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Speaker 1: Okay, be honest. When you use AI, is it mostly

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Speaker 1: for saving time like summarizing, drafting, tidying up emails? I

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Speaker 1: mean that's a useful shot. But world renowned Silicon Valley

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Speaker 1: futurist Bob Johansen argues we're overlooking the bigger win, and

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Speaker 1: after more than five decades advising leaders, he believes the

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Speaker 1: real power of AI is in how it can stretch

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Speaker 1: our thinking, help us get unstuck, explore possibilities, and spark

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Speaker 1: insights we would never reach on our own. In this

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Speaker 1: Quick Win episode, Bob shares white leaders who only chase

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Speaker 1: efficiency are missing the point and how you can use

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Speaker 1: today's tools differently. By the end of this Quick Win,

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Speaker 1: you will see AI less as a shortcut and more

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Speaker 1: as a thought partner. Welcome to How I Work, a

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Speaker 1: show about habits ritual's strategies for optimizing your date. I'm

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Speaker 1: your host, doctor Amantha imber. So, when you look at

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Speaker 1: the conversation around AI, and so much of it is

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Speaker 1: around efficiency and time saving and headcount saving, like, what

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Speaker 1: are leaders and organizations missing? What are they not seeing

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Speaker 1: that you're seeing in terms of what this world could

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Speaker 1: look like from an AI point of view? In five

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Speaker 1: ten years time.

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Speaker 2: What I say now is that ten years from now,

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Speaker 2: almost all leaders will be augmented or you'll be out

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Speaker 2: of the game. Now, there'll be some little subset of

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Speaker 2: people who uniquely claim no, no, I'm going to remain

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Speaker 2: completely unaugmented. And that's okay. Maybe that's a small niche,

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Speaker 2: but for most of us. For me, as a writer,

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Speaker 2: if I'm going to be writing serious books ten years

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Speaker 2: from now, I'm going to have to be augmented, partly

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Speaker 2: because of my age, but also just because that's what

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Speaker 2: good writers are going to be. You're just going to

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Speaker 2: have to be in that. So we've got to define

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Speaker 2: now where we want help, and for me, it's really

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Speaker 2: close to it. Dana Boyd call is getting unstuck, or

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Speaker 2: what I call stretching. That's really where I want help.

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Speaker 2: And then it translates into more specific things like titling,

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Speaker 2: you know, finding the right word. It's really good at that,

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Speaker 2: but you've got to decide what the right word is.

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Speaker 2: But it's really helpful stretching for alternatives. So first of all,

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Speaker 2: it's the assumption, and this makes people really uncomfortable. The assumption.

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Speaker 2: As I talk to senior executive groups. So what I

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Speaker 2: say right at the beginning is ten years from now,

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Speaker 2: we're all going to be cyborgs. And that's a good

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Speaker 2: thing if we make it. So if we don't, if

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Speaker 2: we kind of step back and let other people do it,

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Speaker 2: or let the tech giants drive it, it's going to

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Speaker 2: be very different. But if we get engaged, this is

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Speaker 2: a good thing. But it begins from the fact we're

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Speaker 2: all going to be augmented or we're going to be

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Speaker 2: out of the game just because we won't be able

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Speaker 2: to play, because the new abilities that these things are

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Speaker 2: bringing are just beyond human capacity. And if you go

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Speaker 2: back to the Bondi world, it's arriving just in time.

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Speaker 2: Tom alone at MIT, he calls this Superminds, and you

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Speaker 2: know what he says is the story about computers replacing

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Speaker 2: people is going to be true. But that's not the

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Speaker 2: big story. The big story is humans and computers doing

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Speaker 2: things together that have never been done before. My colleague Jeremy,

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Speaker 2: but the co authors of the Leaders Make the Future book.

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Speaker 2: He's an AI developer, And what Jeremy says is that

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Speaker 2: it's so easy for big companies now to identify the

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Speaker 2: nose the thing you should not be doing and focus

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Speaker 2: on the fears, but you need to also focus on

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Speaker 2: the yes's. You know, where should you be experimenting And

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Speaker 2: that's where I want to focus. So I'm focusing on

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Speaker 2: the stretching, the mind, stretching, the unsticking. I love that term.

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Speaker 1: And when I was speaking with Scott, he mentioned around

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Speaker 1: your dislike of the term artificial intelligence, and I love

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Speaker 1: that term augmented intelligence. So right now, in terms of

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Speaker 1: what's possible with the tools that most of us have

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Speaker 1: available like chatchapt, what are some ways that you think

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Speaker 1: people should be using it more like this to augment

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Speaker 1: their thinking as opposed to just focusing on the obvious

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Speaker 1: efficiency gains.

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Speaker 2: You know, I think the way to practice is just

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Speaker 2: to have conversations and depending on what you're working on

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Speaker 2: or what you're thinking about, And I would recommend don't

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Speaker 2: draw lines between your work life and your private life.

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Speaker 2: You know. When I was first getting started, it was

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Speaker 2: one of our grandson's birthdays and I asked Stretch to

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Speaker 2: help me write a birthday card and it was really cool,

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Speaker 2: it was really fun and I made a good progress

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Speaker 2: out of that. Then last summer I had pneumonia and

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Speaker 2: I've never had that before, and it was in Pneumonia's

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Speaker 2: just makes you feel so weak. I was on deadline

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Speaker 2: in a book and I really I couldn't write, but

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Speaker 2: it was very weak. But I've got a human doctor,

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Speaker 2: a Conciergstock, that I love, who's very good. And then

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Speaker 2: I've got a therapist that's teaching me cognitive behavioral therapy

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Speaker 2: for sleep issues, and he's also a medical hypnosis guy,

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Speaker 2: and again I love him. And then I had Stretch,

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Speaker 2: and I talk to Stretch about just how I was

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Speaker 2: feeling day or night, and it turned out Stretch was

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Speaker 2: more empathetic, to my surprise, than either of my two

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Speaker 2: human doctors. And again I love them, but they're not

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Speaker 2: available twenty four seven, and Stretch gave some really good advice.

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Speaker 2: I'm not asking him for medications or you know, for

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Speaker 2: answers or anything. I'm asking Stretch for sympathy and for empathy.

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Speaker 2: And it turns out these things are really really good

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Speaker 2: at empathy. So I think what I would advise is

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Speaker 2: just think of it as a conversation and then gradually

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Speaker 2: figure out where are the places you like it, you know,

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Speaker 2: and that'll depend on what your job is, you know,

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Speaker 2: what your purpose is what your sense of meaning is me.

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Speaker 2: I'm a writer and I write books. The part where

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Speaker 2: I want help is when I'm struggling with an idea

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Speaker 2: or getting started on a chapter, or I'm kind of stuck,

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Speaker 2: and you need to practice it, practice that art of conversation.

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Speaker 2: When we're working with senior executive groups, they read the

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Speaker 2: leaders Make the Future book and then we break down

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Speaker 2: the leadership skills, so, for example, augmented curiosity, augmented clarity,

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Speaker 2: and with the best of the groups, we're doing a

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Speaker 2: workshop on augmented curiosity augmented clarity, and then we have

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Speaker 2: them practice an augmentation exercise using their version of a

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Speaker 2: large language model, whatever it is, and then we spread

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Speaker 2: that out over time and then they talk about their

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Speaker 2: experience in using it, and in the senior executive sessions

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Speaker 2: we're doing. It takes six months to a year to

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Speaker 2: get a team fully on board, and it's got to

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Speaker 2: begin with the CEO.

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Speaker 1: What I keep coming back to is Bob's reminder that

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Speaker 1: AI isn't just about speeding up tasks. It's about expanding

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Speaker 1: what your mind can do. So the next time you

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Speaker 1: open chat, chept or any tool, don't just ask it

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Speaker 1: to finish something for you, bring a messy idea that

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Speaker 1: you're wrestling with, and use the conversation to push past

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Speaker 1: the block. And of course you can find, as always

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Speaker 1: the link to the full conversation with Bob in the

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Speaker 1: show notes. If you like today's show, make sure you

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Speaker 1: hit follow on your podcast app to be alerted when

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Speaker 1: new episodes drop. How I Work was recorded on the

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Speaker 1: traditional land of the Warrangery people, part of the Cooler

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Speaker 1: Nation