In this conversation, we discuss the use of chat GPT, the perception of consciousness in AI, and whether or not the proliferation of AI and its impact on productivity will make universal basic income necessary. Most of all, we explore the importance of re-skilling and of human-centric leadership in the age of technology.

Takeaways

• The perception of consciousness in AI raises ethical and societal questions about the distinction between humans and machines.
• AI, including chat GPT, has the potential to replace lower-income jobs, leading to discussions about the need for universal basic income.
• Investing in re-skilling and up-skilling is crucial to adapt to the changing job market and technological advancements.

View full show notes here.

Welcome to the 200 % Life Podcast, your weekly insights to spiritual growth and business success with Adam Hergenhofer and Howley Warrill.

Do you use chat GPT? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. What do you mainly using chat GPT for? I like to do research. I like to do some like idea generation on chat GPT. I won't have it write things for me because I like to have my own voice in there. yeah, idea generation, sometimes maybe comparing two different ideas. But I'm not a super user of chat GPT. some people, if you understand how to do really amazing prompts, you could have it generate stuff for you. Yeah, I've heard actually people using it for like as like

research assistant almost. It's like, OK, like Google. Right. I mean, that's the only difference is that Google, I you have to do the research itself. That's true. Whereas I can go into and say, bring me the immediate income of an executive assistant. Right. And we'll go out there and bring all the data so you could actually cycle through it versus having an analyst do it or something along those lines. I've copied and pasted like a blog post or something that I've previously written in there or even an article and then you can have

either search or say compare these two blog posts that I wrote and come up with something new to say about this topic. so the new open AI,

chat GPT for part of like it's actually going to search GPT. mean, that's going to be a really interesting kind of controversy on that controversy. But first of all, I thought it was kind of interesting with, he sent me this article to kind of read because you know, we've obviously talked a lot about consciousness before and yeah. Did you know, I thought this was kind of hilarious, but also interesting. Did you know that two thirds of people who were, there was a survey that, I don't even know who conducted it, but,

Two thirds of the people who were surveyed erroneous believe that chat GPT is conscious and that it has feelings and memories. What point do we get to a society, I guess the fear that I have with that of hearing that is that at some point when do we tell the difference? Well, and I was going to say, no wonder people think that open AI or AI in general is going to take their jobs. They think it's a conscious being.

How do you, so when think about that, the first thing that I like, how do you measure consciousness? Like to me, right? That is a question I do not have an answer for. No, I'm just actually pulling, like to me, like consciousness is, again, I would just kind of think of it as like it's everything, it powered everything, but it

we're get to a point where robots or AI is so smart that you can't tell the difference. I mean, it's in there. Or we get to a point where we are such a society that we literally believe that these robots or whatever you wanna refer to them at some point in time that can talk the way you want it to and they're always your companions. And if you turn them off, are you killing them? This is literally what people have to think about in terms of laws.

some point like it's like then would it be like if your stuffed animal has a battery in it that can talk to you is that like turning that battery off is that the same thing but I think humans knowing when I hear that like two -thirds of them think just that a search function or chat GBT has is conscious then I think there's a difference between having a mainframe computer that's got information a skill set versus consciousness which is completely different which is I just think of like having a soul yeah your computer doesn't have a soul no it doesn't

mean, a computer is processing data and bits of information that is actually able to grab at such a skill as such a level that it's larger than your brain. But what powers a human is the consciousness that sits behind your personal mind, that sits behind your body, that sits behind all of that, right? I mean, we don't have to come down that path right now, but that's the level of consciousness. Computers are just literally built on a computer system, right? What are

refer to him as like those, I forget the name, that's not a battery, but I forget what they're putting them into. Anyways, but like, when I think about like consciousness from that perspective, and two thirds of people there, it becomes an issue for, I mean, does this become an issue for humanity at some point in time where it's like you literally fall in love with a robot and I mean, do

protected? Is there laws around basically being able to keep it alive or turn it off or not? I mean, what point did these things go? We don't not only we can get there yet, right? No, I think the interesting part about all of this and kind of framing this the way this question comes up is

You know, Elon Musk has famously said that AI is gonna remove a lot of jobs. Sam Altman, obviously the founder of OpenAI, has talked about how we need some form of universal basic income or we some sort of kind of remedy, if you will, for the amount of jobs that'll be replaced from. But I don't think that's like some big conspiracy theory. mean, AI is gonna replace. Absolutely. Jobs, just like the industrial age replaced.

Yeah. Jobs and just like the information age replaced jobs. then this, what's, what is the age where now I think it's technically called the information age now, knowledge age, information age is going to replace jobs. That's just the way the cycle.

Yeah, and it's like, so if it's going to, we know it's going to replace jobs. I think the question is, is like what they're proposing is that universal basic income is needed in order to be able to protect people. And I think there's kind of an interesting argument about this and we'll jump into this. Well, we should cite this article. So Sam Altman backed this basic income experiment, which basically is the largest and longest running kind of universal basic income that

that has ever done, especially in the United States. don't know if it's ever. I think it's the longest ever in any history. It started in 2020 and basically went through the end of 23, in October of 23. And they found people in, I think like 30 different states. So was like a combination of things. They were 300 % below the poverty level. they averaged the average income of that family was like $30 ,000. they It 29 ,000. 29, yeah, about $30 ,000. They gave $1 ,000 tax free to those families

once a month for three years, right? so that represented basically a 40 % increase in their income. also - was their theory? They thought, okay, we're going to give this money and then they thought what was going to happen? Well, I think they were going to see, they thought they would be able to take this money and then where do they out there and get additional jobs and they go out there and perform better or invest their money. What were they going to do? I think it was just more of like I think it was to give them time back.

To find a little bit more time back so that they didn't have to work so much to make up maybe that difference. And then what were they going to do with that time? And then the thought was, they would maybe quit a job that they didn't like or go find a higher paying job.

And they also gave a thousand people $50 as kind of another controlled group, which we'll get into in a second. But so the overall findings are actually pretty, to me, summarize the findings and this is basically what they said was the first year it increased their happiness to a level of being able to have more security for household.

items like food, rent, all those type of things. think that really kind of had that factor in there. But after a year or the same people, it actually waned and it went back down to their normal levels of joy, happiness, suffering, whatever it is that you want to do it. And it's actually very similar to what we found in lottery winners, just with lots more money, which is after the euphoric high that people have, you get to a certain point and then all of a sudden it reverts back to your same level of happiness. There's actually the same studies with people that have lost limbs.

or became paraplegic where they literally for the initial, after the initial injury and kind of like going through it, I think it's less than a year, they revert back to their old what level of whatever joy, happiness, suffering, anger that they had and they go back to a baseline. And so it's almost like, so then this brings the question is, then, it more about the pursuit of,

your growth, is it about something else that's different? Well, the UBI study wasn't a happiness study. No, it wasn't a happiness study. I'm just saying that like, I'm just, it's something that to me, like it was like this intuition that we've always kind of seen, whereas no how much money you get, people always, A, they either want more money to kind of make that feeling kind of kick in, because that's what they're after is that dopamine hit of what additional amount of money or different things, or they just revert back to their own level of happiness and joy. It's like one of my mentors always said, it's like, you

money is money and joy is joy and no matter how much money you have isn't going to solve your joy problem. And it's like in the spiritual side, it's like you don't need whatever inner peace you have is gonna come with you to the Himalayans. It's not like you're gonna increase in the Himalayans and whatever inner peace you have is gonna show up at your job. It's the same type of thing for me. So when I hear like a universal basic income and that this kind of the context of this study, how it increased people's happiness for a period of time and it kind of reverted

It didn't really make a strong case that universal income is the way to go, nor is it going to, because really I think they were trying to basically say that if open AI comes in here, the whole world's screwed because nobody's gonna have a job. And what are the people gonna do? Well, they didn't say nobody was gonna have a job. mean, let's be honest, they're Well, that's kind of what Elon is saying. They're saying lower income jobs are going to be eliminated, or I don't even know if that's the correct term.

We're not talking about giving a thousand extra dollars to CEOs and executives or engineers. talking about lower income jobs being eliminated. Elon's whole conversation about this, and he started this a long time ago, is saying that AI in general will bring so

productivity to the world or your basic needs will be met, different things and therefore your choice to work will be purely based on choice not money so therefore you'll have more drive and more productivity will actually come into the world.

I think that's kind of this study is finding. Not so much. People just want free time. That's exactly what they found. They're going to enjoy their leisure time more. They didn't actually go out, regardless of income. I mean, I don't know if I can say regardless of income level. I think everyone is driven and motivated by different things, and assigning it to an income level is...

Well, what they found was people on average had eight days more of leisure time with that extra thousand dollars per month for three years, right? Which again is eight days more, but they took more time, right? Whether that was to do whatever it is that they wanted to do in their activities, but it didn't necessarily solve that problem. It's like giving more people. It's not like they just got rid of their jobs either and then just sat around and played like Nintendo, right? Like they didn't do that either. So it's not like eight days is going to like some.

you know, astronomical number that's going to decrease productivity a ton. But it didn't also support necessarily. Well, actually, it did actually talk about how some people went out and did more and some people went less. So the average ended up actually kind of like averaging it out. I think that was kind of more of the conclusion that came from it. But

The fastest declining jobs are jobs like bank tellers. To me, it's the ones that are repetitive and that can be repetitive, guess, or routine or automated. Bank tellers, postal clerks, cashiers, data entry. And then one of them was admin and executive secretaries. You know how I feel about that. I'm like, no. But. Why can't they? Well, there's

million different types of executive secretaries, administrative assistants. Yeah, and absolutely that the many, parts of the role will absolutely be automated, just like in the 15 years that I've been in an executive support profession. I'm not doing the job that today, the same way I did 15 years ago. And the same will be true. And there's so many pieces of it that can be automated stuff that is more...

again, routine, repetitive, things that are maybe on the transactional side, but I think that's a massive opportunity to, which a lot of executive assistants want to be involved in more of that strategic work anyway. And so I think it's a massive opportunity and the chief of staff job is on the rise, probably because a lot of the, you know, some of the stuff like travel management and I mean, it's just soft, it's software and it's AI and it's automation. And there's obviously are going to be executives who

just want to use and handle their own automated tools. But there's very few visionary leaders or entrepreneurs that I've worked with or talked to who want to even get involved in that. They're usually going to have their EA or their chief of staff be the one who manages all of the AI and the tech. To me, what it does is actually, which is the point of, think, AI in general, is actually giving everybody more free time to do more of the important work.

that's actually relevant to your job, which to me is what I think will happen as AI becomes

mainstream, it's actually going to redirect and repoint our positioning of what we're actually going after. Just like when we created a tractor, didn't like prevent farming, right? We move from a horse to a tractor and it's not, and now we're moving to an AI tractor, which is literally done by like a drone, right? Like it's literally controlled by a computer system and not even a person in it. like it's, but it's still like, we're just, we're just becoming more productive and AI will make us more productive. And to me, what will end up happening is people redirect the spear in a different direction to be actually

out there and be able to accomplish different things that we don't even necessarily know about right now. Right, right. And I do think like so much talk around AI of course is the whole productivity conversation. But I wonder if it's like how can we do more, right? How can we do more in less time or more in the same amount of time? It's like more, more, more, more. But I'm like, okay, that's yes, I think there's certainly something true to that. But I also think that it, like you said, it frees you up. Like maybe it's not about doing.

more in the same amount of time or how much more we can accomplish. Maybe it's working on different things or becoming more expansive in your role or thinking of different ways to solve problems and challenges that exist in the world. In my opinion, it's not just that we can become even faster, more human machines. Well, even in the point with like the, you your kind of your force multiplier, if you will, like either an EA or chief of staff, that's somebody that's in there.

as a CEO or as kind of like a founder of a company, you want that person to also have like space to be able to walk through more complex issues that you wouldn't necessarily go to chat, GPT search for, right? Or anything like that. There's, think the tools will actually make people's jobs easier. So they have more room to be able to tackle larger issues and complex problems that were actually require, you know, the mind that's in there to actually be able to think through those things. And then you aid them just like, again, the tractor aids and actually producing the outcome. Just like, you know, the tools and AI will aid and

an outcome that is better designed for whatever it is that you're going. We had the same conversation, by the way. I just remember this in my era. I know that

But like in my in my the era that from what it is is like when and to in I was in high school in 1996 to 2000 so of course the internet was you know it's gonna break time everything was gonna blow up and it was gonna replace all the jobs and all these different things it didn't happen actually boomed the economy for what those different things were and I think what you're seeing here is you know we went through a you know 2020 to 2022 23 a very stimulus based economy that was pumped

you know, billions of dollars into our system. And now we're coming into a contraction period, which again, I think then AI becomes, that's why if you look at the stock indexes, they're driven by seven basically companies all driven by AI that's driving up the entire stock market. Actually just recently we started seeing other companies participate in driving up better earnings, but it was basically the big seven that was driving the major gains for all of these companies that are out there. Navita leading the...

the charge and a lot of this stuff. But all of that was a growing those things. So I think again, we're seeing that same era of like right now they're getting these big valuations and it's growing the indexes, it's creating jobs, it's kind of moving this along forward. As those companies gain more revenue, you're gonna see more kind of pointed direction to those things. So they actually end up building an entirely different economy. What that looks like. Yeah, and I was gonna say with a lot of things, right, it's that the swinging of the pendulum. So it's gonna go.

really far and I don't think we're there yet but it's gonna go really really far in the one direction where it's like everything is AI and everything is automated and we're using like robotic arms to like. I remember not even using a phone I I literally had a beeper and a pager and then it's like I had one of those but I didn't have was in the air right before that. That was my point it's like those things are you know they thought everything was gonna break and it didn't. Yeah well well I was gonna say that when it swings but then it's it may swing back in the other direction right so that it ends up being balanced for example

Etsy is actually going in the opposite direction because Etsy was a marketplace founded on, you know, crafts and homemade goods and things like that and art and artisans and so they're actually, but you can sell all sorts of things that you make digitally on Etsy. So they're actually going in the opposite direction where they're now having, you have a distinction where you have to say.

Was this designed by you? Was this handmade by a human? Or was this, I don't know, the other designation was created by or even compiled by or something like that, which I think is really interesting. maybe, yes, it's all AI, but there's gonna become other opportunities or other things where it's that human -centric.

There's two things that I put a kind of mental kind of pin in that I want to go back to. One, there's two. One of them is I want go back to the consciousness and actually like robots or AI. I want to actually talk through that a little bit. The second pin that I'll just kind of address briefly is I think there's other concerns when you factor in like a universal basic income. Number one is who is really benefiting, right? So it benefits big tech and the Omar it's because they're in control, right? Of like that for those things. And it also benefits big governments because now they're giving us who there's a dependency model that's driven there.

actually outcome that happens from that too is what we saw over the last couple of years, which is massive inflation. So if you start giving up free money to a lot of people, and then there's going to be other people that go out and work more, which this is going to drive the inflationary measures that we've seen. We'll probably have unprecedented inflation that continues to happen because you just get free money. And what we saw over the last couple of years, people got all this money and they're also continuing to work or they were quitting their job and getting another job. They had this money and they were spending it freely. Right. So now we're coming into this era where again, last month,

I think the month before that, the savings accounts have dried up to what they were pre -pandemic. I think what we're starting to see is in the fall, you're going to see the hard economic factors really start to see the kind of rear -view mirror of a lot of this stuff because I think it's happening. I think we're going to kind of accroach that.

and I think it's going to be harder, but time will tell on there. I think if we can drop rates, which, you know, by time this episode airs, it will have some more guidance in terms of whether or not rates actually drop. That could help prevent this from going on, which is why I think a lot of people are factoring in the prediction markets are factoring in a rate drop just because.

they believe that there's enough bad good data, bad from in terms of fighting inflation, unemployment's ticking up, that we may drop rates. And if that's actually the case, we may bring that up. But that would be, that's a case nobody really thinks about. Number one is who is, you become independent on a government.

or you come dependent on these large tech companies, they have to be the ones contributing to it as well that are paying you money. So therefore there's some sort of like string attached. How the tech companies have to do with the UBI? Well, I just think in general, if they become such like, if they become such a major, they're processing like the warehousing forum. But if OpenAI becomes such a big company or other competitors that come in there and they run all the AI that's so productive that somehow you're dependent on that model itself. I'm not saying they're directly not on the UBI, but you're just dependent

Yeah, the production of those things. whatever it is they're doing these things and it benefits them to have people not going out there and starting new jobs because then they just fall in line with what it is. And so I think there's two things and I think the inflation pieces are important thing to kind of remember. So I don't really think that that's gonna happen. Elon really is a fan of thinking that like there needs to be a because then people will go out there and work because in his mind doesn't matter how much money he has, he's just out there working and that's the people he surrounds himself by.

Correct, correct, and yeah, not everybody thinks like that. But yeah, I definitely don't, I do not like the idea of that dependency.

model for many for many different reasons. But if you're going to I don't know how much money they spent on a study like that giving individuals or even like the COVID. I mean, that was maybe stimulus might have also been just, you I know people lost jobs like that's a whole different situation. Like the first round of it, in my opinion, the first round was needed. And then they just gave out there was just a bunch more. Yeah, don't know how long it went on for it was a year. 18 months. 18 months. Yeah.

But I think, okay, well, that is a lot of money. That's great funding. What could you do with it instead? And to me, because you don't want people to be dependent forever. Maybe again, sorry, go ahead. You know what's an interesting stat on this is there is approximately, and this is a little bit backwards math, there's some approximations. There's about 100 million people in the US that get some sort of welfare. And the average welfare comes out to about $1 ,000 a month.

So we're actually already doing that for basically there's 350 million people in United States. So there's basically a third of people are on some sort of special welfare programs that are much needed and probably need that. About $1 ,000 a month is what on average they're given to kind of get backwards math. And I think that's just an interesting kind of stat that we're actually a third of us is already there at some level.

Hmm, yeah, no, I didn't know that. I heard that this morning. It was actually in conversation with this of like, those people aren't just getting that and not necessarily some are being productive, some aren't, right? Some are just gaming the system, which I think you're gonna have that in any type of of product. Yeah, I mean, I of my people that game the COVID stimulus system or the PPP, like all of that. Like people are going to take advantage if they're the type of person who takes advantage.

But anyway, I was going to say that I do think what is going to be needed is re -skilling and up -skilling people. Because yes, even I think of administrative assistants that I know or EAs that I know who do operate in maybe a more traditional environment where...

they're just starting to use a lot of, like we always used a lot of tech tools and software and things, so we're always continuing to evolve and make sure that things were, and weren't even on a pretty basic scale compared to a lot of companies. But it's so important to make sure that there is re -education and continuing education and again, like this re -skilling and up -skilling because even going back to the whole,

maybe somebody needed to learn how to use a tractor. So that was an important skill to learn. So now we need to learn how to use.

AI or learn how to use Calendly or learn how to use different software. So I do think investing into that is important. Some suggestions that I think there's two things to your point. Instead of using that money and just necessarily giving it away like that, what if I think one of the really great ideas is like everybody that's born starts off with a $500 amount in their Roth IRA or some sort of Roth IRA that's there they can't touch to 65. It still encourages navigating your own path and creating your own way and having to work and be motivated. But you also know at 65 you're going to be taken care of at some point.

with my kids. mean, you know, I'm

And the way we have our stuff set up, none of our kids are getting any of our money. And they know that. We're very clear with them on that. We'll help them in college. We'll help them if they wanna borrow money from a trust and to start a business, they have to pay it back with interest of what those different things are. So there's ways to help your kids. But I keep telling them, like, you don't want a free ride. And my daughter would be like, I do. I just wanna get my nails done, right? just wanna do whatever it is. You think that, there's so many, there's just people that I know and people I'm sure you know that have these. I mean, you hear the stories all the time.

And there's a part of you that goes, would just be cool if it was just a little easier. But then once you have it, then you'd go, well then this isn't what I thought I was going to feel. And so therefore then you have to go out and find your... So again, I'm like, go find your path. This is anyways my conversation with my kids who are 10, 12 and...

and seven of just like, you don't want a free ride. want, sure. And by the way, you already have a lot of help. You're getting more help than I've ever gotten or most people do in terms of just like opportunities that exist to them. People that they meet, access to people that they've talked to, coaches that they get to have. guess you're getting the benefit of all that already. Now it's like, how do you go find your own path in the world? Well, and also how do you, I mean, there's lot of people who don't take it, who have all of that opportunity and access, but don't make anything of it. That's what I think.

That's why I think if you want to supplement some people's income to be do that, but people naturally are going to wake up and find, sure, you can use the word purpose, but again, that's where you have that 200 % life. I mean, think purpose is also bit of a luxury. That's what I'm saying. I don't even want to use that. I throw that word out there because it kind of directs people in the angle of the conversation, but it's just more about it's going out there and finding something. It's almost irrelevant what you're doing as long as you're going out there and you're struggling a little bit because the struggles where you

internally that's the other 100 % of the 200 % life. think it's struggle but I also want to say it's I'm just thinking about like I think humans are also meant to contribute. That's exactly like it's not like whether we're talking about somebody who has like a trust fund there and they're they're just not contributing because everything is given to them or we're talking about you know just even like me right now like

work from home and kind of do what I want to do, but I do not feel like I'm contributing at a level that I feel comfortable with. And that's because I think humans are supposed to contribute to the world, to the society, to their family, to a company, to whatever. And I think that there's a lot of, it's not about tying identity to it, but there is part of like, I don't want to say self -worth, but that's the only word I can think of.

you just feel better about yourself when you're contributing. Yeah, think there's, you should, people should roll with that feeling, by the way. Like it's wonderful to have like a feeling of contribution that you're being able to give to that. And there's definitely a lack when you're just kind of like not doing anything, like it's, people can get lost in that. You just don't want to get tied to any like factor that I need to contribute because then once there, then it's no longer like a contribution. Then it's like you feeling like you need to go do something so that you can actually feel better about that. But there's nothing wrong with actually - still feel like humans need to do that.

I think naturally people will contribute. When you act, first of all, when you feel awesome, you contribute.

So that's I always go back to. Yes, and then when you contribute, you feel awesome. Yeah, which is double awesome, which is great, right? It's just let's not go out there and try to, I have to go contribute to feel good. Let's then rework this and go, how do I I just feel like humans are meant to do things. That's what I'm saying. They're not meant to just sit in a cave and meditate. There's some people that do though, and that's their contribution to literally, get so high. yeah, that's true. So I mean, it's just different ways of doing it, but there's so many different people.

And again, don't think, mean, a lot of people would say that humans are very social animals and I think that's true and not true. I think I tend to like to be around people but I also tend Contributing in social don't necessarily I know, I'm just kind of crossing the lines of our conversation here. like, it's like, to me, like also, I think people

You know, I hear this a lot of like, you can't be alone. And I go, I don't know. Like, it's like, need to be. Yes, for probably the majority of people, they probably want to be around people. Right. But there are some people that don't just like every animals like a leopard is by itself its entire life. Right. I mean, that's just what it is. And other animals mate for life. And what's why wouldn't humans be that same way? Like all humans are slightly a little bit differently. And that's why some people can go literally sit in a cave and not want to be bothered. And why other people need to be around everybody. I don't think it's I don't think that's right or wrong.

It's just you'll find your natural kind of personality that you have having this human experience. But to your point is I 100 % agree that when you contribute, you definitely feel better. There's not a question that's contributing to like picking blueberries for yourself or for somebody else is paying a dollar at the toe behind you. Or if it's contributing to a big company or contributing to a podcast. I mean, it's any of these type of things. You actually feel like you're contributing to society. And then also while you're in this activity, if you have things that bubble

That's when you can do the work so you start to feel that already. So then when you're actually are contributing or building different things or things happen, they're just amplifying your experience. That's what I love about all of this. But I do want to go back to the pin that I had in there earlier, which is we kind of jumped over this because we went to a couple of different conversation pieces. consciousness in AI, I think is just a fascinating kind of topic right now. Well, can you define consciousness for me?

Well, I'll tell you from how I think of consciousness is consciousness is the awareness that everything is aware. It's this, it's the... that you're aware that you're aware that you're aware. No, hate that explanation. Well, let's just go to the two. It's that you're aware that you're aware. Okay. There's a consciousness that's aware that there's a voice in you that's talking to

that you're aware that there's a body. That you're aware, by the way, that you had once were a foot and now that you're 6 '2 and you have gray hair instead of black hair, whatever it is. Right, is the computer or is software program aware that it's software program? No, that's the difference. That's why I was going with not aware. The computer will sound like it. It'll make it seem like it has feelings and does different things. it's until you actually, because consciousness is making the computer.

Right. So it's not like until there's a way that consciousness can find itself into that, like from the higher power, maybe that at some point it does. I don't know. That's a whole other sci -fi movie. can write code. Computer programs. Yes. But it doesn't know that it's writing computer programs. What's the, what's the,

show that I'm thinking of that like, the one where people go are still popular like in the early 2000s. They have like the Westworld. thinking like the Westworld. I'm pretty sure that one was popular. Yeah, did you ever watch that before? No, was like literally like this. You'd go there and like you had all these like look like basically live humans and you could basically go to these cities and do whatever you want. You can murder people. You could have sexual relationships with people and they're all like AI bots and everything in between. Like you set your fantasy. You go to this world, this Westwing, Westworld

like who is real and who's not. I don't think we enter in that world, but I do think that we enter into a place where people believe because they're so connected, they want to be connected to your point, they want to connect to it, that they feel like it's part of them and they will protect their lives in this like it would like a kid. there is no awareness that that computer is aware. And that's the main difference. can be a single link. sure humans understand that? Because clearly we already think that touch EPT is

I know well think it's like well first as you start to become more aware you realize that you are aware that there's a voice in there you're aware of your body you're aware of emotions you're aware of all the things that are actually happening all the time and that gives you a better perspective of what consciousness is the challenges is that most people don't actually this is why I wanted to put a pin on this is most people don't actually stop and go deep enough to realize what is consciousness to them because if you're just looking at an object then the object is what you think consciousness is and so that's why I think people get so lost in thinking that the AI is conscious

Whatever you look at you think is like people think that they're their body or they think consciousness is like well it's it's thinking. Yeah, okay. It does feel it's exactly it is thinking

and giving you an answer. And people haven't really paused long enough to actually go and reflect on like who's aware that there's thoughts in there. Who's aware of every emotion that shows up. By the way, every emotion that's come in there has already come and passed. You have good emotions, you have bad emotions, you contribute, you feel better. When you don't contribute, you don't feel as good. Who's in there the one experiencing all these emotions? Who is the awareness behind all of this? And that is consciousness, right? It's that level of consciousness which an AI bot doesn't have. It doesn't know that it's conscious.

it just knows like it's a system that's running. like a blender doesn't know that it's blending, it just knows it's blending. Cause that's just the program that's been That's what I'm saying. It doesn't know anything. It's just blending. Right? There's it's lacking of that. Because the human told it to do something. And honestly, that's similar to Tadgpd. It is still us telling it what to do. And it's a powerful super computer, but it's still lacking the awareness of what it is. And it may even get to a point where it can describe with

words better than anybody else can. So it actually seems like that because it uses the intellectual framework of vocabulary to actually put together sentences that sound perfect, like it is conscious. But there's still this at the end of the day when you that's why meditators use that simple word. People that go deeper go, there's a space that I know that I'm there. Then I know that I'm aware. And then once you get glued to objects of consciousness, that's where I think people get lost in what they're trying to say here, which

When I think I'm an object of consciousness, they believe consciousness is in those objects, but it's not. That's why, like, you know, when you become your identity for your job, right, like as an example, like that's not in consciousness. You're still the one experiencing the fact that there is now an ego or an identity that's attached to it, but it's so close that you're not even aware of it. Even though you're always aware, you're just no longer aware that you're aware. And that's the gap. The more people that, that's why I believe a lot of this is all

connected and tied together, which is part of our entire world right now, which is we all recognize that we're all moving towards a more holistic personal growth, spiritual growth, whatever you want to refer to it as of this inner growth that's happening. I believe is happening so that we can actually keep up with the technology that's actually happening. It's almost like an antidote to the... That's what I'm saying. That's what I want to talk about. That's literally like how my perspective is that like it's we're becoming so cautious.

becoming more conscious than we ever have as a society and actually putting energy towards that at the same time, we're putting energy to something that could literally have in a major issue later on if we didn't know what consciousness was. And so I think the more people become conscious, the more it'll actually be easier for them to identify what's conscious and what's not. But if we all continue down this path where we put blinders on and we think

that we are the objects of consciousness, then we'll buy into more of this concept that anything that we create, whether it's a robotic dog,

or a AI human that's talking to you is consciousness because we don't have the delineation of who we are versus what that is. And if we're stuck in the object of consciousness, then humans are just gonna stuck in that space. And that's really the fear. If you have a fear, that could be the challenge that humans face where consciousness may wake up one day and go, we've gone too far. Boom, 90 % of us. Literally, is the fifth extinction that we're talking about, which is what people refer to as like the fifth.

like fifth one that's coming. And almost in every one before that has wiped away about 90 % of life. And so that can rebuild itself because consciousness, there's no time like, okay, I have 30 years left of my life or whatever it is. It just is out there doing its dance. And if at some point in the one planet and the millions of billions of galaxies and trillions of planets that are in this, all these galaxies, and at one point it's like, okay, well, earth's not really doing it to what we want. It just removes it. Like, and that's the,

place that we could find ourselves into and maybe it's not an asteroid that hits it or maybe it's not, you know, some sort of... think it will just be we destroy ourselves. Well, again, that's what I'm saying. Like if we don't become more conscious of who we are, I'm not saying... the robots will. I'm not saying that like reading about it. I mean like doing the work that you actually become... And I'm not taking away being an athlete, business, not having pleasures, not taking vacation. To me, that's why I wrote the book, Tournament of Life, is that go have all of that.

But at the same time, if you're doing all of that and you don't know who you are, then we may find ourselves in a race that we have these robots or this AI that is actually getting ahead of us because we're all tied to the objects of consciousness, which will then end up, again, competing with ourselves, killing ourselves from or destroying ourselves in that way. And then all of a consciousness is a hole, is consciousness of black holes. That's conscious of the galaxies that we don't even know

that are out there that we can see just goes, And then, I mean, think about it, in a blink of an eye, earth could be gone, it could be removed, and there would be like an eyelash falling in the middle of a forest nobody would know. I mean, seriously, it would just go away. And like, that's like, so it's like, we think we're so big, and again, I think we're in this really important.

kind of vortex right now of identifying and growing more individuals as to really truly knowing who you are. And then being an athlete, nonprofit, a business owner, a mother, a father, whatever it is that you're doing, enjoying all that part, but you're being aware so we can actually, again, like you said, be the antidote to what this next iteration of technology that brings for us or next iteration of the world. When you hear that, what do you think? I've always wanted to kind of get that into

podcast of that thought. Well, so, I think about so many different things. the first thing is I'm like, I just want to go live on a farm by myself. This guy I was listening to today literally bought a farm in Austin. really? I wouldn't do it in Austin, but way too hot. but yeah, but I think that like we were kind of talking about it. It is almost

There is that whole movement right where you guys are like renouncing technology or AI or whatever But you are there is like that simple life movement or slow living it's called part of it's called slow living which I really like and appreciate and Don't we I'm just like I I don't I don't want to ignore Technology and AI but I also not particularly interested in it like, know there's some people who are first adopters and they the newest iPhone and then

They were the first users of ChatGPT, and they're testing all these things. I'm not super interested in that sort of thing. So the bigger it gets, the more I'm like, OK, I'll pay attention to it. I'll make sure that I know enough about it. I'm not going to be a super user of any of that stuff, which makes me want to go.

live on a farm. I have a simple life. And have a really simple life and like actually, but part of it is like I go to a dude ranch next week. I was wondering where you were going. But I do think it's almost important to learn how to do some of those things because like grow your own food. Know how to purify water know how to protect not that I'm a survivalist or anything like that. But I to certain degree. Yeah, think some of that is like really it's almost like going back to your the roots

humanity and learning about those things. think it's important almost like again, counterbalance or counteract this massive wave of AI. And also you have never know what's going to happen in the world. And it would be nice to know how to like purify water and like take be able to just like take care of yourself or like build a shelter or whatever. So I'm almost like on the opposite. I'd actually wave at I'm really more interested in that sort of thing than I am in AI. So that was my initial thought. And then

My other thought, just bringing it back a little bit to like business and leadership, all of the stuff that you were talking about around AI, I did think it was really interesting, this McKinsey article that came out about the importance of human centric leadership. Again, because of this tech enabled world, because of all of the advances in AI, I mean, all of the business articles and all the leadership articles are saying this right now, it's all about.

and it had to do with military. But analytical thinking, creative thinking, leadership and social influence, resilience, flexibility and agility, curiosity, lifelong learning, motivation and self -awareness, empathy and active listening. So seven out of the 10 are all, in my opinion, more of these, the personal growth, the 100 % inner world things. And only three of them, AI and big data, tech literacy and design and user experience are actually like hard technical skills.

Which I think is really interesting. I think that puts a bow on the conversation beautifully about just, it's almost, I think, I know we're in agreement on this.

It's irrelevant what you're doing out there and there's ways to get better at what you're doing. last time we talked about, you can be better at an Olympics, you can get paid more. Those are old things, but if you're not conscious and you're not paying attention to that inner world at all, then you're gonna miss a lot of why you're here. And that's the whole point. think life is driving us to that point where it's time to pay a lot more attention to it. And I think that's why the soft skills, if you will, are so important right now. Right, and if you really want to

not be dependent on whether or not AI takes over your job. To me, it's go, OK, well then go work on learning these seven skills that I just talked about, focusing on those, because those are what is going to be of more value from the human workforce perspective in the future, maybe not the bank clerk or the ticket clerk.

So what are the seven skills again, just so people have them? more time. Analytical thinking, creative thinking, leadership and social influence was one, resilience, flexibility and agility was one, curiosity, lifelong learning, motivation and self -awareness, and then empathy and active listening. Love it. So you have your list.