Episode description

In this episode of Sense-Making in a Changing World, I am joined by quite a different guest than you will usually find on this show to explore something that will have enormous implications for our life and work - Artificial Intelligence (AI) - and already does.

Mo Gowdat is author of Scary Smart: The Future of Artificial Intelligence and How You Can Save Our World released on 1 October 2021 and also international bestseller, 'Solve for Happy' in 2017.

While I am right on the edge of my field of knowledge, experience and comfort here, this is Mo's world. He has worked as a big-tech executive for 30 years and was formerly the chief business officer of Google [X] - the 'moonshot lab' exploring things like driverless cars and AI and candidly shares his thoughts on the dangers and possibilities.

Woven through our discussion is also the exploration of purpose. As an executive of one of the biggest companies of the world, he says the richer he got, the more unhappier he became - something he noticed of many people in his world. He started deeply researching how to find happiness and purpose. Then tragically in 2014, he lost his 21 year old son, Ali, in what should have been a routine operation, Mo completely changed his life and launched his personal moonshot project, 1 Billion Happy (#1BillionHappy) in honour of his son.  Last year he also started a podcast, Slo Mo discussing the profound questions and obstacles we all face in the pursuit of purpose in our lives.

Back on the topic of AI, Mo says the current direction that this technology is taking, is putting humanity at risk to an unprecedented degree and is something we need to pay serious attention to. We cannot simply ignore it and hope it will go away. Elon Musk is also on record saying that AI is a greater threat than nukes. Mo says that Artificial intelligence genie is already out of the bottle and  already 'smarter' than humans. In his latest book, he explores what we can all do now to teach ourselves and our machines how to live better, and think deeply about what our future could be with AI.

I wonder, after listening, what do you think?
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