Rizing Evolution – The Future Proofed Enterprise Podcast
Episode 3 Transcript: Generative AI: Could’ve, Would’ve, Should’ve?
(Editors note: this transcript was machine generated then lightly edited. You can also read a summary of this episode, watch the original episode on LinkedIn or see the list of all podcast episodes.)
Bonnie Graham
All right, we’re recording and let me start the go live and here we go. OK, all I’m going to say to my guests is behave yourselves. That’s the last warm up. Green, Green, Green room comedian comic. Warning I’m going to give you that’s it.
Intro
Welcome to a fresh perspective on business technology. This Rizing Evolution. The future proofed enterprise presented by Rizing, a Wipro company you’ll hear from business and technology innovators who know how to use the latest technologies and business strategies. To transform industries and importantly, help these technologies and strategies can be shaped to your business needs in your way, help your organization move in exciting new directions. Now here’s your host and moderator, Bonnie D Graham.
Bonnie Graham
Thank you. And disembodied ladies voice, we appreciate the intro. This Rizing evolution and the future proofed enterprise. We’ll put these shows together, but today we have a very, very timely topic and I’m not going to give you the title. Just yet, because those of you follow my other shows and this show know that I like. Ask ChatGTP to write a poem for me. For my monologue started this a couple of months ago. Now, just be aware that this relates directly to our topic today and that I always add the human element, so I’ll change a word or two here or there. I’ll change the rhyme scheme something so it’s not just AI, so don’t worry. So here we got everybody. Listen up. Listeners and viewers gather round. Lend an ear to a tale of tech that’s drawing so near generative AI a force to behold in enterprise. Its story is being. Told November 30th, 2022, a date we can Revere ChatGPT emerged, a true AI pioneer, a world ablaze with endless streams replacing busy work with digital streams. Questions abound as corporate minds swirled. What’s the truth of AI in this evolving world? Do we truly need its mighty hand? And navigate this futuristic lag. And the AI bandwagon? It’s what Martin likes us already. The AI bandwagon. It swiftly rides. Are you prepared to join, to take the strides ignored till now? Is it too late? Will your organization meet a daunting fate if you’re not, dear audience for insights on the way at Rizings Roundtable, where gathered ready to convey. Raise your hand wave. Will I call your name? Martin Stenzig, Charles A Wilson, Josh Cavalier and Aaron Green with Bonnie D. That’s me helming the scene. They bring their wisdom, their visions bright on generative AI. They shed the light, could have, would have, should have, will explore in this digital age where possibilities. Sore. OK, let’s. Get the take how did I do? What do you think, Martin? Did you like it?
Martin Stenzig
Ohh, fantastic, You know, couldn’t have said it any better, but you know, we’ll talk about generative AI and capability a little bit. Later I guess.
Bonnie Graham
Absolutely. Chachi P and I and I worked very hard in this. Charles, what do you think? Do we give a thumbs up from you?
Charles Wilson
Fabulous. That was great.
Bonnie Graham
He liked it. Aaron, what do you think?
Aaron Green
Loved it, Bonnie. I want to know how long it took you with Chachi. BT on that.
Bonnie Graham
It took approximately. I took my written text monologue that I prepared that you’ve all seen the opening that Hannah wrote for me, for the topic. I put it in. I said make a poem for my opening monologue. It took less than 3 seconds for it to return the entire. Home and then took me about another 10 minutes to go over it and change words here and there. So a total of investment, I’d say of 10 minutes and three seconds. How’s that?
Well, it’s all in the reading, you know that? It’s, it’s. All in the live reading now we’re going to have a very serious conversation about generative AI. Could have, would have, should have. Yes, we know that. So I’d like to go around the table and have each of my esteemed panelists introduce yourselves. Please take about 3 minutes. That’s our guidance here. So we get a lot of everybody’s voices on the air. And Martin, you were on with me last week. So, Martin, I did the math. I have a special AI audience calculator and I figured out that there are 12.79326 people in the world who don’t remember you from last week. I’m sorry, Martin. I didn’t want to offend you, but I mean, it’s really serious. Would you please remind all of us who you are? I’m putting you on speaker of you, Martin.
Martin Stenzig
I’m the chief technology officer at Rizing, but also these days I’m responsible for everything. SAP’s business technology platform and Rizing. And our parent company, Wipro. So I’m grateful to be here. The reason why I like this topic is especially in my Chief Technology Officer role. I look at technologies, especially new and forward leaning technologies that that bring real business. Value to our customers. So we always want to temper the hype and but look at the same time at at revolutionary things and I always call it the space X Factor. So we have lots of IT projects these days where. On we’re finding business benefits in the realm of three to 5%. I think this and other technologies were that we’re finding in the market though today are sort of you know ramping us up into the 2530% factor and that’s really game changing. That’s sort of what we as organizations need to look at both from a risk perspective but also from an opportunity perspective. As to how we can improve our businesses today, so excited to be here. Thank you. So much money.
Bonnie Graham
Thank you. And I have to tell everybody it’s the middle of the night in Australia where Martin is traveling this week. So you are our you are our round, the clock hero. Thank you so much, Martin, for staying up. We’re getting up for this. We appreciate it. Let’s go around the table. Next stop is Charles A Wilson. Charles, you’re new. So everybody wants to know who you are. Go ahead. Tell us please.
Charles Wilson
Wonderful. Well, Bonnie, thank you so much for having me join the show. So I’m a principal consultant at Wipro. I’ve that I’ve been in this space for about 25 years, focused on implementing analytics solutions, performance management solutions and what used to be called Cognitive Solutions, which is now AI and chat etcetera. Why am I passionate about this subject? There was an experience I had early in my career where I worked for a company. It was around 2000, so it dates me a little bit, but at that time the company had was going through a significant downturn. You know as it related to technology, they had had a failed. Merger and acquisition, they had spent a whole bunch of money on technology that they weren’t getting the value out of it. And on top of all of that, their CFO had stolen $30 million from the company. So I got to be part of the turnaround team for that. And yeah, you can’t I can’t imagine but so One of the exciting things there was obviously we saw what you shouldn’t do in an organization, but we also were able to get involved and really drive some benefits in that company around technology, around good leadership. And that company is thriving today, its called targets.
But so why am I passionate? Because I’ve seen what an impact this sort of technology can make on organizations. So I’m excited. To talk about it today.
Bonnie Graham
Thank you very much. Thanks for the history. I will tell you, Charles, when you see the video, you’ll see that while you were giving your bio in your story, I went to a couple of full gallery shots because the reactions from the other. Including me had to be captured on camera, so forgive me. It wasn’t just. This just Charles. It’s like, whoa. Wow. Thank you, Charles very much. Let’s go around the table. Next stop to Josh Cavalier. Josh. Welcome. Nobody on this show knows you all are. You were on one of my other tech shows last week. So let’s pretend nobody has any clue who you are. Josh. I’ll ask. Go ahead.
Josh Cavalier
All right, very good, Bonnie. Excellent to be here. Hello, everyone. Josh cavalier. I’m the founder of joshcavalier.ca. And I started way back in 1994 with an e-learning company based here in Charlotte, NC did that for about five years. After that I started a training company called Lodestone. We were one of the top Adobe authorized training partners. United States ran that for 22 years, decided to jump back into corporate. After the whole entire period and work for a $5 billion supply chain company in the L&D function, specifically helping out with learning analytics, uh helped implement like Microsoft Teams during COVID and was on the AI Advisory Board for that company and then in March Had the bug again and decided to jump out and go exclusively with AI and one of the reasons why I was so excited is about human performance, and I think we’re about ready to get into a phase of technology to where it’s an empowerment phase and for many people, you know, there’s a lot of talk about Jobs being eliminated. Some of that may happen, but I really do think that it’s gonna be transformative. And for many of us, we’re gonna be able to show up differently and show up better. And that’s what I’m really interested in. And I can’t wait to see where it goes.
Bonnie Graham
Thank you. Very well. Put, show up differently and show up better. Just keep an open mind. Right. Thank you very much to us. That’s why you’re here. Because of that background. And let’s go around to our fourth seat, not the last seat. The 4th seat around the table. It’s Aaron green. Erin, please give us the introduction and tell us why you’re here today. Welcome.
Aaron Green
Thanks, Bonnie, and thanks everybody for joining today. So, I’m Aaron Green, I have the privilege of being the chief marketing and solutions officer at SAP SuccessFactors. I’m what I like to call a little bit of a recovering HR professional. So I started my career in HR about 25 years ago and made the jump into vendor land have ever since. Spent my career really helping HR organizations figure out how to better engage their workforce, better, retain their workforce, and attract new work. Course and this conversation has felt really cyclical. I think for many of us for many years. And I think the thing about generative AI and the what is it on November 30th? So we got 16 days to the one year anniversary of ChatGPT.
But the big thing around this it’s really democratized access to data for people and that’s the real potential I think for organizations because that in turn creates not just equity inside of an organization, but social equity as well. And I think that’s a really important thing as we look at where the world is today and also where the world could be. Bonnie, I will just say in wrapping it up, you do much better with ChatGPT than I do, could you not? I have spent probably about four hours of my life trying to get at Dally, which is the image search or the image creation to create an image of clowns being chased by zombies. And I still cannot get it right. So you’re going to need to teach me how to do this.
Bonnie Graham
Aaron, I will tell you I’m using an app called Night Cafe Studio and there are so many phenomenal designers on that, I call them my arts bar. And I do pictures of people, I generate them in AI. I can show you some later if we have a moment at the end of the show, I’ll put a few up on my green screen here and I create a I’ll just say redhead happy red lipstick microphone and I get a woman who doesn’t look anything like me. But she’s pretty cool, and then I print them on clear acetate 8 1/2 by 11 film. I went down the hall to my art studio, which was the sunroom for the people who own the house before. I slap the acetate down on 12 by 12 inch white card stock and I rub furiously over the back of it and transfer what’s left of the ink quite. Air dries fast on to the card stock and then I look at it and I say what do I want to do with this and I use acrylics. I use watercolors, I use Sargeant glitter glue. I use collage papers that I make. And I bring it to life and that’s what I call my artspark so I can do a lesson with you. Aaron, if you want. Because we can get those. Whatever you said you want. And there are some pretty cool designers on Night Cafe I can introduce you to. OK, we’ll solve your problem. We will. I promise. This will be the art show. Thank you all for the BIOS. I am very, very impressed with each of you and all of you. And that’s why you’re all here. Because it’s really a hot topic. And I will tell you that I didn’t know anything about ChatGPT.
And on my technology revolution show, I do an annual crystal ball prediction show and a gentleman from SAP who had a series with me for 11 years on for the CFO Financial Excellence with. Game changers, he said. This was January of last year, he said. I just discovered something called ChatGPT and everybody looked at him like what? Everybody got 3 minutes or 10 people on the panel. Everybody looked him like what? The blank is that? And I’m writing down furiously. Sounds interesting. If he said it, it must be good. And about a day or two later, I went and found it and joined it. Changed my life changed. It’s changing the world. Like it or leave it. The free version, the paid version. And that’s what we’re talking about today. But in the in the environment of what are corporations, what our enterprise is going to do with it. So let’s get on. So I’ve asked all of you to please send me a fictional quote from a character in a movie or a TV show or a song lyric that you like and you’re going to relate it to our topic today, which is a little bit of a stretch. So let’s go. Martin, you have picked a classic quote. It is actually one of the top quotes ever, ever, ever from a movie. I think it’s #104 on the AFI. Oh, it’s #35 on the American Film Institute’s list of the top 100 movie quotes ever, ever, ever. I’ll just give you all a clue before I read it. The line was adlibbed by the actor Roy Schneider, according to the Hollywood reporter, because the movie was taking place on the water and they had a boat, a barge that had all the equipment. Anybody getting clues here. And when the wave started, the barge rocked and the equipment might have fallen off and the craft cart with the food wasn’t. So clearance wasn’t so good. And this person and everybody. Started looking at the producers and said you guys are cheap. Here’s the line. You’re gonna need a bigger boat and Roy Schneider started using it in ad libbing during the takes. And the woman who was the editor decided to leave it in the movie #35 of the top 100 quotes ever, ever, ever. So Martin Stenzig. You’re going to need a bigger boat. Tell us, what does this have to do with our? Epic today, everybody’s looking me like, wow. That was pretty good. Buddy, go ahead, Martin, rescue me.
Martin Stenzig
Yeah, it was. It’s one of those quotes that I use throughout life once in a while, so no, in the in the context of AI, I firmly believe that people need to use and should use AI much, much more. So that’s sort of where the bigger boat comes in, but also from a computer horsepower perspective. I mean, if you’re using and if you have played around with AI. You know, machine machine capacity and capability is everything. You don’t wanna sit in front of your machine for days and days and days. So you buy the biggest machine you can. Mind. So that’s how it plays in. But at the end of the day, I think talking about capability, you know it’s huge and we haven’t. I think we haven’t even, we haven’t even touched the you know the possibility areas that that you know ChatGPT or language models or AI in general. And can facilitate. So we’ll come back to that a little bit later, but we see huge influx in interest and funny enough, as much interest, if not even more interest in the. In the private field, similar to what we have seen for the for the mobility revolution, I think the same thing has seems to happen on the AI. Side as well.
Bonnie Graham
Thank you very much. I love that quote. It pops up once or twice a year on some of my on my other shows and I’m always happy to see it because I love the story. So let’s go to Charles A. Wilson has picked a quote from a song by David Byrne. It’s on the Talking Heads album Little Creatures from 1985 and the name of the song is Road to Nowhere. Just so you know, it was #25 on the Billboard mainstream rock charts Rock tracks, chart number six in the UK, Germany and South African, and #8 on the Dutch Top 40. And I’m sure we’re all checking the Dutch Top 40 because that’s very, very important. And David Byrne said there was a gospel choir in the front and he kind of tacked it on because the rest of the song wasn’t enough, was only two chords. And he said I was embarrassed or ashamed. So I wrote an extra section and moved it around. These are quotes from some kind of music magazine. So interesting to have him tell the true story. So here’s the quote. Charles, did you want to sing this or play this? Or do you want me to just read it?
Charles Wilson
I’m going to let you. Read it, yeah.
Bonnie Graham
OK, saying I had to. Get permission for this.
Charles Wilson
We want to keep our audience right?
Bonnie Graham
Here we have to listen up. This. I didn’t write this poem and PT. David Brown, did we know where we’re going? But we don’t know where we’ve been and we know what we’re knowing, but we can’t say what we’ve seen and we’re not little children and we know what we want. And the future is certain. Give us time to work it out. Wow. Charles, that’s pretty heavy. Go ahead, tell us how it relates to our topic.
Charles Wilson
So written in 1985, I think you said right. So it’s pretty, pretty interesting. So one other little tidbit about David Byrne and his colleagues in the Talking Heads, they met at the design school right in the northeast of the United States and they started this band in a time when technology was really changing. The way the music was made and so you kind of take this technology plus the creativity, put it together and you get this even with just two chords, you get something really interesting, right? And so this this particular lyric kind of brought forth things to mind as it relates to AI and ChatGPT. The idea that you know we really need context as we’re looking at data and trying to figure things out. We know where we’re going, but we don’t know where we’ve where we’ve been. So having that context is really important. The other thing is there’s a lot of things that a lot of data we create that we don’t have visibility to. So having access to all of that, the fact that we’re not little children. And we know what we want, in other words, as what we want is a better experience with our computers, with the technology that we work with. We want to mentor. We want someone that we can counsel with, etcetera. And then this idea that the future is certain, it’s certain that there’s going to be a lot of change, right, we. Know that. We just need some time to work it out, right. And so I think it has a lot to do with, you know, what we’re trying to all grapple with right now.
Bonnie Graham
Thank you. Very well said. I appreciate that. I, I love the song. I have to go listen to it. But I appreciate it. Song lyrics sometimes. Just the message is big, but it’s really a very simple thing. Where are we? Where have we been? Where are we going? Thank you, Charles. That was lovely. Oh, you brought my mood down there, but it’s so nice. See. Let’s go to Josh Cavalier. Josh has sent a quote from 1A song by the Irish rock band U2. This the third track from their album Actung Baby from 1991. The third single released in 1992. But interesting, they were recording it at the hands of studios in Berlin and the band was having a problem. They were close to breaking up. They didn’t know what the direction was going to be for their sound, the quality of their materials, and they had a breakthrough and the improvised parts of this song, they were inspired by it. Here we go again. Musically, Charles. You’ll like this by a chord progression. Oh, I’m sorry, Martin. By a chord progression, that guitarist, the Edge was playing the lyrics by Bono, were inspired by the band’s fractured relation. Chips and I just want to tell you that my kids were at the sphere on week two and saw Bono and you two and they said anybody who says that Bono was not on his prime, not on his game was wrong, wrong, wrong. He was unbelievable and the whole interior of the sphere, it looks like some kind of designed bricks. It’s. All cameras and each band member gets their own. Great screen and you can see them from anywhere and your whole experience is looking up. It’s quite an experience I understand, so here is the quote. Josh has selected One love, One blood, One life. You got to do what you should one life with each other. Sisters and my brothers. One life. But we’re not the same. We get to carry each other carry each other. Another heavy lyric there, Josh. Go ahead.
Josh Cavalier
Yeah. I may have been at that same show, Bonnie. I did get to see U2 at the sphere, and it was a very unique experience of sight and sound. I highly recommend it. It was very unique and you know, you get lost in the moment with all that input coming in as far as the quote itself. You know, when I think about AI and where we’re headed, I think it’s going to bring us closer together and specifically around translation. I know that for myself, I love sharing ideas and I love hearing ideas, but. You know, language could be a barrier and I have a feeling in the next couple of years that barrier is gonna go away and we’re gonna be able to go ahead and exchange ideas easier. And I just can’t wait to see how that shows up.
Bonnie Graham
Thank you very much. We’re all all at one under this banner under this umbrella of where tech is or is not going to take us, but it’s here and we are too very interesting. Thank you very much. And let’s go to Aaron Green. You’ve picked an interesting quote. One of my favorites pops up from time to time. It’s also a classic. I’m going to read a little mathematical something to you, Aaron, in just a second, but it’s from Friends, as if anybody doesn’t know what rock have you been hiding under American TV sitcom on NBC TV 1994 to 2004. And this from season five, episode 16. The episode is titled The One with the Cop. It aired on February 25th, 1999. And six friends in their 20s and 30s living in Manhattan and trying to figure out what they’re going to do in all of the relationships and. Comments. So Rachel is helping Ross shop for a new couch and he finds one. But he says to the delivery guy, uh, we don’t need it. We’re going to carry it ourselves. They carry the couch three blocks to his apt. I won’t tell you what he told the condescending salesman. Cause it’s a little X-rated for this show. Rachel is incredulous. They have to get it up a narrow stairwell. So Rachel asked help from another character. Chandler, who just passed away the uh the. But the couch gets stuck between landings and it gets cut in half. After Rachel accidentally bumps into the fire alarm and everybody in the building has to walk over the couch, Ross returns it to the store and he gets a credit of $4.00, but Ross repeatedly on the way up, keeps yelling. This word, pivot, pivot, pivot, and the scene was called iconic by, you won’t believe this by House Beautiful magazine said the scene was iconic, but here I have to tell you, you won’t believe this. There’s an Irish website called Joe. And they wrote that the mathematician Carolyn Zancle ZUNCKEL explained how they got the sofa upstairs. She said by applying Pythagoras’s theorem to the estimated measurements of Ross’s sofa in a vertical position. I’m not kidding, Martin. And the dimensions of the chair, she said. I was able to establish that it would have been possible to get. Gonna catch upstairs? It’s really. Quite simple. Huffington Post called this one of the 14 best episodes of friends to binge right now. So the quote is pivot, pivot, pivot, OK, Aaron, let’s hear it. What does this have to do? Like we can’t tell with our topic. Go ahead.
Aaron Green
Well, I guess it’s too bad that that Ross played a paleontologist and not a mathematician. Otherwise he would have been more successful. But Bonnie, I will say this one of my favorite quotes as well, because and this. We’re digging deep here, but I actually, in high school, was the President of the Friends Club and every Friday we would watch the friends episode from Thursday night during lunch. So that’s how deep we’re going here.
Bonnie Graham
Just just wait for everybody to say no. Altogether. Everybody join me in. No. OK, Aaron, you continue now.
Aaron Green
I’ve become slightly less nerdy I guess in my as I’ve aged, but nerds are great. World couldn’t run without them without us.
Bonnie Graham
It’s OK, nerds are good. Nerds are fun. You can you can be a nerd, yes.
Aaron Green
Look, the part of the reason I love this I think it really represents kind of where we are right now and where organizations at an enterprise level are as it comes to exploring generative AI. And there is, uh, there’s a real risk in organizations adopting lots of different generative AI solutions and trying to apply them into the business. And what you end up with is a lot of friction when you do that, you end up cutting things. You end up not really understanding what your endpoint is and how to get to that end point. So I think the we’re constantly pivoting technology is constantly changing. We need to be able to be flexible, be fluid, and be able to pivot, but we also need to know what that destination actually looks like and how to get there with the least amount. Of friction for our workforce.
Bonnie Graham
You were president of the Friends Club. I didn’t even know they had them. I think that is so cool.
Aaron Green
I’m now I’m. We even painted a door Central Park for Mr. Perkins classroom, the whole thing.
Bonnie Graham
Oh my goodness, I have to ask you if I may. Who was your favorite character? Did you have one?
Aaron Green
Oh gosh, I probably would just have to say, Ross, I think David Schwimmer just did an incredible job playing that character.
Bonnie Graham
OK, interesting. Interesting. Where they’ve where they’ve all landed over the years. Thank you so much. Thank you all for the quotes. I appreciate it. And the fun stories. And it’s just interesting. I think I told you all this on your prep calls. I used to ask my guests to send just a quote. And by and large, we got Churchill and Gandhi and Einstein and Mark Twain, and a lot of Maya Angelou. And that’s all we ever got for years. So I could just a person open their mouth and just tell you what they’re going to quote. And it was getting boring. So about two years ago, I changed it up and I figured if we can get a little bit of pop culture. I know we’re talking about serious business topics here and technology, but get a little pop culture and it’s just so interesting to hear the four of you relate these quotes, two of which were totally iconic in the. Movies to our topic and it just makes it come alive. So thank you very much. Now we’re going to go to the part of the show where I’m going to pick one or two statements from each of you from the discussion statements you sent me before the show. And thank you all graciously for doing the work and sending the information. And I’m going to read. I have picked 2 from Martin. They’re short and I’m going to combine them because I like the way they go together. Martin, I’ll read them. Martin is going to unpack them like a new show, and then I’m going to go around the table and make you all agree or disagree. So be ready. You have to be sitting Charles on the edge of your seat. Please. I can almost see the. Aaron, I know it’s difficult, but edge of your seat and Josh’s already there. So I’ll ask you. Agree or disagree and take about one minute to comment. Not just a yes or no, but something add something to the conversation. So here’s what Martin told me. He said his statement. #3 is most companies are challenged with building business cases around AI as the target is moving more quickly than the usual budget cycles, and then he adds AI supported business scenarios can and will revolutionize some business processes in a SpaceX kind of way. Let’s talk about that reality. Or we want to do it versus the budgets and how fast they’re moving. Martin, go ahead.
Martin Stenzig
Yeah, I always describe it as sort of a ship sailing, sailing along, you know and I always feel like people are aiming directly at where the ship is right now or not where the ship will be sort of at a year from now. And that’s sort of the tough, you know, argument to get across to, to business leaders that you know when you’re putting something together, you don’t aim for what is possible right now? You need to have a little bit of vision and a little bit of faith that you know that ship is continuously moving as we see and we see the opposite right now. Yeah, technology is moving so fast that that people always describe it as building business cases that we could have executed in 1990 rather than in 2023. And that’s sort of the sad part because they’re leaving a lot of money on the table. You suddenly you’re suddenly confronted with these solutions. You’re like, why are we doing this? This so outdated. So I think what AI does is just. Even amplifying and accelerating that you know when. Uh, you know with ChatGPT coming in. You now. Have you have possibilities? Where now was at the conference here yesterday. Where somebody said. Well, what took me a week to do, you know, a few years ago, I literally created in ChatGPT and it just spit out 90% of the work product that I needed to do manually a few years ago. So. So those are the things. So you’re suddenly reducing, you know, reducing timelines from about a week to a day or two. And he felt so bad about it that he actually told the customer that he used ChatGPT because the customer couldn’t believe how fast he could deliver. So those are the those are the things and game changing activities that we’re seeing and it changes business cases, you know? But yeah, we’re what we’re seeing is and this the message, I guess to leadership, you know, be imaginative. You know, think about not what you can do today, but what you can do. You know, when your business case actually goes into effect and with sometimes business cycle investment cycles over two or five years. You know, you need to have a little bit more courage and vision to sort of include what will be happening at that point in time, not what can be done today.
Bonnie Graham
Thank you. I’m as you’re speaking, Martin, I’m thinking of changing the job description of a thought leader of a business leader of a CEO, CFO, CTO, CMO. And saying you have to be imaginative. Can you imagine how that would play on the job descriptions when people are playing? Am I imaginative or am I a creative I? I thought they wanted me for my 90 years of business skills and my 25 years of deep tech footprint and they want me to be imaginative because see them turning around to their kids and say is your dad imaginative? I don’t know. I love what you said and it applies it just it just. Yeah. Its Max of. Really. OK, let’s go around the table. Agree or disagree, Mr. Charles? A Wilson. You’re up first. Talk to us. What do you think?
Charles Wilson
But I agree. I’ll just give a quick comment. I think one of the challenges. Was historically was that when you did an AI project, it had to be a custom solution. I think now platforms are building in hooks to these capabilities, so leverage those platforms and you’ll be able to get a. Much quicker solution up and running.
Bonnie Graham
Thank you. Let’s go around too. Josh Cavalier. What do you think? Agree. Disagree with either Martin and or with Charles. You get too.
Josh Cavalier
I totally agree with Martin. The great one, Wayne Gretzky said. You need to skate to where the puck’s going to be, right? That’s. Where we’re at. So what’s interesting, I know that with my customers that it’s across the board as far as how AI shows up and it’s very confusing when you have a technology that impacts every single aspect of a business. What are you focusing on 1st? Is it AI operations? Is it internal? Is it external, is it sales and marketing? Is it something on our tech stack? And it’s everything happening at once. And so when you don’t have a game plan going into 2023? Here we are, and so I still think that there is some level of confusion. I know I still have customers that don’t even have an AI policy in place yet. And right, actually, there’s a lot of them that don’t at this point. But Ithink that as we move into 2024, it’s going to settle down and you know, to Martins point, there’s going to be. Vendors that are out there that are gonna figure things out for their customers so. That you know, you’re gonna see that show up better? Uhm, but I still think there is a maturation process that’s gonna happen. There’s gonna be a lot of pain that’s gonna happen in 2024, but we’re gonna get a sense of direction as we move forward.
Bonnie Graham
Thank you. Interesting Aaron Green, join us. Agree or disagree with everybody?
Aaron Green
So I’m going to go in the middle and I mostly agree with everybody. I think I want to build on Josh’s point because I think the game plan is important, but I think a lot of times we think about this in terms of what does this mean for the enterprise? What does this mean for our custom? Organizations need to think about what does this mean for the skills that we need inside of our workforce? What is our workforce going to look like, not just in 24, but in 25 or in 20? 6. And quite frankly, I mean, Bonnie, you showed it really well, right? You spent about 10 minutes, but only three seconds using ChatGPT. And then 10 minutes editing it if you would. Had to write that poem yourself. It might have taken you hours. So the skills that are required to do that you maybe didn’t need to be a poet. But you needed to have creative thinking in order to edit for yourself, so that that’s the lens that I think organizations really need to be focusing on.
Bonnie Graham
Thank you. We’ll talk about my poetry group. I belong to writers digest, and we’re in the November poem a day. And every day I get a prompt and I have to write a poem. And I could do it in about 20 minutes. And then we all share them on a website called discuss. And we comment on each other’s poems all day long. And I’ve gotten it down to about 20 minutes. But nothing like the one that I read for you. So. Thank you, Aaron. Just a reality check, Martin, anything you want to say back to your colleagues here before I move on?
Martin Stenzig
No, I think great comments. Let’s let’s unpack the other stuff and we there’s lots, lots more to come, so.
Bonnie Graham
I agree. Wow. Here we are, OK? Yes, good quotes. So let’s go on, Charles. I’ve picked statement number one. It is long and detailed and I appreciate everything you wrote in it, but I’m just going to read a little tiny bit and let you go with it. Charles says generative AI can provide sorely needed context. Today’s analytics systems are focused on predicting the future, but sometimes lack historical context and often do not memorialize lessons learned. Generative AI can improve our collective memory. I’m going to stop there, and he also referenced a study by McKinsey and Company how generative AI is transforming the world of business from the McKenzie. Global Institute, 2023. This year trials take. It away. Go ahead.
Charles Wilson
Yeah, I think how many of us have sat in meetings where we felt like we had the same meeting yesterday or had the same meeting last week and how come it does, it seems like we’re never learning, you know from those experiences. I think generative AI is unique in that it really does a good job of synthesizing a lot of this unstructured data. And so it really does have the opportunity for us to start to bring all that stuff together that would have taken us hours and hours to synthesize ourselves. And put it into a format that it’s easy for us to have lessons learned and to continue to move forward. So instead of learning the same lesson over and over again, we can go into the next day learning a new lesson.
Bonnie Graham
Thank you. Very interesting context, context, context. We’re not talking hallucinations today. Are we about that? Yes. We’re not doing that. Let’s go over. Well, I’m talking about AI hallucinations. We’ll leave that one alone. Let’s go around the table. Let’s see. Josh, you are sitting virtually next to Mr. Wilson. What do?
Josh Cavalier
You think fantastic. Yeah, I agree. You know, the first thing that popped in my mind is something that’s just as typical as a meeting. Right. And with AI now a meeting shows up differently because we can record that meeting. Not only can we record it, but we can have actionable items that are done automatically based upon current projects. Who is in the meeting, who was not in the meeting, emails that are automatically generated. You know, these are things that are mundane but now show up differently. And not only that, but it starts to build within that collective intelligence or data about the company, things that are happening in the past that we now can make decisions, not decisions on in the future. Uh, I know that’s just one example, but I’m totally in alignment with them.
Bonnie Graham
Thank you, Aaron Green. Join us.
Aaron Green
Absolutely. In the limit as well. And just listening to everyone speak, what actually pops in my mind is a study that Microsoft recently did where uh, and they did this. I mean, think about Microsoft billions of people use Microsoft 365 teams. All of those things. And the amount of data that’s collected there and what was reported in the in the most recent. Work trends survey that they did with 68% of people felt that. That they spend, they don’t have enough focus time at work and if we think about the power of AI to actually automate a lot of those secondary or more mundane tasks, as Josh was saying, like taking meeting notes, transcribing a meeting, meeting, being able to take actions on that, that makes a real difference in the way that people work. And it gives them the ability to focus on perhaps higher level or higher. Impact work as well.
Bonnie Graham
Thank you. We’ve been saying that for a long time that we want to elevate and escalate the skill sets of workers in all industries so that it’s not busy work and pencil pushing. But I raised this on another show, Martin. It might have been on last week’s show. And I said, what if somebody doesn’t want to do anything other than the busy work? What if that’s what makes them happy? They go to work and they want to push the widget and they want to push the button and they want to say. Yay, I wrapped up 5000 packages today. Maybe they don’t want to. So the question is who in the workforce wants to go there or who do we drag kicking and screaming? Let’s go back to Martin, you’re next talking about agree or disagree with Charles and or go.
Martin Stenzig
Yeah, totally agree. And going back to what Aaron said, I think is coming to my question before is like I think we’re changing the importance of sort of the next level up. You know its not any longer the busy work that that will be sort of a center of the universe just because it takes a long time. The busy work is going to be taken away by something like chat. But it now becomes even more imperative that sort of what we call sort of the principal level or the solution architecture level does their job very thoroughly and checking what ChatGPT is providing there because people I think are sometimes taking at face value just because ChatGPT says what Google said that you know X is the truth. Is sometimes not just the truth. So. So again, great news is that the busy work in the context as Charles was saying you know, is now being created and you get a whole lot of information. But I’ve also seen, you know, plenty of information the coding side, on the chat BT side where you’re getting a data point and you’re like. But there’s something missing, or you know its . Yeah, it’s sort of 90% correct. So I’ll take the 90% by all means, but let me do exactly, Bunny, what you have done, let’s take Chachi. BT as a starting point and then fine tune it. But the so the importance of that fine tuning I think cannot be underestimated.
Bonnie Graham
Thank you. And I’ve had arguments with ChatGPT where I’ve asked for movie characters in certain quotes and it has given me the wrong character or the wrong actor or actress and I check, I validate and I do this and I will come back and say, but Bob Hope didn’t play this character. Mary Smith and Aaron like that. I just took that out of the air there. And. And I’ll say, but that wasn’t in chat. TPT will now. It may not be sentient. It may not have emotions, but it’s been trained in proper etiquette and it will say I apologize for any confusion and inconvenience I caused you. It says that and then say you’re right. Bob Hope did not play Mary Smith in that on the road. Whatever. Whatever. And then I’ll tell it. I think it’s such and such, and then it’ll come back and tell me whether I was right. So we have this nice little dialogue. It’s like talking to Alexa. Sometimes when she doesn’t quite understand you. Charles, this was yours. Any comments back to your panelists Co panel.
Charles Wilson
Yeah, great. Great. Comments I think have to underline what Martin was saying, but yeah, absolutely can’t just go to market with the first draft, right? You have to definitely take a look at it. But my experience is leading to the first draft has always been the thing that keeps you from from moving forward. So there’s significant. Benefits that the switching could bring to the.
Bonnie Graham
Good, better, best. Coulda woulda shoulda. Right. When? When do you cut that cord? When do you open that door? When do you make that announcement? When do you say it’s here? And the one thing I haven’t heard in this conversation yet, and I know we have a lot more to go. Is the word excitement. I think it’s exciting, isn’t it, Aaron? It’s exciting. People say this really cool. I’m using it at home, you know, democratization of software bringing your phone. Work all that stuff. Who’s walking out with with proprietary software years ago and who’s bringing stuff in and how safer we will forget about that? There’s an excitement here. That’s something is happening that could help us do better have been. Your time be more creative. Bring our businesses to another level and it’s exciting and that’s happy talk. That’s happy stuff. OK, let’s go on. Thank you very much. Charles. You got me going. Let’s go to Josh. I’m picking your statement. Number one, this interesting. His topic is skills. He says the development of skill ontology. And I want you to define that for us on. HR system platforms and the application of skill inference on content repositories are innovative strategies being employed today. These techniques aim to facilitate auto generated near transfer way above my pay grade here honey near transfer skill training for associates, ensuring they remain competitive in skill. As HR platforms become more sophisticated and prioritize these AI driven capabilities, the approach will become a standard practice in the future. This was done as a prediction for my technology revolution show, but I think it really applies here. Josh, all yours.
Josh Cavalier
And I had no idea Aaron was going to be on the show before I said all of that. So right. Yeah. So just in regards to, like, skills and ontologies, you know, really, that’s just related skills within the a whole entire ecosystem of skills and balance.
If I unpack all of that, I think the way that it’s going to show up is that there are going to be situations where companies need to move fast, and in the following week they need to upskill, let’s say frontline sales. Something has happened in the marketplace. We need frontline sales to show up differently and AI through auto generation is going to create. Content that is going to allow a frontline salesperson to practice, maybe sitting in the car before they jump into a meeting with a client on a new sales process or product or something like that. And again, this all based upon their personal preferences and how they like to consume media and where their skill gap is at. And so. You know, currently we have that happening, but just not at scale and not as smooth as some people want it to be. And so Isee that there’s going to be this future where we have these systems in place that are going to, you know, expedite the content creation process and really focus in on those performance gaps. That need to be addressed. And you know, for an individual who wants to get into leadership, or maybe, you know, move sideways within a company and there’s skill gaps that are there, AI could be a coach to spin them up and give them a custom program or custom, you know, learning path to get to where they need to be.
Bonnie Graham
Thank you, Aaron Green, you’ve been summoned in multiple ways. You’re sitting. You’re sitting virtually next to Mr. Cavalier. So go ahead. Agree or disagree. Let’s see what you.
Aaron Green
You can send it to the principal’s office. I’m going to say I’m going to say I slightly disagree, but I mostly agree with you Josh, and and here’s here’s why II challenge our audience to think even bigger. And by that I mean. So when we think about skills or skills, ontology, the adjacency. So think about it this way If you’re a developer and you have skills in Python And C, we can infer that you could probably learn Java. OK. And so therefore, as an organization starts thinking about what do we need to look like, what, what kinds of skills will we need? What do we need for this project as opposed to trying to then go and hire from the market, we can actually say who has the capabilities to fill this role. So there’s actually a whole part of workforce planning and really predictive. Exciting. There you go. Bonnie, there’s the word exciting that exciting prediction.
That an organization can use and then we can apply it at an individual level, so an individual can say, hey, I actually want to be the best possible salesperson or I’m really interested in learning this and we can have it and we can have that those skills served up to us by micro learning.
Bonnie Graham
I like that and micro learning is an important part of what we’re talking about with AI these days, and an assistant to a teacher customizing learning paths, understanding where a student is about to exceed and about to fail. All of that very interesting term. Thank you, Martin. You’re on the next part of agree or disagree? What do you think?
Martin Stenzig
No, I totally agree. I think the opportunities are endless. I think that’s sort of what the challenge is. You know I haven’t, I haven’t seen the next boundary yet. That’s my problem. You know we are we we’re still in this in this finding phase where every second day somebody comes to you and says hey, I found another application for this technology and so it’s really exciting to see what’s out there? I think the caveat I want to put in is just this what is more a question should we use and should we give you know ChatGPT or something like? It’s early on in the development cycle of a of a resource, especially when we have, you know, juniors in the, in the workforce. I’m the more I think about it, the more I would favor to say, OK, we’re intentionally taking, taking ChatGPT or or AI assistance out of the junior level because I want them to. I need them to experience what the added value is and I need them to be challenging and questioning what AI provides. But then on the senior and up level, we are seeing efficiency gains in the 20 30 40% in just getting your job done. Code assistance is fantastic these days of what we’re finding. So its all these language models, but now trained specifically for coding and we have situations where its almost like and I probably shouldn’t use this and. Intelligence but its just like a drug. You give it to them and there’s like, yeah, I don’t really need to use this but when you try to take it away you get the opposite response. It’s like I can’t live without it anymore because I’m so efficient. I’m so used to using, getting the air completion that you know. Please don’t take it away. I need the subscription so this is sort of the experience we’re seeing.
Bonnie Graham
Thank you. Very interesting. Charles, let’s add you to this. Agree or disagree round. What do you think?
Charles Wilson
Yeah. I just want to add to the statement II think I generally agree, but I think there’s a danger of thinking of that AI can just pour knowledge into people, work and just give us all the right answers. And what I my favorite one of my favorite uses of AI is to ask what questions should I be asking in this area as I go to study this particular subject? What should I be asking? What is? What are the existing ontologies or whatever that’s out there and then you use that to further query the system and do additional research. Right? So I think there that desire, that motivation, but from individuals to go and learn more and use AI as that tool to help them develop themselves more as is critical.
Bonnie Graham
Thank you very much and I have to do a disclaimer here. When I do my movie and song look up for this show and the background I gave you on you. Quotes I don’t use ChatGPT. I use an old fashioned method called Wikipedia and I do donate to them once in a while because they keep asking. But seriously, I will read through pages and pages. I will look for 1/2 hour to find the nugget of what that movie quote was about or what the back story was, or what The Hollywood Reporter said, or what producer or director they were talking to. Or who ad libbed it and this joyful to me to do that research. But terms of context and background and valid information, I’m aligning myself with the validity what of Wikipedia of whoever reported it. That’s interesting. Let’s go. We have 7 minutes left to the show and we’re going to go to Aaron Green. And Aaron, I’m combining 2 statements for yours. These were short and sweet, and I like them very much. You say first HR needs to be a leading voice in all AI adoption conversations. Interesting. You use the word. Conversations. And then you said in order to reap the benefits of AI, it must always be used in a relevant, reliable, responsible manner. The three R’s. You hit, Mr. Green. Go ahead, take 3 minutes and then we’ll do a real quick agree round. Go ahead.
Aaron Green
All right, rapid fire on this one, so I’ll start with the HR needing to be a leading voice in this and I use the word conversation very specifically because we think about ChatGPT and generative AI as a conversation. But as organizations are having conversations internally around AI policies around what it means to deploy AI. Both for their customers and internally, but more importantly for their employees. If HR is not involved in that conversation, then then we can end up with some really wildly divergent experiences for people. We’ve heard from some of our other panelists today that some of the fear around AI, some of the, you know, jobs will be eliminated. They some might, but a lot of jobs will be changed. And that is the role of HR to really lean into that and help an organization steer itself. Forward and the only way you can do that is if you’re using an AI model that has been trained and tuned specifically for what you were trying to accomplish in your business. And that’s where choosing an AI model from a vendor that is reliable, that’s responsible and where the content is. Relevant. That’s how you end up with those business breakthroughs and that’s what’s really exciting about it is that that capability to have those breakthroughs, to democratize that knowledge and to make it accessible to the entire workforce or to. Your whole customer base.
Bonnie Graham
And that validates our note from somebody a few minutes ago, Aaron, that it you need to make the business case for it and it might be looming ahead of where the budgets are. It’s like, wait a minute, we’re already finished budgeting for next year, but we want to get AI in the business. What do we do? Well, stop the plane. Just take a second and say this where we need to go. Responsible, relevant, reliable. I appreciate that. Quick around the table I’ve got 4 minutes left. Martin, you’re sitting next to Aaron. Go ahead.
Martin Stenzig
Ethical and unbiased other two words I want to throw out there for me that are hugely important in the in the context of HR. So I completely agree with Aaron with everything he said. But yeah, make sure is that, especially when you’re looking at HR usage of that that you know whatever you use is ethical and unbiased.
Bonnie Graham
Thank you. Ethical. That’s a word that always creeps into the AI conversation. Right. Aaron Charles Wilson, you’re sitting next to Martin. Go ahead. What? Do you think?
Charles Wilson
Yeah, I think that a lot of companies are paralyzed not knowing how to move forward with this, because there are some of these ethical issues and validation issues, those sorts of things. And I think it’s important for organizations to encourage their employees to get certified even in a basic way on AI about how to use it responsibility. Responsibly, but then also to encourage them to use it outside of work where there aren’t some of those ethical issues, right? So that you can get people familiar with that. So that would be my comment on that.
Bonnie Graham
Interesting Josh, round this out for me.
Josh Cavalier
Yeah, totally agree with Aaron. I think that you’re going. See HR take a prominent role with AI within businesses and specifically like in my area, LND maturation of roles to where they’ve become a performance business analyst to where they’re working directly with the business on you know, initiatives and things that are happening within the business. And so yes, I am, I’m. Totally agree.
Bonnie Graham
Thank you very much. And Aaron, anything you want to say back to the gentleman on the panel?
Aaron Green
Absolutely, though I so thank you all for your comments. I guess Charles, but I would say is I actually am not seeing businesses paralyzed by AI. What I’m what, what we’re actually seeing is it’s really being led as a technology decision and it is a piece of technology, but it has to be a people LED conversation because the technology impacts the people inside the. So this where HR needs to get involved with the CTO, the CIO, and really help drive that conversation forward to make sure that the outcome for the business is the.
Bonnie Graham
One that you’re trying to get interesting. I’m going to give a sidebar here. Very brief one. I work for a company that was a correspondent bank in New York that was formed after the market crashed at 39. Oh, I wasn’t there 39, but it was in the late 1980s. And I was running market even though I didn’t have the title and I did a newsletter and interestingly enough one of my for the Presidents and vice presidents and high level executives of all the savings banks of New York State, that’s who we served back. Office banking basically correspondent. And my article was technophobe versus technophile. Now put yourself back into 1986. This was pre Y2K. This was pre known AI. This was pre cell what I was working. I was coding a banking term banking software. Turn key system. On a dumb terminal and I was running marketing on a Mac and I didn’t know what a mouse was at 1st and blah blah blah. Anyway, technophile or technophobe, and that’s interesting if you bring it forward today. We used to say companies like finance, they’re. I don’t want to adopt all these. Fancy analytics and all that. And now we’re saying, are you maybe an AI file or an AI phobe maybe we maybe I need to redo that. I’m going to find that article hard copy. I don’t think I have it. Anyway, I want to say thank you to the four of you. It has been alright. It has been a pleasure. It has been a trip. Hearing all of your insights, all of your expertise, I love putting people together who don’t know each other because it just brings out so much energy. I have to do some thank yous here. I’ve got a minute and a half to go and I want to say thank you to Andrew at voice America, our engineer today. The friendly one. I also have to say a thank you to Jill Pappas and Eliza Dillard, who were on a heck of a lot of emails with me here and I think they might be. Yours and I want to say Martin Stanza G come back and it doesn’t have to be when you’re at 3:45 in the morning in Australia, time will take you any time zone you want. Charles A Wilson. What a pleasure to meet you. Josh cavalier. Lovely to see you. 2 weeks in a row, Aaron. Green feel. Better and thank you so much for doing this. I know you’ve been doing some personal work there trying to get walking again. We appreciate it. So I’m just going to say thank you for tuning into Rizing Evolution, the future proofed enterprise. I’m Bonnie Dee. And remember the future of now didn’t happen yet. We’re all going to do our best to make it a better one. We’ll see you, everybody wave goodbye and don’t go where we take pictures. We’ll see you here next Tuesday. Bye. Bye. Keep waving. 30 seconds. OK. Thank you. Bye. LinkedIn by LinkedIn, by Facebook. Hold on. Thank you, Andrew.
Great job today everyone.