Questioning AI: A Candid Conversation About Legit Concerns on the Environmental Impacts, Creativity, Surveillance, and Ethical Dilemmas

I hopped on a Zoom call with eight small business owners to yap about our feelings about AI. We talk about the damage to the environment, loss of skills and creativity, and the surveillance state. It wasn’t really about finding answers, but just chatting about what we’re thinking as everyone gets swept up in the hype.

In this episode:

2:21 Real talk on AI’s environmental impact
4:22 Is AI killing our creativity?
9:57 The scary side of AI and surveillance
13:01 When “using AI for fun” stops being fun
30:25 Have your thoughts on AI changed over time?

Hang out with Deanna:
https://deannaseymour.com
https://jointheplayhouse.com
https://instagram.com/thedeannaseymour

Hang out with the Business Owners in this episode:
Lex Roman: https://lexroman.com
Kayce Hodos: https://www.kaycehodos.com
Alex Leone: https://leone.software
Kate Burgener: https://kateburgener.com
Tori Mistick: https://wearwagrepeat.com
Kailani Joy: https://www.inspiritglobal.com
Anita Kirkbride: https://twirp.ca/anita-kirkbride
Sarah Frison: https://sarahfrison.substack.com

🪩 Check out The Playhouse: A networking community for creative business owners at jointheplayhouse.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_06 0:23

Hey, what's up? I'm Deanna Seymour, founder of the Playhouse and collaborative growth strategist, and I wanted to have a conversation with people about the robots. I mean, AI is obviously a hot topic these days, and I see people who absolutely love it, maybe some people who are obsessed with it, and I also see videos about the data centers popping up everywhere and what it's doing to people's drinking water and towns, and I'm still hearing that I better get on board or I'm gonna be left behind. And so I was just wondering if there's a way to use AI responsibly, or are we all just doomed? Is it kind of an all-or-nothing thing? Is anyone else worried about it? What are we thinking? So I decided to do a group podcast just to see where people's heads are at. All I did was just put out a call that I was hosting this Zoom meeting where we would all come together and just kind of chat about what we were thinking. Fair warning, this is truly just a conversation between me and eight other business owners. They're all linked in the show notes, and there's no tips, no answers, or anything like that ahead for you. It's just a replay of our conversation and our thoughts when it comes to AI. And if you listen and you have thoughts, I'd love to hear from you. You can DM me over on Instagram at the Deanna Seymour or on LinkedIn, or just, you know, send me an email, Deanna at DeannaCmour.com, and I would seriously love to hear from you. All right, let's get to it. I really just want this to be a conversation. So nothing profound. We're not like here to hate the robots. It's okay if we hate them a little, or you know, we're just we're questioning what we're seeing. I feel like a lot of people loving them, maybe some people hating them. I'm just here to like talk about what we're thinking. But yeah, just an experiment, conversation, no real expectations. All right, so this is a big one just to start us off, and then we'll just go in in whatever direction we want to. What is one of your concerns when it comes to AI? I want you to just pick one because I feel like we have lots of people here. So then as more people go, I'm sure we'll say more things. And I'm sure maybe you have more than one concern. So just start us off. Okay, Sarah.

SPEAKER_02 2:36

What is one of your concerns about AI? For me, it's definitely environmental impact. That's something that I've been hearing a lot about. It uses so much water, and how there's this place that's supposed to be like a park, and they're building this whole data center on it. I have read an article that was about how you can also have AI things, but it's a lot smaller and it doesn't use all that energy and stuff and resources. It was about how um I don't remember the country it was in, but it was a country where they have a lot of malaria and they also have a lot of fake medication. So either a medication has like poison in it or it just doesn't have any active ingredients. And this guy, I think he went to Yale and he actually took some of the wrong medication himself because he got malaria and he built this self-contained AI thing that pharmacists now use to scan the medication to know that it's the real stuff. So I feel like that's helpful. Yeah. And in an article talked about how it's very limited, like it doesn't use all those resources, so I think that's relevant, but I don't know, it bothers me that everyone is not using it, it seems everyone is using it for like basic things to like write emails and things, like you could do that before, you know, like we didn't need all that stuff, and it's using all this water and things, and we're putting these places like in the desert where there's no water anyway. Like it's yeah, okay, for sure.

SPEAKER_06 4:10

This is a good, I think this is a good stopping point. Or maybe we can also do some polls where I can at least tell the people listening. Maybe a show of hands. Is anyone else concerned about the environmental issues? I mean, yes. Okay, some people, not everyone. Okay. Um, interesting. Okay, so how about our next friend in the middle? I don't want to mispronounce your name. Will you help me?

SPEAKER_03 4:33

I know it's a tricky one. I feel like everyone knows each other. I'm Kailani. Nice to meet you. Okay, yeah, nice to meet you too. I'm based in California. I'm a Mark Commons consultant out here for some tech companies local here. Yeah, but I just wanted to mention, I'm sure everyone is already feeling this and experiencing this, but I really am worried about us losing our creativity. I see so many people, myself included, right? I uh looking to AI for certain things that I used to love doing and I am good at and I should keep doing. So I and I'm really I'm seeing a lot of actually creative. So my sister is a singer-songwriter, she and her husband, they're actually touring in Europe right now, and she'll use it to write her emails, or she'll use it to, I mean, it's just random things that for her it's a time saver. But for me, I feel like she's uh losing some of that just basic creativity or basic, you know, some simple functions that you should still um want to cultivate and keep sharp. So I'm worried about the creativity aspect of it for sure.

SPEAKER_06 5:35

Yes. Okay. I love I love that you you said that. I mean, so far you guys are going in order. It's like we planned this, but I put in parentheses environmental creativity. Like we're going in order of what we're doing.

SPEAKER_03 5:45

I know, but to Sarah's point, the environmental impact as well is so, so scary. I mean, the the the amount of data centers that we're seeing pop up or permits requested to pop up. Um out we have friends out in Tennessee and and um just across the US, it's really scary to see um the amount of power it's needed and and then you know what that's gonna take. And and it's um yeah, it's frightening. But we're all using it, right? It's you know, we're we're contributing to the problem. And companies are requesting that we contribute to the problem. You know, for a lot of companies it's being mandated and or rolled out without enough training. I mean, that's another issue is the lack of training. And um, but yeah, sorry, I'll stick with just one. I'll focus on the fact that I feel like we're losing our voice. I said some I said recently in a LinkedIn post, I was like, don't be aerial. I feel like AI is Ursula, and we're giving our voice to her. And don't do that. Like, so I was like, I'm gonna make shirts that say don't be aerial, you know, say no. Bust that. We'll see what we're doing. We can say no to AI for certain things.

SPEAKER_06 6:49

Yeah, for sure. Okay, well, let's just do another little poll, show of hands. Who has noticed maybe their creativity get getting stifled or going away, or is it getting harder for you to be creative, or do you have to be intentional about not using it? Did anybody else feel like they were kind of using it too much? I feel like I started to because I was like, okay, I'm just gonna do this real quick. I'm gonna do everything real quick. I'm gonna do everything real quick and not that good. And then I was like, wait, hold on. And also was doing things kind of like you were saying that um are usually fun for me. So I'm like, wait, why am I trying to like speed through this thing? I think it's just because we're all doing so many things. So okay, awesome. Well, thanks for sharing. All right, Alex, what's one of your concerns?

SPEAKER_08 7:37

Yeah, thank you. I'm I'm not sure how much this overlaps with Kailani's uh creativity, losing creativity, but uh one of my biggest concerns, because I'm in software development fields, over the long term, I'm concerned about losing skills. Uh so I my the one thing that I I tend to say a lot when people ask me about AI is I think that AI produces slightly worse than average whatever you're asking it to produce. So if you're asking it to produce code, if you're a software developer, it's going to produce slightly worse than average code. And if you don't know anything about coding, that's gonna be a lot better than what you can make yourself. Um, and if you know a lot, it's gonna be worse, right? But so what I've been seeing some like junior programmers or junior developers, people just starting to learn how to uh create software, use AI, and then I'm worried that they're using it and they're getting right up to like the midpoint, and that they're not going to get any better. And for AI's sake, you know, there's like the concern that maybe AI will not like we can't make anything better. Like over time, the the average will come down if no one's actually gonna be keeping up these skills. I'm seeing it from the software development side, I assume it applies to you know something like copywriting, which I'm much worse at, or marketing or or you know, anything uh any any of those creative fields, there's skills that need to be developed, um, to uh Kalani's point earlier.

SPEAKER_06 9:10

So yeah, that's my one thing. I like, I mean, I don't like I don't like that we're losing skills, but um I think yeah, like you were saying, does it overlap? I think it does a little bit, but it's a good thing to bring up without practice, too. Like even if you are better than AI right now, like I don't know, even sometimes when I do something reconciling my QuickBooks. I mean, I do it every month, but still every time I'm sort of like, wait, where what do I prep? Like, I'm gonna screw this up. I mean, I'm getting better at it the more I do it, but just because there's a whole month in between, each time I'm like, okay, let me do it. And so if you spent if we all spend a bunch of time kind of outsourcing all this stuff to the robots, eventually we're gonna be like, wait, what? How do I, how do I even do it? Um and I think that was spot on what you said too about how if you're good at something, it's not as good. But if you're not good at all, then you're like, oh my god, this thing's awesome, because you have no, you have no idea, but it's just a medium. Okay. Lex, what are you thinking about?

SPEAKER_05 10:34

The surveillance state. Yes. I hate the surveillance state. This morning I was reading a story um about bars, gay bars that are scanning people's faces to pull addresses and names and all kinds of personal detail without permission. And um, I have always seen consumer AI as the distraction from the military-industrial complex to make us feel okay with things like our faces being scanned at the airport and you know, the network of flock cameras in our cities, uh, and the coordination with police and military. And I think that's terrifying. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_06 11:17

Mm-hmm. Well, um, one question that you had brought up, because I had asked um people if they had any questions before this, was we're gonna get two for shorts on the list, but who do we trust when it comes to AI? And I think I mean, that's why I was like having trouble figuring out how this conversation was gonna go, because I feel like it's one big tangled mess ball of awful things that could go wrong. But yeah, who are we trusting? I watched, which I should have written down before I recorded this episode, but whatever there is like a documentary on Peacock right now, because that's where I watch all my housewives. So that's why I saw that one pop up. And just some of the people talking about all the amazing things that AI can do, like it could cure, you know, climate change. And the one person who was more of like nervous about AI was like, can we start with that then? Like what Lex is bringing up. What's the end game? And the one guy was like, I think if people uh, you know, use it, I don't know what he said. I'm totally misquoting him, but you know, like basically if if good people are in charge of it. And I was like, well, we already know that's not happening. So, like, what is gonna happen? It's it is kind of kinda spooky. And what Sarah was saying about the environment, I'm just watching people's water from around these data centers, and now Aaron Brokovich is back in the in on the on the job. I'm like, yes, girl, get it. Obviously, I'm like, what? We're supposed to feel like you have our best interest at heart, and this is our drinking water, and they're like, you're fine, it's gonna be awesome. Just wait, just wait a second. It's gonna be totally awesome. Uh so anyway, sorry, I'm rambling. Okay, Tori, what are you thinking?

SPEAKER_00 12:54

Okay, so obviously I use AI and work all the time to help me with like little things, and I totally agree that it does a mediocre job. If you want it done, like you know, they say like you can have it done fast, cheap, or well, and it'll do like two of those, you know what I mean? So, like it won't be well, but it'll be like fast, which like time is money, so cheap. Um, so that's kind of like what you're getting. But what I was thinking about is using it in my personal life and how that's impacting my creativity, I guess. So, like I recently moved this year and I've been in this new house for like a month, and I took a picture of my bedroom and put it in ChatGPT and said, Can you give me back a picture of like I want this, I this is the vibe I want, like boutique hotel, like how should I change this and give me back a photo? And it gave me back a photo, and I was like, oh my god, this is exactly what I this is perfect. I'm gonna make my bedroom exactly like this. But 12 years ago, when I moved into my previous house, I went on Pinterest and spent so much time like crafting and curating what I went in my bedroom to look at. And I had like all these different inspiration photos, and it was really fun for me. And I was able to come up with something that was really unique, and I ended up like hand painting with stencils my furniture to get the look of like the $2,000 dresser that I wasn't gonna buy, and um just you know, I am getting a result of a decor inspiration that I like. Okay, so I'm getting that. I didn't spend as much time doing it, so like I guess that's a positive, but I enjoyed doing all the time. But the herein lies the problem is that when you go on Pinterest today, it is all monetized ads and everything, and there is not the same original content that used to be there. So I couldn't even do that again. Like, I guess I could look on Instagram or look in other places, and um, I guess Pinterest is like still going strong, but um I I don't have the same experience because I think that so many things have been, yeah, there's a lot of AI slop on Pinterest that is preventing me from actually having my real human experience on Pinterest. So I turned to the AI to just make the design for me. So it's really a vicious cycle. Um, but that's I guess that's where we are. I don't have there's no like moral or lesson here. I'm just kind of venting about it.

SPEAKER_06 15:28

No, I I think that's interesting too that you realize that you got enjoyment out of what you did before, but also when you try to go back and do that, that's also sort of been like ruined with ads and money and all the things. Like, honestly, too, when I think about AI, I'm like, is this a conversation about robots or capitalism? Like, I can't really tell. I think it's just like I just need a nap. I just need a good cry and a nap. It's fine. Um, that's interesting. Well, my daughter is um, we measured her room yesterday, and so she has pencil and graph paper, Tori. So maybe you have to bust out some graph paper and like each square is four inches, three squares by three squares is a foot.

SPEAKER_00 16:11

Oh, I I did that also like before because I was trying to decide what furniture to bring in the move with me, so I wasn't moving stuff I what couldn't fit. And I did I did cut out like that guy. Um, I forget what his name is, but it's Dear Modern, I think, like on YouTube and TikTok and everything. Uh I forget his name, but he's like a feng shui kind of guy. And that's what he always he cuts out things. And I I I did enjoy that. I found joy there.

SPEAKER_06 16:38

Yeah. And I think I like I said, I wasn't gonna really look at the chat because I keep seeing stuff and I'm like, oh, I need to read it all. But um, you know, it's faster, but like what are what are we losing? And the creativity and the like joy of the thing. I mean, I struggle with the journey being the point. I like to finish things, I like things to be wrapped up with a bow. But um it is sort of uh interesting to think about. Oh, the journey is the thing. So when we like cut it out and just give it to a robot, we're missing that.

SPEAKER_00 17:11

Okay, cool. Well thanks, Corey.

SPEAKER_06 17:16

Yeah, and the point of it all, maybe, because I'm like, wait, if we're all just like doing everything so quick, like what do I guess we have more time to like go buy stuff on Pinterest or something like our robot? I don't know. Um, okay, Casey, what are you thinking about? Oh wait, I can't hear you. That's I blame a robot. That's so rude. Still not. No, no, now we can hear you.

unknown 17:43

Okay.

SPEAKER_06 17:44

I'm so sorry. I knew I would ruin this. You ruined everything, Casey. The whole everybody, let's just close our laptops and the whole thing's canceled. Try to have a human conversation. Should have been I should have been chatting with robots this whole time. They would be unmuted. Just kidding.

SPEAKER_01 17:57

This is why they're gonna win and destroy us because of people like me. No, I think my worst fear is with everything, like the internet, I mean, money, everything. Like humans have such a hard time with thinking about complex things and deciding, like, oh, there's a good use for it, and then this, I don't know. Should we talk about it and figure it out together? Nobody did that part. It was just like rich bros did the thing, and we're all just like, oh my god, it's the best thing ever, shiny, happy. It's just so human, and we've evolved, but we still cannot handle shiny new things or things that just give us dopamine hits. That's what we did with the internet. Like, think about how useful the internet is, and like how you can't even go a day without using it for something now. But when it and it's still a hot mess, but like when it first came out, everybody was just like, I mean, do you you guys are so much younger than me, but getting my first email address in college was like so amazing, and it was just like, and what did people do with email? They started sending naked pictures and make turned it into porn or whatever, like you know, like, but we do we just go overboard with every new thing, and we just have to learn to think about things critically, and so that's what I'm I think that's what bothers me the most that it's just gonna continue this divisive thing that we already have going, and it's just gonna make our porn it does too much, we just do too much.

SPEAKER_06 19:40

We just do too much. I'm always like, I just want the original Instagram before Facebook bought it. I'm always like, can we just go back to you're all caught up on our feed and it was just our friends, and there was no ads, and nobody was like giving me three tips about my business, and there were no videos, and those filters, which looking back, we're like, wow, we thought those were so cool, but I don't care, I'll take them back. I'll use Nashville again if I have to. I want it back. Um, anyways, yes, you're right, Casey. We just ruined, we just turn up the volume so high we blow the speakers. We're so hype. We're like, oh my god, this is so cool.

SPEAKER_01 20:12

And this time it's and we do it all the time with stuff, but this time it could really be like this could be it. And you know what? If a robot, I mean, in so many ways it can this could be it, but like if the worst thing that everybody's example is is like the robots, you know, are like good, bad, humans, bad, and just blow and kill us all. I'm kind of like, well, you know what? Some of us did our best, some of us are morons, and maybe we do need to be wiped off the face of the earth. I don't know. Sorry. You guys are probably like, she's a therapist?

SPEAKER_06 20:48

Like, okay, we're gonna just remove Casey from the conversation now. She took it too far. She turned up the volume too loud, she blew the speaker immediately. Just kidding. No, I mean it is scary. I think it's scary. It's just it's scary. Um okay, so Casey, you kind of brought this up. You wrote like a good segue into saying, like, is there a nuance? Maybe could it be good for some things? Is it good for anything? Where do we stand in this room? Do we all hate it? We're using it a little. I personally am trying real hard to not use it. But then I start thinking, like, well, I feel like I used cast magic for my podcast a long time ago. And I'm also like, is the script, does that count as AI? Because it's putting my podcast in there and turning it into this transcript that I can then like where to everything.

SPEAKER_01 21:40

Sorry, I went out of track. You're fine. No, you know how it's into it's everywhere, like every app that you use, everything is like I'm sure they already have it integrated into fridges and appliances. You know how it's just like you cannot go anywhere without somebody saying, we have an AI as part of our thing now. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_06 22:00

Well, I think too, like, I guess there's a difference, and this is like me gonna totally admit that I did make a point to watch that documentary on Peacock before today and not take any notes or even know the name of it. So there, there. I guess I do need a robot to tell me what to do. What I was gonna say is I lost my train of thought because I was making fun of myself. Oh, I guess some of it is contained. Is there some AI that's a little more self contained? And then there's the language learning model or whatever. That is that the bad I don't know. What is the script have some big data center I don't know about? Is it the script doing that when I do my podcast and transcribe it? Is that bad? We've turned on the transcription for this. Is that AI? I guess what I'm saying is where's the line drawn and where I guess people need to decide? Whose job is it to decide? Who has our best interest?

unknown 22:49

I don't know.

SPEAKER_06 22:50

Sarah, what are you thinking?

SPEAKER_02 22:51

I suppose this is what I was also saying before about the malaria stuff. That makes sense, right? It helps people. And also there was a study that showed that if you uh show a specific AI treating breast cancer scans from people, it detects problematic bits of tumors like five years before a human would, and it would help obviously with people's chances at recovery and stuff. So I feel like that would really make sense. But yeah, like you were all saying it's everywhere though. Like I don't, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 23:22

Sometimes I'm like, can it do the things that it's saying that it could do? Like that person saying, can we just start with climate change? Because I'm like, oh, I feel like when I talk to the robot, that robot's not gonna be like smarter than some breast cancer doctor, in my experience with the robots. I'm like, are we sure we're talking about the same robots that would be able to do all this really complex stuff? Or like Lex was saying, or is it just giving us those promises while it's like we're gonna scan your face on the way in to this establishment? I'm like, what's going on? Anyways, okay, Alex, what are what are you thinking?

SPEAKER_08 23:57

I actually wanted to respond to your what you said. Um, is it, you know, uh like Claude or ChatGPT doesn't seem too smart when I talk to it. Is this really something we should be trusting with our medical research? So I think, I don't know if everyone else working in AI thinks the same thing. But um from my perspective, the AI that would be working on medical research should, I really hope should be and and is in the cases I've seen, different from you know, Claude or a general purpose, you just type in chat and it spits some words back out. That's uh specifically like a language learning model that's spitting out English sentences in or whatever language in response to your English input. One organization that I I've been working with that I know is using AI, for instance, uh and was before uh Chat GPT was ever a thing, is using it to find milkweed in um prairies. So they take like drone photos and they're trying to find milkweed for monarch to assess like habitat for monarch butterflies. The way they do that is they take a picture and they have humans mark the milkweed on it, and then they say, here, AI, here's the milkweed, and they give it enough of that training data. So it took many years, it was very expensive to build, right? But what they have now is AI that will give, I think, nice something like 99. something percent accuracy identifying milkweed in uh prairies. It's a very specific use case, it doesn't have anything to do with the English language, right? It was expensive to build, has a lot of training data. That's the sort of thing that I could see AI being useful for with something like medical research or scientific research, not the you know, Chat GPT type into it thing.

SPEAKER_06 25:50

Yeah, like a specific, I mean, I guess maybe too part of what we're saying, maybe is like a very specific reasonable use, not like something where we're like scanning people's faces and then knowing their addresses. And I'm like, what is that even for? I kind of feel like what Alex just explained. I'm like, okay, yeah, that feels like you created a system and trained, okay, maybe it's a robot, spooky, but it feels like a good use case. And also like a very this is what we're doing, this is how we're training it, this is what we're using it for, this is why we're doing this thing, feels wrapped up in a bow. Not just this like explosion of like just do whatever you want, just everybody's just doing whatever they want, and let's keep getting it bigger and bigger and more data centers and all things.

SPEAKER_01 26:32

A few minutes ago, you were you said you said, like, like who do we trust? And it's like, well, I don't know. I know for sure we don't trust the people who are in charge of these big companies, right? AI and whatever the other one is, the chat anthropic and whatever. We have to learn the thing that I was talking about before that we have to trust ourselves. You know, it's like driving a car. Like we have to learn how to drive a car. Cars have been around forever, and it's really cool to have that, but you have to be responsible enough to do it, and there are restrictions, and you have to have a license, you know, you have to go however many years to get your vision checked. There are safeguards in place, and I wonder who decided that. Probably not Henry Ford. I don't know, maybe he did, but we have to be able to think about this stuff and decide together, you know, and and I think people are doing that. I think there are the people who are protesting about them building data centers in their rural area where they are already struggling. That pisses me off so much that this is another thing being used to exploit people who already don't have a voice. You know, it's just so gross that they're like, oh, let's take this poor community where they have some land, but they don't, you know, and we could take their water, like what do they really need water, clean water to drink? Right? And it's just so it's so disgusting. Agreed. Okay, Alex.

SPEAKER_08 28:16

You were talking about uh, and actually uh Casey was talking about this as well, the the who do we trust bit. The case for scientific research seems like, well, we have this thing and it makes sense. Um, and I think there's two parts to that. One is the capitalism bit that everyone's been mentioning. Who is this really for, right? I think that you can have a well-defined AI system that's for a specific purpose, and the purpose is terrible for society, right? Something like mass surveillance, like Lex was saying. But the there's another aspect, I think, which is how well defined success is. So it's something like Chat GPT and Claude. You type in some words and you get some words back, and who knows whether the words are successful or not? You just sort of look at them and you're like, that looks good to me, and that's the definition of success, is that looks good to me, which is I think I think a dangerous definition of success, as opposed to a definition like, is this milkweed or not? Was the disease cured or not? You know, any number of scientific or medical applications, or literally for anything, if the output, like how uh language, how machine learning works generally is you need a success and a failure state to tell the computer, and then it will learn over time this is success or this is failure. They trained machine learning uh models to play um video games, you know, because either the video game was won or lost. So there's a clear success or failure state. And I think with these general uh sort of chat-based AI, the success and failure state is really ambiguous and is just defined by your own bubble of what you think already. And that I don't know. That seems dangerous to me, but yeah, just wondering. Yeah. Separate those.

SPEAKER_06 30:08

Yeah. I think I guess too, when I was talking earlier when you said the milkweed thing, I was like, that seems specific, but I think maybe I was also not realizing that that is part of it that that I was thinking, oh, well, maybe that would be okay. Because like it just feels messy and ambiguous and just like it's taking over. And I'm like, what are we even doing with the other stuff? But when I I guess when it's very specific, it feels more reasonable. And also if they were like honest, like, well, we're scanning your faces so we can find out your addresses so that we can harm you, then we would all be like, oh, we don't like that one. No, thank you. That one's over. It just all feels a little weird. Yeah. Yeah. Wishful thinking. Okay. Here is a question that I think I'll tell a little story if that's okay. But um, have you here's my question: have you been skeptical about it the whole time, or is your skepticism getting better or worse? Or like, how are you feeling? I feel like I wrote uh email essay about this a while ago, but Casey was there with me whenever I learned about Claude, aka I was calling him Clyde by accident in the beginning. Um, when we learned about it at a little retreat at a beach house, and we were both like, oh my god, Clyde! This is so cool. Because we were just like Chat GPT is sort of bonkers. And then we're like, Okay, Claude, we see you, you're a little better. You sound more like me, whatever. And then I just feel like it's like a little roller coaster of me being like, no, this is crazy. I don't even want robots. And I was like, I guess everybody else is doing robots, like I better learn about them. And then I did, and I was like, okay, cool. And then I was sort of like, ooh, and then there was like another blip on the radar where I was like, everybody has a GPT, I should make a GPT. I don't know, people making a GPT, and then I was like, oh, so I made GPTs, but then I was like, I don't I don't want to give money to this company. And so my timeline has been like I don't want it. I feel pressure. Okay, and then like oh, okay, I'll try to get back on board, and uh now I'm kind of like hate it. So I'm just wondering if anybody else has had a similar journey or where you're at now, if you've always been a fan, if you're still a fan, or if there's something that could change your mind about it, you know, like we're just talking about our little journeys. All right, Sarah, what's up?

SPEAKER_02 32:33

I feel like you probably already know my answer. Like I have not used like these things if I could possibly avoid them. Like I have always felt about that the same way. So yeah, no.

SPEAKER_06 32:45

Always never a fan.

SPEAKER_02 32:47

Nope, never.

SPEAKER_06 32:49

Yeah, I think my time with Claude, Casey put in the um chat. We were like, oh my god, Claude's gonna change my life. We were, I mean, we were like joking a lot, but also using it a lot. And I mean, just as an example, one of the things that we did during that weekend retreat was sign up for like podmatch. And I feel like we used Claude to be like, okay, what are we gonna talk about? And I feel like I had no idea what my profile even said. We were like, oh yeah, that sounds good. Yeah, we sound legit. Like, yeah, I'm gonna talk about building community. I'm gonna talk about this. Because we just put all our stuff into the machine. And then the machine was like, here's what you should tell the people on pod match, which I probably could have had conversations about any of that stuff, but honestly, I just was kind of like, wait, what? Like when I got home after the like robot hangover wore off, I was like, wait, what does my pod match profile even say? Because I feel like we had just done so much. Yeah, I don't do podmatch anymore either. And I wonder if part of the reason was because I never actually I never actually did it. Like I didn't sit down and be like, what would I like to talk about? And honestly, Casey, we could have chatted more at that retreat, but we were both like on our laptops, being like, oh my god, Claude, ooh, ooh, listen to this. Claude said this. Wait, Claude? Now I'm like, wait, Claude? No, Claude, Claude. Anyways, I think that goes back to the conversation we're having about creativity and like really putting yourself into it, but also kind of knowing what you're even talking about. Sometimes I think if you like let it write your emails and send the email, then later someone's like, oh my god, I loved your email. And you're like, What? Oh, I didn't, I don't what what did I say? What did the robot say? So, anyways, okay, Tori, what's your journey been like?

SPEAKER_00 34:25

Okay, so I feel like there's always people who are resistant to change no matter what it is, and I feel like that can really hinder your growth in your career and your opportunities when people are like, Oh, I don't want to do that because it's different. Like people were like, I'm not doing social media, uh, like whatever. I'm gonna stick with my direct mail campaign. So, you know, I think that people who are really resistant to change, it's not a good look. I think it just puts you in a negative space of like, I don't want to try anything new. And so, whatever the technology of it is, I mean, think about there was people who didn't want to do email, there was people who didn't want to use the phone, there was people who didn't want to like do all kinds of things, and so things progress. And I don't know that AI will stick around in the same way that it is now as like the phone was, but look at how phones started, and now you barely use your phone to make a phone call. It's so different, but we use our phones way too much all the time, right? Um, so I just I feel like my journey has always been I like to try everything so that I can have a firsthand opinion on whether I like it or not, and not just listen to other people who said it worked for them or it didn't work for them because they might not have the same needs that I do, and their brains might work differently than mine does, and they have different skill sets than I do. So the way that I would use AI, I think is just different than that everyone uses everything differently. So I always like to just try everything just so that I know. So I would download Claude so I could just try it out and use it, and I used it for a while, and then I went back to Chat GPT now, and I've had a paid ChatGPT for a while. And like whenever these new things come about, I just want to try it just so that I know. And and I I think that's my journey. I'm always just like curious, like trust but verify. Like if everyone hates the thing, maybe they're just doing it differently than I am. But I understand that there are all these downsides and negatives than how we started the conversation. Um, but I feel like you can't have an opinion on something unless you actually try it and use it and see how it is. But I don't know, now that I say that out loud, I mean you can have an opinion that it's terrible for the environment without using it. So you could say that. But I think whether it's effective or whether it's squashing your creativity, I don't think you can really have an opinion on that unless you've tried it. Because you have to like test it out. That's my experience.

SPEAKER_06 36:59

Yeah. I struggle sometimes with um, I don't like I I don't like it when people are sort of like, you're gonna get left behind, or like, dah, blah, blah. I am sort of like, well, maybe it's good. I feel like Sarah said maybe in the chat or something. And Casey's bringing up, and you've brought up a couple times, like all or nothing language. So I don't know. I sometimes I do feel like I I sort of bent to the peer pressure in the beginning. And then this kind of goes back to who do we trust, but with the water usage in the beginning, I was like, I don't know. I saw an article that said Netflix uses water, you know. And then I was just like, oh, okay, well, I'm gonna justify this because I guess, yeah, the all the internet, there's probably data centers. Like, I had never even thought about data centers. The internet is just magical, and like I never thought about how Netflix even works, which is sort of silly to admit, but you know, you just like used to it. You turn on your TV and there's the thing, and you're gonna watch it. And we just log on to the internet. So then I was like, oh, okay. And then I was also like, does it recycle the water or does it not recycle the water? And I feel like it's so hard sometimes to find out. So I don't know. So I feel like that I don't it just stresses me out when people are like, Well, you're gonna get left behind. And I'm like, well, if I'm behind on taking people's clean drinking water, I'm okay with that. Like, I don't know. So for me, the more environmental stuff I've been seeing, the more I'm like, okay, this seems crazy to like be like, oh, let's brainstorm a little scavenger hunt for Easter, like and waste some water or something.

SPEAKER_00 38:25

It's also, but like that kind of kind of, and not to like argue, but just for the sake of conversation, yeah. That um when you see all these brands that are like, here's you need you need to use a recite, a reusable grocery bag, and you need to do this, you need to do that, but then people are taking private jets to lunch and corporations are using so many resources. It's just like, why is the onus being put on all of us to save the planet and make all these decisions when there's giant corporations who are making a much bigger impact than I am? So just to play devil's advocate, you know. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 39:01

Well, I think that's also when I was just like, okay, I don't know. I mean, I think it's funny, but like I've watched Shark Tank for a long time. Not that I love it, but I just it's just something I watch. And now Kevin O'Leary, Mr. Wonderful's like building the largest data set. I was like, You're disgusting. I'm never watching Shark Tank again. Like it's just reached a point where I'm like, what is happening? And then I also daydream about like, can we all just like stop using it for like long enough that they would be like, oh my god, we don't have any money. Like it just all comes down to money, and then I get mad. And yes, I hear you on the like use your, you know, reusable shopping bags or whatever, but I also feel like I don't know, it's all it's all a lot. And Anita, you have your hand raised, so I want to hear from you because I feel like it was raised earlier and then it went down, and I was like, okay, I'm gonna follow your lead.

SPEAKER_04 39:47

So well, I felt like all of the things I wanted to say got covered, and there was just no reason to repeat everything everybody else said. So um, but I wanted to build on what Tori was saying about you know, you feel like you should try it so you can have an opinion on it, especially if like she's in social media, I'm in social media, so to have an opinion on whether or not it's good and how to use it for your clients and so on. But the other thing I wanted to say is to give it a fair trial if you're using like we're talking about the difference between Chat GPT and Claude in the in the chat section here. And I guess if you're going to use one or you know, you can't go in and just use it for a couple of hours and say, Well, that didn't work. And you can't go in and just type in some questions over a week and put out a post and say, Well, that didn't work. You're not, you know, like you're not giving it a fair trial by doing it that way. Um, you have to really learn how to use it and how to set it up with your sources and your voice and all that kind of stuff. So it's the same as social media. I would tell people, well, if LinkedIn isn't working for you, did you actually give it a fair trial? Did you actually learn how to be part of that community? Um so yeah, I just I I think it's important that before people in um the small business world, which most of us are, before they say, Yeah, it doesn't work, you know, have you really given it a fair chance to do, have you really set it up for success, or have you just were you determined to go in and have it fail in the first place?

SPEAKER_06 41:27

I think too, maybe, I mean, like I said, the more I hear about like the data centers and the water and all the things, like the more I'm just like really like not interested in it. But um I'm wondering too, if it would at least maybe like minimize people's usage and maybe solve some of the concerns we had at the beginning if uh people treated it more like a very specific thing in your business. If you were like, okay, I'm only gonna use it for this thing. I know I was just like, we should all quit using it for enough time so the billionaires go broke.

SPEAKER_04 42:00

But I would really love to see us stop using it for ridiculous uh stuff like give me all the the action figures that we did a while back, you know, that were trending. And here's all the things you put in my action figure package. Yeah, all the images that are coming up online, you're redoing your image as all these different things that people are just doing for fun. Not like I don't know, I guess if it has a business purpose, I'm okay with it. As long as it's not one of those ugly brown posters, because I see lots of that too. But when it's just kind of for fun to be part of a trend that's going around, like that seems super wasteful to me. Like too frivolous, yeah. Too frivolous. Yeah. But if you know, if AI is going to take 10 years of data analysis and find patterns in that for scientific research to cure diseases, I am all for that. Like that's good stuff, right?

SPEAKER_06 43:14

I know, but then I'm like, big pharma won't allow it because they want their money too. Like, I don't then I go down a rabbit hole where I'm like, mm-hmm. They all want money, everyone wants our money. I'm just in a little bit of a dark place right now with this whole thing. So I'm trying to keep it cool on the podcast.

SPEAKER_04 43:27

But it's a it's a really complex question.

unknown 43:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 43:31

Just conspiracy theories coming up. But yeah, okay, Anita, I hear that on the frivolous stuff. I was thinking too, obviously, it'd be cool if everybody was like vegan and it would be so much better for the environment. But even a bunch of people doing like meatless Mondays would help. So maybe even thinking about AI in terms of like if we could all just pick this is the one way I'm gonna use it. This is my uh shoot, what was that? What were you saying, Alex? Milk, milk nettles? I don't butterflies something.

SPEAKER_08 43:59

Milkweed?

SPEAKER_06 44:00

Milkweed. What's a nettle?

SPEAKER_08 44:01

Milkweed in in prairies. Uh a fairy nettle is a different thing.

unknown 44:05

Okay.

SPEAKER_06 44:05

Well, I'm just talking about fairies over here too.

SPEAKER_08 44:07

Now, nettles.

SPEAKER_06 44:09

Okay, well, anyways. Oh my gosh. Okay, Lex, stop laughing at me and tell me what you're thinking about.

SPEAKER_05 44:18

I'm thinking about how so you're you keep talking about the billionaires losing money. Yeah. They're already the so anthropic and open AI are already losing billions of dollars a year. These are not companies that are operational. So right now they're both, you know, trying to go public and sell that debt to the public. But I think there's also a question of like, will these companies still be around? Like, who's actually gonna pay for it's not just the water that's being used, it's expensive. So, you know, the 20 bucks a month you're paying Chat GPT or whatever, it's not the real cost of running AI.

SPEAKER_06 44:52

This is the phase of AI that's the Nashville photo filter on Instagram, right? This is like this is before it gets bad, right? Which is a little bit scary.

SPEAKER_05 45:02

I mean, there's no real plan right now. We haven't seen this in the tech industry. The tech industry has always done debt trading where venture capitalists take on a bunch of debt and then they sell it to someone else. And that's sort of how the tech industry has been built for years. But eventually those companies like Google and Facebook figure out a way to make enough money that they're at least break-even if not profitable. But even the amount of money that those companies were dealing with is significantly lower than what Anthropic and OpenAI are burning every year. They're burning billions of dollars a year. So we like there's no real future for them at this point. Um, it's it's on the goodwill of other people just throwing them billions of dollars. Um, and so we'll see whether or not these companies even survive.

SPEAKER_06 45:45

Yeah. I mean, okay. Would it help? Would it be worse for them if people didn't use it? That would be worse, right?

SPEAKER_05 45:54

I honestly I I haven't looked at the number of like what consumer revenue is for these companies, but I would bet that it's pretty low compared to uh other revenue like from other businesses or you know, military contracts and things like that. Yeah. I would guess that they're getting most of their money from the military, militaries worldwide, uh, followed by like enterprise businesses and consumer spending is actually probably pretty negligible. But regardless, the combined revenue is not significant enough that they're even breaking even at this point.

SPEAKER_06 46:24

Yeah. Well.

SPEAKER_05 46:29

Okay.

SPEAKER_06 46:30

But they're just thinking eventually they will make money? Or like what is it? Power? I mean that is it.

SPEAKER_05 46:35

This is where this is why I asked who who you trust, because you know, um, who is Casey? Were you the one who mentioned the AI con, Emily Bender and Alex Hanna's book? You know, there's lots of academics that have been warning about that it's basically a con. Um, and so if you believe that, then yeah, then it's basically like, you know, Sam Altman and the anthropic guy, they're just gonna try to get an exit and leave someone else holding the bag, which is what tech founders have done forever. Uh so yeah. And I think what's scary now is that that's now gonna be put in everyone's 401k.

SPEAKER_06 47:16

Wait, what does that mean? I was like, mm, good point. And then I was like, wait, what? A 401k?

SPEAKER_05 47:20

Because they're gonna go public. So anthropic and open.

SPEAKER_06 47:23

Oh, in a 401k. Okay, you could tell how financially savvy I am, everyone. Like it will be in a index fund. Index fund. Oh, yeah, I was gonna say, I was totally gonna say that. I know some words. I know a thing or two about nettles and index funds. Don't worry about it. Oh my gosh. Okay, let's see, let's finish with this one. Is there anything that would make you change your mind about AI right now? Maybe we've kind of already alluded to some things like if it can cure cancer and make people better and find nettles. Uh is there anything that would make you feel like I know I know that we I said we weren't gonna bash it and I feel like I'm doing the most of the bashing, but I'm like I was gonna say what would make us not think this was the worst thing ever. I know nobody actually said that, but maybe besides me. Do you have any final thoughts? Anything you didn't get to say that you're dying to just drop a little mic drop. All right, well, honestly, this was exactly what I wanted it to be. Just talking about it. Because I do feel like in the online business space, especially, it just feels like people love it. I mean, I guess it's just the world right now. Like Casey was talking about the nuance. You know, you say something about water and people are like, well, blah blah blah blah, someone's gonna be real mad at you because they love AI and that's their business or whatever. Uh so I just wanted to uh have a conversation. But it does feel like a lot. And it feels big. All right. Well, thank you guys so much, everybody, for being here and for participating and riding this crazy wave of me hosting an event. And you guys are all awesome. And thanks for being part of it.

unknown 49:12

Bye guys.

SPEAKER_06 49:14

Like I said, there are no answers or anything, but I do think it's really interesting just to see what people are thinking. So I might have more conversations like this in the future. So if you're interested, hop on my newsletter at dnscmore.com slash newsletter and stay in touch. Don't forget to check the show notes to check out the people who were kind enough to come and take part in this conversation. And I'll see you around the internet. Okay, thanks for listening. Bye.