Speaker 1: You're listening to Bloomberg BusinessWeek with Carol Messer and Tim
Speaker 1: Stenebek on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 2: A popular story that was highlighted on the Bloomberg terminal yesterday.
Speaker 2: It was actually from Dow Jones Wall Street Journal, and
Speaker 2: it talked about the talent war for those with experience
Speaker 2: in artificial intelligence. So some companies here in the US,
Speaker 2: and industries as Diversus entertainment manufacturing are check this out,
Speaker 2: willing to pay salaries that are close to a million
Speaker 2: dollars a year for top AI talent, according to the
Speaker 2: journal reporting think machine learning specialist, data scientists and the like.
Speaker 1: So kids study that AI. Kids AI degree in school,
Speaker 1: so you can be replaced by AI.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 1: Our next guest knows a thing or two about AI.
Speaker 1: Brian Evergreen is the founder of the Profitable Good Company.
Speaker 1: He advises executives from some of the biggest companies on
Speaker 1: AI strategy. He's also worked for a century, Amazon Web
Speaker 1: Services and Microsoftware who is the global head of Autonomous
Speaker 1: AI co Innovation brand. Is also a guest lecturer at
Speaker 1: Purdue University in the Kellogg School of Management, among other roles.
Speaker 1: He's got a new book out. It's called autonomous transformation,
Speaker 1: creating a more human future in the era of artificial intelligence.
Speaker 1: He joins us on zoom from Washington State. Brian, how
Speaker 1: are you.
Speaker 4: I'm doing well. How are you?
Speaker 1: We're doing pretty well. We're still we haven't been replaced
Speaker 1: by AI at this point, yes yet, not yet. But
Speaker 1: when you talk about a human future, what do you mean?
Speaker 4: What I mean is that initially I set out with
Speaker 4: the goal when I went through the process of researching
Speaker 4: and writing the book, I set out with a goal
Speaker 4: of discovering why is it that only thirteen percent of
Speaker 4: AI initiatives make it through into production. And what I found,
Speaker 4: what I'd hoped from my own personal background, was that
Speaker 4: I'd be able to find a way that we could
Speaker 4: harness the economic and societal potential of AI and these
Speaker 4: other advanced technologies to do good in the world and
Speaker 4: to create a more human future. And by that I
Speaker 4: mean a future where more and more people can thrive
Speaker 4: and have dignity in their work and have access to
Speaker 4: opportunities to bring in create value in the world. And
Speaker 4: what I found was that it's not that harnessing the
Speaker 4: economic potential of AI and creating a better future are
Speaker 4: two distinct things. Is actually the way that you get
Speaker 4: the potential of the economic and societal potential of these
Speaker 4: technologies starts with how you work with and treat the
Speaker 4: people within your organizations and your ecosystems.
Speaker 2: All right, sounds rather utopian, but it just also you
Speaker 2: know that sometimes to get to a better place, it's
Speaker 2: a little bit messy in the middle. Is there going
Speaker 2: to be a massive adjustment as we get to a
Speaker 2: world where artificial intelligence the next generation if you will,
Speaker 2: the generative AI, really has an impact, but it's going
Speaker 2: to be a little rough to get there and where
Speaker 2: we all benefit potentially.
Speaker 4: I think there will be a period of adjustment. That
Speaker 4: I personally written about it and I speak about it
Speaker 4: is that there's really three types of outlooks on jobs today.
Speaker 4: There's two that are prevalent in the media today. Which
Speaker 4: is one is job protectionism, which is that the current
Speaker 4: class of jobs as they exists must be protected in
Speaker 4: that set of tasks that make up those jobs at
Speaker 4: all costs, which presents a longer term economic risk to
Speaker 4: the organization if the rest of the market is advancing forward.
Speaker 4: The second, on the other end of the spectrum, is
Speaker 4: job fatalism, which is that AI is coming for all
Speaker 4: our jobs, and you know, we might as well prepare
Speaker 4: the way for our robot overlords. And the issue with that,
Speaker 4: with that line of thinking is that it means that
Speaker 4: we as a society and we as humanity have stopped
Speaker 4: creating value. All the value that we've created can now
Speaker 4: just be automated and there's no further work to be
Speaker 4: done for humanity, and I also disagree with that pretty foundationally.
Speaker 4: The one in the middle that I recommend is job pragmatism,
Speaker 4: which is that, yes, our jobs are going to evolve.
Speaker 4: The way that we work, the way that we create
Speaker 4: value must evolve. We have these opportunities in these tools,
Speaker 4: and that leaders have the opportunity from the time that
Speaker 4: they sign a purchase order or set their technology strategy
Speaker 4: for what they're going to do and what tasks will
Speaker 4: be able to be automated. They usually have about six
Speaker 4: months to if not a couple of years, before the
Speaker 4: technologies at the point that it actually can be put
Speaker 4: into production. So if at that same time they set
Speaker 4: a workforce strategy and the separate product strategy with an
Speaker 4: expansion mindset instead of a cutting cost mindset, that gives
Speaker 4: them an opportunity to continue honoring the people and the
Speaker 4: culture of their organization and move forward with the expertise
Speaker 4: of those that they've hired over the years.
Speaker 1: Does the AI run up that we've seen this year,
Speaker 1: did that come as a surprise to you. I'm talking
Speaker 1: about the you know what we've seen in the public
Speaker 1: markets with companies such as Nvidia and the like.
Speaker 2: Yes and no.
Speaker 4: I think that I had visibility to some of the
Speaker 4: investments that were taking place and the potential if anything,
Speaker 4: I was I would have expected there to be more
Speaker 4: of a runoff and more hype earlier, because there's quite
Speaker 4: a few other AI technologies that have already reached a
Speaker 4: point of inflection that are as capable or more capable
Speaker 4: than the large language models like chat GPT. But for
Speaker 4: whatever reason, I I think because of the accessibility for
Speaker 4: people to be able to use chatch EPT or Dolly
Speaker 4: on their phone, then I think that's a big reason
Speaker 4: why the hype ran off the way that it did.
Speaker 4: But there's several other I refer to it as one
Speaker 4: piece on the chessboard. There's several other AI and even
Speaker 4: other advanced technology pieces that haven't quite made their way
Speaker 4: into the limelight. Even though they're as powerful or more
Speaker 4: powerful for executives to harness today.
Speaker 2: Brian, I do think about, you know, Tim and I
Speaker 2: talk a lot about the aging populations, demographics, people having
Speaker 2: less babies. Although it does feel like Earth is getting
Speaker 2: maxed out here too in terms of resources. But it
Speaker 2: does feel like we're going to see you know, continuation
Speaker 2: in terms of slowdowns. And I do wonder about the
Speaker 2: labor force of tomorrow, whether or not there's going to
Speaker 2: be enough people. Health Care is already in a crisis
Speaker 2: to some extent. You just see it. I see it
Speaker 2: in places where you can just see more and more
Speaker 2: things are being automated. So I do wonder how you
Speaker 2: think about this? Is it akin to the world discovering
Speaker 2: and developing the internet and all the things we do
Speaker 2: online that's made certain things automated? Like how do you
Speaker 2: think about this transformation? Is there a slot we can
Speaker 2: place it in? Is it from horse to engine, you know,
Speaker 2: buggy to car? Like how do you see it?
Speaker 4: The way that I look at it is that we've
Speaker 4: been talking about the next revolution of the industrial revolution
Speaker 4: over and over again. Right now, it's industry for dot Oh,
Speaker 4: we've discussed industry five to at zero. I think that
Speaker 4: we're actually in a stage now where we can move
Speaker 4: past and we can thank the industrial Revolution for laying
Speaker 4: the foundation of our society, but move forward into a
Speaker 4: new Renaissance or Enlightenment level era of society. And as
Speaker 4: someone I interviewed recently on my podcast put it, she
Speaker 4: said that we're cave painting with AI. And I think
Speaker 4: that's a really good analogy and that there's a lot
Speaker 4: of potential that for the way that we as humans
Speaker 4: can maybe if anything, have a little bit of an
Speaker 4: analog transformation and some of the things that where we
Speaker 4: know there's been societal harm, like with screen addiction and
Speaker 4: these things, maybe we can look at ways that technology
Speaker 4: can augment for the areas of value creation where we
Speaker 4: do rely on technology. Now, are there ways that with
Speaker 4: AI can add a little bit more capability to so
Speaker 4: that we don't need to use a screen to interface
Speaker 4: with that and therefore don't get sucked back into scrolling
Speaker 4: on our favorite social media platform.
Speaker 1: Favorite ones that we love to hate. Brian paint that
Speaker 1: picture for us of what life looks like in five
Speaker 1: ten years.
Speaker 4: So if my hope for what life can look like
Speaker 4: in five to ten years is that as automation and
Speaker 4: autonomous systems continue to proliferate and be put into production,
Speaker 4: that humans can move up the work hierarchy toward more
Speaker 4: creative work. And an example of this is now Chemical
Speaker 4: did an amazing thing in their factories where humans were
Speaker 4: they would have to drain their vats of chemicals. Humans
Speaker 4: would suit up in their hazmats suits, go in, inspect
Speaker 4: the inside and check for quality and check for safety
Speaker 4: and all of that. Then they'd exit. So did slow
Speaker 4: down production, and there is a human safety issue whenever
Speaker 4: they every time that they had to perform that. What
Speaker 4: they did instead is they were able to use drones
Speaker 4: with machine learning or AID technology to be able to
Speaker 4: just drop the drone into the vat while it's still
Speaker 4: running and run that same security check without a human
Speaker 4: having to ever go in and be exposed to that risk.
Speaker 4: And so for me personally, I think in the next
Speaker 4: five years, especially with the amount of time it takes
Speaker 4: to adequately develop these kinds of systems, I'm guessing that
Speaker 4: we're going to see more and more work that either
Speaker 4: is currently not being done or is being done very inefficiently,
Speaker 4: be automated or become autonomous.
Speaker 2: Well, do you think you just got about forty seconds
Speaker 2: left here? Like the folks in Hollywood, right that have
Speaker 2: been on strike, I mean, I know they're working, and
Speaker 2: it looks like they're making some progress potentially, But I mean,
Speaker 2: do you think they were right to be worried? Creative types?
Speaker 4: I think that their right to be concerned about the
Speaker 4: misuse by executives that are trying to use AI but
Speaker 4: to replace the work that they do. Absolutely, I think
Speaker 4: it's a good opportunity to challenge the structure of the
Speaker 4: way that they're being treated by these organizations, especially if
Speaker 4: they're being treated like they're dispensable. But what I would
Speaker 4: say is that any organization that leverages AI as to
Speaker 4: the full extent and replaces human writing and something like
Speaker 4: entertainment is only going to put out pulp fiction. And
Speaker 4: I don't mean the movie. I mean like the lowest
Speaker 4: quality of entertainment, and that humans will always be needed
Speaker 4: to create things like you know, the movies that are
Speaker 4: flashing across our headlines this summer.
Speaker 1: I agree. I mean, I don't know, you can't get
Speaker 1: maybe we'll get a body by AI exactly, I haven't
Speaker 1: seen it.
Speaker 3: You can redo something that's been done with AI with
Speaker 3: some mixes and matches and some surprise elements, but it's
Speaker 3: not going to have the same It'll be the same
Speaker 3: as any other story arc that's already existed, probably the
Speaker 3: average of the existing stories.
Speaker 2: Brian Evergreen, thank you so much, really appreciate your time.
Speaker 2: Your book is autonomous transformation, creating a more human future
Speaker 2: in the era of AI.