AI and the Future of Work: Artificial Intelligence in the Workplace, Business, Ethics, HR, and IT for AI Enthusiasts, Leaders and Academics

Stephen Messer, founder of Collective[i], was an attorney and teacher before discovering his passion for entrepreneurship. He started LinkShare (acquired by Rakuten in 2005) which made it possible to pay for clicks on the web. He changed how the web works and now he's using AI to change the world of B2B sales. The world needs more visionaries like Stephen. Hear what fuels him and learn about his process for disrupting legacy industries.Listen and learn...The four words that define what all the best entrepreneurs do better than everyone elseWhy sales is the only job function where "30% productivity is the norm"What's required to use AI to help B2B sales peopleHow to use RPA to automatically update CRM systemsHow Stephen's winning against Salesforce, Microsoft, and HubSpotWhat to look for in a mentorReferences in this episode...The Collective[i] blogStephen on TwitterGoogle PaLMMahesh Ram, Solvvy CEO (acquired by Zoom), on AI and the Future of Work

In this special episode, we unpack the controversy surrounding the sentient chatbot that "worries about its future". Google engineer Blake Lemoine published a transcript of a conversation with the chatbot LaMDA that generated strong reactions from technologists and AI ethicists. It conjured images from science fiction movies that always capture the public imagination.Tiernan Ray, ZDNet writer, accomplished tech journalist,  and good friend of the podcast, joined host Dan Turchin to reflect on the story based on his analysis of the 5,000-word LaMDA transcript.Listen and learn...What will it be like to co-habit a world with thinking machines?What does it mean for an AI to be sentient? Why should we care?Should AI be protected under the 13th amendment?How do we know LaMDA's not sentient from the transcript?What are the ethical implications of developing sentient bots?Did Google act responsibly in developing a bot that is sentient-like?References in this episode...Tiernan's analysis of the LaMDA transcriptMelanie Mitchell on MSNBCBlake Lemoine's interview with Steven Levy in Wire Alan Turing's Imitation Game

Kevin Dewalt, CEO of Prolego, built his first neural net at Stanford in 1995 after graduating from the U.S. Coast Guard Academy. He popularized the term "AI abundance" to describe the path of exponential technologies and how AI adoption is five years from becoming mainstream. He now applies 25 years of studying AI to help organizations embrace the future. Listen and learn...What every company needs to know to succeed with AI.How the most successful organizations approach AI investments.Why Kevin says: "...we haven't had a single project where we've used AI to eliminate jobs."What Kevin feels is the most disruptive field within AI research.Practical applications of NLP and large language models (LLMs) Kevin's contrarian view on AI ethicsReferences in this episode:The world's first AI comic bookKevin's book: Become an AI Company in 90 daysKevin's company: ProlegoSnorkel to automate data labelingAndrew Yang on AI"D" Das, Founder and CEO of Sorcero, on AI and the Future of Work

Giselle Mota, Future of Work principal at ADP, overcame dyslexia and discovered passions for math and AI. Her parents immigrated from the Dominican Republic and taught Giselle the power of perseverance. Now she speaks frequently to global audiences about the importance of using AI responsibly to hire and nurture talent.Listen and learn...How AI accelerates the process of learning new skillsHow to mitigate the impact of bias in automated decision-makingThe dangers of using facial recognition in recruiting and hiring processesHow to design organizations that celebrate cognitive diversityHow to optimize hiring processes to avoid confirmation biasHow many jobs will be created by AI before 2025 according to the World Economic ForumGiselle's coaching for females and under-represented minorities in STEM fieldsReferences in this episode:Your $250 discount from Hello Landing using Giselle's promo code: giselle_itgBernard Marr, FuturistJoy Buolamwini, AI social justice advocateBryan Talebi from Ahura AI on AI and the Future of WorkKai Nunez from Salesforce on AI and the Future of Work

Harish Batlapenumarthy always believed culture is more important than anything else at work. He and the team at Emtropy Labs set out to identify how groups communicate in companies using machine learning. They ultimately landed on listening to customer feedback to automatically generate insights into customer experience metrics like churn risk. Listen and learn...A better way to identify customer sentiment using supervised machine learningWhat techniques are most effective for labeling training dataWhy traditional methods of measuring customer satisfaction are poor at understanding actual customer satisfactionHow to mitigate the impact of bias in training dataHow Harish defines "responsible AI"Why there will always be a need for human customer success managersReferences in this episode...Emtropy LabsChandra Khatri from Got It AI on AI and the Future of Work

Eric Daimler advised the Obama administration on how to have conversations about AI. His work led to the creation of the AI office within the Science Advisory Group of The White House which has now become a cabinet-level position reporting to The President. Eric's a walking encyclopedia about AI policy and he shares all in this fascinating discussion about the future of technology, ethics, and society.Listen and learn...What it's like to shift from academia to venture capital to entrepreneurship to public serviceHow the growth of data sources as well as data creates an unimaginably large number of data relationshipsHow Conexus applied categorical algebra to bring together 300k databases at UberWhy it's data integration limitations that are constraining AI innovation more than compute, storage, or algorithms How category theory is required for smart contracts on blockchains and quantum computing How Eric thinks about when AI should make autonomous decisions vs. requiring human intervention The role of regulation in managing job elimination due to AI The ethical framework Eric proposes for evaluating what decisions AI can and should makeThe challenges of enforcing data policies like GDPR in the EUHow Eric defines "responsible AI"References in this episode...Eric's company, ConexusThe President's Council of Advisors on Science and TechnologyAftershock which includes a chapter by EricEric on Twitter

Mahesh Ram, founder and CEO of Solvvy, set out to "give everyone back time". His company was recently acquired by Zoom to improve customer experiences using conversational AI. Mahesh was inspired by his work using speech recognition to improve business English learning at Global English. Solvvy was founded in 2015 and has raised funding from an exceptional group of investors including previous "AI and the Future of Work" guest Rory O'Driscoll from Scale Venture Partners. Listen and learn...About the three waves of chatbot technologyWhy "more deflection" doesn't need to translate into "lower satisfaction"How Calm uses Solvvy to deliver automated customer serviceWhy AI based on semantic similarity is better than traditional scripted chatbotsWhy "putting the user first" and "not hiding the live agent" is essential for gaining consumer trust in chatbotsHow to address latent bias in data used to train AI modelsWhy bots will never replace live agentsReferences in this episode...Rory O'Driscoll from Scale Venture Partners on AI and the Future of WorkSolvvy acquired by ZoomChandra Khatri from Got It AI on AI and the Future of Work 

Chandra Khatri,  Chief Scientist and Head of AI at Got It AI, was a key team member in the early days of AI at eBay, Amazon, and Uber. He has been on the cutting edge of NLP research for more than a decade and now leads AI at Got It AI. Chandra and the team are making it easier for customers to have conversations with bots.  He's making innovative use of transformers and active learning to use "small data" to train sophisticated large language models to automatically answer customer questions in fields as diverse as healthcare, financial services, education, and defense.Listen and learn… What the AI culture is like at eBay, Amazon, and Uber About transformers, why they’re important, and how they're improving NLP accuracy How we’ve moved AI from search ranking (recommender systems) to other use cases including operations and bots How the rise of open source and no-code tools is making “Google-like” AI maturity accessible to every company How startups with limited access to data can use transfer learning to improve AI accuracy What’s holding back broader adoption of AI in the enterprise How the rise of Technical Product Managers (TPMs) is bridging the gap between engineers and business analysts How to eliminate bias from training data How long before we’ll all have a personal JARVIS References in this episode… Got It AI Chandra on LinkedIn Hugging FaceChristopher Nguyen on AI and the Future of Work

Paul Lee, serial entrepreneur and co-founder of Synesis One, combined his love of games with a passion for NLP and AI. He realized language ontologies can be developed by players solving problems in games. They can be rewarded with NFTs backed by tokens on a blockchain. A brilliant idea... from a Renaissance man who is also a medical doctor and the founder of a care marketplace for veterinarians. This is a fascinating one!  Listen and learn... The future of large language models  (LLMs) How ontologies can be crowd-sourced using games with NFTs as rewardsHow Synesis One is gamifying data yield farming with tokens on a Solana blockchainAbout the first graphic novel that is also an NFT-based sci fi gameWhy Paul selected  Solana instead of the more popular Ethereum blockchainHow to mitigate bias from entering ontologies generated by gamersReferences in this episode:Synesis OneMind AIQuantum NoesisEdmundo Gonzalez from Marpai Health on AI and the Future of Work 

Phil Johnson, founder and CEO of Master of Business Leadership (MBL) and veteran tech exec, overcame adversity as a kid when he was diagnosed with dyslexia. Phil taught himself to learn differently. He has helped organizations generate more than $1.5B by teaching leaders how to improve their emotional intelligence.Listen and learn...Why emotional intelligence is the most important skill for leaders.Why Phil says leaders battle our "500 million year old brain that doesn't like change."What Phil means by this: "we're the virus on the planet and we need to adapt to change to survive as a species."Why toxic environments are leading to record low employee engagement that is costing businesses over a trillion dollars per year.What Phil means by "we're born with an unconscious mind that gets wired as we grow to form habits."How leaders can endure pain and channel passion to get more energy and feel more motivated.How Apple's hiring practices and Putin's invasion of Ukraine are related.Questions to ask to hire candidates with the highest EQ.References in this episode...Matt K. Parker on AI and the Future of Work discussing "radical enterprises"The Master of Business Leadership program