AI is a Good for Humanity! w/USATODAY Best Selling Author! 🎯 Jeff Burningham | Ep. 410 - Do This, NOT That: Marketing Tips with Jay Schwedelson

Jay Schwedelson: We are back for do this, not that. And I am so excited about the episode. We are gonna be talking about ai, humanity, all of it. I have an incredible guest. Alright, so who's here? We have a real deal, major author, but even before he was an author, Jeff. Birmingham. This dude is a big deal. So he was at BYU.

Jay Schwedelson: Okay. He's an undergrad. He starts this company and he crushes it. He sells it to a NASDAQ listed company, and now he's on his way. He's out there in Utah and he's getting all involved in the venture capital community. He starts Peak Capital Partners. This thing becomes a real estate investment firm that is, has assets over $5 billion.

Jay Schwedelson: That's a B, the B word. Okay. And then he started Peak Ventures, one of the, literally, in Utah, if you say Jeff's name. People chase him down the street because they are the premier early stage venture capital firm. He's had his hands in so many successful companies. He ran for Governor of Utah. He's a former bishop.

Jay Schwedelson: I don't know what he hasn't done, but, but what I know he has done is written probably one of the most important books to come out in a long time, which is the last call, this is the name of it, the last book written by. Wait a bit. The last book written by a Human 'cause, AI's taking Over the Planet. That's what we're digging into.

Jay Schwedelson: I'm so excited to have Jeff here. Jeff, welcome to the show.

Jeff Burningham: Jay, can I hire you as my pump up man, bro, I need you with me in my pocket. Uh, thank you man. It's so good to be with you. Yeah.

Jay Schwedelson: This is so exciting. Alright, before we get into, and, and honestly the, the thing I'm excited about you to be real is you're one of the few people on earth that's optimistic. About ai. Everybody else, it's doomsday. So we're gonna dig into that 'cause I think we all need a little bit of your optimism.

Jay Schwedelson: But before we get to that, how did Jeff become Jeff? What is the deal?

Jeff Burningham: Isn't that the question for all of us, Jay? Like that's what my book is about. It's about all the big existential questions. Um, but I'm a serial entrepreneur, so I started a tech company in undergrad, like you said. Uh, founded a large real estate private equity firm. Uh, it's been one of the fastest growing in the country for the last decade or so, and then spun into venture capital.

startups here in the state in: 2017

ernor in the state of Utah in: 2019

adult life, in the summer of: 2020

Jay Schwedelson: The piece of this that I think we all need to hear, which is when Anytime AI comes up, uh, AI is gonna take, uh, my job, um, AI is gonna know too much about me. We better be nice to the robots 'cause the terminator's gonna take over the world.

Jay Schwedelson: Every, almost everything you hear about AI is, is negative. All the horrible things are gonna happen. But you have this positive view of how. If AI can turn us into improve humanity, what, what is, what is that? What is the positive side of AI existing?

Jeff Burningham: Yeah, I'll say two things again. Number one. What is the, what is the upside of being negative number? What is the upside of putting our heads in the sand pretending like this isn't happen happening? What is the upside of like running away from it? Like that's just not how human transformation and evolution.

Jeff Burningham: Works. If you look at the history of humanity, it is one of never ending, quote unquote, progress via transformation and evolution. To think that we could stop AI at this point is just not an option. So let me just say I'm an optimist by default because I, I'm not sure that the opposite, uh, takes us anywhere good in the end.

the governor's race summer of: 2020

Jeff Burningham: I've made, you know, a dozen or two investments in AI companies. I'm a believer in the technology, and I wanna empower good AI to get into the world. What becomes so apparent to me very early is the spiritual, ethical, existential implications of what AI is for humanity. See, I think AI is a cosmic mirror, and so Jay, that's a mirror.

Jeff Burningham: A reflection can be a scary thing to look at, but it also gives us an opportunity to. Reflect and choose to transform. So why is humanity scared to death of ai yet? Odd, oddly, viscerally attracted to it. It's because as is often the case, the obstacle becomes the way here, Jay a I I talk about in the book how AI is a crucible.

Jeff Burningham: For humanity to pass through together in order to transform and evolve Now, pardon? That's scary Shit. Don't like no, no ifs and or buts about it. Looking at your own personal reflection can be scary. Realizing that you have to go inside and that we as a collective humanity need to go inside and transform ourselves from the inside.

Jeff Burningham: That is hard work. That is scary. I get why there's a lot of fear around ai. However, I think if we do this with our best foot forward, I think if we bring, uh, an idea around love and human flourishing around this technology. It could be. It can be one of the greatest things that has ever happened to us.

Jeff Burningham: This reflection can cause us to take massive transformational and evolutionary leaps forward, and that's the bold case for ai. I understand I'm not stupid, but that's where we could go and that's where this book is trying to point us.

Jay Schwedelson: So. A very 10 foot level, practical level. Okay. I know that there is, you know, the five years from now when we all have these optimist robots in our home and whatever, okay, let, that's, that's a little down the road, but today, someone listening to this say, all right, I'm gonna try to change my view on, on ai, and they open up chat, GPT or Claude or whatever, and they do what to be more optimistic.

Jay Schwedelson: How do you flip the switch in your mind and say, all right, I bought into this guy, Jeff. I'm gonna be an optimist now with ai. What do I, how do I bring that into my life today?

Jeff Burningham: Yeah, let me flip that on his head a little bit, Jay, because I'm not sure it's about what you do with ai. Again, AI is a mirror to each of us individually and collectively. All it does is take all of human data for recorded history, it ingests it, and then it learns how Jay and Jeff and everyone else interacts with it, and then it reflects ourselves back to us.

Jeff Burningham: So the work that I call for. I talk about how I create, I created this little, I climb the mountain of success, my little mountain of success. I've built billion dollar companies. I've checked all the boxes, and I talk about in the book, climbing this mountain and getting to the top and realizing that there's nothing up there.

Jeff Burningham: I, in fact, I say all there is, is a cold, howling wind void. The answers we are looking for are not outside of ourselves. So the answers we are looking for aren't necessarily in ai. They are inside of ourselves. So I talk about being at the top. Where do you go from the top? You can only go down collecting the pieces of a little bit of a tattered life, not because of anything you did wrong, but because of the.

Jeff Burningham: Pace that you are keeping and realizing that there was nowhere to look outside, but just in, see, I think that what each of us is looking for is already inside of us. This is cliche, however, I, one of the things that I strongly believe. The most powerful ideas are often the most simple and therefore the most neglected.

Jeff Burningham: And this is one of those. So as we go inside of ourselves, as we do our own work, as we look to heal ourselves, that reflection can become more beautiful. So I think what someone does. Is they sit, they disconnect from ai, they disconnect from technology for a time. They do some of the internal work, and then when they return to ai, which we all will and we all do, I think they gonna be in a massive companion in terms of, I'll say, quote unquote awakening or understanding the underlying patterns of human existence that have always existed.

Jeff Burningham: So the way that I use AI is in terms of astrology, in terms of, uh, education around awakening and spiritual matters. And so anyways, again, I, I think the mirror will reflect something different once we do the work. Now that work is being done on the fly, I understand the pace is hard to keep up with, but that's actually what I would encourage list your listeners to do.

Jeff Burningham: I think that's the work that we'll be called to do here in the age of highly intelligent machines.

Jay Schwedelson: You know, it's funny, what I'm really taking from what you're saying, and it makes a lot of sense, is this intentionality of connecting with. Humans, other people is gonna become something that's needs to be more front and center, where it's not, what are we gonna do with ai? It's because of ai connecting with people, going to in-person events, having dinners, making sure you're touching base with your friends, calling them an intentionality about your human existence is going to be a, a much bigger.

Jay Schwedelson: A much bigger calling for that because of ai. It's not like what you're doing with ai. Is that, do I got it?

Jeff Burningham: Yeah. Yeah. You got it. I mean, and this is gonna be something we have to fight for, Jay, as our kids spend more and more time with a digital device, with the almighty algorithm, quote unquote, of social media. We're gonna have to fight to stay in the real human relationship because real human relationship is messy.

Jeff Burningham: You know, like chat, GPT is a notorious glazer.

Jay Schwedelson: Yes.

Jeff Burningham: your hair looks beauti. I'm bald. My hair doesn't look beautiful this morning. You're the smartest guy on earth, Jay. Uh, I don't, you know, you're one of 'em, but I don't know. You know, like it always takes your side, it always pours it on thick. That feels nice sometimes, but that's not real.

Jeff Burningham: What's real is human intimate connection. I make the argument in the book that I'm saying in quotes that that technology of real human, human intimate connection is the, is the most powerful technology we know and have. So the thesis of the book is that very simply stated is as our machines become more and more intelligent.

Jeff Burningham: We as humans must become more wise. And so the book becomes a playbook about how we become more wise. It follows the cycle of technological disruption via ai, which interestingly, I think mirrors our own, uh, spiritual journey in existence, or the heroic journey. You could say that we're all called upon.

Jeff Burningham: That always starts with disruption. It's painful. It's a call to adventure. Change is the only constant. Then there's a time for reflection. You usually refuse the call at that time. Then you lean into it, you enter the unknown. The third section is via transformation. It's like our collective heroic journey in the age of ai.

Jeff Burningham: And then the fourth section, this is what I wanted to say. It's about evolution. It's a return with wisdom. And I talk about all the big things. I talk about reforming religion, education in the age of ai, um, relationship, human relationship in the age of ai, conscious capitalism. And then lastly, Jay, because I ran for governor because I have felt firsthand the terrible political division that is gripping our country and has for a decade or more.

Jeff Burningham: I talk about a, a political move movement that I call the human political movement, um, that I think is something some of these ideas need to be infused into our culture. This book is meant to be a conversation starter around boardrooms and religious, you know, meetings and definitely around dinner tables that then transforms into.

Jeff Burningham: A movement that can ensure that AI is focused squarely on human flourishing and not human division or destruction.

Jay Schwedelson: Look, it's, it's a mes message that's of, of optimism and positivity, and I'm down with that, and I think it's, I think it's. So valuable. So I wanna flip the script here though for a second. I wanna, uh, now I wanna ask Jeff, not the author. Um, I wanna ask Jeff, the person who's invested in all these, you know, startups, vc, Jeff, all this stuff, if that's all right about ai.

Jay Schwedelson: What I mean by that, for a lot of the listeners of the show, maybe they're a marketing manager or, or starting their marketing career, or they have a small business, or they're a big executive, whatever they are. What are the careers that you think are like, should people be worried about their jobs, about their careers?

Jay Schwedelson: I mean, you look at this from an angle of investing in companies and the future of companies and people and all this stuff. What is your take on all of that?

Jeff Burningham: Uh, the short answer is yes, absolutely. And that's just the truth. I think that, um, the way that AI can be, the only way that AI can take over is if we are disconnected from our bodies and from our humanity. In that way though, it looks like a lot of disinformation where we're living in a digital world of information that we have no idea what is true and what is not.

Jeff Burningham: That's kind of a first step and we can feel that happening. The second step is, um, job loss. I don't know if you know this, this is a scary thing, but the, um, the greatest. Predictor of civil unrest is unemployment in males ages 18 to 40 years old in any country. So, um, there will be a lot of jobs taken by AI, in my opinion.

Jeff Burningham: And then of course, there's the terrible things that could be done via warfare. So there's the negative, like kind of high level step stool down. Yes, you should be concerned about your job. However, what my invitation in the book, um, see, I tell a story in the book about sitting in an MBA class. I was running a multi-billion dollar private equity firm.

Jeff Burningham: I was investing a hundred million dollars in venture capital. I was a father of four, a young bishop in my church. Um, sitting on like 20 boards for profit, nonprofit and this, and I decided to get add MBA to my resume. Like, what in the hell was I thinking, Jay? I had to do that on nights and weekends. I did not have time.

Jeff Burningham: I did that because I thought you could always do more, and if you did more, you would be more. That's just not true. Doing does not equate. To being, and so I had ingest. This was in the air that we breathe in America as as ai. So here's the point. As AI becomes better at doing more and more of what we're used to doing, where does that leave us?

Jeff Burningham: It leaves us time and space for our being. As long as we're embodied here on earth there, we're gonna always have plenty to do. We have all have so many roles and so much to get done, but, uh, what I hope is that we are able to bring our being to so much more of our doing that will be essential in the age of AI and two ways that will occur.

Jeff Burningham: One. Um, we need to partner with AI and workers of every type should be looking at how they can leverage AI to improve their output, to improve their work product, quote unquote. That isn't always happening. Obviously the work product is going down. We need to work with AI to improve that work product, so to help us become more productive so that we have time and space to be the second beautiful thing here, and I think you're gonna see this.

Jeff Burningham: Playing out over the next decade or two. So many people have a book in them. See, I viewed this book as my little piece of art, my offering to the divine and. Uh, p everyone has art inside of them. Life is the most beautiful art, and right now most people don't feel like they have an opportunity to explore that art.

Jeff Burningham: I think that AI will give us opportunity to explore art, and that there will be new industries, new joy, new money, quote unquote, to be made via so much additional radical, beautiful art being put into the world. You and I.

Jay Schwedelson: I gotta tell you, that's why everybody needs to go out there and get this book because it takes a positive view on the future, and we need positivity. So everyone listen, we're gonna put it all in the show notes, but you wanna go and check out this book. It's available actually now on Amazon, everywhere else.

Jay Schwedelson: The last book written by a Human, okay, by Jeff Birmingham. We're gonna put it all in the show notes and follow Jeff. Jeff, where can they find you? Is it LinkedIn? Like what's your social media of choice?

Jeff Burningham: Yeah. Um, probably the best place is just my website, jeff birmingham.com. But I have very mixed feelings about social media, but I'm also there everywhere, just open to Substack and I think a TikTok a couple weeks ago. So I'm trying to meet the people wherever they are at, and every handle is just at Jeff Burning.

Jay Schwedelson: Amazing. All right, we're gonna put all in the show notes. Jeff, this has been enlightening. It's been optimistic. I'm, I'm, I'm very into all of it. I appreciate you. Thanks for joining the show.

Jeff Burningham: Jay, it's so good to be with you today. Thank you.

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