John Eaton-Griffin's Cloudy with a chance of Dyslexia.
Welcome to 'Cloudy with a Chance of Dyslexia', a hub where technology clouds rain innovation and open skies for everyone, including those with dyslexia. Here, we navigate the vast expanse of AI and automation, uncovering how these tools elevate our visual world and make it more accessible.
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John Eaton-Griffin's Cloudy with a chance of Dyslexia.
What If Technology Is Our Greatest Equalizer?
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What if our greatest technological advancements could actually make us more human? That's the provocative question at the heart of this conversation with Ian Shanahan, a global technology leader whose 25-year career spans Accenture, UiPath, BlackBerry, and now Panama Consulting.
Instead of fearing artificial intelligence and automation, Ian presents a compelling vision of technology addressing three critical challenges: our growing health and social care crisis, the UK's lagging productivity, and the need for greater societal equality. Drawing from his extensive experience implementing AI and automation at scale, he makes a passionate case that these tools should augment human capabilities rather than replace them.
The discussion navigates both practical applications and philosophical implications of our technological future. We explore how AI is becoming a powerful equalizer for neurodiversity by reducing cognitive load and offering alternative communication pathways beyond text. Ian shares fascinating perspectives on how technology could transform healthcare delivery, with AI potentially handling routine diagnoses while freeing medical professionals to specialize more deeply.
What makes this conversation particularly valuable is its balanced approach. While acknowledging legitimate ethical concerns around AI governance and potential misuse, Ian counters doom-laden narratives with historical perspective – from panics about automobiles replacing horse-drawn carts to today's fears about generative AI. Throughout, he emphasizes how technology can foster social mobility by democratizing capabilities once reserved for large organizations or privileged individuals.
Whether you're a technology professional, business leader, or simply curious about how AI might reshape your world, this episode offers both practical insight and hopeful vision for technology as a force for human flourishing. How might these tools help you focus on what truly matters?
Technology as a Force for Good
Speaker 1Hello everyone, welcome to Cloudy with a Chance of Dyslexia. Today's episode we're joined by Ian Shanahan, a global technology leader whose career spanned the world's most transformative companies, from Accenture to UiPath. There you go a bit of dyslexia there, blackberry and now Panama Consulting. With over 25 years experience driving strategic alliances, intelligent automation, cloud transformation across EMEA, ian has been at the forefront of building ecosystems that power progress. But what makes Ian stand out isn't just his technical depth or commercial insight. It's his commitment to making tech meaningful.
Speaker 1From managing 100 million distribution networks in his early days at Fujitsu and Bell Micro products to leading a global partner strategies for enterprise AI automation platforms, ian's always been focused on the bigger picture how can technology help people thrive? So, whether you're an enterprise strategist or a startup founder or someone who's curious about technology's heading, this episode will challenge you and make you think bigger, maybe act wiser and build better. So let's dive in. I'm going to ask Ian a couple of questions, and I can use Shani as well, because I I know Shani of old right, so a little bit more familiar with Ian than some of our previous calls. But today, ian, you've had the front row seat really in technology over the last couple of decades. And what does technology as a force for good personally mean to you? And what did you know? When did that really start to resonate in your career? You know how did that change?
Speaker 2Good question, john. Welcome, by the way, and thank you very much indeed for inviting me on. It's always good to chat Tech is always good to catch up with an old friend, and so I'm really, really grateful for the opportunity of chewing the fat. You know what it's like when you get on something like this and it gives you a chance to talk high level and talk introspectively about what you've been up to. It always gives you new ideas for the future as well, so I welcome, I welcome anything like this. So thank you very much for the invite.
Speaker 2I think only tech will save us. Okay, there's many reasons I say that, macroeconomic as well as as well as kind of things that affect us on a day-to-day level, but I think we've got three problems which I think tech is going to help help us address. Maybe four if you include environment, but let's stick to the three that I want to talk about. So one is health and social care. Okay, so I think I read somewhere that there was T working people for every old age pensioner when the welfare state was started in this country. Now I think it's something like two working people for every old age pensioner. So, depending on what you believe, we've already got a health and a social care crisis. It's going to get worse, so we do really need technology to help us solve that problem. Second, one is generally a macroeconomic point about the UK, which is the UK is lagging behind in many, many productivity metrics. We're lagging behind other countries and we're going to need technology automation to help us really start to get back up to the same level as other countries but also start to outstrip our productivity performance at the moment.
Speaker 2And then the third one is I'm a big believer in tech for societal change, it being a leveler, and I know that you and I are very interested in you know neurodiversity, for instance, and I really do see AI and automation as a leveler when it comes to people who don't have traditional skills being able to have technology to augment their skill set.
Speaker 2I also see things like social justice being improved by the opportunity that AI has given us to essentially create a level, economic, level, playing field where everybody will have availability to many, many, many, many, many more resources. What's the meme I often see is an African farmer has in his pocket the same knowledge that Bill Clinton had when he was president of the United States in the mid-90s, and I think that's a brilliant way to look at it right. I read another statistic that once mobile phones get to $9, it might bring another billion people into education in the world. I think that's amazing and I think we should embrace this. And at the moment, you and I hear a lot of negative feedback about technology and the changes it's forcing on people. We do see some of the downside of social interaction, sometimes suffering from extra technology, but for the most part, we desperately need technology to help us and to take us through what's going to happen to society in the next 1,500 years as we start to live longer.
Speaker 1Yeah, I mean, that's a really interesting factor. In terms of the longer, you know, I think technology is going to enable people to live considerably longer lives, and you're absolutely right. Unfortunately, we'll probably miss the boat, pal, but you know, I think for our children's sake, really, and our children's children, you know there is going to be this gap and that gap is going to continue to get bigger as people live longer and longer and longer, and you know there's some challenges there in society. That's really, really interesting that you know it's a topic that you covered.
Speaker 2Every generation in the Western world lives 10 years longer, john. So we think oh well, our grandparents, my grandmother, lived to 85, so I'll live to 85.
Speaker 1No, if your grandmother lived to 85,. You'll live to 105, okay, well, actually, ian, one of the stats that I've always told my wife is this right, that on average globally as well women live five years longer than men, right, and that's a really strange statistic, but it could be. There could be a number of factors behind it, but I just think it's probably we drink too much beer, maybe. What do you think anyway?
Speaker 2I mean. I think then you're right. I think men are. Men do have unhealthier pursuits. I think also men do more foolhardy things, particularly when they're younger. But I think also you have to attribute that to more manual labour Jobs that traditionally have been more men have done more manually based jobs. That is changing and will continue to change. Probably that five-year gap will probably reduce in time.
Speaker 1Yeah, it's interesting, though it's such a consistent statistic across the world that even in a developed country you'd expect that manual labor thing not to be so much. So much of impact. Anyway, that's an aside it's a fair point.
Speaker 2I wonder if I mean, I wonder if I don't want to go down this rat hole, but I wonder if it's a kind of a general, um, a general, uh, average. Because, like I say, men do a lot of foolhardy things as teenagers, men predominantly go to war more than women, etc. Etc. So I wonder if it's, if it's just a an average over the course of a lifetime. Once you get past 50, you know do do women live longer than men?
Speaker 1well, let's let's pause for reflection. Now that was. That was really interesting what you said about the four different areas you wanted to focus on, but I wanted to sort of take a bit of a step back and think about your time and also go into some of your history in terms of the great organizations that you've worked, through UiPath and now to, obviously, where you're working today, at Panama. But you've worked for organizations that drive AI and automation at scale. So how do you ensure those solutions create more opportunity than disruption and how do you look at the world like that? It's just been interesting to understand that.
Speaker 2Yeah, I mean, look, from day one at UiPath I was lucky enough to be one of the earlier people at UiPath, I have to say, and they ended up being the market leader, as you know, in robotic process automation, and now I'm sure they're the leader in agentic AI. It was always about how technology would make people's, would make workers' lives better. It wasn't about replacing workers, it was about augmenting workers. Okay, human in the loop was always a very, very important message. The whole idea of Ui path and robotic process automation, automation more generally and hopefully, gentic ai as we go forward, is going to be how it takes away the jobs we don't like as people, as as as workers, there's a lot of admin associated with our job. There's a lot of cool bits to say with our job. A job isn't there, john, and actually it's the admin stuff that really, I think, gets you down. Um, and I think the fact that we can start to bring AI and automation into our job roles on a daily basis, to take away the less exciting and less productive parts of our jobs, I think that can only be a good thing, and I think so.
Speaker 2I think, firstly, at a very fundamental level, the mission of AI and automation shouldn't be to replace homo sapiens. It should be to actually make their lives more you know, their working lives more enjoyable and more productive. Yeah, I would also say, as people start to use more technology and become more aware with technology, they upskill. Okay, I think that's very good for their personal development and it's very good for their career development in many, many ways as well. I also see automation and AI bringing much more inclusive workflows in as well.
Speaker 2Okay, automation tools with accessibility features, for instance and I know this is something like, say, you and I are very interested in, which is neurodiversity has really empowered diverse workforces as well and sort of fostered a more equitable economic participation from people who who didn't have, you know, who do have learning difficulties, for instance. We really shouldn't start from a starting point of ai is going to take your job. We really should start from the starting point of ai is going to make your job more fun, more rewarding, more productive. Therefore, it's going to protect your job. Does that make sense? Yeah, I mean.
Speaker 1One of the things that I find is that those things that you're more especially as a salesperson or in consulting, you're more in the room when you know something's being recorded, you know that you don't have to take notes, you don't get distracted by those things that you used to in the past because you know the end of the meeting.
Speaker 1You can easily cut and paste the notes.
Speaker 1You can quickly get to the granular detail by asking for summarization.
Speaker 1So there's some really easy, quick wins, where they are, that enable us to be more in the room, probably more human in in meetings, rather than just thinking about the next step, meeting, what I need to do next and all those things that might be going on your head that drain that cognitive energy that you have. That should really be focused on the client, really in terms of understanding what they really need and also, um, if you need to go back afterwards, you can quickly review what those needs are quite, quite easily. So I think there's there's a real sort of. That's very, very much in my sphere of what I do, but when you look at at some of the challenges people with dyslexia have, one of the advantages is that it takes that cognitive load away, yeah, which people with dyslexia do have, and that, and that's probably, you know, very aligned to neurodiversity as a whole as well in terms of reducing that cognitive load so they can think more clearly, they can, they can be in the room so I'd say I love that point.
Speaker 2I love that point about being in the room, because you're right, because when we're all on a call we're making notes and then we're thinking and just the occupation of making a note means you're not present for that, you know. You're not present 100%, and then you get distracted and then you have tech problems and blah, blah, blah. And you're right.
Speaker 1If you can essentially go on a call and commit yourself for that 30 or 60 minutes or 45 minutes to that person and that subject alone, that's got to be a wonderful thing both you know, both mentally and professionally yeah, and I think I think as technology and I don't know whether you've seen but open ai, they're even like looking to design hardware now, whereas you know we came from the hardware world in, you know we know a lot about that, and then suddenly everything's in the cloud, everything's digital, um, but they're looking to build hardware to enable you then to record everything that you do almost. You know to that extent. So some people may see that, as you know, transformational. Some people may see that as maybe some dangers there. So there's some interesting points, but when I look at what do you mean by dangers?
Speaker 1dangers in terms of how people use that content or they use that information to use it in a positive or negative way. So I mean also, legally, there might be some legal constraints and they might gather information that that individual didn't want to share or or said I wanted that turned off, I didn't want you to bring that up and that that might be recorded, that video might be kept or it might be used. Um, as you know, the the danger of video now as well, how real it is or how how accurate it is. Some of the content that's created by sora I don't know whether you've seen some of that on the open ai platform I mean, they look like real people, they look like they exist and, as you know, they don't. They're creating this reality that doesn't exist and that that can be very dangerous for political outcomes and so, but but in terms of back back to you, back back into the room, right back to you, concentrating on you, so at panama, more um, you're helping private equity clients transform digitally.
Speaker 1Yeah, that'd be really interesting to understand a bit more about that, how you balance that performance and profitability with purpose and long term impact, because you know, fundamentally, most CEOs will think you know I need, I can make a lot of profit out of this, which is true and that, and I can take an advantage, but there is there is a payback to consider. You know, every time, for example, you use AI, it's like boiling a kettle. So there's a sustainability management cost there to consider. So that's where I'm sort of leaning to that long-term impact on not just delivering profit for the business, but also that's sustainable for humanity and sustainable long-term.
Speaker 2So just interested in your thoughts on that that's a good question and you know it's true, the company I work for. We do have very good relationships pro equity companies, which means a very good relationship with their portfolio companies. Those portfolio companies could be 20 million pounds up to 1 billion pound companies. So they're very, very, very different and I can't speak for all of them and their mindset and their culture and the way that their management think, but I would say everybody's interested in the same thing, which has got to be profitable sustainable growth. You and I were talking about it 30 years ago when we worked together. In my experience, people do not see automation and AI as a means of taking costs out of business. Honestly, most of the conversations I have about how it can be a force multiplier I don't want to misquote Mark Zuckerberg because I know he listens to the podcast, but I wouldn't want to get you in trouble, john.
Speaker 1I don't think you need to worry about that to worry about that.
AI as a Job Enhancer, Not Replacer
Speaker 2I, I think I read somewhere that he said something like um I've just found out that out of 100 of my developers, 95 of their job can be done by chat gpt, and so my investors now want me to fire 95 developers.
Speaker 2But actually, the way I see it is, I've now got a thousand developers and I think that's great, and I think that's great All right. I think that's wonderful, which is, instead of looking at the cost savings that can be made around AI and automation, let's look at how we can use that as a force multiplier, and I would say the vast majority of conversations I have around AI and automation are on that basis. This is not me just being altruistic or idealistic myself. Genuinely, it's how to C-suite, think ordinarily, which is how can I deploy people into more valuable roles? How can I deploy people into more meaningful and successful work by the use of automation and AI? So I would say I have no, I sleep perfectly well at night, knowing I'm actually making people's jobs more safe and more secure and delivering more value to shareholders and allowing, you know, investment and innovation to thrive in this country and for our clients, because actually, ai and automation is actually making them more productive.
Speaker 1Does that make sense. Yeah, I'd say as well, ian. On the same point, one of my thoughts is I heard a podcast the other day and they were talking about it affecting your cognitive thought process. But I find I actually go deeper into a subject using AI than I might not have done historically, right. So I'll dive more deep into an understanding of something because I'm using AI than I might not have done historically, right. So I'll dive more deep into an understanding of something because I'm using AI and it's answering quite a few of my questions, and then I'm going oh, that's really interesting, tell me more. Tell me more.
Speaker 1So I think, as an educational tool. You know you're going to learn quicker and also you can almost design it to how you learn too, you know. So there's some real. The thing is there's a lot of media sort of suggesting all the negative connotations of using this technology and and that will always happen but some of the outcomes are that are starting to come, are incredible for society. You know the fact that we can start what you mean by that john, because I think I know what I mean by it.
Speaker 2But I mean. So let me give an example, let me ask you a question for you, and then actually the interesting area you've got.
Speaker 2So so if I go and see a company and say I can think I can save you 40 of your costs in this department, honestly the first place they go isn't I can fire 40 of the people in that department. The first place they go is that's amazing. We will keep the team as is, we will redeploy them and we will use that money we are saving in innovation, which will create other jobs as well in our company. Okay, so nobody wants to get up in the morning to shrink their business. Everybody wants to get up in the morning to make them, to make their business much more profitable and much more exciting and much more innovative.
Speaker 2So actually, almost like I say, every conversation I have around ai and automation is all about how we can help companies to spend more money creating well or creating jobs, not reducing jobs. Honestly, and when it comes to and I know the kind of cynics will say, well, okay, but it means that the person in the accounts payable department might lose their job and all they do is make a job for an IT developer, honestly, in my experience, it doesn't work like that at all. Actually, the most successful AI and automation projects are where people have been upskilled, where people have had skills you know given to them and where the change management has allowed those people to actually grow into the new roles with the new technology. So, yeah, I mean I really don't see companies using this as an opportunity to take cost out. I really do see it as an opportunity for them to get a competitive edge which we desperately need as an economy.
Speaker 1Yeah, we do Definitely in the UK. That's an interesting thought there, ian. In terms of the way I think about the process of leveraging AI, I'll give you a personal example is because of the technology we have now. There's no way I could have my own studio. There's no way I could do all this stuff on my own. I don't have an editor. I use AI for that. You know there's all these tools that I have now that I can deliver this service that you know you'd need to be part of the BBC to deliver some of this stuff. You know'd need to be part of the bbc to deliver some of this stuff, you know what less than 10 years ago, right?
Speaker 1so you know the fact this technology is available for individuals to have these sort of calls is absolutely incredible, isn't it? It means that we can have these conversations that are, you know, high quality to be delivered out to, to share that conversation with other people so they can go and listen at their leisure, and it costs me peanuts really to to run this.
Speaker 1So so I think that's what's changed is you know the, the ability to um, to run your own thing and be be your own person. I think there's a lot more. If you want it, you know you can go and put the effort into learning how to use these tools. There's a great advantage for the younger generation. But, unlike anything, anything, it is about effort and it is about you know putting some, some work behind what you, what you want to do, and using the technology to help you with that. So, and it is about building those use cases and, as you know so well, let's talk a bit more about ai, because you'll work with domino, data labs and panamore and how you distinguish between ai and that. That's I suppose I think we've really covered this in terms of how you've done that, in terms of you know. But the one thing I always look at and this is on a more on a personal level is this technology one day, right, could be our leader. You know it could be like. You know it could be so successful that we need to build in ethical frameworks for it. So there needs to be a level of governance and in terms of how do you build that responsibility into the AI over time? And it's important that governments and legal, you know make sure that we don't just automate everything. I don't know whether you know about the pay-per-click theory on AI. If you've heard that one, yeah, so just for people who are listening, the pay-per-click theory is if you create a super duper AI and all it can do and its main objective is to create paper clips, then it'll eventually, you know, create paper, clicks through it throughout the universe and use all the energy in the universe to create paper clips, because that's its core goal, and so that's like the the horror story of ai. But if you think about it, if you automate everything away and I don't think that will ever happen I think there's always going to be that glue that's needed with technology.
Speaker 1I think that there's, you know. You know, the one thing that's always asked for right now is power. We need an enormous amount of power to run ai, so maybe we need to start thinking about how do we make our more efficient first. You know, maybe we're making it too inefficient at the moment. We want all this power, but do we need all this power or do we need just to maybe work on creating better ai so it doesn't have to consume as much power, right. So so, ian, yeah, over to you really, in terms of that ultimate everything. I suppose I've answered my own question a little bit, but you know what are your thoughts on that?
Speaker 2well, I mean, I think ethical ai has got many, many tears to it, so let's talk about in the first. So let's talk about in the first instance. Let's talk about. You know, an SMB business in the UK and I think, first and foremost, they just have to be aware of what they are doing, what their team and their personnel are doing with AI, and I think so many companies aren't aware of it at the moment. So what I mean by that is, I think, when the new version of ChatGPT was launched about six weeks ago now, one million people signed up for ChatGPT in one hour.
Ethical Frameworks for AI Governance
Speaker 2So I think the question when you go and see a company now, let's take a typical SMB company and say to them the conversation isn't anymore. You should be using AI. The conversation is your people are using AI, whether they're admitting to it to you or not. They're using it to write decks, write presentations, proofread emails, you know, sometimes check contracts. So I think, in the first instance, the most base level of ethical AI is that companies need to get arms around what they're using AI for in their business and they need to start governing that. That doesn't mean to say they should stop using AI Absolutely on the contrary, they need to embrace AI, but on some level they need to have a log of what they're doing with it and what their people are doing with it and how that will impact for instance, copy their writing or information they're releasing into the public domain, or contracts, or contracts or client data, etc. So I think on that base level, there needs to be a kind of a responsible AI and AI governance framework for every company. The next level up, where companies have got their own data science team and they're generating their own algorithms and their own models, those people need to have a responsible AI policy. They need to be very, very careful about the data that's going into those AI models, and I think that requires a responsible AI set of principles and a responsible AI governance framework as well. So the obvious example one which I hear regularly cited, for instance, is if I create an AI algorithm now to vet CVs and I'm recruiting for an engineering job and I'm using data from the last 40 years, there's every chance that that data will say you need a 50-year-old bloke okay, because 50-year-old blokes used to be engineers okay, and it will favour those CVs. So that's an example of how companies who are creating their own models and their own algorithms and using their own data, how they need to be very responsible in the way that they use their data.
Speaker 2And, on a kind of I guess, on a macro level, we need to be very, very mindful of the power that AI and automation and robotics is being given to rogue states and actually any state and terrorist organizations. I'm not by any means an expert on defense or security, so I'm really not the right person to be commenting on it, but there was a kind of natural world order where large countries have large resources. You know, conflict is fought in a traditional way. Generally, a great big body like NATO or the UN could police the world because we had the most combined, we had the most resources and, as long as we behaved in an ethical way, we had relative peace throughout the world.
Speaker 2Now, who's to say a terrorist organization or a small state that you know, with a few million people, don't suddenly create the best AI tool imaginable and suddenly start to be our overlords? I don't think. I honestly don't think that's melodramatic. I think that's something we really need to consider regulation of AI, but at the same time as well, I think on a kind of global level. We need to be mindful of the fact that there is now an enhanced amount of power that organizations can get. Organizations and states can get, and we need to be mindful about how we look out for that. Basically, I don't think you can stop it, but we have to be well aware of how we remain one step ahead of it.
Speaker 1Yeah, I'll give you a small example of that.
Speaker 1I won't think you can stop it, but we have to be well aware of how we stay, remain one step ahead of it. I'll give you a small example of that. I won't mention a country or anything, but I do know that some of the early AI algorithms have been built into robotic dogs to be used for patrolling borders, and those robotic dogs can be quite easily converted into killing machines to control those borders as well. So therefore, one of the first times in history, you know, you haven't got a human in the loop making a decision whether somebody should live or die. You've got a machine making that decision. So you do have some, you know, some outliers where things like that will happen, and it's about how you understand that AI can be used in a, you know, in a negative way, and that's why legislation needs to be built in and we need to, you know, govern as much as we can with this technology, because, you're absolutely right, if it's used in the wrong way, it can be and sold in the wrong way, it can be weaponized.
Speaker 2Quite it's worse. It's worse than your scenario, because actually I think humans in the loop is actually the problem. I think if you've got bad actors, they could make that. That robot dog that you just suggested do bad things, and so I don't think it's necessarily AI taking. Going back to your original point and I'm sorry it's been such a long-winded answer I don't think it's AI taking over the world which is the problem. I think it's more bad actors harnessing the power of AI to give themselves a degree of power that we never, ever would have thought imaginable before. I don't know what that looks like. Is it hacking into everybody's vehicle, making them crash? Is it hacking into nuclear power plants and making them overheat? I honestly don't know. I watch TV the same as you, so I'm just widely speculating.
Speaker 1It's a little bit dark mirror now, Ian. We're sort of getting a bit deep. I'm just wildly speculating. It's a little bit dark mirror now, Ian.
Speaker 2We're sort of getting a bit deep, exactly. So I don't know really what the real life example will be when it comes to us. But you and I were working together at 9-11, that terrible day, and we didn't conceive that ever, did we? I mean, I'm sure just security agencies did. But you know ordinary people on the street, like you and I. We were horrified that day that happened. Like you and I, we were horrified that day that happened. We just never believed that, a somebody would be that malevolent and, b, that such a simple system like the aviation system could be abused in that way. So it's not a massive leap to think that AI could have the same you know, could be weaponized in the same way.
Speaker 1Yeah, okay. Well, again, if we take a little bit step back and try and look at the positive outcomes that we could get, you're absolutely right, and that's why it is important to make sure legal and frameworks are put in place, especially where we own that technology, or we make sure that governance is put in place for those large organizations that are creating all this opportunity for organizations globally, so so that there is um a level of regulation put in. However, one of the things I would say that, um, you've got a complex um set of systems, but you're used to dealing with a huge amount of complexity and in your career, right. So, and I would say, one of the things I think that it'll help with, is, um helping with specifically learning styles and and where we've all got slightly different brains and the way they work. I genuinely think this is something that will level the playing field for a lot of people, whereas in the past, I think text was such an important part of what we did. Yeah, um, over the years, or at least in the last 200 to 300 years, you know, we've been, we've had points in history that have been impacted by, well, impacted by books, whether it be a religious book, whether it be book about witches, whether it be, you know our society has that huge impact based on decisions made by the owners of those books being delivered, in terms of whether that communication is specifically consistent to a religion or to a way of thinking, and the example would be the power of the witch would be one, in terms of the hammer of the witch, that made a huge impact on European society for about 200 years. And then you know the sort of four. You know the three or four core religions globally and how that's impacted society. You know the three or four core religions globally and how that's impacted society.
Speaker 1So, if you think about AI, how that can actually help people that are different, you know and have different ways of thinking no longer is text the biggest challenge for people to learn. Yeah, what it allows people to do is actually speak and communicate in a different way, and that information still be added into society. I think that's what's really for me, from a probably more of a talking communicator than somebody that's good at written, and that's what the main challenge is with dyslexia. I think that's a massive shift, but it obviously hasn't shifted across.
Speaker 1You know the complexities of an organization, because most organizations are still very text led right in terms of how they go to market, how they capture information, um, but I think ai will really start to change that in terms of how that's built into ecosystems as we use more systems of change. What are your thoughts on that in terms of how that starts starts to translate, because you've worked for so many different organizations and you know how change takes a long time, right, and AI is maybe speeding that up, and sometimes maybe you need to put the brakes on a little bit as you go around the corners, right, you know, as it gets more complicated. So interested to get your view on that.
Speaker 2Yeah, various points you brought up there, all excellent, and I mean first things first. Having said that, I just want to really make an adjunct to my last point, which is computers are often in the hands of the wrong people, but we always manage to stay one step ahead. There are thousands, hundreds, if not thousands, of people trying to access your bank account at the moment, John, but you've got security software and Barclays have got security software, so we're keeping one step ahead of them for the most part. You mentioned the worry of deep fakes earlier. I'm paraphrasing, but you mentioned deep fakes earlier on. We will have a watermark system. We will have software that will tell us when it's a real person and when it's a fake. You know, in the same way as we've just about stayed one step ahead of the hackers when it comes to security software, we'll stay just about one step ahead of everybody else. I'm confident of that. I software, we'll stay just about one step ahead of everybody else. I'm confident of that. I think that's what we do. So I don't want to be doom and gloom about how ai will just be weaponized by bad people, because I think, for the most part, we'll stay ahead of it like we do at the moment.
Speaker 2You know my daughter's got a developmental coordination disorder. Come picking up on your other point. And I look at the world, the world of work she's just gone into in the next. Uh, she says she's just started an apprenticeship in early years education. She's finished her a level, she's had an epq on whether mainstream education is suitable for neurodiverse students and now she's just gone into early years education. And I look at the world she's coming in, the world of work she's coming into, and I am nothing other than totally optimistic for the, for her prospects and for the world of work she's walking into, and I am nothing other than totally optimistic for her prospects and for the world of work she's walking into. Let me take a step back.
Speaker 2One of my hobby horses, or one of my concerns about AI and the narrative around AI, is it's often driven by the media. A lot of us still consume a lot of legacy media, even the newspapers, the television, television, even if we don't. We're reading social media, where an awful lot of the input to that comes from traditional mainstream media companies. I listen to a lot of podcasts. The people on those podcasts are generally pundits, people in the media, tv presenters, journalists, whatever and I'm not knocking those people. They are wonderful people, but they have got so much to lose from what's going to happen with AI.
Speaker 2Okay, we have now got a situation where my daughter, who is a young woman with developmental coordination disorder, can write a news article almost as good as a full-time journalist. Okay, now, that's not taking any away from journalism. I realize there's a lot more nuance to it than that and there's a skill to write in the way they do. From what I see of AI, it hasn't got a very good turn of phrase, hasn't got anything in the way of humour or banter. So I've realised there's quite a big leap between, you know, writing a bog standard this happened article and writing a really, really entertaining article. We're still a long way away from plugging those two gaps, but when it comes to actually just reporting on the simple facts of the story, someone like my daughter, who grew up with neurodiversity issues, has now got an opportunity to come across as well as a highly trained journalist, and I think that's absolutely magnificent. And that's why I think there's a lot of negative narrative around AI is because actually, an awful lot of the people whose job it is to report on it have actually got the most to lose from it, which is the gap between highly educated, highly literate, highly articulate people and people who have struggled in that area up to now, even though they are just as creative and just as interesting and just as intelligent. It's starting to be brought together by AI.
Speaker 2I look at the various things that AI is going to bring you know neurodiverse people in the workplace. For instance. I think text-to-speech is one that you've mentioned already. I think that's absolutely brilliant. I think that will be transformational for neurodiverse people. I think that's an amazingly important tool. I think it will completely level the playing field in allowing neurodiverse people to be able to work in the same pace and level as people who aren't neurodiverse. When it comes to a lot of the written aspects of what we do in work, I think it will allow much more personalised learning and support. I think AI will create much more tailored learning and much more tailored support for people who do need the extra assistance at work with certain aspects of what they do. I think certainly one of the disadvantages of dyspraxia, or one of the symptoms of dyspraxia, which my daughter has, is organization and time management Okay, and I think AI can greatly help, and automation can greatly help with that. Agendic AI can greatly help with that. So I think that's going to be a great leveler for people, for neurodiverse people as well.
Speaker 2I think you brought up a really good point earlier on, which is about cognitive overload. Okay, I think certainly my daughter really struggles with cognitive overload, and I think AI will sort of simplify the information process summarize long texts, summarize, you know, help create visuals. I mean, my boss did something really smart at the weekend. He wants us all to attend a meeting tomorrow afternoon, funnily enough, about AI. So rather than send us a long email, guess what? He sent us a five-minute podcast. He got it uploaded in Notebook LM. It took him a lot, lot shorter time than it would have taken to listen to the, to write the email, and we all listened to it this morning when we were loading the dishwasher or taking the dog for a walk or driving to the office, and we all are now fully briefed on that and I think that's wonderful. Okay, I think it's empowering independence and confidence.
Speaker 2I really do think that kind of simplifying basic tasks like note reading, that sort of thing. You know, it's actually reducing the need for external support for neurodiverse people and I think it's greatly enhancing workplace inclusion. I think it's allowing them to perform, allowing diverse people to perform tasks they weren't performing before, so I think it's nothing other than great news for people who are neurodiverse. I think it's very, very important that we continue to manage the messaging around AI that it is a force for good and automation is a force for good. My concern is there's so much negative press around AI and automation, really led by people who I think are protecting their own living at the moment, but actually it worries me that we will end up moving slower than actually what we're capable of at the moment.
Speaker 2I saw a brilliant stat the other day, which is I should say this was before the terrible things that are happening in the Middle East at the moment that more people were killed two or three years ago in car accidents than were killed in world wars or killed in wars, even in even civil wars. And we are very near having automated cars almost completely, if not completely, eradicating car accidents and and people being killed on the roads. And when you and I were growing up, john people said their wildest dream, the thing they dreamt of most in the world, was they would bring world peace. All right, it said, it's a thing you want more than anything. So we want world peace. We want nobody to be dying in conflict. We've actually got the ability to do the equivalent of that by automating driving. We've got the equivalent of bringing world peace and I think that's amazing.
Speaker 2But there are so many vested interests and regulations to try and stop us getting automated vehicles. It worries me that we'll be 10, 20 years later than we really need to be in creating that technological advancement. So that's what I mean by the fact that, hopefully, people power will help us bring through the change, because I think it will be really, really great for, for instance, neurodiverse people, for instance, people who do not have the same resources that the wealthier nations and the wealthier companies and the wealthier people have, because cloud and AI and automation and low code you know, llms and automation and whatever will actually allow those people to be able to do things they currently don't have the resources to do. I thought you made a really good point earlier on about the recording studio you're in at the moment that it needed to be a billion pound corporation to do what we're doing today. You know, 15 years ago I saw a documentary at the weekend and somebody was talking about a news story from 2002.
Speaker 2And they recorded an interview for this news story in 2000 and they were in japan and they're in a far, far flung part of japan. This is japan, not developing, not developing world. They're in japan. They had to wait two days for that table, whatever it was be sent on an airplane to tokyo where they had the right machine to then send it back to, so they could watch it in Ireland three days later. I mean, good lord, you know, when you think now any 14 year old can do that on their phone in seconds, and isn't that amazing?
Speaker 1yeah, one of the things I think I'm just really topping up, you know, putting the cherry on your point, is that, um, I'll give you an example my, my wife will not watch a French film if it's dubbed badly, or she won't like. She doesn't like to watch a program if the dubbing is poor. But what it? What it does allow us to do is is watch more international films once that dubbing is fixed. Some of that dubbing with movies and things is awful, but now it's really good. You know, they've just launched some new technology that pretty much you couldn't tell. They can even change facial features so they can rerun old films and give us access to movies and completely turn that that voice into um, you know, a localized english voice or english accent, if need is right. So so there's all these new changes that can be adopted which will maybe give us a better way of understanding cultures, different people's cultures. Maybe the future looks bright in certain areas if it's used in the right way, you know, for us to become more human.
Speaker 1Actually, I would say and one of the, I think one of the things I would love AI to do is actually make us better humans, because where we've come from historically, the reason we're so successful as human beings is of collaboration. You know, over the years, the reason that the humanity has, you know, if you compare us to, say, a dog or you know any other animal on the planet. Really, the reason that we've grown so quickly and been so successful which we have, is because we collaborate, and we can collaborate on a global scale now, whereas before it was local scales or it was like a regional, and you can see the marks on our land in, you know, in terms of where conflict was and sometimes as we grew, and now where never before we could have this, you know almost this global reach where we can speak the same language too. It's an incredible advancement if we can use it in the right way to actually, you know, be better, be a better version of ourselves. Now, as you know, that doesn't always happen and we're not always the better version of ourselves now, as you know, that doesn't always happen and we're not always the better version of ourselves.
Speaker 1And there's certain characters that are going, you know, probably going all around social media right now and leveraging it in the wrong way to get their name out there, as you, and I'm not even going to mention the individual's name, but you can. Most people on this podcast will probably know who I'm talking about in terms of you know he's currently the american president, right? So you know that people use it in the wrong way, too, so to benefit their own.
Speaker 2But democratization, it's got to be the upside right of the internet age. I agree with you, it has given a platform to some pretty unpleasant people, but I don't think the world was better off when a few press oligarchs got to decide what we read and what we believed either right. So at least this has given us, you know, it's given us enough diversity of thought for us to formulate our opinions, and I'm very much a big fan of the view that if people do say idiotic things like I don't know, I don't want to pick on anybody. Let's say some rather more out there conspiracy theories that you read every day on social media.
Technology and Neurodiversity
Speaker 2I think it's great that you get them out there, because a a I think you know diversity of thought and freedom of speech is a basic human right. But even then you have to see that some people are idiots, all right, because what they want is for you what are you to ban them? So they can say I told you we were onto something, I told you there was chemtrails or the vaccine was wrong or whatever, because that, oh why they banned me from saying it right. So actually you need to encourage people to have all that freedom of speech as much as within reason. You know we shouldn't do, we shouldn't break the law, but within reason we should be encouraging people to get their stupid ideas out in the open right, because then we can we can appraise them and again back back to the collaboration and communication.
Speaker 1You know you do need everybody to have the right to be heard. You know, and, and whether that idea is stupid or not, and then society decides based on you know, that's that looks like a stupid idea absolutely, and it and it does, and that's the thing.
Speaker 2That's the thing. The more open you can be, the more. I mean, I was old enough to remember when um well-known let's say, a well-known person who at the time was a sports commentator and is now much more famous for something else, back in the early 90s went on a national television show and started giving giving some very, very strict opinions about the New World Order or whatever, and the British people I hate to say it we laughed at him. Now, we'd have every right to laugh at him. Some of his opinions were ridiculous, but British people aren't idiots. We figured out early on this guy was probably, you know, not representing what most of us believed. We immediately took that decision. It's not like oh, we're all completely up. My god, he's come on and said that perhaps the queen is a lizard.
Speaker 2Do you know what I mean? You know, it's not like we saw it, and then we're so suggestible that we started to believe it. We actually went. We went the other way, we got it out in the open and it was a good thing, right.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 1So I mean in terms of, you know, if you were looking at the really good things, right, so the clearest potential for real good in the next five to ten years, right, you know, if you were to say this is what I'd like to see happen, you know this would be like really great. I mean, one of mine would be, like you said, world peace is is great. Right, you know that's great. You said about the cars. But next five to ten years, you know there's all there's always going to be a shift.
Speaker 1But I'd say, you know, is there things that we can do using ai?
Speaker 1And, you know, using ai to help us fix some of the immediate issues, right, in terms of scientific research into what's going on with the planet, for example, because we've only got one planet right and only the super rich are going to, you know, afford to get off it. Right, you know the chances are there's only going to be about 20 people get away if we don't look after the resources that we've got right. So you know what, what would you say would be the clearest sort of potential you think can drive really, really good change? And I'd say, consider not just ai but also some of the new technologies coming through, um, you know which, which are giving us a different dimension to ai as well, right, you know you've? You've probably heard about sort of new chips that are being launched, new technologies that are coming out that we can then maybe almost add to the add to the cookbook of our that can make better, faster decisions for us, right? So, yeah, I'd just like to know your thoughts on that, ian.
Speaker 2So can I give you a serious one and a frivolous one.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2All right, I'll give you a serious one. We'll start with the serious one. I think AI and automation will completely transform health and social care in this country, and it will have to. Okay, we have got a big problem with the NHS and it's a good problem to have, which is we're living longer, but we all want to retire at the same age as well. In fact, we want to retire earlier. All right, most of my friends I realize I'm lucky, I'm privileged, you know exist in middle-class social group where people have done mostly white-collar jobs all their lives. I don't know anybody who's going to work past 60, and yet we're all going to live to 100 or 90 or, statistically 85, our generation, but quite likely more than that. So we've got a big problem with health and social care.
Speaker 2The last, I think three out of the last five visits I've paid to my GP, I did it over the phone. Okay, I did it on this, all right, he said I can't fit you in today, but we can do a call at 11 o'clock if you want. And I did the call at 11 o'clock and I showed him my swollen ankle or something and he said I think it's this and you know, go down to get your antibiotic from Boots and we had a chat and that was it. So if I can now do that on my mobile phone to him, I can now do it on my mobile phone to an AI Four out of five visits to the doctor. I think we'll be doing on this within five to 10 years and I think that will completely transform it and maybe we'll hold this up to our chest or maybe we'll bleed on it or maybe we'll urinate on it. I don't know what it is we'll do, but it'll be something like this we carry around in our pocket and it will take out four to five visits to a doctor.
Speaker 2Ok, I have an acquaintance whose son has a really serious case of diabetes, alas, and the son has an implant which now reads all his vital signs constantly. And the dad took a call in the middle of the night from his grandmother who was babysitting him and said this poor chap, he's not himself, can you check him out? And he went on his mobile phone and he said it's OK, it's this, this and this. This is not a trip to the doctor, but thank you for letting me know. Okay, and I thought that was amazing. I mean, it saved that trip to the doctor. I mean, it saved all that stress and everything else for that family, thank goodness, but also it saved that trip to the doctor and I suspect we will get to that stage sooner or later.
Speaker 2Doctors and I really, really, really don't want to say anything that sounds like I'm denigrating doctors or cheapening what they do or reducing what they do All right, but if an awful lot of what they do is essentially a law of probability thing, this is wrong with you. Therefore, 85% chance it's this. Therefore, 85% chance these pills will clear it up. If that's really what they're doing the vast majority of the time, then there's every chance that AI and automation can probably replace that task. I think this will allow us to retire at 60, like we want to do. It can allow us to live to 100 and it will mean we won't have this massive wholesale kind of inertia or economic turmoil in the country, because all we are doing is taking every penny we get as a country and throwing it at the NHS.
Speaker 1But I'd lean on that point as well. One of the advantages AI will give those doctors is to be able to specialise really deeply in certain areas, so where they're freed up, maybe in certain areas of time, that specialisation. For example, one of my family she's focused on kidneys and, like the diseases, kidneys that are underserved and therefore people die because they don't know that they've got kidney disease, and there's lots of challenges there, right, doing research into that and going deep into that, you know, really understanding the real impact and looking at the data, you know'd need a lot of funding, a lot of access to a lot of information with ai and also the access to information. Now, um will speed up the ability to find those new ideas, and that's the beauty of it because it'll be able to look for patterns so quickly, whereas in the past so she could ask those questions of the technology and get much quicker answers.
Speaker 1So I'm really sort of just layering your point, really, and it's just. It's actually it's going to shift people into different roles really. That's that's all that's going to happen, though. So doctors that are really bright they're doing there may be general practitioners traditionally. They can start shifting and focusing, knowing that they've got that backup from ai to something that they're more interested in. You know, maybe that makes them feel better because they want that. I don't know. Know their mother died of kidney disease or something and they want to focus on that.
Speaker 2It's a good point moving into a research role rather than the kind of operational role yeah, fair point. Yeah, really, really, really good point. And so I think health and social care is the thing that will transform. I think I don't want to get too black mirror, but I think physical robots will start to be able to be perfectly capable carers within 10 years as well. When I see what Elon Musk and other people are creating in terms of physical robots, I think that will take an awful lot of stress away from social care.
Speaker 2On a more basic level, with social care, I think we could well move to a. We can well move to an almost like an uber type model as well. Um, certain people have got time, certain people need social care and I think we will be better at linking those two people. So, for instance, we're the main carer for my father-in-law at the moment. He's 85 years old and we wouldn't want to. We he's just about well enough. We could go on holiday for two weeks. We wouldn't leave him much longer than that. But if we did say, if we could just go on an app like like uber and say, hey, can somebody come around for an hour every day for the next two weeks and call into this address and make sure this person is up and not falling down, and make sure he's got food in the fridge and whatever. It doesn't have to be a trained nurse, it could just be a person with my skill set right, and I bet you there are people within my postcode who would really appreciate 20 pounds a day to do that you know.
Speaker 1so that's really interesting. You said that because one of the companies I was working with before this and I'll give it, I'll just give you a story about it my wife's mother. She's passed but she was looked after by a company that used to go in and used to sort out her frozen food and they managed her frozen food and their service was excellent. My daughter always said this company just did a great job. And I won't mention on the podcast because it would be maybe unfair. Right, it might be seen the wrong way. So I'll just talk about what the organization did. But the guy that used to come in, my mother-in-law, she got seen by us every week and you know we'd check in on her and make sure she was okay. She had her own little place but he used to come in once a week as well and he gave her that almost like he was very friendly to her. He was changing over the food she didn't like and taking that out.
Speaker 1And to me I thought do you know what they could actually deliver another service? Right, because they've got these and potentially pay these people a bit more. Right? You know it's like actually elevate these individuals to be part of that caring community because they're doing it anyway. They're actually doing that job, and so there's an opportunity, I think, for organizations to be that don't see themselves a part of that process can actually step in and take additional services that weren't maybe considered before you know doing it anyway. It's really strange. So it's a retraining, realignment, but a great opportunity, I think, for those food services organizations to take a Matching buyers and sellers of those skills, which is what the internet does absolutely best.
Speaker 2And you know what, if you'd said it 30 years ago, say nowhere in the world will I let some stranger in my house. But now we've got airbnb and now we've got uber, which is just essentially amateurs who you, you, you employ via an app, right. So I don't believe that anymore, that people wouldn't have that trust because we've already got the sharing economy, you know yeah, no, no, I love, I love that.
Speaker 1Go on in. Sorry, I said I'll give you a more frivolous one.
Speaker 2Yes, please, all right, here we go, then here's my pitch. Here's my pitch, if anybody's listening, right? So six million I'm old enough to remember.
Speaker 2We only, we only had three, three channels in this company, in this country, and then we had four, and then we had five, and that was in the mid 80s. We had four channels and then by the mid 90s, we had something called sky tv and I could go on and get a load more channels and watch a football, and that was great. And then by the 2000s, we had freeview, you know, and we had all these more channels. And then, by sort of 2015, 2016, we started to have the internet tv and we started to get streaming services netflix, prime, paramount, whatever.
Speaker 2Now almost any movie I've ever wanted to watch or any TV program I've ever wanted to watch. I can almost find tonight and watch it, john, you know, and that's wonderful. So we've gone from having like three channels in my lifetime to having almost any television program you want to watch at any time available to you. So 10 years time, we will literally be choosing the things we want to watch, even if they've never been made. Now you made Sora. You mentioned Sora. Great example. I think I'll be able to come back from a pub on a Friday night and say I want to watch a Cowboys and Indians movie and in the main characters, a chap called Ian, and he's a hero and it's set in you know, such and such a country, it's such and such a date, and he's got this, you know, girlfriend, called whatever, and you know, and it will literally create the movie for me. I think I'll just put in a set of prompts and the movie will be created and it'll be the exact movie I fancy that night.
Speaker 1I think that is not impossible in five to ten years. I mean having, I think a household robot would be great. Think that's that that is not impossible in five, yeah, in five to ten years. My, my, I mean having, um, I think a household robot would be great. But then again I think I might cry a little bit of divorce because my, my, my, um, my wife doesn't even like chat gpt with a female voice. So she's going who are you speaking to? So I'm just talking about chat gpt.
Speaker 2No, no, no no, does your wife use chat gpt?
Transforming Healthcare with AI
Speaker 1she's, she has, um, maybe she uses technology and loves it. She's got a Mac, she's got all the technology, but she's a slower adopter, but she'll use all the tools, so she will use the technology. And when I tell you you're already using AI love, she won't see it that way. It's almost like, of course you are. That's the thing.
Speaker 2We've really failed. We've really failed when it comes to AI, john, you and me and the rest of the industry, because people think that it's no complication. It is. It is literally a no-code tool. It is easier than any other tool you were using. You could just go to it and speak like you normally do. But hi, chatgpt, Hi, grok, hi, perplexly, whatever. Daniel Claude, can you tell me what the weather's going to be like in Padstow tonight and then also tell me what pubs will be open till 11. Just type it in. There's almost no other tool I can think of that's actually physically easier than the Gen AI tools at the moment. I realized you know they're not 100 accurate and blah, blah. I get all those arguments, okay, but I'm just saying one reason people shouldn't be not using them is ease, because they're the easiest. They're literally the easiest things.
Speaker 2I had a friend what's happening media every day saying I've got to do a pub quiz down the pubby and I've seen you. You know, I've seen the magic you do on your ai tools. Can you create a, a round of 10 for me for sport or something? I said, okay, how old are the people? How many want to get right that sort of thing. So, okay, they're all going to be between 50 and 70 and you know they're based in Britain and whatever. So I create this.
Speaker 2I just type in chat GPT, can you write me 10 questions and answers for a pub quiz based on sport. 10, uh, 10 questions, 10 answers, audience between 50 and 70 years old, 7 to 8 out of 10 type difficulty. And it came back in a second and did it and I sent it on to him and he said that's amazing, that's magic. How on earth do you know how to do that? And I said hey, you using whatsapp, which was actually harder than what I just did. If you, figuring out how to get hold of me on whatsapp was harder than that. So that's not a criticism, that individual, by the way, but it goes to show what a bad job we are doing. It kind of conveying to people how easy these tools are, how kind of how good the ui is of these tools yeah, I mean that, even even this session.
Speaker 1You know, you sent me a message this morning saying john, I don't know where you put the questions today so I can review them before we have a session. I've already written a gpt and in chat gpt for the podcast, and so all I need to do is put the link from um, uh, what, something like um, uh, your, your linkedin profile, and then maybe a few cuts from that LinkedIn profile, and then it will create me 14 questions that I then all I have to do is cut and paste them to you, yeah, and then you can have a review of them and that's basically it, and then maybe a few little tweaks here and there. You know you came back with a few. I'd like to lean this direction. You know so that's how easy it is.
Speaker 2You know, so it's incredible it's incredible, I know, and, like you say, you you wrote that in plain english. In fact, knowing you, john, you made a few spelling mistakes and use bad grammar, because that's what I do, all right. So you know, I find myself now, my grammar I don't know, I've just got lazy or old or just what, but my grammar, my spelling, is just getting so much worse. Now I I'm almost typing every single email into an integer, into an llm, taking out names, obviously, and asking it to rephrase it for me, because it's because I realize it's actually saving me time and actually rereading, rereading, fretting about things I've put re, you know, doing the spelling again, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 1So yeah, yeah, you've got to think about those boils every time you do it, ian, though you know every time you do it it's boiling a kettle. But the funny thing as well I don't know whether there was something in the press and something I've listened to recently is, every time you say please and thank you to ChatGPT, it costs millions of pounds, for you know the current overlords of ChatGPT. So I don't know. I still think we should say please and thank you, because one day they could be the overlords, right.
Speaker 2That's my take on it, mate. I'm always polite, always be polite.
Speaker 1You never know what's going to happen.
Speaker 2But I mean, you know there's a lot of things. Yeah, you can overthink things, can't you, john? You mentioned the environment and, honestly, things, yeah, you can overthink things, can't you, john? You mentioned the environment and, honestly, the environment is really, really not my strong suit. That's not to say I'm not interested, I really am interested. I'm really interested in renewables and technological advancements and the kind of geopolitical impact of us, you know, being able to do away with oil and you know, and countries with lots of sun suddenly being the richest countries in the world. And I just think the societal and geopolitical change is going to bring us fascinating, really interested in technology for environmental change. But my gut feel tells me we are just generally, generally drifting in the right direction. We are creating more renewables, we are bringing the price down of renewables, we're creating the right incentives to do renewables.
Speaker 2I used to, on a Saturday when I was a, let's say, before my children came along go out on a Saturday morning and spend 50 pounds on CDs, books, vds, you know, and now it all comes through this I don't have this just does the job of my alarm clock. It does the job of my phone. It does I call taxis on. It does a job of my old dvd player, it does the job of my old newspaper. Think of all of that stuff we're not creating.
Speaker 2Because we are creating this and I realize how expensive data centers are to run and I realize that every time I stream something that also has an environmental impact my gut feel is we are reducing so many global supply chains by consuming everything through our computer and through our phone. Generally, the shift will be that we will greatly, greatly reduce our carbon footprint from technology Interesting. I went to an Intel conference this time last year and I've not kept in touch with the hardware market at all. They don't. They don't hardly hosted their conference, from what I could see, wasn't talking about the power in their chips. It was talking about the power consumption in their chips and they were showing graphs of how it's come down. So yeah, I I think that you know the market, the profit motive, will mean that all of these things become much, much cheaper because it's in our interest.
Speaker 1There's great incentives for them to come much, much become much, much more efficient, energy efficient you've raised a really good point there, actually, and it's like I think one of the things that just sparked in my head just at that point was, because of covid, we don't have the business trips we used to have. You know, and I wonder if that has ever been considered that we don't travel quite as much. Maybe for holidays we do, right, you know, I don't think that's changed that much, but I don't think we travel quite as much as we used to for business. So we have we're probably far more efficient with our meetings and I wonder whether that has actually made a positive impact. But I don't think.
Speaker 1I think you find that some of the environmental groups will just look at the negatives and they don't necessarily make that as a consideration for technology, because I'm sure the fact that you and me you're in what Cornwall right now, you know, or you know, we can have calls with the states. We can have calls with like pretty much anyone without moving without actually having an environmental impact, with like pretty much anyone without moving, without actually having an environmental impact, surely that cost of that call that we're having right now is going to be significantly less right. So if you added all those up, all those communications that people had and have using technology and using that technology through data centers, et cetera. I'd love to know the numbers, but I mean, again, it's probably an aside for today, but look, just to move back to where we are just on that covid point as well, my mum has never ordered tesco's via the internet until covid, and now she never goes to tesco's.
Speaker 2It's all I'm saying. All right, you know, it just brought a whole tier of people into e-commerce and all the efficiency that brings as well sorry, no, no, no, I mean, um, I mean, my mother still has a, doesn't have a.
Speaker 1She still has what she calls a dumb phone, unfortunately, which has caused me, probably puts a lot more weight on me into managing her life, but that's another story. But in terms of the how to define responsibility of leadership in like tech in 2025, let's probably look at, 2025 is almost over, I think, but let's let's think 2026, maybe how would you define responsible lead in technology in the next year? What would you think of that? In terms of where we're going, what should be the message out there? And maybe it's back to what you said, ian. Maybe it is back to saying we need to tell people more about how good this stuff is right and how easy it is. Maybe that should be our message, but I suppose from a tech leadership point, of view.
Speaker 2What should people be? You know, thinking about first, what should be the first thing on their minds? We just say embrace the change. I mean, I'm afraid I am a little bit glass half full about ai and automation, and you know about technological change, so so I would say let's stop being so nervous about the change and embrace it. I think I hate to say it, but I think the government has got a part to play in that. I think we just have to be aware of all of the changes we bring.
Speaker 2There's a few things, I think, myths that pervade, which stop us embracing change. Thing is, we look at every single AI use case and say it's not, that will go wrong, and I agree things will go wrong. But the thing we keep forgetting is that humans aren't perfect as well. There's no human-based system at the moment which is perfect. So I think we just need to be pragmatic and say there are going to be bumps in the road. There are going to be, there is going to be complexity. I hate to say it, but the first time the nhs misdiagnosed somebody and they end up dying because an ai diagnosed diagnosed that person, it will be front page news and the you know, the people involved in the hospital will lose their jobs and probably the minister will lose their job. But if a human made that mistake a doctor made that mistake we would. We forgive them because they're an overworked doctor and we're all human and we all make mistakes. But as soon as an ai makes that mistake, we will come down hard on everybody concerned because it will be on the front of the daily mail, and so I think we just need to embrace the change and accept that not everything is going to be perfect from day one and actually just acknowledge the fact that this is a journey and we shouldn't be too good look for the long-term positives.
Speaker 2All that said, I think it is up to companies and individuals to kind of have inclusive systems, to use AI for societal equality. I think to make most of the productivity boost we're going to get from it to reinvest in more jobs, I think we need to balance profit with purpose. Basically, I think that's up to companies behaving in an ethical way. But I'm a big believer that companies are incentivized to behave in an ethical way. Customers notice these things. So I think if people are using those productivity gains in a way that's productive either, to give our customers a good service or to invest in models that will make society better, then actually those companies will thrive as well so my final, my final question, ian, for today's um podcast is is really one to think about one project?
AI and Social Mobility
Speaker 1if you, you were, if you were made to say stop and say this is exactly why I'm doing this work, um, and I think you've probably answered that earlier anyway but, but in terms of, maybe it's something you're doing in the nhs, but what is that project? Or is it that it's more? Actually, this is this is why I want to do this work. This is why I want to make people drive, because I think I'm caring for all the relatives, etc. And maybe that's a big driver for you right now. So just interested to know exactly why I'm doing this work slightly turn the question on its head.
Speaker 2So one of the things I feel very strongly about is social mobility. Okay, I I'm not a big believer in ultimate equality. I think to some degree it's up to humans what they do with the opportunity they're given all right, and everybody wants the same thing. So I don't think necessarily everything will end up being equitable, but everybody should have the same opportunity from day one. I'm a big believer in social mobility. I was involved in a charity called Career Ready for many years which helped children, often from more deprived areas of Great Britain, to receive opportunities through the world of work and through mentoring, internships and other professional insets that people in good careers like you and I could help these children, these students, achieve a great opportunity through better interaction. One of the things I know, john, is that your kids, my kids we have got, will have a better opportunity than many other kids coming to this country just through networks, just through network effect. You know people, I know people. So one of the things I feel very strongly about VF4 is social mobility, and one of the things I'm most proud of is that I've been a champion of technological change to the children I've mentored, to the students I've mentored. So let me tell you a small story on that.
Speaker 2I once gave a presentation about when we moved from horse drawn carts to cars. And we moved from horse drawn cars to cars, there was a massive moral panic. People thought the economy was going to grind to a halt. Horses are very labor intensive they need to be shod, they need vets, they need livery, they need to be looked after. Saddle people made saddles, people made carts, people cleaned up poo from the street because horses created so much of it, etc. Etc. And then we got cars and everyone thought, oh my god, the economy is going to come to an end. But before you knew it, we had a car building industry. And then we had, you know, a road building industry and we had people who made tires and looked after cars and maintained cars and a tourist industry was created because we all, we could all now get to places, and so on and so on.
Speaker 2You'd be surprised how nervous Gen Z are of AI. They think they're not going to have a job. They think they're not going to have a job. They think societal ruin is coming. Okay, one of the things I'm most proud of was actually through my work with Career Ready. A social mobility charity was actually to go and tell, tell children, you really haven't got anything to worry about here. There will be just as many jobs. The vacuum will get filled. There will be more exciting jobs. There'll be higher value jobs. What you need to do is embrace the opportunity and see it for what it is. So I wouldn't say it's any particular project I've delivered I'm most proud of. But I think what I am most proud of is my hopefully my contribution to to the social mobility charity to say actually to try and make sure that the gen z and and the workers of tomorrow are actually being at the forefront of the change and not fearing that change.
Speaker 1John yeah, that's, that's a, that's a great finishing um sort of discussion point. That could go on forever and we could talk about it for a long time, because I'm very much bought into helping the next generation, particularly when I jamie oliver mentioned. You know, 50 percent of dyslexics in deprived areas end up in prison, and so there's, like you know, that that shift to help those individuals as quickly as possible, help those families, is really important to me because I think there's a great opportunity to help drive that change and use technology to help those individuals. So, the more that we can sort of use forums like this, you know that any kid can listen to our conversation. They might, you know, might get some value from it, right, and they can listen to it on Spotify and it can be out there. Knowing that to why old, 55, 50 odd year old men are chatting may not be that attractive. However, you know, I just think that at least that content's out there and it's available and it's free. You know, it doesn't cost anything.
Speaker 2Anyway look.
Speaker 1Thanks very much, Ian, for coming and spending your time on Cloudy with a Chance of Dyslexia. I think we've raised some really good points today. I think it's going to be a great addition to the podcast. I'm going to bring on a lot more people. Hopefully one day we'll get Jamie Oliver on, but that might take a little while. Probably 50th or 60th episode by then. But thank you very much for spending your time and giving your opinion on things. I think it's going to be really useful. It's going to be a great additional episode.