On this week's episode of Inside Outside Innovation, Robyn and Brian talk about the human skills needed to adapt to AI, how YouTube is changing the media landscape, and how we might just be becoming lesser apes. 

Let's get started. Inside Outside Innovation is the podcast to help innovation leaders navigate what's next. Each week, we'll give you a front row seat into what it takes to grow and thrive in a world of hyper-uncertainty and accelerating change. Join me, Brian Ardinger, and Miles Zero's Robyn Bolton as we discuss the latest tools, tactics, and trends for creating innovations with impact. Let's get started.

[00:00:40] Brian Ardinger: Welcome to another episode of Inside Outside Innovation. I'm your host, Brian Ardinger. And with me, I have Robyn Bolton from Mile Zero. Welcome, Robyn.

[00:00:48] Robyn Bolton: Thank you. Great to be here, Brian.

The Human Skills to Adapt to AI

[00:00:50] Brian Ardinger: Let's dive in. We've got a lot of things on our plate. A lot of things are happening. We've got a number of articles we wanted to discuss of things that we're seeing out there in the world.

The first one I wanted to call people's attention to was from Shane Snow. If you're longtime listeners, you may have seen Shane on our podcast, episode 104, when he had another book coming out. His latest article is The Human Skills that Will help us adapt to AI and Not Die. 

[00:01:17] Robyn Bolton: Not that things are bleak or, or anything, but yeah, exactly.

[00:01:19] Brian Ardinger: So Shane is a pretty talented thinker. His article sets the stage with comparing AI to what happened in early Tang Dynasty and China when they discovered gunpowder. And the fact that this gunpowder innovation changed the world in many different ways and democratized the peasants to be able to take over the emperor and everything else.

That innovation quickly moved around the world, and it changed to the point where you either had to adapt to this and or die. And he talks a little bit about how that can be a parable to what we're seeing in today's world of AI. 

[00:01:59] Robyn Bolton: Especially interesting, his characterization of the speed and the speed of adoption, and kind of saying, okay, well, you know, the Chinese had gunpowder first. Why didn't they take over the world? And it's basically because very, very quickly Europe and the rest of Asia, and adopted gunpowder.

And so, we're seeing that now is like every company is racing to adopt AI. I also just have to think like, yeah, but some people probably adopted gunpowder and didn't know what they were doing and blew their faces off.

So, there's also that risk. But it was an interesting, certainly parallel to people are moving fast to adopt AI, to claim expertise in AI, to claim what AI can do, and there's good reason for folks to adopt it, but there's also risks along the way, and we have to be eyes wide open about it. 

[00:02:54] Brian Ardinger: I think he talks, you know, a lot about the fact that it's not necessarily the technology itself that makes the changes, it's how we adapt to the technology. And you know, what gives us an advantage are inherently human characteristics, not the technology itself.

So, he talks about the advantage that we're going to have going into AI, the ones that are going to have the most advantage. While using this new technology or new gunpowder, rather than blowing up your face, how are you going to be and learn the skill sets of asking sharper questions and making smarter decisions? And weighing the human value around it, and collaboration, a lot of these kind of human-based tool sets to modify or use or mold the technology in a way that doesn't blow up in our face.

[00:03:35] Robyn Bolton: Yeah, and you know, as we talked about in the last episode, if AI can be poisoned by 250 documents. You need a human layer of critical thinking and questioning on top of it to get to the right answer.

The Human Pace of Change

[00:03:49] Brian Ardinger: And I don't think a lot of people or enough people are talking about the human aspect of it. A lot of times we've been talking about it internally in that, and you think the valuations of all these AI companies and all those folks are pushing it so much and the best case scenario is going to be what this is, but I don't think a lot of folks are really understanding the human aspect of it around just the consumer behavior or the adoption behavior.

I think people are underestimating the fact that it takes a long time for humans to really want to do something different. And so, it may not be tomorrow that this happens; it may actually end up taking 10 years for people to get into their head or learn how to use it or whatever the case may be.

So, there's this pushing and pulling about how fast and the adoption, and I just inherently think that humans in general take a little longer to come around to some of this kind of stuff, especially game-changing stuff. 

[00:04:38] Robyn Bolton: Yeah, absolutely. And that may not be a bad thing. I heard at a conference I was at a couple weeks ago, people describing AI as like, it's in its infant state, it's not even yet a toddler, let alone elementary school. So we're getting promises of, oh hey, it's in college. Trust it. But maybe we shouldn't. So it is a push and pull on the human side, on the technology side. It's very interesting. Lots of sparks. 

[00:05:04] Brian Ardinger: Yeah, absolutely. I think the skillset that's gonna be most valuable is your ability to adapt.

[00:05:09] Robyn Bolton: Yes, absolutely.

YouTube Ate TV

[00:05:11] Brian Ardinger: Well, our second article is from the Hollywood Reporter and it's YouTube, just ate TV: it's only getting started. So, a Hollywood reporter talks a little bit about the rise of YouTube and how effectively it is becoming the TV of today, and it is changing the dynamics of basically all media, podcasts, and other things, and how is this going to affect the world?

[00:05:33] Robyn Bolton: I have to say, in a coincidence of timing, I was. Was flipping through Instagram last night, and the Detroit Lions put out a little video and it has one of their players talking to a kid who looked like he was probably six. And the player's like, Hey, what cartoons do you watch? And the kid was like cartoons? Whatcha talking about? He is like, I watch YouTube.

And the player was like, no cartoons. What cartoons? And you just saw this player who's probably like maybe 24, like just crumble into a pile of ancient dust. He's like, dude, I am not that old. What do you mean you don't watch cartoons? And I thought it was just such a perfect encapsulation of what the article talks about of YouTube is taking over, not just TV, but entertainment and there's still places it's wading into. 

The article talks about how it's trying to get into scripted series, or creators are trying to get into scripted entertainment, but it is remarkable just the numbers and the article and what it talks about.

[00:06:36] Brian Ardinger: I think Scott Galloway and Kara Swisher on Pivot, one of their most recent episodes, they were talking about, where do you get your news? And it's like, well, I get it from the New York Times, or The Economist or whatever. And they started having a conversation it's like, well, not really. I mean that's the ultimate source, but I actually get it from Instagram or YouTube, and you know, that's where I'm actually consuming the news.

It's not from the people or the normal places where you would get that before being chopped up and put into, you know, micro doses all around your different streams. And how's that going to change how we fundamentally learn about things? How do we find and communicate? How do we learn? I know my son, he's on YouTube all the time when he wants to learn and whatever new skill it is, you can pop whatever you want into the channel and somebody's figured out how to do whatever X, Y, Z thing you need to learn. And it, it helped him to quickly learn how to do the Rubik's Cubes, for example. 

[00:07:28] Robyn Bolton: It is truly an amazing technology, an amazing company. So, democratizing so many things like ushering and change in so many areas. And it was eye-opening to read the article and see the magnitude of what they're doing.

Lesser Apes: Are We Getting Dumber?

[00:07:46] Brian Ardinger: And we'll see how that continues to play out. Obviously, Google, they were very smart to buy it a while back and continues to pay dividends for them moving forward. The last article is from the Generalist, and it's called Lesser Apes: as AI Gets Smarter, Will We get Dumber? David Krakauer, president of the Santa Fe Institute in this article makes a distinction between competitive cognitive artifacts and complementary ones, and talking about examples.

So like the abacus. It's a classic complementary artifact. It doesn't actually calculate on your behalf, but it amplifies your abilities. And his argument is that AI is actually kind of the opposite of that consumer AI interfaces, you know, they want to come to the goal and give you the answer. And what are we losing if we start losing that muscle and the ability to, you know, not be complimentary to help us, but be competitive against it?

[00:08:40] Robyn Bolton: Yeah. I thought it was so interesting that framing of not thinking with you but thinking for you, and the importance of so many activities that we do in school, but then also in our early jobs and working life where you're doing mind-numbing work, like summarizing a meeting.

But in the process of summarizing that meeting, you're learning synthesis. You're learning how to write, you know, really tight sentences. You're building a lot of foundational skills. The AI is just taking notes for you. Are you learning that? So it was very interesting to think of AI that way. There was something else that was in the article that really just kind of felt like a gut punch, you know, talking about how AI's pulling everything in. But the article says it must stay within its distribution. It is searching for the center. Not the edge.

And it just made me think about, again, several episodes ago we talked about why is design all starting to look the same? And as more and more innovators are using AI for brainstorming and ideation, coming up with ideas, it's always going to bring you to the middle, not to the edge. And especially in creative endeavors, we need to be at the edge. 

[00:09:56] Brian Ardinger: And I've been hearing more contradictory advice around this. Like some folks are saying, Hey, think for yourself first, and then use AI to augment it. And you know, from that perspective, I, I've heard other folks that they first go to AI to start the engine and then based on that, then they can go and actually think differently.

I don't know which is the best at this point. I've gone back and forth on how, depending on the project, whether I go to AI first to generate some things versus thinking about what I need to do and then going to the AI to help on that particular path. And it may be different for each particular thing that you're trying, but I think we are in that experimentation mode where we don't know what's the best way to use it, and our goal is to experiment, try and, and try to figure out how it works and how it works best.

[00:10:38] Robyn Bolton: It is that question of how does it work best? When do you use it in the process? What do you use it for? We're a little bit more advanced in our careers, Brian, you and I, we have gone through the formative phases and you know, I think the article mentions about how students aren't being assigned entire books anymore.

They're being assigned summaries and so it's not just an AI issue, it's kind of this bigger issue of where are we teaching people to think now? Where are we giving them the training that builds the thinking skills that allow us to constructively interact with AI and not get dumber? So it, it raised a lot of really great questions and ended with a lot of really great encouragement. Especially my favorite one is like, go be bored. I'm like, yes, absolutely.

Boredom, Anxiety, and the Value of Thinking Time

[00:11:24] Brian Ardinger: I was reading a different article talking about how today's younger generation, their default state is anxiety versus what our default state as a kid was, boredom, and how does that affect what you do and how you do it if your default state is boredom and you've got to figure something else out, versus, I'm living in a constant state of an anxiety because everything is figured out for me and I have no downtime to think and, and no downtime to explore or experiment or, or try different things.

[00:11:51] Robyn Bolton: I mean, if we weren't bored, we would never know that the floor is made of lava and how to get around in a situation like that. I mean, it may be spurred later on, anxiety skills. The floor is made of lava, we have a problem, but come on, boredom led to a lot of fun games.

Tactics to Try: Networks and Feral Intellects

[00:12:08] Brian Ardinger: Alright, well now we're onto our next segment called Tactics to Try. This week I'm going to throw out a tactic about how do you map your network?

I'm always thinking about, like, who am I interacting with and what am I learning from these folks? And so, one of the things I've been looking at is I've been going onto to my LinkedIn and I'm going through the last 50 to a 100 people that I've connected with in the last three to four months. And what can I learn from that?

Where am I meeting these folks? Are they in the same industry? Are they the same location? Do I have any outliers? And then taking a proactive approach and saying, okay for the next three months, how can I remap this network? Or who else do I need to include it into it? Or am I getting too bogged down in a particular industry?

I need to find some friends or colleagues or folks that can talk to me about, you know, something else. And so, it's just, you know, a little tactic to try. Go back to your LinkedIn, take a look at the last 50 people that you've actually linked into, and start seeing what you can learn from that. 

[00:13:04] Robyn Bolton: I love that and it's such great advice, and I went totally the opposite direction as you are going out, connecting with the world, reconnecting with people, I went inward and so inspired by that last article that we talked about towards the end, as I said, there's this great sentence that we must, each of us cultivate a feral intellect. And one of the ways to do that to cultivate a feral intellect, was to read a difficult book. So, I started reading, went back to grade school, Huckleberry Finn because I was going to read James, but I'm like, I don't remember anything from Huckleberry Finn. So I'll pair the two books together. So, I've gone back, I'm reading Huckleberry Finn, and one, I can't believe they let us read that book in school about.. 

[00:13:49] Brian Ardinger: It is on the band book list for many, many cities. 

[00:13:52] Robyn Bolton: A kid who essentially goes feral. That would've just given us way too many ideas. And I also love that we were assigned the book to read. So yes, I am endeavoring to cultivate a feral intellect by basically reading books I had to read in junior high. And I would encourage others to do that too. 

[00:14:09] Brian Ardinger: I would say it's not a hundred percent divergent from what I was thinking. It's just taking, rather than going outside and talking to real humans, just going inside to learn and talk to humans in different environments that aren't necessarily always into.

[00:14:21] Robyn Bolton: Yes. Different places and times.

Closing Thoughts

[00:14:24] Brian Ardinger: Exactly. Excellent. Well, that's another episode of Inside Outside Innovation. Look forward to hosting you next time and look forward to having everybody back here to talk about innovation. So, thanks for coming out. Thank you. That's it for another episode of Inside Outside Innovation.

That's it for another episode of Inside Outside Innovation. Today's episode was produced and engineered by Susan Stibal. If you want to learn more about our teams, our content, our services, check out insideoutside.io. Or if you want to connect with Robyn Bolton, go to MileZero.IO, and until next time, go out and innovate.


Articles Discussed

The Human Skills That Will Help Us Adapt To AI (And Not Die) - Shane Snow (Inside Outside Innovation - Episode 104)