In this conversation, David Brown interviews Reggie Johnson, a strategist and creator of digital media and content. They discuss the impact of AI on branding and SEO, highlighting the importance of optimising for user experience and building trust and reputation.

They also delve into the article 'When the Tech Bros Come for Me' by Jerry McGovern, exploring the unintended consequences of technology and the need for ethical considerations.

Overall, the conversation emphasises organisations' need for AI policies and transparency in their use of AI.

The conversation covers various themes related to the ethical concerns of AI and technology. It explores the impact of data servers on the environment and the need for regulation to address unethical practices. The power and influence of tech companies, particularly in social media, are discussed, along with the importance of safety testing and transparency. The conversation also delves into the cult-like feeling around AI and the hype cycles associated with emerging technologies. The future of AI and the potential role of quantum computing are explored, and the importance of preparing the digital landscape for AI is emphasised.

Finally, the conversation concludes with a reminder to enjoy the present and find happiness.

Takeaways

• AI is already being used in SEO and will continue to impact the way people search and understand brands.
• Optimizing for user experience and building trust and reputation are key in the AI-driven search landscape.
• Having an AI policy and being transparent about AI usage is important for organisations.
• The unintended consequences of technology and the ethical considerations surrounding AI need to be addressed. Ethical concerns arise regarding the environmental impact of data servers and the need for regulation to address unethical practices.
• Tech companies, particularly in social media, have significant power and influence, necessitating the need for regulation and transparency.
• Safety testing and transparency are crucial in ensuring technology's responsible development and deployment.
• The hype cycles and cult-like feelings around AI and emerging technologies should be approached with scepticism and critical thinking.
• The future of AI may be influenced by quantum computing, but the practicality of AGI is still uncertain.
• Preparing the digital landscape for AI involves using structured data and metadata to facilitate information retrieval and utilisation.
• Finding happiness and enjoying the present should not be overshadowed by the pursuit of technological advancements.

Links relevant to this episode:

• Schema.org - Schema.org
• Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance by Angela Duckwort
• When the tech bros come for me - Gerry McGovern
• AI Companies And Advocates Are Becoming More Cult-Like

Thanks for listening, and stay curious!

//david

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00:01 - David Brown (Host)

Hello everybody, welcome to the Creatives with AI Podcast. I'm your host, david, and on today's show we have Reggie Johnson. Reggie is a strategist, creator and manager of digital media and content with over 20 years experience sharing brand shaping stories that increase interest, engagement and revenue. He specializes in strengthening the complete online expression of brands with strategies for digital marketing websites, seo, content and social media. He's also a visual storyteller, using photography, video animation and graphic design to share authentic views into the ethos of brands. He currently serves as digital media and content manager at Fort Worth Country Day School. He's a president-elect and vice president for programs for the greater Fort Worth chapter of the PR Society of America. He's a co-host of a weekly cutting-edge marketing chat about AI, innovation and ethics, which takes place on LinkedIn and Clubhouse, of which I also take part. That's how we know each other, reggie. You also live not too far from my dad in Texas, so that's another reason, I think, for us to have a good chat. So, reggie, welcome to the show, thank you.

01:09 - Reggie Johnson (Guest)

Thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.

01:12 - David Brown (Host)

Yeah, how are things going? How's everything in Texas these days?

01:16 - Reggie Johnson (Guest)

It's a little warmer than you'd expect for February, but that's probably not that unusual for Texas. Just hoping that the summer will be cool instead, then? Sure, not very likely, but going well.

01:33 - David Brown (Host)

Not very likely. What's warmer than usual?

01:37 - Reggie Johnson (Guest)

For winter it's getting up to 75. It's not that unusual in the winter for it to get up to between 50 and 65, but getting up to 75 is a little warmer than normal. We're going through a little bit of a warmer streak, Although we have had some years where February has hit us pretty hard with snow and ice. So it probably balances out.

01:57 - David Brown (Host)

I think the problem in Texas is that, in my experience anyway and I've lived there off and on for over a 20-year period I lived there off and on, but the thing is you don't really get snow, you just get ice. If you live somewhere and it snows, you can deal with that, because the snow actually has a little bit of grip to it. Actually, it's the ice that's the problem.

02:20 - Reggie Johnson (Guest)

Yeah.

02:21 - David Brown (Host)

Texas just gets covered with it.

02:22 - Reggie Johnson (Guest)

It's a coat of ice, although this year was one of the first times in as long as I can remember, and quite some time, that we actually had real snow that felt fluffy. It came down. There was a couple inches of it, but it was the real snow, it was the real thing. But you're right, it's fair. It's usually ice and then ice pellets to cover the layer of ice.

02:41 - David Brown (Host)

Exactly, All right, cool, Just so everybody. For people listening, in the UK it's 75 degrees and new money's about 23, 22, 23 degrees. So just so people know over here at least that's as good as my.

02:59

I still can't really do the conversion very well, but what I can do is and this is the odd thing and, sorry guys, we'll get to talking about AI in a minute I now feel temperature in Celsius. Which is really weird is when I first moved here. I couldn't. My body was calibrated to thinking in Fahrenheit and it took me years and years and then at some point I don't know when it happened, but just like magically, I just started instinctively. I'd go outside and I would think, oh, it's four degrees or oh, it's 10 degrees or whatever, and I just started thinking in Celsius. And now I have trouble. I went back to see my mom a couple of years ago and I was down in Austin and I couldn't work out what the temperature was in Fahrenheit and I just was like what is going on with my mind?

03:52 - Reggie Johnson (Guest)

Isn't that what they say? It's like with language, where one day you start thinking in, say, spain, that ship you moved to Spain, or Mexico. One day you suddenly start thinking in that language. It sounds very similar to that, yeah, yeah.

04:04 - David Brown (Host)

I don't Well, yeah, I do think in English English like UK English now for a lot of the words and things that I use in conversation.

04:13

So yeah, it's very odd. I think they also say that when you learn a foreign language like if you live in Spain or Mexico or somewhere for a long time that you tend to have a different personality in that other language. So when you speak English you have kind of your if that's your native language, you have your sort of normal personality, but then when you speak a foreign language you have a different personality as well, which is quite interesting.

04:39 - Reggie Johnson (Guest)

That is. I've never thought of that. Yeah, but that's true.

04:43 - David Brown (Host)

And I know loads of people who speak multiple and multiple languages. I know people. It's common over here for people to speak two for sure, but there's lots of people that speak three, four languages and it's interesting to watch them and to hear them talk about all this different stuff. So, right, let's get onto AI. We talk about this every Friday with Pierre Smith and the guys on LinkedIn and I'll put a link into that show. I don't know if it's a standard link, but anyway I'll put a link to that in the show notes. But one of the things I think that has been really interesting for me that you've brought to the conversation is a lot talking about, again, branding and SEO and that sort of thing and how AI is gonna impact how people understand brands and how brands communicate to people in the wider world. And maybe you could just start off by giving us a few thoughts on what you think around that.

05:47 - Reggie Johnson (Guest)

Well, yes, I mean a lot of people are saying AI is gonna be the death of SEO or everybody's gonna be using AI to search, and I don't necessarily. I think that's a little overstated. I don't think AI is gonna be the death of SEO, because AI has already been used for Google's algorithms for years. I mean, it's been a big part of SEO for a long time. The thing that I think is important is understanding that as AI changes SEO and maybe changes the way people search just like voice search change the way people search that these tools are still optimizing for user experience. So whether you go to chat GPT in the newer version, or a bar that's connected to the internet and say what is the best fast food restaurant in Fort Worth or the best Mexican food in Fort Worth, or whether you do that in a search engine, both the regular search engine and the AI tool are optimizing to give you the best experience, to provide an answer that's going to give you a positive experience. Otherwise it hurts their reputation. So once you recognize that both tools are solving for the user experience, I think then you need to recognize that you can do certain things to make sure you're solving for the user experience and by doing those things that build your trust and reputation with humans, you will also be helping to build your trust and reputation with the search engines through traditional SEO and then the AI tools, as they change SEO and more people search. By asking an AI for a quick answer instead of a list of web pages to go to, and we already see it in Google. Even if you're not, don't think you're using an AI tool, it tries to answer your question.

07:32

A lot of websites report declining traffic as people use zero click or they come to zero click search engine results pages where it gives them the answer, so they don't have to click on anything.

07:43

And some people think it's a must to make sure your answer is part of the suggested answer and, depending on the type of question, you may want that, especially if it's a recommendation for the best restaurant in Fort Worth, although that gets at the local SEO, which is a little different but which will also heavily be impact also feature heavily into AI responses, I believe. But also with those zero click responses, sometimes that affects people that are doing content marketing more, because if you're talking, if you've written a whole article on the topic of what makes certain Mexican cuisine better than others as a way to get people to your page so they can learn about your restaurant and come and eat there. The zero click response page just kind of cut off that funnel by giving them the answer on the search engine results page without them clicking through to your site and maybe signing up for your newsletter or whatever. So those are just a few initial thoughts around it.

08:45 - David Brown (Host)

It's really-. I can go on further.

08:47

Yeah yeah, yeah, go ahead if you want to. No, no, what were you gonna say? No, I was just gonna say it's interesting that you mentioned that, because I hadn't really thought about that. But I use those quick answers all the time Because most of the time I don't wanna go to a website, I just want a question answered, and so I don't actually want to go to the website. And you're right, that's where having a personal assistant potentially having an AI personal assistant that I can just ask a question to and it can just give me an answer. If you say I want Tex-Mex in Fort Worth other than Joe T Garcia's because it's the best, it can give you a list of the other top rated restaurants or whatever. But that's kinda all I want. I don't wanna have to go to a website from time out, or whatever it is, and then read an article with 15 different things. And do you know what I mean? Yeah, you don't wanna go into a funnel, you don't wanna enter the funnel.

09:45 - Reggie Johnson (Guest)

You just want an answer.

09:47 - David Brown (Host)

And.

09:47 - Reggie Johnson (Guest)

I think that speaks to search intent. That's one of the most important pieces of all SEO is search intent, and I believe that AI is pays close attention to this too. But is are you looking for a quick answer or are you looking to find a webpage to connect potentially with a business or service? And that's why I think the biggest impact may be on content marketing, because some content marketing is built on will give you an answer to your question and then we hope you'll stick around to learn more about our business, and some of that is gonna be cut off by the AI responses. I believe I think we're already seeing that happening. But, aside from content marketing, you look at the search intent. So if your intent is to find a local restaurant, the way it responds is gonna be very different than if it thinks you're looking for a philosophical question on what makes Mexican cuisine superior to other forms of cuisine From a philosophical perspective. Maybe you wanna read an article about it or you want a quick summary of that article. In an AI tool, it may give you that quick summary of that article instead of sending you to an article, but for the restaurant, it's gonna rely on local SEO signals, which is part of optimizing your overall online expression of the brand.

11:08

I'm very fond of saying that your website maybe your cornerstone of your digital presence, but the narrative of your brand is shaped by many different touch points across the whole digital landscape. And when it comes to local SEO, one of the big ones is like your Google business profile or your industry profiles. Google, when they sense that you're searching for a local brick and mortar store, they'll bring up their local pack. And those of you who have local businesses, those who have a smaller medium says enterprise edit with a local brick and mortar store, know all about the local pack, because it's one of your most important allies is making sure that you do your due diligence to make that profile as good as possible, with compelling pictures, with accurate details, and it goes beyond that too, I mean to reviews and other things. But so I don't know if you want me to get into the whole optimizing of your digital presence.

12:07

I think that there's some things you can do to kind of safeguard yourself from whatever changes may come in the future of search by making sure your overall online presence is healthy. And so, from a brand perspective, this comes down to, you're using your digital presence to build trust and reputation across your digital footprint, your brand's digital footprint and that may be something you're already doing anyway, but we talked about part of that is like your Google business profile If you're a school, maybe your nichecom listings. Other businesses have other industry listings. Those are important to make sure you're putting current information there, you're updating it regularly if it allows pictures, having current compelling high quality visuals and as well as reputation through reviews. In the book Trust Signals by Scott Berredel, he talks a lot about reviews and how some people think they only want positive reviews, but some sites are perceived as not as trustworthy if they only have positive reviews.

13:09

People look for those negatives and, at the same time, if you have one negative for every five positive, I forget exactly what the proportion is. It's actually more trustworthy, more positive than just having positive, and some people will gate their reviews and want to only send a review invite to people who have a positive experience, and that, from what I've read, tends to backfire as well. What's most optimal is to try to get as many reviews as possible and generally it'll balance out. I mean, you've got to make sure you're providing a good customer experience.

13:39

That's obviously otherwise your customer reviews can tell you what you're doing wrong with your brand and you need to respond appropriately, both responding to the specific review, if the platform allows a response, but also responding by knowing what you need to change about your brand. So that's the overall digital footprint and that gets pulled into either Google Search Engine Results page or an AI tool.

14:06 - David Brown (Host)

What's interesting with that is, I think sorry, you gave me a lot to think about there. I'm just processing it for a second. No, what I was thinking is that I don't think a lot of people realize how much goes into the Google in the backend. They think it's a pretty simple, straightforward thing and it actually takes more into account. But you're absolutely right, and I think about having a consistent brand across many different arenas and many different areas and many different media types.

14:43

So social media, youtube, your website doing appearances, putting all that stuff online. You've got marketing materials and press releases and articles and newspapers, and you know that all falls under PR, but you know all that stuff together and I think I I guess my question is really is that gonna even be more important as AI comes in? Because AI I get the feeling that AI is gonna ingest a whole breadth of more material all at one time than maybe even a search engine would do at the. Even then, google does at the minute and it's gonna. It's gonna be able to look at that totality of your, of whatever you're saying and whatever you're doing, whether you're an individual and it's your personal brand, or whether you're a company and it's your company brand and Is it gonna do you think it's gonna like Take in more information? So you're gonna have to have more touch points and maybe the more touch points you have, the better results You're gonna get or the better opinion it might have. You know what I'm asking.

15:49

Yeah, I'm thinking on the fly and I'm not sure I'm expressing what I know you're very well.

15:54 - Reggie Johnson (Guest)

David, you expressed it perfectly and you're absolutely correct and I think that that already is being impacted. Impacting the way that traditional, traditional search engines Ask questions or answer questions is is by they're looking at more data points. For example, google knows who the media is talking about. They know who's in the news, so if they're talking about Joe T Garcia's, this, joe T Garcia's that Justy Garcia's is opening a new restaurant, or they had a new thing on their menu. Even if they don't give a backlink which is the holy grail of SEO even if they don't give a backlink, google knows that they're mentioning your brand and AI is gonna be it's all. So it's AI is already being used, probably through natural language processing, to Since those brand mentions and then use those as reputation and trust indicators.

16:46

And so in the same way. Yes, I believe the AI tools and my impression is they are going to be pulling more from a wider breadth of Places, which is why it's important to not just approach your website, driving people to your website, but your overall, full digital landscape, your whole representation of your brand online. And Neil Patel actually even brought up, did some research on this. You're familiar Neil Patel, the SEO guru. He posted on X in December with his research and he identified six factors that can help AI SEO, or whatever you want to call it as getting your brand recommended by AI tools. And those were brand mentions. That's again we talked about that with, like the media mentioning it.

17:28

Reviews, relevancy, will, relevancy to the query, that's important. Age, that's how long your, your business, has been around, your website has been around. That's a big indicator of trust. On On recommendations and authority. And when I read that list and the different, you know he has a graph showing, like you know, how much each one matters. But those were the six factors, I found interesting how similar those are to current best practices for regular traditional SEO and for optimizing your overall digital presence. Scott Baradel, again in his book trust signals, points out the number one thing you can do for your SEO is getting PR for your brand. That's the the his top recommendation, and that didn't used to be the case. It used to be get a backlink and before that it was stuffed with keywords, but now it's get a PR mention because they want that third-party verification.

18:16

Yeah, and then yeah reviews, relevancy, and then the authority even, we've all heard of. If you're an SEO, you've heard of AT expertise, experienced authority, trustworthiness, and you know the authority fits right in, though, that you need to be a thorn, an authority on your topic, and that's something that they found AI is solving for when it recommends brands or when it talks about brands, and it's also something that's traditionally been a part of traditional SEO, and I think there are things that you can do, as you specifically stated so well, ai pulling from a wide variety of sources, a much broader Array of sources perhaps, than just your website or just your profile. You know there are things you can do. Kai D Wright and his book follow the feeling wrote about some things that top brands do. It's brand. It's a book on branding. It's excellent book. We talked about using the branded vocabulary. There are certain ways you say things, especially in the way you talk about your emphasizing your key differentiators and unique selling.

19:17

Propositions. I think that when you figure out what your key differentiators are, your unique selling proposition is. Those are things you really want to emphasize in the different places where you're mentioned. I think that you know if you have it. You have a space for description on Facebook. You have the space for description for your brand on on. You know, on all the different platforms YouTube and yeah of course.

19:38

Then your Google business profile. You put a description, I think reinforcing, through a standard branded vocabulary. I don't mean robotic when I say branded vocabulary, but I mean you say, like the best Mexican cuisine this side of the Red River say that's your slogan for your Mexican restaurants, that's the business de jour for this chat. You know maybe you want to continue to use that, that terminology who you say handmade, just like you know your mom mama used to make you right.

20:08

You know, that's exactly way of emphasizing the important features of your product or service and you have a standard way of saying it, the more you emphasize that. My theory is that as AI pulls from more places, the LLMs that are connected to the internet Scrape for all that stuff. They scraped information about your brand from a lot of different places and the more you cross, emphasize your own key points, the more, hopefully, it's going to get more of your details correct, which is why consistency is important in your address, phone number, those kinds of things URL, of course, but also your key messages that you want to get out now. I recently did an AI search on one of my brands, on chat GPT. Well, we have, we have seven core values. It named four core values which were vaguely related, but this was GPT 3.5, so I'm wondering if chat GPT 4.0 maybe be better.

21:03

But still it got a lot of the key points right in the things we emphasize, and so I'm hoping that, the more that you can emphasize and be consistent, that, as AI, the LLMs pull in all that info, yes, you'll get that broad perspective which then Outputs into something that your brand would be proud to see recommended or repeated in an AI tool.

21:29 - David Brown (Host)

Yeah, and I another thing that I've I mean I've spoiler or Bit of background for me, but I've worked in digital analytics and data analytics for nearly 20 years in the UK, so looking at web analytics and digital marketing performance and all that sort of stuff as well, and I think one of the things just to add to that is when you do all have all those profiles and you have all those you know.

21:52

You've got all your descriptions, fields and all that sort of stuff, and in my opinion, it's also better to write each one differently. Don't just copy paste the same copy in every single one. Write something slightly different, but make sure and emphasize the same things, because a because it's more interesting for people. Frankly, if somebody already knows your brand and then they go to a new profile and it just says the same, they're like okay, they just say the same thing, and I think it also fosters. If you get in the habit of doing that, then you run the risk of posting exactly the same thing across all the different social media channels and that's not the best way to do things either. So it's it's almost reinforcing a good learning lesson.

22:34 - Reggie Johnson (Guest)

That's. That's a really good point. You know and I had a colleague of mine point that out to me recently too I do tend to over emphasize the consistency and branded vocabulary to the detriment perhaps of Customizing it for the specific platform you're on. So I'm really glad you brought that up, because I think you're you're absolutely right and so there's probably a balance. You want it to sound authentic and inappropriate for the specific platform, but you're right. Maybe you don't want to exactly copy it. Maybe there are some key phrases that you use to describe certain unique selling propositions, but the way that you write it for each one can still be different and and there's probably going to be a lot of value in that for the human user and if there's value in that for the human trust and reputation, there's going to be value in that for the search engine result and the AI search as well, most likely.

23:22 - David Brown (Host)

Seems like a perfect job for AI.

23:25

Yeah my standard. Here's what I want to say Write it as long as you want, put everything in it you want to put in it and say write me a description for LinkedIn, write me a space description for YouTube right, you know, highly converting, and all that. I have a question about that, actually, now that I think about it. I Don't know about you, but I've gone into something like chat, gpt, and I've said you know, write me a highly converting headline for this video, for example, or a description for this video, and Almost inevitably it comes back with something that I think I would never use and I'm like, yeah, I don't know, man, it just did, I don't know. So I end up changing it.

24:09

I have you ever done any a B testing on anything like that? Because I suspect that if I ask it for a highly converting headline for an email link or so you know, like a subject line for an email or something like that, if I just used what it gave me, it probably would be more converting Than anything I wrote on my own, because I don't. It probably knows what's converting and I actually don't. Do you know what I mean? I do. I want to a B test that sometime and maybe I'll do it with some YouTube. That's like one thing I wish YouTube had. I wish YouTube had an a B test tool where you could do the same video but you could do different titles and descriptions or Maybe different thumbnails and sort of test them versus each other to see which one is best for your audience, but I I'm I'm not monetized.

24:59

I'm not even anywhere close to thinking about being monetized, and that may be something that they have for monetized channels, but not that I know of you think they would you think they would allow you to do that.

25:11 - Reggie Johnson (Guest)

You would think so when you advertise on Google ads, one of the first things they they ask is, essentially You're supposed to check the box.

25:19

It says allow us to Serve the most converting headline, or even adjust your headlines to make them more converting, and you kind of put your faith in Google ads that they're measuring which is converting and what isn't, and generally you get, I think, pretty good results If you allow it to optimize it. So you know, you might be absolutely right. I mean, the AI might have a better idea of what's going to convert than I as a human do, but you know at the same time, you know how well does the AI know your brand and the message you're trying to send, which is why it has to pass the maybe pass the smell test, as they say, yeah, or when you look at it at least has to be something that if a human read that, you wouldn't feel like it was in any way Misleading. But if it's just a different way of stating it, yeah, I'd love to. That would be interesting to a B test to be like this is a GPT.

26:06

No better what converts than I do it. You might be surprised.

26:14 - David Brown (Host)

I would know better than me. It might not know more than you because you're a professional and and this is one of the little nuances of AI at the minute I think a lot of professionals and I had a chat with the lady earlier today that's that's going to come out in a few weeks and but she's super, super smart, mba University of Chicago, very, extremely well educated. And her point was this you know, she's like I can't use anything from from an AI tool like chat, gpt and I'm like, but of course not because you're like PhD level educated at some of the best universities in the world. You're all over your business, you know. You know you're on top of it, you are an expert writer.

26:57

It's never or it's it's Unlikely that it's ever going to write the same way that you do, but what it does do is it writes better than 90% of the rest of the people on the planet, and it's those 90% of people who use it and go, wow, that's amazing, because they don't have those skills. And the scary part is is that, like the chat, gpt and the AIs are like that on almost every single subject already. Do you know what I mean? It's not better than any professional in any field in any way.

27:29

But for a person in the general public who's maybe trying to get into something or is trying something new, it's better than anything that most that the average person can can put together. And I think that feels to me where the disparity starts to come in, because the professionals are like, oh, this is terrible, it's never going to work. But the average Joe uses it to say I need to write a letter to my landlord. Can you help me write something that sounds vaguely legal? And it gives them something that sounds quite formal that they could never do themselves. But they send it to the landlord. The landlord looks at that and goes, hmm, and they've been talking to a lawyer, maybe a teen auto rane.

28:07 - Reggie Johnson (Guest)

Yeah, it was. You know there's, there's an excellent use case. We're talking about google ads. Google ads wants you to provide, like, 15 headlines, alternate headlines for your ad. You know, you putting your information about your brand that you've written up and say generate me 15 headlines because you maybe, if you're especially, this is a real benefit for small and medium-sized businesses or or departments, non-profits, where you know maybe one person in the marketing department wearing multiple hats. You know, maybe you're not an expert in google ads, but you also do SEO and you also do the website and you also do the newsletter and you also do you know social media and so you don't have time to master and like, say, google ads Having the ability to like, write out your description of your brand, your key, you know, selling Propositions, your key differentiators, and then tell it generate me 15 headlines for google ads and to be able to put those in. You know checking them, of course, to make sure they're accurate.

28:58

Yeah, of course is a real, like you said, that's going to be better than what 90 percent of people could do, and probably better than even some of us professionals you know can do, and or even people that are in, since I'm a little more of a generalist, so I mean I definitely would would. That's something that I need to probably do more often is is actually check those kinds of things with chat, gpt, and get ideas from Some of these sources, and sometimes it just stimulates your thinking like if you're already knowledgeable, the topic, it can make you think, oh, I didn't think to go down that direction, let me try and write some on that, for other people can be like, oh, that's great copy and paste. And then you've got your 15 headlines that you couldn't have generated on your own, you know, or or might have had a harder time with, but it's set you up to now have a compelling set of of Headlines for your google ad, and google will leave out the ones that don't convert or don't work. And yeah, you've gotten advantage right there and, like you said, writing a legal Letter or something like that. And I think that's why it's important for those who are specialists to maybe Remember to not be quite so elitist that we feel like AI is not useful for anything, because even if it's not useful for you, there's somebody else who it might help be able to measure up, to stretch their capabilities, to try something new. I do think that I'm sorry I was on meat go ahead.

30:18

Oh, I was gonna say that, you know, speaking of stretching abilities, one thing I started using just recently was d-script, which is a tool where you know, editing interview footage like you've got 20 minutes of interview you got to enter, narrow it down to about a 60 second video. You know takes a lot of time and, as somebody who does wear multiple hats and I do multiple things you know I've been asked to come in and help for a co-worker. You know, to help with this one project. Well, you know, doing hours and hours of video editing is not, you know, sometimes you don't have time for that, but being able to find a tool where I can edit the video based on the script, it transcribes the video and then I can delete the text portions that I don't want in order to take the best bits of text, it can save a lot of time or at least put it in a format that I'm more comfortable with as someone who doesn't edit video regularly. I can look at a script and say, okay, I don't need the question part, I just want the answer. And here they start over again.

31:19

So I'm gonna delete that and then delete it down to the parts that are, you know, maybe more important, and then that's a more manageable piece that I can edit together into a video with the video editing skills that I do have, which is a task that maybe is a little bit of a stretch for me, but it's helped me to level up and be able to do something that maybe I felt like I might not have been on quite it within the realm of my capabilities previously.

31:43

And that's something where you're using a tool, I think, in a way that's a good fit for well, I'm using it in a way that's a good fit for me and that's a recent tool that I've found that I really think I'm gonna get a lot of benefit out in these types of situations. And it's just one more thing where I can say, if there's some project that comes up, yeah, I can help with that. You know where's. Previously I might have said, you know, I could look it up and learn a little bit more, or I'm a little rusty, but now I feel like, yeah, you know I can help with that and that's what we all want to be able to say at work, right, exactly?

32:14 - David Brown (Host)

and just a note for everybody. I know the regular listeners know this, but all links to all of this stuff will be in the show notes, so I'll put a link then to Descript. It's a really interesting platform. The other really interesting thing that Descript does and since you brought it up is you can also edit the. You can edit if.

32:37

If somebody says something wrong, you can edit what the speech is in the audio file by typing it so you can replace a word. So if it has the wrong word or something, when you put it in, you can actually have it do it in the voice of the person speaking, which is quite scary if you think about it. I mean, if you can go and say you know I support Israel and you can say I don't support Israel, like you can add an extra word in and it sounds like that person is saying it. I think I'm pretty sure. I'm not sure if you can add words, but the point is you can edit the text and it will add it the audio. Edit the audio in that voice print, which I think is it's interesting from one point if you want to go in and you've stumbled over something and you want to fix it fine, but the potential that that opens up, that's a whole nother podcast we could talk about that. Yeah, these Descript is pretty cool.

33:32 - Reggie Johnson (Guest)

I will throw in that for me personally, that would be the level at which so what I'm doing now, I'm like doing it to help me edit the video. If I were to go into that area, I would want to check that with someone higher up in the organization that that fits with, like our AI policy and usage policy, to make sure that that were clear on that regard before taking a step like that. Other organizations that that may be fine and maybe if you know the project of the nature of your organization, but, like for me, that's where I would be like, okay, now I need to just check with someone that this is okay and make sure you know I'm doing it and I think everybody has that certain point where they need to to check in with their organization for certain things, but other things are pretty run-of-the-mill. It's helping you like give you ideas for headlines we talked about, you know giving you ideas, you know, but by the time you're doing something that you know you're potentially putting company info into a like that's potentially proprietary, into a search, an AI tool. You know that's also where you want to like ask what's our AI policy? Or hopefully you're, hopefully you have one.

34:34

A lot of companies don't have AI policies that need to have ones, and a lot of CEOs and C-suite people are not taking the opportunity to lead in this regard for their organization.

34:44

So there's a lot of closet AI users and organizations who are using it, but maybe not always using it in the best way, whereas a lot of organizations, from what I've read, especially the bigger ones need to get on top of this, have an AI policy both for their employees and then have a public AI policy in their terms and conditions that lets people know how they use it, both for transparency, for trust.

35:08

You know, some studies say that people who use AI or businesses that use AI are not trusted as much, and I think some of that is the growing pains of getting used to AI. But I think being transparent is an important, you know, aspect of all this. So I would recommend people to get an AI policy for your organization, of your, of any size, and just be transparent about how you use it and make sure your employees know the best ways to use it and train them. I mean, invest in training them if there are tools that are useful. This will vary by industry, of course, but that's one thing that I'm I feel like is important the AI policy.

35:42 - David Brown (Host)

Consider it yeah, there's a lot of companies that don't even have a social media policy.

35:47

So having an AI policy, I think is it will be beyond reach, but it's. It's really interesting. I know, you know I live, I live and talk about this and live and breathe it and talk about it all the time and and because everybody knows I talk about AI even if I'm doing my consulting business or whatever on the side, like at the solid, everybody wants to talk about. But I also know that that's a huge echo chamber as well, that the people you know the circles I run in techs and startups and that sort of thing, and you know and and everybody knows the idea that. So we all talk about it because it's like the exciting new thing and it's the shiny. You know it's a shiny object right now.

36:26

But there's people out there who have no clue. They may have heard of it on the news because it's now been mentioned on TV or something again in passing, but they don't have any idea what it is. Their life doesn't revolve around it. They couldn't care less. They don't use it. You know they do. They do well to use their mobile phone. You know they don't live on their laptop. They don't have a MacBook Pro, like you know what I mean. It's like I totally appreciate that. You know I live in a totally different reality than a lot of other people do as well, and because I'm totally focused on it, it seems like it's such a major thing, but actually, when you look at the whole world that's out there, it's it's such a minor thing at the minute. Even still, even though it's at the maybe the peak or just coming down the the other side of the hype cycle, I think it's um, you know it and and I need to just, you know, sometimes I need to remember that that there's plenty of people out there doing real work and what I would say is a real job. You know building stuff, electricians, you know contractors, there's people working in restaurants and coffee shops and all that sort of stuff, and they don't use AI and they don't care, like it just doesn't enter into what they do because it doesn't touch their work at the minute. Yeah, no, it's, it's totally interesting.

37:43

I wanted to sort of switch the conversation though a little bit and change gears, because we talked about a couple really interesting things today specifically and there were there were two things, and one of them was this article written by Jerry McGovern, which is when the tech bros come for me, which is a riff off of another, another concept and I I mean I know it's another concept I can't. It's like when the government comes for someone or something, I I think it was in relation to, like the Nazis in World War two. I think it goes back that far originally, but it's a riff on that. So I apologize to everybody listening, I'll, I'll, I'll get my shit together better next time and I'll have the reference to hand, but I will put it again in the show notes if I could find it, but it I don't know. If I want to read the whole thing, should I read some of it? Do you think? Should I read some of it just to give people?

38:35 - Reggie Johnson (Guest)

an idea. What do you think? Yeah, I read, read a little bit and let them know, let them know the tone, read the context.

38:40 - David Brown (Host)

Okay, fine, so okay, get my reading voice on when the tech bros come for me.

38:47

And again. This was published early in January by Jerry McGovern says. First, the tech bros came for the warehouse workers and I said nothing, paying them terrible wages, working them to the bone, tracking their every second, injuring them at record levels, all in the pursuit of customer obsession and profit. Then the tech bros came for the delivery drivers, and I said nothing, calling them gig workers, working them insane hours, stripping them of their basic rights and dignity, forcing them to pee in coke bottles, demanding that they dance and smile for me. Okay. Next tech bros came for the taxi drivers and I said nothing, undercutting them and stripping away their ability to make a decent living, making them work horrendous hours, tracking them, always tracking them, turning them into data points chasing ratings. Next, the tech bros came for the unions, and I said nothing, breaking them and intimidating any workers who wanted to join, firing organizers and hiring union busting thugs, the likes of which had not been seen in a hundred years. Next, the tech bros came for the children, and I said nothing, seeking to addick them and to shame them and humiliate them and to pile on social pressure, pressure in all the pursuit of better quarterly reports, all in the pursuit of greed and growth, and it goes on and on.

40:02

s and early: 2000

41:22

I genuinely believe there's a bunch of people who really think that they're going to change the world and they, they really. They focus exclusively almost on the positives and they have a total blind spot for negatives that may come from anything that they build. And you know, you talk to them and they say that you know that their whole approach is almost like a child. It's like but no one would do that. Like I can't believe anybody would use it to do something mean, like whatever, insert that here and they're like but I can't believe anybody would do that. You know, why would any? I can't believe anybody would put you know child porn on Twitter. Like why would they do that? I can't understand how anybody could do that. And it's like, it's almost like they don't even have a concept that this could go wrong somehow. You know the sorry I'd. Yeah, what do you think? Well, you jump in. I've been talking way too long no, I, I love that.

42:16 - Reggie Johnson (Guest)

I think your analysis is is is definitely spot on. I'd say that one thing that makes it a little bit like controversial within you as you think about it, is there kind of three different things that are easily conflated in a subtle way that you kind of have to subtly tease apart because, yes, you said it sounds like this monolithic thing that it's sinister. We're going to do this, this and this and this. I think there are three different things. One is the progress of technology.

42:40

You could write the article saying first the automakers came for the horseshoe you know craftsmen and then they came for the carriage makers and or you could say they came for the people that pick up trash on the streets, you know, or or who you know, and then so many ways that bring. Or they came for the, the shaman, and now we have medical doctors. You know my point, my point with that being, the progress has been beneficial. They came for the, the train people, because they made airplanes that you know, and so there's been so many benefits that have put people out of jobs but yet have created new jobs and yet it's worked out, and while there's been growing pains so that's one thing is you could say that now that's the important thing is that's separate from number two, which is the ethical harms of these tools, which is not the same thing as technological progress is the ethical harms, environmental concerns about data, server places. You know there's questions about how much data do we need to be storing and how much electricity do we need to be using and how much water do we need to be using to cool servers, to hold data that nobody really needs to track people or to, you know, store all these different things and what can we do about that? You know, when a town and in Africa or in South America, everybody else's lights are out but the data server is continuing to get power and other people don't have clean water, but there's water being used for that. We need to ask how can we fix this and make it better when people are underpaid for their wages? That's not AI or tech doing that. Those are legitimate concerns with a lot of different industries that need to be addressed.

44:20

Just like the Industrial Revolution, it brought around major progress but it created some really nasty conditions that had to be addressed by regulators. I'd say in the same way, ai needs regulation and tech companies need regulation of the way that these ethical practices are happening. He mentions them. I won't repeat them, but those types of things. They need the regulation to make sure that we're not causing harm to other people. But that's different than saying we put someone out of the job because we put the carriage makers out of the job because we invented airplanes. This is a separate issue. I believe it needs to be dealt with separately.

44:57

You can't say that progress is the same thing as unethical practices, because unethical practices go back to. I mean, slave ownership was something that was phased out around the same time that, or legalized slave ownership was phased out around the same time as a lot of modern technological progress. My point is, progress doesn't necessarily mean unethical conditions. Those two things aren't necessarily related. I'm just saying I'm saying that they're not related.

45:24

The third thing I would say that can be teased apart but which is kind of conflated, is what you said the sinister thing are we allowing too much power to the tech companies? Do they have too much power and influence the social media companies? We kind of took a very much hands-off approach and they kind of went with a wild west approach move fast and break stuff, as in Silicon Valley. This is my interpretation from what I've read and what I've researched. I realize there's many people that could probably speak more expertly on this, but it's an interest of mine. But social media was hands-off and we've seen data scandals, we've seen user privacy issues, we've seen abuses of disinformation and we see a lot of mental health issues directly related to social media.

46:05

At the same time, we also see that, depending on how you approach social media, you can have more positive outcomes. It was an excellent research done by Maya Gudka and I forget her co-authors, but it was applying the paradigm of positive psychology to social media and the ways that you can have more positive experiences with social media instead of negative. For example, if you come to social media looking for connection rather than comparison, you're going to have more positive outcomes. You're not going to have the same mental health detriments. That's just one of many examples. With the way you approach it, you think then you network, you don't compare to somebody who's got a better job than you. Understanding those differences and being mindful of how it affects you, can create more positive outcomes.

46:54

es in young girls as early as: 2017

48:02

Mark Zuckerberg was the one who overrode them and said, no, we're going to keep them and we have a lot of harm from that.

48:08

So the question of the amount of power we allow versus how much we regulate and ensure safety is a separate question as well, and I think that's where when you hear people talking about the future of AI can be very positive.

48:25

But to ensure it's positive, we need a collaborative group of government regulators, activists or non-governmental organizations, influencers, experts, people who have studied this, researchers, professors, and then bring the businesses in as well, to have collaborative groups and meaningful international discussions about how we can control this and emphasize the positive aspects, because it can do a lot of good while mitigating some of the harms. And I think until we have that kind of meaningful multilateral hopefully international cooperation, we're going to be subject to some of the whims of the tech companies because they have a lot of power and influence now. So that would be kind of my response to the Jeremy government thing is to break it down and say there are three different things at least that I see right away that are being a little bit conflated and could potentially be separated out and dealt with individually as separate issues.

49:27 - David Brown (Host)

Yeah, it's complicated. Yes, it's what it comes back to. I mean, ultimately it is very complicated. I spoke to so I don't know if you've listened to any of the podcasts before but I have said frequently that I really wanted to get someone from the sort of a religious community to come on and talk about the difference between morals and ethics and then the importance of having a moral compass and that sort of thing, and so I did. Yesterday actually had a chat with a Catholic priest. That was really, really interesting.

50:06

ethics piece. Traditionally,: 2000

50:50

But what I was saying to him at the time is, you know where we were discussing is that we need to have some sort of moral compass ourselves. Right, because that's what's going to help us steer our way through this and that's a way. You know, not everybody has the same moral compass, but we have to work on those things for ourselves and to make sure that we try and do that stuff in the best way that we possibly can and to do the least amount of harm that we, you know, possibly can. It's like Google started out. You remember it was do no harm. That was there. That was their thing, that they very quietly ditched along the way when they started making loads of money, which was, you know, there was a big sort of kerfuffle about that at the time, but yeah, yeah, it's important that we don't lose sight of our own moral compass.

51:44 - Reggie Johnson (Guest)

You're absolutely right, because it's easy for me to point and say we need a multilateral commission. You know that involves all these different agencies and then feel like I don't have any responsibility for it. But you know, I'm glad you point that out, because I think that also informs our discussions. I think it informs who we advocate for, who we support. You know whether or not you share something like Jerry McGovern's you know article and you know, and what, or whether you, you know, hope that other people don't read it, or you know whether you, who you vote for, you know all those kinds of things are affected by, and maybe the products you use. You know some people don't use Facebook because, after the Cambridge Analytica scandal, after all the other ways that you could say that they feel like Mark Zuckerberg and his team have let the public down, they just don't want to use it. Most people, though, they kind of keep those two separate. If Facebook is useful, they'll use it regardless.

52:41

So, I mean, I think you know to what degree do we, you know, hold accountable the companies when there are tools that are considered necessary and for businesses, especially, you know, for work. But remembering that connection to our own individual ethics is, I think, a really important reminder, and I'm glad that you said something about that, because that should be at the heart of how we look at the ethics of others.

53:11 - David Brown (Host)

Yeah, yeah it's. And look, I think I also think that because ethics I mean when I was younger, ethics never came up in the business discussion, Like never. No one ever talked to the word ethics. It was never brought up in any context. For decades I went to work and never ethics was never mentioned. And now it's talked about all the time. So I think that is that's, if nothing else, that's a positive, because people are at least starting to utter the word ethics, which puts it in their mind and hopefully that will, you know, nudge us maybe in the right direction.

53:46 - Reggie Johnson (Guest)

Well, I'm reading the book Grip by Angela Duckworth, a very famous book. One thing she talks about is, you know, having a purpose and a passion. You know for your life, amongst other things in the book which I won't summarize but you know having a purpose. More and more people want more than just a job and an income so they can live for the weekend. You know, they want a purpose in their work.

54:08

And as we see the younger generations you know my daughter is 15 and I tell her all the time her name is Emily I say, emily, your generation is going to save the world. I believe in you guys because there's a lot of things that they do differently and I hope they do, you know. But I still, like a lot of the younger people are looking for even older than her, are looking for more than just that. They want a purpose in what they're doing and I hope that that translates to more and more individuals with the kind of ethics and purpose and passion for making a difference in the world in a positive way, a positive impact, that it steers whole companies and organizations in a positive way and keeps that word ethics in front of people when they're in the boardroom.

54:54 - David Brown (Host)

Sorry, I was making a note so I didn't forget to put grit if me, I'm sharing notes 100%. Now I want to move the conversation on to one last thing, because I'm conscious of time as well. We're at 55 minutes already. The other thing that we discussed today that I wanted to talk about with you as well is the Rolling Stone article by Robert Evans about the cult of AI, and everybody can go and read it for themselves.

55:29

We don't need to read this article out loud I think the poem was a little bit different, but we don't need to do the whole thing. But the summary of the article was essentially that the reporter went to CES and that what he started to realize is that the whole discussion in tech around AI is taking on almost a cult-like feeling, that if you're not on board, you're somehow out of the cult and once you are on board, you're almost locked in and you can't get out and you'll be extradited if you say anything different. And I know you had some thoughts on that that maybe you wanted to explore, so maybe I'll let you start on this one.

56:11 - Reggie Johnson (Guest)

Well, sure I think it's important. You mentioned that you're kind of in an early adopter echo chamber. You kind of mentioned that I don't think those are the exact words that you use, but you're surrounded by people that use AI. I think some people are in an even more early adopter, more enthusiast echo chamber and I think that it's easy for those kind of echo chambers to turn into to develop some cult-like dynamics I don't mean to overstate it, but where you feel like the belief everybody feels like AGI is going to save the world and do all this good and anything that holds it back is akin to murder and the lives that will be lost.

56:53

And I think that you talked about almost this childlike naivety that why would anybody misuse it? And so, within that context, the sense that we're positive about it, and then it comes to the point where we all want to be optimistic about it and we don't really allow dissent if somebody says, well, what about the way it's being used for weapons of war? What about the way that disinformation is proliferating due to AI? And then they're kind of like, well, no, that's not, it's easily dismissed, while the positives are focused on and the belief that we should do this, we should move forward is almost an object of faith.

57:27

I mean, I'm sure that there are some groups that that dynamic can develop, but again, that depends on the group, and so Robert Evans saw that at CES with some of the cutting edge enthusiasts and innovators with their products. He also saw a lot of hype, everybody putting the letters AI in front of their electronic product just to sell more, even if it was something that always used AI in a different way or even if it's machine learning, Right exactly, machine learning Just because that's what sells right now and that's what's sexy, and so when you're around that much hype, I can see where he's getting that impression.

58:06

I would just be interested to know how much that is reflected in some of the other early adopter groups that are maybe one level down from the ratcheted up hype of CES, and I don't know the answer to that. Maybe you know.

58:20 - David Brown (Host)

No, I get that. Everyone's drinking the Kool-Aid right now, I think, and it makes me feel like it was really interesting and I enjoyed the article and I thought it was very thought provoking and I think anybody who listened to the podcast will be interested in it, so they should go and read it. What it kind of the whole AI thing at the minute gives me cyber currency vibes? Right, it's Bitcoin all over again.

58:50

And I think what's happening is I'm old enough to remember the world before computers, and we didn't have hype cycles. There wasn't any such thing before we had the internet and all of this stuff. And I think what happens is again and I think this is something that you mentioned earlier is what happens is people go and they you get a new technology, and then you want the early adopters to be like the journalists and stuff like that, because then they can go and talk about it and then it gets written up and then it gets hyped up and hyped up and hyped up, and all that's about is making money. That's all that is purely about making money. So those early adopter companies who were there at the beginning, the open AI's we'll call them out open AI's mid-journey Dolly all those companies are well, dolly's part of mid-journey open AI, isn't it? So maybe that's not the best one, but mid-journey and some of the others. They're going to get massive, massively skyrocketing share prices, everything else. The investors are going to make a lot of money. They're going to quietly exit those companies in the back, they're eventually going to go public or whatever that is, and those investors are going to make their money and they're going to walk away and they don't care anymore, and then all that stuff sort of falls off a cliff afterwards and what'll be interesting is to see.

:: 00:19

Like I said before, I think AI is now across the crest of the hype cycle chart. I think I think we've reached peak AI already Interesting and I think we're coming down the other side. And the reason I say that is because a lot of the conversations I've had lately have been with people and companies who are using AI now in a serious business way. They're not doing it to do fun stuff like write songs and poems and like everybody's played around with it and they've gone. What can we actually do with this to make our business more efficient and what can we do to actually move the business forward? And I'm starting to see a lot more business work being done by it.

:: 01:06

But it's stuff like and again I apologize to everybody who listens to the podcast, but it's the perfect example which is AI reading street addresses of companies. Sunglass Hut in the US has 14,000 locations and when they do a new radio ad they need to insert the address for each one of those locations and normally they would have had to pay a voiceover artist to actually read every single address. No one wants to do that the voiceover even though they're getting paid for it. They don't want to do it Right? That's the perfect application of using AI. So it's a boring, mundane task, and now that we have the technology to replicate the voiceover artist voice, they don't have to do it anymore. Genius and it's doing a lot of back office work and a lot of middle office work, and so we're seeing that sort of thing happen.

:: 01:55

So I think we're on the down slope and I think we're rapidly going to get to the bottom, and that will happen when some of the copyright cases come out. So we've got all these cases around copyright and copied material and how are artists going to get paid, and musicians and everything else, and I think that's bringing the discussion down, and I think when we get to the bottom of that will probably be when those cases are decided, and I suspect that they will end up. It's all about money. That's all it is. It's all about money at the end of the day. So they'll take a big financial hit, they'll pay a lot of the publishers and everything else, and then they'll come to some sort of agreement and then two years later, everyone will forget about it and it'll just be something. It'll be the cost of doing business, it'll be in the background and everybody will move on and it won't be a big deal.

:: 02:43

But that's kind of where I think we are in that, and it feels like exactly the same thing happened. It happened with blockchain, like we had all this big thing about. Oh, blockchain, blockchain is going to be amazing. There were tons of blockchain companies it's all everybody talked about, and then it went silent and no one heard anything about it. But now you have several companies who are doing very complex backend processes for businesses that run on a blockchain and it actually works really well. So they're finding these applications.

:: 03:19

But now it's growing steadily and it's past the hype cycle and I think we saw that with cyber currency and all that and Bitcoin and all that sort of stuff. I mean, you've now got kind of. Satoshi seems to be doing pretty well and there's a lot of applications for it, particularly in like podcasting and video and stuff like that. So you know, I'm getting pitched to all the time for people saying, hey, put your podcast on our platform and you can collect, you know, bitcoins from people and they can give you money and da-da-da, and it's like you know it's so there's something building in the background still, and I just think that that's probably where we are with AI at the minute.

:: 03:55

That's really insightful and you know that definitely jives with what I've read from Nigel Scott on LinkedIn.

:: 04:01

I mentioned him in the earlier chat with Paul Smith this morning, but you know he analyzed the different media hype cycles for a lot of these different trends and basically said the AI falls into that same pattern, where that you just described.

:: 04:17

And so I mean that that would be the outcome, would probably be exactly what he would predict, you know, and his stuff is interesting to read. I think he has some really good thoughts that help add a dose of I don't want to say cynicism, maybe skepticism thoughtful inquiry into the hype, which is important for us to not surrender our critical thinking to the hype. And you know it's interesting to hear it's a very down to earth analysis that you've given. I think it's very insightful and you know that's something that you're a lot more knowledgeable about than I am, and so I'm interested in in like hearing your perspective and observing it, because I don't necessarily have a good feel for where everybody's at with that, you know, and so. But the way you describe that things kind of go back to business is normal, the cost of doing business but then it builds in the background. You know that's a familiar pattern, it's something that we've all been through and that kind of makes sense.

:: 05:13

You know, and I mean I think that the people that get caught up in the AI is going to change everything. A lot of them are really thinking about AGI, which is important to, I suppose, distinguish, and there are things with AGI which could, you know, change things much more rapidly. But at the same time, a lot of people are saying that AGI cannot be built on the type of technology that current generative AI is built with.

:: 05:36

So it's not even like we're necessarily closer to AGI than we were before, or not significantly, so it's kind of a separate thing. But yet somehow this Gen AI hype is created. A lot of AGI hype Well, not not somehow. I mean, it's obvious why it has. It's created a lot of AGI hype, artificial general intelligence, that people are then looking to this kind of God-like artificial intelligence of the future and thinking it's right around the corner and it may be or it may not be, and we may not really be in closer but generative AI.

:: 06:08

yeah, you know it's going to have lots of useful applications, but is it going to change our lives forever? Well, the hype dies down and we'll see.

:: 06:17

We'll see. I suspect it probably will, but in ways that we don't realize. That's the thing. It's going to be the unknown, unknowns. We don't actually know. We're going to guess and we're going to be wrong, because we usually are. I think the so the next. Here's a prediction. The next big hype cycle we're going to see is over quantum. That's building already. We've got early adopters, are doing work on quantum. There's a lot of work being put into it. I think that that's going to be the next big major push that we're going to have.

:: 06:53

I've already registered the quantum podcast network. Terrific, good for you. I'm waiting for that to start, so I'll start. I'll start following some of those together because I'm placing my bet, but. But what's going to be interesting and it's like you said, you know the generative AI and a lot of the tools that we have at the minute are algorithms that have been around, some of them since the 1950s, so mathematically, they've known that this stuff would work. It's just they've never had a compute power big enough to be able to do it at a scale that it was able to sound like a real human.

:: 07:32

Yes.

:: 07:33

Like 10, 15 years ago you could do very small models of this and it it was rough and it worked in the same way. It just it didn't have that the feel in the conversational nature that it has now, because they couldn't put enough variables in, because there just wasn't enough processing power to do it. And this is why I think that we're not going to reach anything close to AGI until we have a working quantum computer and we have quantum compute that's accessible, not even inexpensive. It's going to be eye-wateringly expensive in the beginning, but but some companies will be able to pay that. I mean, apple has a trillion dollars of cash in the bank. It's absurd. So if they wanted to buy one, I mean they could set up a whole company and do their own research on quantum if they wanted to. So I think the biggest companies will have access to that tech and they start to put these models into that or the, the next gen models that come out. That's what's going to propel us into the next, into that AGI. But I don't think we're, I don't think it's physically practical to to have the compute power that we need To do AGI yet. So, yeah, keep, that's my prediction. I predicted it on the ninth of Feb 2024. But yeah, I think quantum is going to be the next big thing, and then I also.

:: 08:54

Another candidate could be fusion power as well, because fusion power is making giant steps forward at the minute. It has a lot of issues as well. It still needs to overcome, but it's not. It won't capture the imaginary. Fusion power is boring because it's electricity at the end of the day and it's not going to capture the imagination that quantum will, you know, like AI does. So that's my, that's why I'm, that's my crystal ball.

:: 09:22

We're right on, I think you're. You're on to something, I mean, and then when the quantum height picks up and in his explodes, the generative AI height will kind of be forgotten. Just kind of like we're getting about blockchain and Bitcoin now with the generative AI height. So yeah, I, I, I see your crystal ball. I think you got something you should. It's too bad, there's not betting odds on that that you can put put down.

:: 09:48

I probably could. Actually, the bookies in the UK will take a bet on anything, so I could probably bet that the next major hype cycle.

:: 09:55

I don't know how we prove that or disprove that, but anyway, in the definitions would be Help you write up the legal terms of the bet exactly, mate, it's.

:: 10:07

We're an hour and ten in already. It's like gone by just like that.

:: 10:12

This has been terrific. I've really enjoyed this conversation.

:: 10:15

Yeah, no, it's been amazing. Is there anything else you want to talk about, because I'm after.

:: 10:20

One thing I don't know sure if I mentioned. This is back to our initial conversation. I don't know if I mentioned I mentioned in the preliminary chat, but I'm not sure if I mentioned it when we were on air. But one thing about preparing your digital landscape to for AI we talked about where AI and other things can pull information from. Make sure you're using structured data, like listings. Where you can, especially for business listings at least use a structured data business listing on your home page. I think I would recommend you go to schemaorg, you know, and learn about that.

:: 10:50

But a lot of sites now, a lot of the sites that even Like, do it for you a wissy way. Template editors for sites even have it built in. But I think that those kinds of things where you have structured data will help Different digital tools be able to pull the information more easily, and so that's something to consider. Right now. A lot of people use that for like questions and answers, so that you can get your stuff in the in the snippets and the featured results in the snippets. But I'm talking about more than just details about your business, you know, or details about your article, some of those meta data kind of things like the structure Data can be really helpful for you as you prepare for that. That's just kind of to speak back to the earlier conversation. I and I think other than that. You know, I feel like we've covered just about everything under the Sun, david.

:: 11:39

Well, that's the idea usually is just to just to have a chat. You know, and I've been wanting to have a chat with you for ages, obviously because you know we do have some stuff in common and and I've liked the. You know, some of the thoughts that you've had about things on, you know, talking on the with Paul Smith and all that sort of so.

:: 11:55

Thank you, I hope. Anytime you're back in the Dallas Fort Worth area, be sure and let me know and we'll go to Joe T Garcia's or wherever you want to go and spend some time together, talking in person. I'd love to get the chance to do that if, whenever you're back in the area.

:: 12:08

That would be amazing. I assume JT's is still open.

:: 12:11

Yeah, it's still there, I can get there in a little while, there about a year ago. Yeah, they're just.

:: 12:17

Go by there and have some enchiladas for me.

:: 12:20

Yeah, amazing, definitely too, but I can't mail them to you.

:: 12:24

No, that would be terrible, and I'm doing the carnivore diet at the minute anyway, so I couldn't. I couldn't eat any of it if I wanted to.

:: 12:29

Oh, okay, there we go.

:: 12:31

That's a whole different thing. I got a whole different YouTube channel about my carnivore diet, but we won't get it, okay, I have to look that up. I'll. I'll send it to you and it's it's at 4dm Brown. It's with the at symbol.

:: 12:44

Okay so if you just go to youtubecom, forward slash and then at symbol and then for the number four and then dm Brown, okay, I post a daily video there and it's the only reason I do. It is because I wanted to practice doing a daily video, oh, and I just thought, well, I started the carnivore diet at the beginning of this year anyway, so I thought, well, that might be a fun thing to do, is just do a daily Kind of video entry, yeah, and to help me improve my video editing skills. So it's the most ridiculous thing ever and it's just me every night at about 10, 30 or 11 o'clock, sort of half bleary, I'd go, and I ate some peanuts today. I think it's a little bit of fun anyway. So, but there you go have fun.

:: 13:29

If you're not having fun, you're not living, and and if you're happy, you've already won. I read that quote somewhere from one someone on LinkedIn talking about workplace satisfaction and and About, you know, the drive for more power and status and money, and he said if you're happy, you've already won, and I think that that's something to remember. Maybe, in all this talk about the future, remember to enjoy the present, cherish the relationships close to you and if you're happy, you've already won and keep hold of that.

:: 13:59

If you're happy, you've already won. I like that. When I started my own company and I was going out to get investment, I kept saying in the when we're successful, when we're successful. And the VCs kept picking up on that and they'd say, well, what does that mean? What do you mean when you're? How do you define success? And I always used to say, when you get to the point that you think that I'm no longer competent to run the company because it's grown beyond me, then that's the point that I consider it successful. And they used to just laugh. They'd be like I love that.

:: 14:34

When you outgrow me, when it outgrows me.

:: 14:37

Yeah, when it outgrows my ability to run it, then I've done my job of getting it up and running right, and in my mind that's when it becomes successful. So there we go. Anyway, another view into my mind, right, rezzy? Thanks very much, man.

:: 14:53

Thank you so much. I hope you have a wonderful weekend and all the best to your listeners. Thank you for spending some time with me.

:: 15:00

You too, cheers. We'll speak to you soon, All right bye.