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AI can help us be the self we're trying
to be
and the the person we intend to be in an
interaction with someone else by telling
us where our blind spots are, what we
may be missing,
[Music]
I'm really interested um you know what
do you think if you're start if
someone's starting out in their careers
these days you know in the in the you
know era of AI
you know going into an entry level job
or something you know what what should
they be thinking about what's the
it's a great question I mean ra in
general I think and it's been true for a
for a time even before AI in the last
couple of years
really um lit up in a big way it's been
true for a while that sort of being a
ravenous continuous learner was probably
going to be the secret to success in
life. And that's very um that sounds
easy. Uh it sounds easy to have a growth
mindset. I mean people just say you know
everyone thinks they love to learn
because in some sense we do uh in some
sense human beings do love to learn and
that's innate. Um, but really loving to
learn as an adult in the real world
whose performance is being evaluated,
who has real consequences, right, for
success and failure. It gets awfully
hard to love to learn
because you really are so focused on
looking like you already know
everything, right? That's the headsp
space that we get into. You're terrified
to not look like you you already know
it. And of course that then sort of
forces people into wanting to stay safe,
to stay with what's familiar. And we
really need to to fight that that I
think that the pace of change is not
going to slow down. you know, the
company I work for, we work in the space
of customer service and and using AI and
customer service and you know, the
people that are that are speaking on
phones and and using chats uh you know
with with consumers, you know, it used
to be uh before AI that there was a a
coach uh a manager quality manager that
would basically listen into one in 10 of
their calls or would look review one in
50 of their emails uh and then
subjectively give feedback to And and
the argument would be, well, you just
looked at you listened to my crappy
call. All my other calls were great. You
know, what about the other ones, you
know? So, so we have software that's
been around for quite a while now using
AI that's listening to every call that
they do that is monitoring every email
and actually scoring uh those people on
how well they do, the behaviors they
demonstrate, the outcomes they generate,
all that kind of stuff. So, that allows
you basically to understand the areas
for development. It's not down to, you
know, a coach's opinion on that day who
maybe had a bad night the night before
and is in a bad mood. And then there's
really clever ways of actually executing
that training. You can do very, very
specific AIdriven training for a
particular behavior. You could, for
example, give a demonstration of another
call with someone that one of your
colleagues did where they did a great
example of that particular behavior. And
we even have examples of um uh simulated
customers. So we know a particular uh
agent or employee struggles in this
situation. So we'll s have an AI
simulate a customer uh that will test
that situation and the AI can give
training to the individual the employee
to say look you should have said this
rather than this you should have done
that rather than that.
That's there's such a great example of I
think where the potential for AI rests
in learning and development. Um because
you have you you touched on so many
things I think that are important. Um
one is the idea of really quality
feedback. Feedback in the human and
human world is subjective inherently.
And truthfully a lot of research
suggests the feedback you give is as
much about you as it is about the person
you're giving feedback to for better or
worse. Um, so that that ability to be
getting really rich feedback that is a
little bit less perhaps grounded in your
own like you know kind of subjective
state. I think also you know your
ability to get feedback at the moment
that you could use the feedback. You
know nudging behavior
is much more effective if you can nudge
the behavior in the moment that the
behavior is occurring which is again
very difficult for human managers or
human co-workers to do. Y
but AI can actually kind of give you
that when you could use it most where
it's most likely to change
your performance. So I I think that
those are some of the those are some of
the things that are really rich and and
the idea of also being able to practice
particularly challenging behaviors in a
less threatening environment. The the
reality is human beings care inherently
about what other human beings think of
them.
Sure. And so in in any situation with
another human being present
um it's inherently evaluative even when
people don't want it to be even way they
say it's a have a growth mindset this is
a safe space it's okay to make mistakes
and even if you really mean that on some
level human beings are still going to be
concerned about how they look and there
is that potential with an AI coach in an
AI based simulation to feel about as
free as you can feel I'm Not actually
even sure the evaluation concerns go
away completely, but but but less
threatening, right? Um
more free for to kind of try trial and
error, to do something new, to be
curious, to explore. I think that is one
of the things as a learning scientist
that makes me
really excited about AI to create safe
spaces for people to practice difficult
conversations.
um to practice, you know, giving a
client bad news. That's never a fun or
or or your boss, telling telling
somebody something that you suspect they
may not want to hear. Um and trying to
do that in a way that doesn't demotivate
them or, you know, these these are hard
things. So, I I love that AI can help us
with that. So, I think for young people
coming into the workplace, don't lose
your curiosity. Keep trying to
ravenously learn as many things as you
can. And then again, I think with AI, be
very thoughtful about the shortcuts you
you may be tempted to take at some point
in the, you know, in the moment you
might be able to kind of get the job
done, but eventually you're going to pay
the price because you aren't learning.
So, I think that's one of the things I'd
say, you know, we really have to
exercise some willpower around
is again either trying to use AI as
something that helps you get started.
Yep. Um, but you are still going to do
the synthesis. You're still going to
pull all the notes together. Or
conversely, you start by pulling all the
notes together and then you have the AI
help refine it. What am I missing? What
am I not thinking about how could I
communicate this more effectively? And
and try to use AI as a coach
to give you tips rather than ask it to
rewrite it for you.
Um, again, I recognize that that takes a
lot of discipline. Um, but it's really
going to pay off in the end when you are
in fact an expert
and others who took shortcuts are not.
Yep. You're you're 100% and I think you
hit the nail on the head with the growth
mindset.
Yeah.
You know, and and rather than the fixed
mindset to to recognize that you've
always got room to grow and learn. If
you think back, you know, I don't know,
70, 80 years, people, you know, you had
one profession. Yeah. You go out, you'd
learn that profession that would be your
life's work. That one thing you know for
the last 20 30 years kind of you know
people have had two or three professions
you know as technology came through and
changed things each time these waves. I
think what we're going to see with AI is
that every couple of years. So you're
only going to get through that with the
growth mindset with the recognizing that
what you learned two years ago is no
longer relevant. It's time to learn
again. And you absolutely another good
point which is you know AI is is like a
high performance car or a you know it's
an amazing tool.
It doesn't mean that that everyone can
use that high performance car or tool
the same way.
So then there's the you know knowing
prompt engineering for example you know
being an expert prompt engineer is the
equivalent of being a you know an
amazing car racing driver or something.
You know how to move that car really
really quickly. But that will change
again in a couple of years. So, but I
think you you you really hit it with the
growth mindset's key. I
I'm curious what you think about because
I would say like sort of the two major
categories I hear from leaders who are
reluctant to have their people using AI.
Um
you know that there's even I've heard
the phrase AI shaming, right? To kind of
really discouraging people from using
it. The one concerned we talked about
which is I'm I'm worried my people won't
learn. I'm worried they won't build
expertise. But the other one of course
is is the is the accuracy
um concern, right? And and that you know
again there's a lot of sort of headlines
about hallucinations. It's making up law
cases. It's making up uh citations for
science articles that don't exist.
Um
how do you think about that and and and
and how worried are you about that? and
and and and what if anything do you
think people need to be again those
young people who are starting to use AI
in their roles how they need to be
thinking about how they evaluate output
how they think about whether or not
something I can trust what I'm getting
it's super to the second question first
of all and that's about being really
good at prompt engineering the questions
you ask uh an LLM you know
conversational AI is key and so asking
the right questions is prompt
engineering so getting the right answers
is you can very easily ask an ambiguous
question that is very open to multiple
interpretations that's going to more
likely produce a hallucination that's
today it's early days in a in a year or
so you know it'll be selfcorrecting and
better than that I believe
the first part of your question you know
does it make people lazy
um you could say the same thing you you
know oh we have GPS in our cars now does
it
does it make you lazy that you don't
carry a map around pull over every 10
miles and check the map kind of thing.
Well, kind of. Yes. But actually, you're
no longer focusing on navigation. You've
outsourced that to to something else.
So, you maybe you listen to a podcast
while you're driving your car. Point
being is that that um you know yes it's
going to change things that we
previously had great we we applied great
value to you know writing an essay on
something whatever you know but then it
elevates us to something that's even
more valuable and even greater um done
done correctly long as technology is not
not um you know it's the equivalent of
someone moves from sewing clothes to you
know building the machines that that uh
makes clothes for example or a fashion
designer because we can produce so much
in the way of clothing these days
there's new roles around fashion design
as well because it's it's now
commoditize the production of clothes as
a commodity the so AI is going to do the
same thing it's going to commoditize
things that we previously held a lot of
value for
but then as you said will then elevate
to higher purpose higher value
activities
I love that thinking about the potential
for because you were talking about, you
know, the right prompt can mitigate
the odds of a terrible answer. And we
think about that with, you know,
confirmation bias, right? If if you
write a prompt and you say, "Tell me why
Taylor Swift is the greatest songwriter
who ever lived, then uh then it's going
to tell you why she is." And if you say,
but if they were to say, and then tell
me who does if there's anyone who
doesn't think that and why they don't
think that, now you're going to get, and
it's literally what we teach when we
teach decision- making.
Um, and for how people to think about
how, you know, now not to fall prey to
certain assumptions or certain biases,
you're kind of building it in.
But it's also,
you know, the reality is if you just
took a decision-making course as a
leader
10 years ago, we would teach you all of
these techniques on on how to make
better decisions. Some of them are quite
challenging. If I say, well, you need to
to engage in critical thinking, let's
say. Uh you need to think about all of
the assumptions you're making and
surface them.
Well, that's a
that's a challenging thing to do.
Assumptions are are almost inherently
unconscious. So, even if I sit there for
a long time and I think about what are
all the assumptions I'm making that are
leading to this decision, I may get some
of them.
um maybe if I'm using the perspectives
of other people, I'll surface a bit
more. AI can be a brilliant partner in
decision making because you can ask it,
hey, what are some of the assumptions I
may be making here? And the odds, you
know, it'll find some and go, oh yeah,
you know what? I am making that
assumption. Is that okay, is that a
valid assumption? Is there information
suggests that that assumption is no
longer true? things we told people to do
for decades to make better decisions
are so much easier.
Yeah.
With something like AI to augment the
process
and what you just just described is
prompt engineering. You know that that's
exactly it. Giving telling it
assumptions validate my assumptions is
prompt engineering. So it's a it's it's
something that was meaningless. No one
had heard of prompt engineering 2 years
ago, right? But you know many
entry-level jobs that come up in the
future I believe this will be a
fundamental prerequisite and being good
at that I imagine there'll be degree
courses at least for a few years until
it's succeeded around you know clever
smart uh prompt engineering to get the
best out of that high performing vehicle
which is AI. Well, and and again, it's
one of those things where, you know, we
there there's a certain expedience to
having people write mega prompts and
then you go, okay, here you can use my
mega prompt. Okay, that's fast. I get
it. But what's even better is to really
have people studying the process of
because then you are learning.
In order to make a really great mega
prompt that takes me through a whole
process,
I need to understand why each piece of
that prompt was necessary. And so along
the way I'm learning things like well
there's something called the
confirmation bias. If you ask a question
a certain way asking for evidence for
one thing that's what you're going to
get right. So so it's exciting for me to
think about all the things we can teach
through the process of teaching
prompting that helps people to arrive at
better questions
better and more thorough understanding
of information. You know how do we get
people to think rationally about risk?
That's incredibly hard. Loss aversion is
a very strong impulse um in the brain.
But through really good prompting, we
can get people to actually think through
information in a much more even-handed
way. So, I'm I'm very excited
about the future of decision making. Y
with AI because it's not about AI making
the decision for you.
It's about it really helping you to see
the things that you might be missing.
Um, which I think and treating it like
the the futurist Bob Johansson said this
in one of his books and it cracked me up
but I think it's a really great analogy
that that AI at least in current in its
current state is sort of like a a a
really well- read but overly confident
intern
that's with you all the time. And I love
that idea's only as good as the training
it's got
and as the person who again is sort of
behind the wheel. Yeah. Yeah.
Um, and I think that that that human in
the loop part is so important that we're
still going to need people.
I mean, when you think about that, what
are the things you think of that we're
kind of always or at least for the
foreseeable future going to want a human
playing a role in sort of like there's
the things we'll let AI do and that
we'll let agents do. Where to you are
the most important places for
humans to still actually be a big part
of the equation? Very very good question
and and um you know I think everyone's
going to be different
um you know clearly there's moments that
matter uh where you need that human
connection um you know and and it may be
an emotional moment it may be something
that's uh requires empathy um it could
be something that's of massive
significance that can't go wrong um so I
think uh you know we're going to need
that that moment but what's interesting
is those moments that matter
where there's a human probably that
human you're interacting with is
leveraging AI,
you know, in some way to to make them
super human to help the problem that you
have.
um you know and again we're talking a
little bit about business here and
there's kind of the other aspect I think
this that that really is interesting is
how AI is going to help people in their
personal lives you know and it's uh
you know and that human connection and
stuff and that so and and you know I
think I'm really interested in your
opinion as a psychologist in this you
know we're all familiar with the the
algorithm you know and the rabbit hole
and the fact that that social media is
is is is is so personalized that it
takes people down these kind of rabbit
holes of very individualist lonely
places in many cases.
And I I you know I've got a strong hope
that we're going to use AI to to create
shared communities, shared water cooler
type places of like-minded people, you
know, who can get together and share
things either in the real world or in,
you know, in in virtual spaces as well
rather than kind of this this the rabbit
holes we find ourselves in today. I
mean, I think in general that I believe
that that's going to be the case. I do
feel
to me some of the places where AI can
help us be better humans the most are
those places where for some reason or
another there is sort of a human quirk
or a or a a or a sort of a limited
capability that AI can help us augment.
Right? So, right now the solution for
not going down the rabbit hole is people
say put your phone down.
Okay. Well, that's hard, right? Because
my phone is full of interesting things.
Um, and all kinds of things that give me
those little dopamine hits that I'm I'm
looking at. They'll also give me a lot
of dopamine deficit, but it'll give me
those dopamine hits. And very often, you
know, when do we want people to put
their phone down? Well, we want them to
put it down at night
because there's lots of research that
shows it's terrible to be on your phone
right before you try to get sleep. Um,
when do we have the least willpower to
do something like that? at night,
right?
Because you have spent it. Willpower is
a limited resource. We all spend it all
day long. Every time we make decisions,
every time we resist an impulse, every
time someone sends you an email and you
don't immediately fly off the handle
with a we're using that limited supply
and and as we go out, I mean, this is
why happy hour exists, right? By the end
of the day, it all just, you know, that
it seems like a really good idea. So I
think those places where AI can really
help us be the people we want to be is
where we can use it as a almost like you
would a human partner who is saying hey
like you know this is really the time
you wanted to put your phone down let's
do something else instead that it's it's
helping manage your day
giving you little tips like hey maybe
you want to you've been staring at your
computer screen for 2 hours maybe you
should do something for five minutes
that replenishes you and puts a little
bit of that gas back in the tank and I
happen to know that you enjoy these
kinds of 5minute activities. Here are
some suggestions. Right? So I think it's
really exciting. I think those places
where we struggle to be our best selves
um where we have our blind spots where
we kind of maybe there are unconscious
forces that are undermining the pursuit
of our goals. That AI can play a role in
helping us
um in those moments where we need it
most. I think is so exciting.
It's it's really cool. It's it's connect
argument I have with my kids um around
AI and personalization. So and
especially with art for example. So you
know we're all familiar with like
playlist of you know
music that's that's you know created for
you the you know based on what you
listen to what you've liked you know you
get a list of songs that that predicted
you'll like.
In the age of AI you know this will go
beyond you know there'll be music that's
created for you. you know, it's not an
artist that exists. It's just AI that's
created the perfect music for you for
that moment
or even the perfect movie
for you in that moment. You know, that
that what you need at that time.
So, one of the arguments I have with my
kids is quite interesting. It goes this
kind of idea of a rabbit hole cuz
the movie that's created just for you at
that particular time is the ultimate
rabbit hole. You're you're in this
lonely place watching this lonely movie
created for you, but it's hitting all
the dopamine you need at that time. Um
my kids argument which is quite
interesting is is the idea of community.
Um you know and actually part of the
reason they like a movie or like a song
isn't because it's good for them but
they know other people like it as well
and other people have watched it as
well. So sure. Yeah. So, so what's quite
interesting to me is, you know, if AI is
going to generate content, you know, to
what degree is that personalized? Is it
personalized to the individual or to a
group of friends or to a society or to
humankind?
Great question. It's such a social
psychologist question because we we
think about I when we think about
identity for years, for decades, social
psychologists have thought about
identity as being a com. It isn't it
isn't who you are individually or your
group identities. It's all of those.
Right? So you are a unique individual
but the groups to which you belong um
that are meaningful to you um along all
kinds of different those are important
as well. And but and what tends to be
the case is that people fluctuate a bit.
Um so it it can fluctuate by culture.
So, in some cultures, your group
identities tend to be more important
than your individual identity, right?
Um, and vice versa. But I think it's
also going to move kind of throughout
your day where there may be moments
where what you're really craving is
something that is uniquely for you
and that's that's the that's the piece
you want in that moment. But I think
there's also always going to be the
things that you feel connect you to
other people.
Yes. Um, so it's probably an it's an and
it's probably I do want some there may
be an evening where I want the movie
that was made for me. There may be more
evenings where I want something that I
feel like I can I can share with people
or that others are sharing with me. And
I think we're going to see that it's
it's quite fluid because I I I for one,
it's funny that
thinking about creativity and the arts.
Um, I do see that there we certainly
artists are already and will continue to
augment their art through with AI as a
helper. I do think it still matters to
people and probably again will
uh forever because I think it's a human
nature thing that there is a human
behind the art, right? That there's a a
human behind the music.
Um, there's a human behind a great piece
of of pros or or or film making or or a
designer. Um, however, that they'll be
augmented a bunch certainly. Um, and and
I think I I think it will always matter,
but I think there will be those moments.
It's like elevator music. There's going
to just be some times you're like, "No,
I just want the manifest." Yeah, I just
want the thing that was manufactured for
me right now.
Um, and then I think there'll be times
where just really where the meaning
comes from
uh the meaning of something comes from
the sharedness with other humans. I
think that's probably always going to be
true.
I think that's 100%. And you know, in
the same way that sometimes we'll want a
burger,
you know, and other times we want like,
you know, a beautiful meal in a really
nice restaurant.
Absolutely.
Life's about the all of those choices
and having those as well. And I'm hoping
that
AI doesn't just become fast food for
everyone. Uh, and we have, you know, the
right, you know, the right approach to
it like we do with other parts of our
lives. So,
well, Barry, I just want to thank you so
much. This was so much fun. I mean, this
is one this is one of these topics I
can't stop talking about. Um, but it was
really great to to be able to talk to
someone who is, I think, not only sort
of at the forefront of what we are doing
today with AI, but someone who's
thinking so deeply about what we're
going to be doing with it in the future.
So, thank you.
That's a pleasure. And thank you, Heidi.
It's really, really good to speak to an
expert in behavioral psychology. And,
uh, I think it's going to be interesting
years ahead as AI, you know, wave hits
and what it means for people. So, you've
got some interesting interesting work
ahead and thank you for your time.
Yeah, I think we'll both have lots to
do. Yes. So, thanks.
Cheers.
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