S6 Episode 11: Navigating the Future of AI: Embracing Digital Curiosity and Tackling Q-Day with Carolanne Ashley

She was one of the first to read the initial manuscript , so she's been across the text for a while . I hope you enjoy the insights from our discussion about the book .

I was actually approached several times when I was at IBM by other publishers saying we think you've got a book in you , and it was actually 2019 . And Michael Levy , my speaking agent , said Andrew , you need a book . All the other speakers we represent have books and then they go on to speaking .

You've done it the other way around You're a speaker and you're now writing a book . What about you start a podcast and from that podcast series , every episode could become a chapter of the book , and that's exactly what I did . So , 2019 , I started the Digitally Curious podcast , interviewed more than 100 people and about 60 people have appeared in the book .

Why now ? I think one I had the content . Interestingly , I used AI to transcribe those 60 hours of interviews into something I could then use .

So , rather than having to write 70,000 words from scratch , I actually had half a million words that I could play with and had to get those down into something that was interesting enough to read and then put my commentary around it . And why now ? Ai is just so hot . But I think people are almost mesmerized by AI being the only technology out there .

There are so many other technologies that people need to know about and I think this book helps them demystify technology .

And so we write down the outcomes of those experiments in a logbook and I wish I still had that logbook from those days that I was doing it . So I started being curious about technology from a very early age . I'm the person that has a broken TV in front of them and says can we actually fix it ? Can we make it work ?

I studied as an engineer and I think that allows you to be digitally curious . We're trained to be digitally curious . I remember once I was doing an experiment and the teacher said you need to come into the experiment knowing the answer to the question . So when you do the experiment , if the answer is five volts , you know that's right or wrong .

So I was taught from a very early age to always be curious , always be asking why , and so later on in life there have been a lot of examples where being digitally curious has helped my career . I had a website from a very early age around 1994 , I think I had a website . I had a domain name in 1999 .

I've been playing with this technology well before others did so I could be curious and then , more importantly , I could teach other people how to make it impact their life and their business .

Q-day is going to be the day when quantum computing is able to decrypt everything that is currently encrypted . Let me put that into simple terms you do your banking and when you do your banking online , there's a little padlock to say that the information you're sending between your computer and the bank is encrypted .

But if a bad actor , if a foreign national , is actually recording that transaction , it's decrypted in 2024 . But in 2030 , a quantum computer can actually decrypt that . So what people need to be aware of now is the threat of QDA . It's kind of our next Y2K .

They also then need to look at have we got quantum safe encryption in our bank , in our pharma company ? So they should be aware of that . Self-sovereign identity probably has a greater impact going forward , because it means that users are able to claw back their own data . They're able to claw back their own identity .

At the moment , we give our data away to Google and Facebook and Metra and all these different websites and we don't actually get anything in return . What self-sovereign identity will do is allow you and I to have more control of our own data .

When you pair that with AI and quantum and everything else pun intended , there'll be a quantum shift in how we actually get work done and how we transact in the new world .

And he , as I said , where will we actually see the acceleration in AGI ? And he said really , when it comes down to people investing a lot of time and energy and focus on this research area , which is happening now .

But , more importantly , he actually said he had studied how the brain works , because in order to program a computer to act like a human , you need to understand how humans think . When I'm on stage and I explain how chat GPT works , I say look , massively oversimplifying it . Chat GPT completes the next word in a sentence .

It doesn't know whether what it's telling you is right or wrong , so it appears to be human-like . It's just mathematically doing what it's been trained to do . And so this particular guest , peter Voss , was talking about AGI and he said you know , I've understood how the brain works .

I just think it's an amazing thing that we have sitting inside our head that will always , I think , be more powerful and more intelligent than any AI is . And the other thing was about what we call observability and explainability .

Once you set these AI systems into work , can you actually check whether they're running off the rails , whether they're doing things we don't expect them to do ? And those two things really made me think about where AI is going , the things we need to think about as a race and as business leaders .

I'm not just talking about the future , I'm talking about the near-term future , which is today , tomorrow , next week . So those five things that I leave my audience with , I thought at the end of every chapter .

There are 22 chapters , so there are five times 22 things that you can do , and I thought it was important to have some actionable insights at the end of each chapter . So I've read about quantum , I've read about AI , I've read about self-sovereign identity . What can I do next to understand more ?

And I've read a lot of AI books recently and they're great , but they talk about the theory . But what do I do ? How do I actually put that into play into my business ? Wiley were really keen that I add this at the end because they wanted people to pick this book up and say , every time I've read a chapter , I've got five things that I can do .

And , importantly , the five things get harder and harder . So the first one is quite easy and the fifth one . Probably not everyone will do , but if they do , they're on the path to being absolutely digitally curious .

In plain form transcribes voice meetings into text , and only recently did I understand that actually otterai has its own GPT built in and so you can ask a question .

So if you've recorded a meeting with permission , you can then say who contributed most in that meeting , what are the follow-up items , what are the three things I committed to do by next Thursday , and it actually gives you some real intelligence about what you've just been talking about .

Now I started to use that and actually for the book , what I did is I thought I want to actually see if I can create an AI out of the book . Openai actually allow you to create your own generative pre-trained transformer or GPT book . Openai actually allow you to create your own generative pre-trained transformer or GPT .

So I fed the PDF of the book into the GPT and now it sits there and you can ask it any question . Now I think that's a trait of a digitally curious leader . They said what if ? Can I do this . Can I keep asking the AI to do something until it says no ? I think also , people really are very curious if they then go and listen to podcasts .

They go to events , they ask encouraging questions , they play with the technology , they sign up for something new . So more recently , google had launched a tool called Notebook LM it stands for Notebook Language Model .

Being curious again , I fed the PDF into Notebook LM and there was a button there that said if you push this button , it will create a podcast out of the book .

Five minutes later , I had two AI-generated hosts , a male and a female , chatting away as if they'd read the book cover to cover , which they had , and I thought to myself that's what I want my clients to be doing . I want them to go . What if I've heard about this new tool ? Let's actually use it in a way that we can actually use this at work .

They're the traits of someone who's really digitally curious . But , importantly , once they've uncovered something new , they share it with the rest of their team .

Imagine if I was able to give everyone an always-on intern . Basically , you get a free intern by using these tools and I've estimated that I probably save two to three hours per day using these tools .

I can either ask it to summarize meetings I can ask it to write me a draft of a press release I'm trying to do or an article for a journalist and I can either ask it to summarize meetings .

I can ask it to write me a draft of a press release I'm trying to do , or an article for a journalist , and I can then go and analyze that it can go off and actually do the research for me . So I'm actively using it every day and every day I use it . I find a different use . I find a different way that I can use it a different way .

I can ask a question . A different way . I can format data that goes into it to it . So my advice would be use it every day . Just as we send email every day , we probably go on WhatsApp every day . We've learned to integrate that into our daily workflow because it gives us utility and it makes our life easier .

Back in around 1994 , I was the first of my friends to get a mobile phone . At the time everyone said why have you spent all this money , andrew , as a student , on this piece of plastic ? Slowly they could see that the utility of having a mobile phone , being more contactable and being able to contact people anywhere , was actually really , really useful .

So when you actually see how your business processes are accelerated by using these tools every day , you're going to have that aha moment . You're then going to go and infect your team and say guys , let's actually have a weekly update where we share what we've played with and how it's impacting our workflow and how we can actually get work done in a better way .

But it's so important that senior leaders are using this . Don't basically delegate this to the IT team . If you're a senior manager or you're on a board , don't expect you've got an IT team looking after this . You need to be trying the tools that your organization and your organization's competitors are using every day .

We're transforming businesses with technology . We talked about social media .

I think very soon we'll just talk about media , because media has multiple forms , and so everyone's talking about AI at the moment , but they're being overwhelmed with some of these technologies and there's this big focus on AI , because I think what's happened is we've actually had 10 years of innovation in about two , and because there's now this focus , there's money

being thrown at these AI problems . Back in 2017 , the team at Google worked out how to do generative , pre-trained transformers , and that's really spawned these generative AI tools . We've seen such acceleration . What I want people to see is see beyond just AI . The book talks about quantum . It talks about self-sovereign identity .

It talks about NFTs and Bitcoin and blockchain . These technologies haven't gone away , nor will they , but combined with AI and other technologies connectivity , mobile voice , those sorts of things it will really propel businesses forward . So I want people to look at the range of technologies .

So deliberately , I didn't just write an AI book , I wrote a book that looked at a range of technologies . In the back of the book there's actually 200 different technologies that are explained in a paragraph or two .

So I would encourage people , if they buy the book , turn to the back , see how many of those terms they know , and if they don't , it's time to get more curious .

Because I think , regardless of any other technology in the book , the last mile of defense is actually the employee . If you don't have two-factor turned on your Gmail , your LinkedIn , and you get hacked with these AI tools out here today . Let me give you an example .

So if you haven't got two-factor authentication turned on your Gmail and I hack into it if I'm a smart hacker , I don't let you know that I'm in there . I sit there for weeks , possibly months . I learn the names of your kids , your family , your friends , where you go traveling . I then clone your voice , because your voice is all over the internet .

And then one day you or someone close to you gets an urgent message in your voice saying I need some money . I really am stuck at the moment and they say things that only your friends would know and you foolishly say oh , it definitely is Andrew , so I'm going to wire that money to him . This has happened .

So by having what I call a family password , that will alleviate that .

By having two-factor authentication turned on , they won't get in there in the first place , and not by reusing your password everywhere , you stay safe in your personal life , which then firewalls you from being attacked in your business life , and there are now huge fines out there for data that goes out into the ether , and people have been fined for that .

So I think what people should do is go straight to Chapter 15 , look at how they can stay safe online personally , and when they've done that , they'll probably , at the Curious Five , go . Well , those five things were actually really easy to do , and now I'm feeling more protected about my data online . What else is there in the book ?

So some really practical steps that could actually save you from some real embarrassment at work .

So I had some formative years where I was comfortable around technology . I asked sort of questions and I answered my own questions by playing with tech and as technology has evolved mobile , internet , ai , cloud , all those sorts of things I played with those tools to understand them better .

And so I think by starting at an early age , I'm so comfortable with technology I'm hungry to understand how it works . And if you throw another piece of technology at us quantum AI I know enough about a range of topics to be able to educate other people about that .

I think I was incredibly lucky to start off in a family that allowed me to be curious that , for whatever reason , I got the bug , the technology bug , and I played with this tech . I'm now that go-to person for my friends , my family and people that I work for . They ask me to come and present about AI .

They ask me to fix their Wi-Fi because I've made a career , I've made a life out of understanding how technology can impact you and actually help you in your personal and professional life .

The two things that AI will never be able to do , experts tell me , are feel empathy or love , so there's still a role for humans in society , but I think what we'll find , and what I'm looking forward to , is the minutiae of our lives will be replaced by AI agents , digital agents that'll do some of the bidding and some of the work for us .

What businesses should be preparing for is a world where jobs are going to be augmented not necessarily replaced but where there's boring , menial jobs in counting numbers or doing things that can be done by a robot . We're going to see that replaced .

What I will want to see , though , especially in the school system , is the introduction of more teaching about critical thinking . So if an AI tells us the answer to something , can we dissect that and work out whether that answer is right or is there a better way to do it ? Ai works on what's come before us .

We actually need to still innovate and think creatively , as humans do , about the new frontiers and new things we can do , but can we use AI to augment that and make things happen a lot faster and get us closer to solving cancer ? Get us closer to climate change solutions a lot faster by using these technologies that we have today ?