?

Lisa who is a very trustworthy person. Him worried about the baddies getting access to this stuff.

What's gonna... what's gonna happen?

where are the women in these conversations? And that's, you know, I discovered Tracy Spicer wrote an amazing book called Man-Made that I definitely recommend. And as I was doing my own research, which a lot of the books, a lot of the podcasts are men talking, there was a great book. Let me just see it here. So, Scary Smart.

former chief business officer at Google, Mo Gordit. He also was interviewed on the Diary of a CEO podcast, which is a good listen. And we'll start to make you think, what? Hang on. This is more than just like, hey, help me create a meal plan for my family this week. This is full on. It's full on. And it's all happening. And it's all going to be evolving at a super, super fast rate.

This book here, The Coming Wave by Mustafa Suleiman, S-U-L-E-Y-M-A-N, I think a really, really important read as well. These are people from inside the AI world warning everybody about AI, mostly around the issue of containment.

Because literally there's no rules. do think the EU has brought in something very, very recently. saw my little AI newsfeed that I now get because I'm fascinated by this. This technology is not like any other technology that has been introduced to humans because it will change humans is what they're actually saying. So it's not a tool that we will use. It will become like a part of us.

And suddenly I heard the other guy the other day on a podcast and he was saying, you know, if you think you're not a cyborg right now, you're wrong. Could you live your life without your phone? It is already an extension of you. So is it a huge leap that these new technologies will literally become a part of us? Like, I'm not ready for this. Hang on, what? I'm just getting around like how to create a few simpler automations in my business.

so that we can make what used to take a really long time, a short amount of time. This is so much bigger than that.

head.

someone recently say something that I've heard now quite a few times. And it's that, so AI has been in development since the 1950s. And, and it's sort of been a bit slow moving in lots of different ways. There's been some, some key points, you know, everyone talks about the moment that an AI beat the grand chess master.

and like what that did to the technology. There's all sorts of different things. And they all talk about how, you this is what humans do. We build tools, we build technology and societies change because of that.

And then they all start to talk about this, this exponential growth of this technology and like the impact it's going to have. I, and in the last few months, I've heard a few people say it, are at the hockey stick curve of the change. So it's been, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep. And now we hit that and it's straight up.

And I don't think we're talking about this. I don't think we're thinking a lot about the disruption that is going to happen when mass amounts of the white collar workforce are not going to be needed by companies anymore.

You know, the 25 % once again now, cause I've recorded these so many times, I've forgotten what I said in the first episode, but listening to a man who runs a whole heap of clean tech companies said that he has 25 % of the lawyers on staff than he did 12 months ago.

What? Okay, so that's one group of companies. What's happening in others? And now this is not to say that lawyers won't be needed. Just like I think accountants will still be needed and experts, people able to interpret and data and make big decisions and think critically and all of that sort of stuff for sure. But if we remove the...

the people on the lower rungs working their way to expert level and they're not needed anymore and they can be replaced. How do we build the experts? How do we get people up to that level once this lot disappear? Will we all just be using AI agents, which is this next sort of phase of development, having agents do the work that people used to do?

And this is happening so fast, like in real time, they are developed, it's all happening right now and getting better and better, like exponentially better than it was half an hour ago, like all the time.

what is going to happen to that part of the workforce? Are we thinking this through together? are we? I mean, I'm sure that there's, I don't work in the big companies. So, I mean, I would love to hear from people who are part of this and who know. But then also what happens to highly leveraged white collar knowledge workers?

who might have two houses and some fancy cars and some kids in private school, when they're just at a point where they can't figure out they can't get the jobs, the job market has shrunk so much for their skills and they need to retrain, but they're not too sure what, and people start selling stuff. then, it's really big and disruptive. It's so much more than what I actually thought.

It was about this conversation about AI. And as I said, like it's not stoppable. We individually, I think can, can draw our own lines of what we're happy with, what we're not happy with in terms of the way in which we interact and use it in our daily lives, like me holding out on Google home and that sort of stuff. I do think that there's going to be a huge move to

localisation, community, artisanal type stuff that you can touch and feel, real life experiences. I think we're going to be craving it more and more, but this technology is here. It's here to stay. It's going to infiltrate so many different aspects of our lives.

and

And it's going to really, really, really disrupt a lot of people. And I don't think that we're really talking about that, talking about the impacts.

And I choose not to get into too much fear. I I teach online and I question whether that will still be a thing for sure. Or it will still be a thing. And this is what I'm working on at the moment. It's like adapting things to have more touchy-feely real life experiences.

Because as we, like there's things that AI absolutely can't do that humans do. I think we're to be talking about this more. I think we're going to lose trust in a lot of things that we see in the media and online. We are going to not be able to trust what we see and hear. Can you imagine a world where you literally like, hang on, is that real? I don't know.

Will we all just shut off from it? Will we turn off?

who will have the ability to communicate in ways that we do trust. Where will we be getting our information from? can you see why this is such a wild time? So all of that is all of that is happening, right?

It's going to cause a lot of disruption, a lot of opportunities, a lot of cool stuff too. As I said, I'm not totally doom and gloom about AI. Wow, what a world we are going to be living in, right? What solutions are possible to big problems in the world? For sure. Yes, get rid of cancer. Yes, the first antibiotic.

created by AI is being sold. Wow. But also where's the scientists? Like we also need, we need critical thinking and creative thinking. We need discussion and debate. We need to figure out ethics around this. And the women aren't in the room. There are very, very few, and I am seeking them out and I will be sharing them here, women who have stuff to say about this, women who are involved in the discussions.

We really need to be there. A lot of the initial stuff, all I was finding was man heavy conversations, talking amongst themselves, these dysregulated out of touch with themselves and important things in life. I'm like, we've been the ones doing all the work these last little while. We have so much to add to this conversation. So this is all happening. And then we've got...

the climate doing its thing and an awakening happening amongst the general population that maybe this is really not cool and maybe we're going to need to start thinking about things in different way. And we're looking at our children and we're wondering why we're sending them to schools that don't really seem to be adapting fast enough to this new world. They cannot make the rules around

AI in real time, knowing that kids still need the basics. Kids need to learn and think creatively and fail and figure things out. They're going to need to be great problem solvers. What is the role of teachers and education right now when the level of this technological revolution that we're a part of is going to change the world that they walk into when they finish school without a doubt.

What do we want for them now? What do we want for ourselves and our family? What's going to matter at this time? Because we have all been feeling that this is off for a fair while.

We talk about things like the anxious generation. We're conscious to it. We're conscious that people are lonely and yet we just go into our homes and stay there. We get this chance to kind of, all right, the train's left the station. And kind of it's a little bit of a relief almost when you just acknowledge this is big change. We're going to have to walk it.

We can pave the path with roses.

hold hands and do it together. It's gonna be bumpy. And what do we really wanna, what can we create? What can we do next? I kind of think that when...

And Sarah Wilson spoke about this, almost the relief of acknowledging this is crumbling now. You're not making it up if it feels weird and strange and like everything's gone really sideways. It has. So you don't need to worry about, you know, like.

trying to figure it out. just is. And so when we're there, when we're at that place, and I think it was the same with me with like resisting, resisting, resisting AI and thinking about including it in my business and all that's the stuff. Well, it was almost just like, well, when I've realized that this is actually just really happening, then we can get about the business of figuring out how to do this in a way that works for us.

Like we can't go back now, even if we might want to.

And I think it's calling us actually into more and it's exhausting. Yes. Yes. Can't everything just slow down for a while? Yes. Do we not get the retirement that we were all sort of promised? Yes. If we followed the rules and worked hard, we should be bearing the fruits of that. Yes. And maybe not. And what are we going to do about that?

And if we all just recognize it, then all of us who've got brilliant ideas about what we can create, how we can make little shifts, what we can say no to these days, feeling stronger in our convictions, because you are not the only one. I am not the only one feeling like, Yikes.

Do the thing.

Like, make the change. I know it's easier said than done. Bloody hell. I mean, I still just make my kids lunches and send them off to school that I know doesn't really work.

So I'm just looking at the notes that I've thrown over this page and I have no idea if I've mentioned everything that I wanted to mention but I can't, I couldn't script this out. I just needed to go bleh. I hope that's cool and I hope that this has made sense. I also hope you're not freaked out but I also hope we're just like getting ourselves on the page. What did I write here? I think it's important we know. I think we need to steward this.

I'm not going to play down what I think is going on.

then I can't understand the next sentence. This will be

something, something, And I think that's probably the way to end on. I do think it's important that we know this stuff. If I hadn't started tuning in last year,

because I was just ready to, I just at a stage of my life that I was ready to again, which I covered in the first episode. I would have missed that we hit that 1.5 degree of warming because it certainly wasn't thrown all over the news. If I wasn't having conversations with friends about AI and working in a tiny, tiny little mini business.

that is on the forefront of this technological change, would be, I would absolutely be missing what AI really is and the impact that it's going to have. But I did open my eyes last year and I'm really, really glad I did because it's taking me on this brand new path of exploring my own little world in new ways, helping me see that the future is going to be different. So then all bets are off.

What do we do? What do we want to create from here? I want to stay connected to these changes that are happening in the world. So I understand them for my children. I don't know how to talk outside the context of this moment in time. And so that is what we will do. We will have discussions about things that are important to us in the context of this moment in time of

rapid change.

We've got this. We're in this together. It feels better when we talk about it together. When we're getting creative together, when we're sharing ideas, when the women in the room are like, my goodness. Yeah, yeah, I just used a freaking hammer and made myself some planter boxes. You know, that's what I'm saying.

I'm really glad you're here and I will most definitely see you in the next episode.