Episode 10: Human Skills vs AI

What stays valuable when AI can do so much? In this episode we untangle the skills we believe won't be replaced by AI, and how to actually use AI in a way that sharpens your thinking rather than rotting your brain.

We get into why live experiences are becoming more valuable as AI grows, the widening gap between people who use AI well and those who don't, and why critical thinking is the single most important skill to protect. We talk about what's being lost when entry-level and middle-management jobs disappear, why "walk slower to run faster" applies to AI, and the timeless human skills that machines genuinely can't replicate: vulnerable storytelling, designing for feeling, mutual learning, problem-solving, and making work fun.

Plus practical prompts you can use today, including how to build a personal budget with AI, how to approach job applications, and our rule that AI-assisted work is only as good as the pre-work you did before you opened ChatGPT.

In this episode:

• Why live events and human experiences are becoming premium in an AI world
• The capability gap between "humans with AI" and "humans without AI"
• Critical thinking as the #1 skill to protect (and how to train it)
• Why AI is being used as an excuse to cut middle management (and the medium-term problem this creates)
• How companies are gutting entry-level roles and what it means for career progression
• Timeless skills AI can't replicate: designing for feeling, problem-solving, mutual learning, vulnerable storytelling, making things fun
• The ingredients of a good prompt, with a worked example (building a personal budget)
• How to use AI for job applications without losing your voice
• Why "pre-work is the work" when using AI well

Journaling prompts:

• For the next two days, notice tasks that drain you. Which one could AI actually help with in a way that would reduce your anxiety or save your time?
• Before using AI on any real task, find two ways to solve the same problem without AI first. Compare, contrast, then prompt.

Books and references mentioned:

• Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
• Gamestorming by Dave Gray, Sunni Brown, James Macanufo
• Ari Emanuel on live events vs AI

Subscribe to the newsletter for the full journaling prompts, resources and reflections from each episode: https://substack.com/@untanglinglifepod

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Welcome back to Untangling Life. I'm your co-host Hattie Willis and with me the ever amazing Andy Aim.

SPEAKER_01 0:12

Too kind, isn't she?

SPEAKER_00 0:14

Uh and but I do want to focus on the how you amazing are. And I want to keep that in because I think this is important. We this episode is about humans. Humans make errors. Yeah. And so it definitely just demonstrates. That's how you know it's not AI. Yeah, exactly. You know you're listening to the real hattie because she can't say words. But what we want to talk today about is how amazing humans are, because we live in a world where we are all, I think, well, I'm having an existential crisis whenever I think about AI too long. And is it coming for all of our jobs? Where is the value gonna sit? And so this episode, we really wanted to dive into the skills that we don't believe will ever be replaced by AI.

SPEAKER_01 0:57

Can I start with a contrarian thought first?

SPEAKER_00 0:59

Yes, always.

SPEAKER_01 1:00

Okay, love a bit of contrarian controversy. I listened to an interview the other day with a founder called Ari Emanuel, who runs WME Group, which is a talent agency and a live events business, and they own like WWE and WE and um what's that fighting thing called again? UFC.

SPEAKER_02 1:18

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:20

And I love the way that he pictured this, and he said that actually the live events business is almost in the opposite direction of AI because the more and more we fascinate ourselves with AI and technological advances, the more we we value this premium experience of a live experience of a person and a human. So that's why the live Premier League matches or you know, WWE events, like you want to watch it because you appreciate the storytelling, the emotions, and the experience of human-to-human life. And our workshops are actually the same, Hattie. Yeah, like we are in the business of live events, and actually, people really find it a premium experience when they can put down their smartphones and put down their laptops and come and be human and connect in new and interesting ways, and we provide that experience as facilitators.

SPEAKER_00 2:05

I also think I just did a workshop last night, and one of the things I do have to fight is my instinct to judge my workshops based on how funny I think people think I am. But personally, I think I'm a hoot. And part of that comes from in a in a session live, particularly when you have real people, you can ad lib and pick up on things and be sparky in a way, but you've got this repository of stories to draw on. So I I I think that's really hard to replace that same personality.

SPEAKER_01 2:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:41

But it but interestingly, I know we talked about earlier AI is you know non-errors, and and I'm seeing this trend on LinkedIn at the moment where if you want to do better on LinkedIn, people are starting to add back in errors, add back in missing words, typos, etc., so they look more human. Because people are being drawn to that, because actually we are a bit over the AI effectation of content. So I think there is this whole trend of we're already missing the humanity of a lot of this. So I think there is a world where we are gonna start valuing that more, but it's still quite hard to tell what's really if you talk to Chat GPT conversationally, it will add in ums and uhs when you if you listen to it speak. Interesting. So it sounds more human terrifying.

SPEAKER_01 3:28

I haven't even realized that.

SPEAKER_00 3:29

It's really scary. I spotted it, and I thought about it for public speaking workshops because we teach that a lot. But so in a world where more and more things are sped up by AI, it is growing at a rate that I genuinely do. I mean, there's a lot of disagreement about how fast it is now improving compared to maybe it is rapid. I think it's still growing at an insane rate, the capability.

SPEAKER_01 3:55

Every six months I see a massive difference in the capabilities.

SPEAKER_00 3:57

I don't even know if it's every six. I think it's shorter.

SPEAKER_01 4:00

You're right.

SPEAKER_00 4:01

And so I think there is a world where we are rightly terrified. So maybe we talk a little bit about what we're scared of, because I am genuinely scared that it's gonna get us all.

SPEAKER_01 4:12

I I heard this quote by a Harvard professor that humans with AI are gonna leave behind humans without AI. And I think that's what I'm terrified of. The capability gap between do you even understand what this is? So, for example, a friend of mine was running a workshop for young people in care homes the other day, and he and he wanted me to help him with like what are some AI tools that I can use for media, and I introduced him to like Google VO3, um ChatGPT Sora, and another tool, and it blew his mind, and he had never come across them. And he was asking me how do I use them and how do I prompt, and and that was the level of proficiency. And actually, he represents the majority of society. Like a lot of people don't know these tools exist, don't know how to write prompts effectively, and therefore are getting left behind by those that do. Yeah, and I think there's something that needs to be done at a curriculum level at schools to evolve things pretty quick, not in in favor of examining boards, which is what schools typically do, edXcel and ODR and all of these examiner. No, to ensure that these kids are ready for the world that they're stepping into. It should be integrated in how they do homework, it should be integrated. And at work, even in onboarding experiences, I think we need to define where the boundaries are to say, okay, this is how we want you to use it at work. This is how you can and can't use it for your CV, this is how you can and can't use it in an interview. We need to stop, stop putting it off and start leaning into defining the boundaries around each of these things.

SPEAKER_00 5:33

And so I agree with all of that. And I'm terrified that we're all going to use it so much that we don't have brains. Because there are studies already that are showing the diminishing neural function that comes from like you can literally see a map of the brain before and after using AI, and it is lighting up a lot less when we've used AI.

SPEAKER_01 5:52

I think I saw something similar with social media and attention, and how attention spans have gone from like 15 seconds down to seven seconds because of social media. And I think AI is actually accelerating human behavior that we already start to see with social media, where instead of critically thinking, we're seeing the first thing that we see on Twitter and we're going with that opinion like it's a fact, and we're not willing to do research, you know, and AI is making that worse because people get an answer from AI, they won't fact-check it, they won't do research, they won't look at the pros and cons. The you know, they're looking for the quickest, most efficient answer.

SPEAKER_00 6:25

Critical thinking being I think the first skill actually that I want to see taught around AI that isn't just about how do I use AI, but how do I how do I keep my critical thought? Yeah. Because I think, and there's some basic stuff around getting AI to tell you where its sources are from and checking them.

SPEAKER_01 6:43

Yeah. But actually I even think there's a step before that. Yeah, which is I I think when I am researching something like um like would AI replace my job, I will search in YouTube, I'll search in Google, I'll search in Chat GPT, I'll search in podcast players, and I'll allow amalgamate my opinion based on all of what I get TikTok, Instagram, yeah, yeah. And and it might take me half an hour, but I'll I'll do research across all of those platforms before having an informed opinion.

SPEAKER_00 7:13

Yes, okay. So like actually A, getting it to cite its own sources, but then having other sources that you're 100%. I think that's so true. And I we're just not, yeah. So I I get worried that we're not teaching kids any critical thought around it. And it's something so we're working a lot with kids across our different programmes. We work with them in universities, we're working with them in schools, yeah. And we are definitely trying to build in how to use AI because it is epic for being able to show kids that they can actually build things at a pace they never thought possible at a cost that was never possible before. So actually, even if you can't fundraise because you have friends and family who can give you money, you can get a product live so much faster if it's a tech product, especially and so much cheaper. So I'm really excited about it and I want to show it to kids, and I want I love watching their faces light up and I love watching what they build. But I also don't want them to lose the ability to generate ideas, to sense check their own ideas, to actively look for blind spots that the tools might not be showing them. And I get worried that I think it's all a balance, right? Of of how much do we I think you're right, there is a continuous learning piece that we have to have to if we want to keep if we want to keep employed, I think we have to stay on top of their stuff. But also if we're not nurturing the other skills, we will lose them.

SPEAKER_01 8:39

Yeah, absolutely agree. And when I think of kids in schools and my daughter, for example, um one thing that I do love is that I've known for years that one-to-one tuition is a premium and a privilege, but it accelerates like unlocking human potential and and potential in kids because they're operating at a capacity always being stretched, but not everyone can afford it. And one thing that AI does help to do um is is bring that one-to-one tuition closer.

SPEAKER_02 9:05

100%.

SPEAKER_01 9:06

You know, and I do love that aspect of it. Yeah, my worry is less about kids and more about humans in general and adults more around our need to be efficient and to do things quick. You know, and I I'm worried about that because I I feel like if that continues, we're not gonna slow down and do the research, we're not gonna look for the pros and cons, we're not gonna look for both sides of an argument, we're just always gonna look for the quickest, easiest thing to do. And that's what productivity pushes you towards.

SPEAKER_00 9:31

I also think that is just human behaviour. I think if you look back over history, that is what people always want. You know, there's a um sorry historical book, but there's a brilliant book called Thinking Fast and Thinking Slow.

SPEAKER_01 9:42

Yeah, Daniel Kahneman.

SPEAKER_00 9:44

See, I never know names. Brilliant. Um, and and it's great because it talks actually about the kind of primal need to be very quick in deciding is this gonna kill me, is it food, is it not food? We need we we can't be spending all of our effort, I need to be able to respond to certain threats very quickly. And then there is longer thinking I need to be able to do, but I think to your point we're we're losing the ability to think slow.

SPEAKER_01 10:06

Yeah. And even when I think about the UK as an economy and a country, I think we're in such an interesting time because uh along our careers we've had this like financial crisis where a lot of us learnt that this financial system is actually like built on a house of cards, but that's a lot of how we made money here in the UK. And since that time, actually, of austerity and and that crash, we actually haven't figured out a new economy yet. You know, we haven't figured out like how is the UK going to be productive. Yeah, yeah. And even with AI, we're not with China and the US are at the front runners when we're talking about AI. Manufacturing, we're not a front runner. So I think the UK is in a really interesting place where we actually need to slow down and think about how do we get the economy going again, how do we upskill a nation, how do we get the UK being a growth story that's really exciting. And I think we're we're literally backed in a corner now where we have no choice but to start thinking this through at a deeper level.

SPEAKER_00 11:01

But I think it actually strikes me as kind of a great analogy for a lot of life is that in order to run faster, we have to walk slower first. Yeah, we're so bad at that as humans again. And it feels like I think AI in general is a giant prisoner's dilemma of I I'm not gonna stop because you're not gonna stop.

SPEAKER_01 11:20

Yeah, so true.

SPEAKER_00 11:21

And and so there is this fear of if I slow down, someone worse is gonna build something with less controls, or we're gonna be more reliant on someone else, and that's gonna, you know, A, have economic but also political issues attached. I mean, it is all quite existential and quite scary.

SPEAKER_01 11:38

And I feel like a lot of companies are using AI like an excuse. Like I saw a lot of big tech companies, Meta, Google, Salesforce, even UBS and and other companies outside of tech, um, talk about how they got rid of a lot of like middle managers, actually, mainly like these managers were managing just teams of three. Yeah. So that we got rid of them. But you set it up for them to manage teams of three. That wasn't an AI issue, that was your fault, that was your system, that's your organization. But I feel like they're using AI as a crutch now, almost like a get out of jail card free, a free card. Um, and especially with the manager situation, the reason that obviously irks me is because I do a lot of work in that space as do you, and we know that like a lot of the times these were individual contributors that were really great at digital marketing and then got promoted as almost like a reward. And then they inherited people management, but they didn't even really want to manage people, they just wanted more money and more status. Yeah, and now companies are just saying, Do you know what we're making things more efficient, yeah, we're cutting costs, and therefore we cut we're cutting out these managers, and then we're investing more in AI and and technology.

SPEAKER_00 12:41

But there is also do you I do need us to apply a little bit of like medium even term thinking? Because we're cutting so many entry-level jobs, we're cutting quite a lot of mid-level jobs. Where is anyone gonna get the experience to do the jobs that we still do want them to do? Because currently there are less and less ways to have careers in the early stages where you get that messy, muddy experience that you need to then do a good job later on.

SPEAKER_01 13:12

Do you know what I'm torn between two things? One is we need we need a government to really invest and set up environments where we're investing more in entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurship gets the and your work and even your school's challenges are good example of that. We actually need to kickstart entrepreneurship and support entrepreneurs in the early stages because they are value creators, they create jobs and they contribute to the economy.

SPEAKER_00 13:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:37

And speaking your language.

SPEAKER_00 13:38

I um I will sign your petition.

SPEAKER_01 13:40

Yes, we'll vote for you for mayor.

SPEAKER_00 13:43

Change it all. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:45

No, I wouldn't hate to be mayor. So I think on the one hand, we need to kickstart that. On the other hand, we need to reframe careers as you're getting paid to learn because young people coming out of university or like looking to go into careers now are increasingly just turning to entrepreneurship straight away. And part of that is because I don't think they value what you can learn from being in a company. Um, stakeholder management, email etiquette, relationship building, bureaucracy and politics, just so I understand how things work. Selling into a big company, how does it operate? What does a marketing department do versus a hild department versus sales versus finance? I think there's actually a lot of real valuable lessons that you can get from work in a career or in a company that a lot of people undervalue who haven't experienced it yet. I'm making a generalization here.

SPEAKER_00 14:31

I hugely agree. And I think part of the challenge is they're not getting those opportunities to learn in the way that we did. So when I was coming up in my career, I mean, I I I I went there, and I often say this to students because we get asked a lot by university students, you know, should I just start a startup straight out of uni? And I I tend to have two approaches. One is, well, it is the time in your life when you have the least to risk. Which is true. And you're you're responsible for the least. So in lots of ways, you don't have a mortgage, you don't have kids, like great time to do it.

unknown 15:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:04

But on the other hand, maybe it is worth getting a bit of experience first that isn't just everything is trial by fire. So I often recommend you know going and joining something that is genuinely focused on innovation, where there's there's a speed of movement and learning that you can learn at a pace that's exciting to you. But I do think that's what I did. I I joined out of uni, I joined a series of startups in the really early stages, and then I went and worked for an innovation consultancy where I was very close to the partner who ran the UK office. And by very close, I mean I was the first hire in. I sat with him in every meeting for the first year.

SPEAKER_01 15:41

Soaking up knowledge, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:43

I mean, I got to do things I had no right to be doing, I got to ask questions I definitely had no right to be asking, and I got exposure at a level that was outrageous. But that gave me the learning, and even if you're not able to do that with a partner of the company, yeah, normally you're able to sit with someone and you're able to sit in on meetings, and and there is, I think, this diffusion of learning that happens just being around so softly, and and and it is getting lost. And I'm not a fan of forcing everyone back into the office.

SPEAKER_01 16:08

I think it's like, yeah, no, you just got me thinking about how that horse is gone, like let's not like it. Yeah, but fully remote, you lose a lot of that tactile.

SPEAKER_00 16:16

So, how are we designing for it? Yeah, because I think we're often defeatist about this, where we kind of go, oh, I either need everyone back in the office or nothing's gonna work, or oh, we're hybrids, so we just can't expect the same outcomes. We've got to design for them.

SPEAKER_01 16:28

I think the problem is that companies are not intentionally designing purpose in the office. The reason you come into the office isn't to sit on Zoom all day, the reason is so that you have come and get this learning experience, this social experience. We're gonna create this fun activity. So you're coming into the office with purpose rather than feeling like I'm more productive at home and therefore I want to stay at home and do most of my work so I don't get disturbed.

SPEAKER_00 16:50

But also, we're expecting everyone to take on a higher and higher and higher and higher workload because most companies now have hiring freezes, they've let a load of people go, they have hiring freezes in place, so everyone is completely understaffed that I'm speaking to. And so your workload is suddenly frankly higher than it should be.

SPEAKER_02 17:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:10

You're then being told, come into the office and come to this fun learning experience, and you're going, sure, but my to-dos are piling up. I'm on back-to-back Zoom calls the rest of the time. So there's no time to work. And and so I I do think we need to look at we need to look at fundamental. I mean, I agree with you. I think we need a fundamental kind of nationwide redesign, but we also need a redesign at a company level to fit this. And and I don't think anyone's found the model yet.

SPEAKER_01 17:39

I think we're starting to touch on some of the timeless skills.

SPEAKER_00 17:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:43

So I think one is designing for experiences at a company level, at a nation level, and at an individual level. How do we think through the lens of designing for an experience? And that doesn't matter how much or how little AI you're using. It's what is the experience that I'm designing for, and what is the feeling that I want someone to feel at the end of that experience.

SPEAKER_00 18:02

And how are we measuring that feeling, right? Because I think I think one of the increasing skills that is going to be irreplaceable is our ability to actually get to the heart of how someone feels about something. Yeah. Whether that's a customer, whether that's an employer, whether that's an employee, whether it's a colleague.

SPEAKER_01 18:16

Evergreen.

SPEAKER_00 18:17

Yeah. How what is my ability to genuinely connect to your experience at a deep enough level that I understand it that I just don't think you can get from a survey, from um, you know, quantitative data.

SPEAKER_01 18:31

I agree with that. Another skill that came to mind is problem solving skills. Like you and I learned this method of design thinking when you think about a problem, you think about different challenges and angles to that problem, you ideate on different potential solutions, you shortlist, you test, you prototype, but it's a problem-solving framework that we've used in practice time and time again, and we teach it so often. But problem solving is a timeless skill. We're gonna need that forever. Because if you just ask AI questions and you get answers, but you can't interrogate it, then you haven't got the skills, you haven't got the problem-solving skills.

SPEAKER_00 19:03

100%. And I think it is linked back to again what we're what we're hearing, and I'm really I'm gonna say it like I'm hearing it, not because I agree with it. But I'm hearing from a lot of companies quotes like uh they just don't make the new generations like they used to. Uh, as a historian, I know that that has been said by every generation going way back.

SPEAKER_02 19:24

Of course.

SPEAKER_00 19:25

Um, but we're hearing a lot at the moment, Gen Z are lazy, they expect an easy ride, they don't ever take initiative. But then we go into universities and we're running these programs, it's not what I'm seeing.

SPEAKER_01 19:37

Yeah, I agree.

SPEAKER_00 19:39

When you look at Gen Z online, it's not what we're seeing. They don't struggle to take initiative, they're just taking it in a different way. And frankly, they either often don't feel safe to do it in your environment, and that's maybe an organizational design issue or a management issue, or you're not actually leveraging the ways in which they're problem solving.

SPEAKER_01 19:56

But I think you've even touched on another timeless skill here, which is really shaping mutual learning environments.

SPEAKER_02 20:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:04

Where it's not reverse mentoring, it's mutual mentoring. I'm learning as a baby boomer as much from you as a Gen Z, and you're learning as a Gen Z just as much from me as a baby boomer. So if you create an environment where you take away the power displacement, it enables us to learn from each other.

SPEAKER_00 20:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:20

And we need to create more environments like that given the intergenerational workforce we have.

SPEAKER_00 20:25

And also allows us to get out of the because there is this point where when there's this disconnect, we hear more of these like generational stereotypes.

SPEAKER_02 20:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:33

Because it's much easier to generalize about you until suddenly I have a conversation and I know you, and I know that in lots of ways you meet that stereotype, in lots of ways you don't.

SPEAKER_02 20:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:41

Because suddenly you're you're a real person who I have a real relationship with, and so suddenly you're not just a lazy Gen Z, you're actually someone who is juggling way more than I did at your age.

SPEAKER_01 20:52

Yeah, it's true, and having that empathy.

SPEAKER_00 20:54

Yeah, and an existential crisis that I didn't have when I came out of university was much easier to get a job, for instance.

SPEAKER_01 21:02

Another skill that came to mind, we're on a roll here.

SPEAKER_00 21:04

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 21:05

Um, I was writing my newsletter recently, and I was sharing some stories of like growing up as a kid, um, and this this theme for the newsletter, I'm not gonna spoil it because it's not out yet. Um, it was about attention seeking. And as a kid, if someone was saying, Andy your attention seeker, it was a negative thing.

SPEAKER_02 21:23

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:23

But now in this day and age of social media and stuff, um, I argue in the newsletter without giving too much away that like I'm I'm not gonna say it without guilt, like, yes, I am attention seeking. Um, but the reason that I mentioned therapy for me to hear, but carry on. The reason the reason I mentioned that in this context is because um I think there's a there's also an element in this day and age now where we need to be conscious about like actually, do we have the skill to stand out in this what in this crowd? And I think storytelling is at the core of that skill. So, with that newsletter, I was leaning on my personal experience as a kid and my Personal experiences and an adult. I could ask AI whatever questions I want. It will never know my personal stories. I have to surface that. So storytelling is going to be a critical skill that I think is going to be a timeless, a timeless skill.

SPEAKER_00 22:13

And I think connected to that, something that AI cannot do is be vulnerable.

SPEAKER_02 22:18

Right?

SPEAKER_00 22:18

It's very Brene Brown of me. But I do think vulnerable storytelling, where we're actually willing, and I don't by vulnerable storytelling, I don't mean you have to go into in a we you know, we've talked a lot about on the podcast about some really vulnerable stuff that frankly I'm not going to share in other contexts because this is a context in which I feel incredibly safe and comfortable. And that's not always gonna be the case. Fine. I'm not asking you to to bring your deepest, darkest trauma to every setting. However, I do think there is this point about bringing your vulnerable whole self. Bring your humanity. And actually, the more the more I speak in public, the more I talk online, the more willing I am to be my clumsy, awkward. Yeah. I've fallen I like I've fallen into a stage. I've smashed a bottle of water live on stage and had to have people cleaning up around me because I wasn't allowed to stop because they didn't want me to, you know, go over time and poor persons cleaning up my mess literally on the floor around me. I I have fluffed every word going. I have said rude words by accident, you know, I've just embarrassed myself so many times. I kind of don't care. And actually that then frees you to be able to be really authentic and be vulnerable with the stories you tell that maybe don't show you in the best light. Or and and and and actually I think there is this world where to I my prediction about where that attention grabbing, attention holding is going to come from is increasingly not going to come from polish or a sense of having everything together.

SPEAKER_01 24:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:03

It's not relatable.

SPEAKER_01 24:04

People connect with that that authenticity, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 24:07

I I I think that's it. And I think it's I think it's easy to say in lots of respects, bring yourself whole self to work, be authentic. Again, I I think a lot of this responsibility is mutually shared with the the systems that we're designing to that allows because it's much easier to be, as I just said, it's much easier to be vulnerable in a setting that you think you're gonna be accepted. So there is some systems work to do here to make sure that actually everyone can take these opportunities. But I I think that to me, that's one of the only things that can set us apart from AI is we are real.

SPEAKER_01 24:41

I think it's gonna lead us into a state where we're more conscious about our data as well, like having more governance and protection over I don't want AI to read this, maybe I want it to read that. Just like organizations like newspapers are doing now or media outlets, like they're being really conscious around like what do I want AI to access or what don't I want it to access, you know? And I mean like if other people are searching, so if Hattie's doing a search right now in Claude about me, what is it surfacing to her? And am I comfortable with everything that it surfaces to you?

SPEAKER_00 25:10

I I'm such a cynic. I think we're gonna A, I think the cat's probably out of the bag on that one already.

SPEAKER_01 25:17

We're too far down the road.

SPEAKER_00 25:19

I mean, like, when was the last time you read a terms and service when you agreed to an update on an app? Like, an app you love, I need to update the agreement. I've no idea what they're asking for. None. And every so often I'll see it an Instagram video being like, oh, be careful, Apple's just asked for this. I'm like, oops, already clicked it, didn't read it. I don't think I'm revealing anything and saying that. I think this is all of us, right?

SPEAKER_01 25:42

It's true. I do, I do think there's so many services we wouldn't use if we really read a small print.

SPEAKER_00 25:48

And like, and sorry, best example of this. Everyone knows, everyone knows your phone is listening to you. I don't think this is me with a tin hat. Like, we know. Every everyone has had those times. You've had a conversation, you go onto Google, what is it advertising?

SPEAKER_02 26:02

Yeah, something like that. Facebook is the worst of this Instagram.

SPEAKER_00 26:04

All of them, you know, I've said don't track across apps, I turn off, you know, sound tracking, you know, they are listening to us all. You're listening, iPhone. No, you are, and but we're not changing our behaviour because we're as humans, and I think this is where we need to be real about the skills that are gonna stand out for us, because I don't think we can expect that anyone is gonna take the path of more resistance and not embrace these tools that make our lives so much easier. I kind of do think we're too far down the road. It's it's I don't think there's any like putting the toothpaste back in the tube. Yeah, it's out, it's fully squeezed. We've like we've literally got to the end and we're now like squeezing the end. So I think we do have to have this conversation and I think there is a balance because I don't know about you, I can't think about AI too late at night where I let literally lie awake going, oh my gosh, I think we might be literally and I'm I'm using it in my day-to-day, I'm loving it in my day-to-day, but every time I lie in bed, I'm like, I think we might have maybe ended the world. But I don't not have any hope.

SPEAKER_01 27:15

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 27:16

And and my hope does come from I do think there are things that we can do if we actively look at how we embrace it to keep some form of agency.

SPEAKER_01 27:27

Let's let's be a bit helpful for our listeners.

SPEAKER_00 27:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:30

What are some helpful skills to utilize when using AI? How do you make AI work well with you?

SPEAKER_00 27:38

Maybe let's talk about the prompts thing, because I think you raise that as something that a lot of people don't understand.

SPEAKER_01 27:42

To explain what prompts are in case someone doesn't understand what a prompt is. So with prompts, we're talking about like what you're typing into AI to instruct it and how how you write that out in a particular way will impact your results that you get from AI.

SPEAKER_00 27:56

Yeah. And so what we I think there is this huge democratization of anyone can use Chat GPT, anyone can, even when you search on Google, it's now surfacing an AI result immediately with Gemini. Um, so so we're all doing it pretty much all the time. And there is this world of how good are you?

SPEAKER_01 28:16

And I I used to get really do you type in Google search what you'll type into AI if you're instructed in AI?

SPEAKER_00 28:21

No. But then I mean I'm getting an AI result on Google search with Gemini. The irony is, I used to genuinely think when I used to work at my old company, I used to think one of my best skills I was best at was I was really good at Googling stuff to the point where I get so pissed off with my colleagues. I love you all, but I would get asked questions and I would just Google it and I'd get them the answer. And I was like, why? And I I used to sometimes I got a bit sassy towards the end, and I was like, have you tried have you tried Googling it?

SPEAKER_01 28:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:49

Before you asked me a question, have you tried Googling it?

SPEAKER_01 28:52

But I'm you think people are gonna feel like that with AI and like, have you why haven't you searched an AI?

SPEAKER_00 28:56

But yes, and I think people had tried Googling it.

SPEAKER_02 29:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:00

But I was actually just quite good at knowing what I needed to Google to get an answer.

SPEAKER_02 29:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:04

And I think AI is the exact same thing. So maybe we could walk through what are the good ingredients for a prompt that can what we should we be thinking about?

SPEAKER_01 29:13

Context. Framing is really important.

SPEAKER_00 29:16

What do you mean by that? So, like, should we work through an example?

SPEAKER_01 29:19

Let's work through an example.

SPEAKER_00 29:20

What should our example be?

SPEAKER_01 29:22

I I want to design a workshop for 16 to 19 year olds around like learning about entrepreneurship.

SPEAKER_00 29:27

Well, let's pick an even an example that someone at home could use. Let's do, sorry, I'm taking only because I think actually someone might want to use this. Let's link it to our financial mindset episode.

SPEAKER_01 29:38

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 29:39

And let's say I want to make a personal budget.

unknown 29:41

Nice.

SPEAKER_00 29:41

Because I feel like that actually is someone you could listen along and do this live.

SPEAKER_01 29:45

What okay? So let's say what context is important for AI to know in order to help you create a financial budget. Um, a first piece of context. Yeah. I haven't got a finance degree or finance background.

SPEAKER_00 29:57

Nice, love it.

SPEAKER_01 29:58

So I need this to be simple.

SPEAKER_00 30:00

Great. The other thing I might say is like, how am I planning to use it? So I I want to be able to create a budget that I can use to work out how to save better, work out how much I have to spend everyone. Like, what am I, what, what am I gonna try and do with this?

SPEAKER_01 30:15

Yes, and um, I don't know how to use any systems like Excel or Google Sheets. So I just need to be something simple that I can use from here.

SPEAKER_00 30:22

Brilliant. The other things I would definitely include if it was for me, I get quite financially nervous. So I'm gonna find this process stressful. Please can you help me make it as unstressful as possible and make sure you explain things so that I don't feel stupid, but also don't make me feel guilty for the process. This is what I said, by the way, the first time I went to see a financial advisor. I said all of this too.

SPEAKER_01 30:42

Great. Can you also make it in great British pounds? Because I know you like tend to use US with me. And can you also just do the budget for the next six months just so I could see how it could work?

SPEAKER_02 30:52

Nice.

SPEAKER_01 30:52

These are the categories that really matter to me. X, Y, and Z, shopping, utility bills, depending on what you do.

SPEAKER_00 30:59

The other things I think are often important to put in a quote are tell it outright. Please feel free to ask me clarifying questions before you get started.

SPEAKER_01 31:08

That last line there, game changer. Because what happens is you get frustrated because it actually asks you questions. But if you didn't put that last line, it wouldn't ask you those clarifying questions, which is really annoying.

SPEAKER_00 31:19

And then it's rubbish and I'm having to ask them all anyway.

SPEAKER_01 31:22

When when when AI responds and asks you clarifying questions, do you voice note your response back or do you type your your response back?

SPEAKER_00 31:32

I do both actually. I I do sometimes voice note and I sometimes type.

SPEAKER_01 31:36

Because something that frustrates me with the voice noting is that if it asks me four questions, I might voice note the first part and I actually want to voice note the next and the next, but it doesn't allow you to do that. It's like you have a voice note and answer to all of it. It doesn't allow you to go one at a time unless you clarify that and say, I'm just answering the first question, don't respond, let me do the second part. You have to really you have to be very but that's how you learn how to play with it and learn the boundaries.

SPEAKER_00 32:01

The other thing we haven't done that's really good practice is to give it a role. So tell it, are you don't do that often enough? It's really helpful.

SPEAKER_01 32:09

You're a ghostwriter, you're a financial advisor in this case. Yeah, are you a financial advisor?

SPEAKER_00 32:14

Are you uh do you want to be my partner making our household budget together?

SPEAKER_01 32:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:19

You know, how what lens are we going through?

SPEAKER_01 32:21

That's true, actually.

SPEAKER_00 32:22

Yeah, and you could even say to you, like, I want you to imagine there's this lovely YouTube channel where there's this this oh beautiful. There's this man who um decided to be the dad for lots of people who didn't have a dad who they could go to for lots of the things that you traditionally go to. Oh yeah, and so he does lots of DIY videos and lots of things that stereotypically you would go to your dad. Beautiful. And so but you could even say to it, like, right, I want you to pretend that you're a parent and give me great parental advice. You can pick the role and and play.

SPEAKER_01 32:54

But then sometimes when you go down this road and AI has a memory, do you feel like the memory can actually turn annoying because it's remembering things and bringing it up time and time again? And you're like, Okay, you're doing my head in now. I know you're trying to be positive, I know you're always trying to encourage me, but well, this is enough now.

SPEAKER_00 33:11

I do get annoyed with the sycophantic nature of Chat GBT. So Chat GBT, if you haven't noticed already, if you talk to it, it will always immediately praise you. What a great question, Hattie. The best question anyone on this platform's ever asked me, you're such a genius. So American. And so I you can tell it not to. I find the memories helpful to preserving. You can also tell it like I don't want you to act in that way, or you can also tell it, don't remember anything from previous conversations, treat this as a new one.

SPEAKER_01 33:40

Yeah. Can we can we take a new situation? Someone's going for a job.

SPEAKER_00 33:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:44

They want to understand on every step of the way, like, where should I shouldn't I use AI? Yeah. Let's start with C V. Should I build my C V from scratch with AI or should I use AI to just enhance my existing C V?

SPEAKER_00 33:59

Uh I mean I would probably give it, if I already have one, I would give it my C V and ask it to critique it. And and and and give it the job title of the role, like the role I'm going for, the person who I'm gonna speak to and who's hiring me. Um give it the context of the company and then ask it to critique it, what's missing, what's good, what's strong, what's weak, because I want to understand that. Again, I don't want you just to make me a new version. Yeah, I want to understand the logic behind it, yeah, because then I'm gonna be in a conversation. And it's great if my CV is really strong on paper, but if I haven't understood what makes that strong, I'm not gonna perform better in an interview. So already I even want to be thinking about how am I gonna show myself the best, not just on paper, but in real life.

SPEAKER_01 34:42

Yeah, great. And when it comes to say the interviewer said, um, record a one-minute video answering this question. What's the boundaries with these to like help you answer the question?

SPEAKER_00 34:58

Interesting. This is where I get stubborn. I still have a stubborn nature, and I get a bit like I would want to answer the question myself first. I mean, I've seen things where people have like AI up while they're in a live interview.

SPEAKER_01 35:10

I I think the risk is if there's 400 applicants and they all use AI and are and just copy and paste the question in, you're gonna hear very similar responses. Very obvious who types it into AI.

SPEAKER_00 35:22

I think so.

SPEAKER_01 35:22

Um I I I agree with you. I think you need to be original in that context. Or you record two or three answers and get AI to review it based on them being the role of the interviewer at this company with these values and just get feedback on it rather than AI giving you a script.

SPEAKER_00 35:38

Yeah, and also I mean, I do also want to be real that AI still isn't the best at things.

SPEAKER_01 35:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:46

Like it's good, but I rarely look at an answer AI gives me and think that's the best. I agree. And so actually, even if you take an AI script, sometimes it also depends how your brain works. For some people, you know what? I this is what we should be teaching in schools. This is what I would love to see on the curriculum. Apparently I'll do it a little bit, but I want to see it more. Helping people understand how their brains work and how they learn. So, what would be really helpful to me is to understand about myself. Am I someone who actually a blank sheet of paper is brilliant for me to come up with ideas? And so when I get the question, I'm immediately gonna find it easy to spark, and that's where my creativity and my best ideas are gonna come from. Some people that works. Actually, for lots of people, that feels really overwhelming, feels really nerve-wracking. They might delay it, they might procrastinate, they might not do the best work. So maybe what I need is AI to help me have a conversation because actually I think better out loud. Or maybe it's I need it to give me a start of 10 for me to critique, because that's gonna help. So, what I want to be doing is trying to use it as a tool to yes, give a better answer, but also to think better. Yeah, that's what I want to be doing with it.

SPEAKER_01 36:59

Yeah, I love that. I agree, and I think it's it's the other time of skill, critical thinking, and and decision making. Like, how can I think better? How can I explore my thinking paths rather than always lead me to a narrow answer?

SPEAKER_00 37:12

This for me is the challenge of AI. How are we not allowing it to completely rot our brains? We are allowing it to make us the best versions of ourselves with better brains. That's really hard. That is a challenge, but I think if we don't embrace it, everything's gonna rot.

SPEAKER_01 37:28

I think work has a real role to play as an educator here as well. We talk a lot about school, but there's so many of us in work, and work's such an environment that should be able to teach and educate us and take us on this journey that we're talking about. And how do we think better, how do we make better decisions, how can we be more strategic?

SPEAKER_00 37:44

I was talking to someone in a bank recently, and they were talking about they've rolled out uh Microsoft Copilot, as lots of companies have, and and they were saying they're kind of tending to see a pattern. Some people still aren't using it at all, they're not doing well. Some people, the vast majority of people, are just using it to do their job. And what managers and and leaders are starting to say to me is there comes a point where I it's so obvious that I'm getting the answer to the question I gave you as you put it into Chat GPT, and I'm getting the exact you're copy and pasting the answer. And at the point where there is no level of human intervention needed, you've either proven your ide your role is redundant, or you're just not, you're being either scared or lazy to add the value on top.

SPEAKER_01 38:30

You see, and that value on top, I think, is sometimes as well. People are sleeping on the fact that they have this rich bank of human stories, especially within the workplace. So if you know, I talk to HR leaders all the time, like if you're shaping learning experiences, think through the lens of the CEO and your strategy. What are we trying to achieve? What capabilities and skills do our leaders have today? What are they gonna need in order to achieve that thing and take people in this direction? 100%. And actually, what stories can I bring around Sarah and Sally and Brian and all these leaders in the company to enhance the story so people connect with it emotionally? And AI can't give you that. It can give you some of all right, think through these questions and lenses of the CEO and the leader and the strategy, but it can't give you the human stories. No, you know, so we need to understand the boundaries on where we were meant to be co-pilot, which means we were both meant to be flying this pain, which means means we're both meant to be adding value rather than mean relying on all of the value coming from AI, which is almost like the the step one of people's journey with AI at work at the moment.

SPEAKER_00 39:28

I think connected to that let's not downplay enjoyment. Like, how am I making this an enjoyable process? Yeah, we underrate that, isn't it? And actually, if you think about I was thinking about this a lot with my team. Right? They're great at their jobs, like really great, and they're all actively using AI, they're all going and finding new AI tools. Like I don't even have to be telling them, they're all teaching me stuff about UA AI. Brilliant. And I would not employ them if they were not capable and doing great work. Of course. Obviously. But they're really fun to work with. And I you've got to be a bit careful with this, you don't just make a cult of your own personality and you don't just hire people that are like you or that you're not.

SPEAKER_01 40:22

Yeah, but you want to you want to enjoy the people you work with.

SPEAKER_00 40:25

But it's and it's gotta be a fun process. And part of the reason I love when we work together is I always come away from the work we've done feeling inspired, excited, buzzing. And I think genuinely as humans, we are wired to get that from humans.

SPEAKER_02 40:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:43

We're not wired to get that from machines in the same way.

SPEAKER_02 40:45

I agree.

SPEAKER_00 40:46

So that is again a way you can stand at how can you make this feel more fun, feel more enjoyable, feel more wholesome or inspiring or interesting.

SPEAKER_01 40:56

Quite outsource fun and enjoyment.

SPEAKER_00 40:58

No, you really can't. So, I mean, we've touched on some prompts. We've touched on some skills, but I think they're quite broad skills. So as we come to journaling prompts and wrapping up the episode, what do we think are important? What do we think are important things that people could be tangibly doing to feel like maybe they have a bit more control because it does all feel quite existential, doom and gloom. And I'm not sure I've helped that with some of my reflections, but I feel that. So so what could people like me be doing practically to feel more in control and to nurture both the skills around AI that they need and also the skills that we we believe are never gonna be replaced by machines?

SPEAKER_01 41:43

I first you want to give us a pat on the back because we didn't talk about AI and job displacement, really. We were talking about how to use it, timeless skills alongside it. Um, so I feel like we were really positive actually in our conversations here about AI, where it's usually just such doom and gloom.

SPEAKER_02 41:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:59

And I think for those who are listening to this who don't know where to start with AI, um, I think we should probably create a prompt around okay, how to get started.

SPEAKER_02 42:09

Yeah, I know.

SPEAKER_01 42:10

And for those who are using AI, I think we should create a prompt around critical thinking so that you're not just racing to answer the quickest, easiest answer.

SPEAKER_00 42:17

Yeah, love it. Any ideas?

SPEAKER_01 42:19

Uh for this, the latter one, I have an idea. Um, I think with any problem or job that you want to do in AI, yeah, um, find two other methods of solving that problem without AI.

SPEAKER_00 42:33

Ooh, interesting.

SPEAKER_01 42:34

Just so that you can compare and contrast, and at least you do the thinking just by going through the process of looking at those two other methods.

SPEAKER_00 42:40

And I think connected to that, if you are already actually using AI a lot, look at how you're using it and whether it's actually serving you in the way. So I noticed this the other day. As someone with ADHD, what would happen is I'd put a task into Claude, it would start working, and it would take a few minutes to do the task I've set, right? Because it is genuinely working at creating slides or whatever. It's not a long time. So I would go away and start doing something else, and then I'd come back and check it five minutes later. And what that started to mean was I was having incredibly bitty work. And also I was trying to then almost operate at the amount I'd already invested in it. So it was I I spent two minutes on it, spent five minutes on it. So I'll I'll spend a quick amount of time checking it. I wasn't then going in and doing a deep review because I was almost in this pattern of working in these super short stints.

SPEAKER_02 43:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:35

That doesn't actually work very well for me. My brain is not working well, my critical thinking is dampened, my inspiration is dampened, everything is dampened. So one of the things I'm actively looking at how can I do is I still want to use it. But what would that path look like that means that I'm not jumping task to task in a way that is really actually increasing my switching cost at a really unhelpful level? How am I Checking it in a better way so I'm not defaulting to just speed and ease.

SPEAKER_01 44:06

And like as you said that what shaping that share sharing that experience and that prompt, it made me think of um pre-work before AI. And I think sometimes before even writing a prompt, we need to go and do research. So that budgeting prompt that we gave today on the call, on the on the call, on the podcast, we could have said, actually go into YouTube and find personal budgeting like tutorials, go into Instagram and find a few examples, go into TikTok and find a few examples, and now bring together the research that you found and ask AI to create your personal budgeting thing based on the best of what you found.

SPEAKER_00 44:40

And again, you're right, you'll actually do a better prompt because suddenly you'll have the context to be able to say, I don't like this, I liked this. This helps such a good thing.

SPEAKER_01 44:46

The pre-work is the work.

SPEAKER_00 44:47

You're so right. And it's got your brain thinking, and you actually again, you're you're and I often use that as a last step, not as a first step. And you're actually right. The best work I've done with AI, we we wrote a proposal for some work together, and I used AI to draft it up, but you and I had voice noted back and forth about the design. So actually, when I prompted it, we'd answered all the design questions.

SPEAKER_01 45:07

That was a very strong proposal, actually.

SPEAKER_00 45:09

It was a brilliant proposal because we'd done the thinking.

SPEAKER_01 45:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:11

And actually You could see that it's come from. We really could. And and because we'd headed off all the things that we knew might break in that programme, it was just writing up and summarizing, and it's good at that.

SPEAKER_01 45:21

Oh true.

SPEAKER_00 45:22

Okay, and for someone who has not started yet, what would be a good prompt? Oh, okay, you go.

SPEAKER_01 45:30

No, no, I'm listening.

SPEAKER_00 45:32

So I think maybe for the next two days. Every time you do something that you don't enjoy that feels like it's not giving you energy, it's not actually using the best of you. But you have a question of do I have to be doing this? Should I be doing this? Do I want to be doing this? And it's not super manual, so sadly I'm not talking about washing the dishes. But there's a little bit of kind of knowledge work in there, a little bit of thinking that you think I don't have the headspace for this now, I don't have the time for this now, I don't want to be doing this now, I now feel worse after doing it. Just write it down. And then actually start to have a think about uh what one one of those things. If I if I picked one task and I played with AI to see if it could help, what would be the task that make me feel best, that would reduce my anxiety, that would save my time? And and what am I gonna give it to that's a nice thing, not just another, I now have to be more productive.

SPEAKER_01 46:33

Yeah, I like that. I thought you were gonna go down the road of asking AI how can I make this more fun. And I've got a book called Game Storming and a few books like that that just make activities more fun.

SPEAKER_00 46:44

I love that. I need to read GameStorming.

SPEAKER_01 46:46

Okay. Maybe we'll touch on it in a future episode.

SPEAKER_00 46:49

Book recommendations, galore, and uh lots of prompts. Let us know as well as you start to play with AI, what you like, what questions you have, and we can always do follow up content and share some some more tips if they're helpful. Absolutely.