Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 2 (00:00):
Thank you so much for having me. How are you.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
I'm good. I'm good. I've I see a few things
that are on your list today, and I'm really interesting.
The idea of mass automation is a thing that I
can't help but think about. And I'm sure a lot
of people who are warehouse workers or people who are
in the industry, you know, delivery, what's that going to
look like? And it sounds like Amazon specifically has some
(00:26):
big plans to automate in the future. What does this
look like and what will this look like for human
jobs moving forward?
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Well, I'm going to pour some cold water on this
New York Times article that came out that said Amazon
is replacing six hundred thousand people with robots, and candidly,
it gets everybody all scared. Now, Amazon has pushed back
aggressively and said, Okay, they're going to be working alongside
the humans, and that they're really more like cobots. When
(00:53):
people share the word robots, they think of humanoids, and
that's not necessarily real. Robotics is not necessarily the same
as robots, and so you shouldn't think of the terminator
and Arnold Schwarzeneger, you know, taking over your jobs. It's
more like they're going to be able to lift heavy,
heavy things and be able to do that at a
(01:15):
scale much much larger than in the past.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
Yeah, So if you are, you know, thinking about workers
in what this looks like for you know, a human
job in the relatively near futures, say over the next
decade or so, do you think that the technology is
going to come rapidly enough that these jobs will get
in some way replaced or do you honestly think that,
you know, we're going to be kind of in a
(01:41):
scenario where humans are still going to be needed. It
just is going to be kind of like a redistribution
of what a human would be doing on a job
like this.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
The latter. It's a great question. You know, the word
calculator actually comes from a human's job. People when they
hear the word calculator, they think of the device, obviously,
the peace, the technology. But back in the old days,
the calculator was a person who performed math. Then the
technology came and the job shifted from the human to
the device and a calculator. Now we all think of
(02:11):
a calculator, But people didn't stop doing math. People didn't
lose their jobs over math. What happened was they became
computer programmers, and computer programmers started programming the calculators. Now
artificial intelligence has come along, and artificial intelligence is likely
going to start becoming a computer programmer to program things.
It doesn't mean that every computer programmer is going to
(02:33):
lose their job. It means that those people are going
to have jobs that we haven't even thought of yet.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Interesting. Kevin surreally a futurist joining us. Always fun to
talk about this stuff. Also, this is another thing that
I noticed. There was a guy, I can't remember what school,
but he was at his own graduation and he had
his laptop or a tablet with him, and he was
showing off his AI assistant that had apparently helped him
write some of the essays that he needed to graduate.
(03:01):
And it makes me wonder what I could have potentially
achieved with this type of technology at my fingertips, and
what my professors would have thought if I would have
even tried to use something like this like groc or chat,
GPT or any of these other big AI assistants for students.
So what's the present and the future look like for
(03:25):
students and their use of artificial intelligence?
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Well, the president is that nobody knows and the teaching
community whether or not they should be allowing students to
use artificial intelligence. The future is they're going to be
using artificial intelligence. But we can't teach our kids. And
I've been interviewing folks on the show Hello Future on
iHeartMedia's app about this very question, and these are some
of the themes we explore. We can't teach our kids
(03:50):
not to use the technology, like in the Communist Party
of China, for example, during exam week, they shut off
and block on their Internet the chat, GPTs and the
other AI so that their students can't use them. I
think that's a really nineteen eighty four way to do things.
I think that innovation is always what helps societies thrive,
(04:10):
and so we can't teach kids to prepare them for
the world of nineteen fifty or a Norman Rockwell painting.
We have to be letting them and empowering them to
create and shape the future and how to use AI
to build a future for the betterment of our country,
I would argue. And so I think when we think
about these things, that's how we should think about them.
(04:32):
And maybe we need to really take a dramatic, hard
look at some of the lessons that we're teaching our
students in elementary school, in middle school, and in high
school and obviously in college, because maybe we need some
new subject materials like tech literacy or tech ethics or
things like that that are less antiquated than what they're
(04:54):
being taught.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
Now. Yeah, I think the you mentioned a calculator kind
of example, And you know, I don't know when the
decision was made, but when I was still in high school,
we had to biographing calculator to help us with some
of our algebra, calculus and all that stuff. And you know,
a lot of that stuff ended up being over my head,
(05:15):
but it was a tool that I knew I would
have been able to use if I went into engineering
or whatever, you know, the job would have created to
have that at my fingertips. Doesn't it make sense from
a teacher's perspective to maybe find ways to educate on
harnessing that as a tool like a calculator would be
for you know, a math issue. Or is this just
more a situation of, well, you're not doing the work,
(05:37):
and we don't want to give you credit for not
doing the work, even though maybe their way of teaching
might be a bit antiquated with the introduction of artificial intelligence.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
You're spot on. I mean, you're absolutely spot on. Now,
for the record, I was playing Snood on my TI
eighty three plus calculator when I was in high school,
which is probably why I didn't go into mathematics. But
you have figured out how to put games on our calculators.
But to your point, I think what you're also touching
on is that the transfer of knowledge for a human
and the transfer of knowledge for centuries, has really been
(06:10):
through literacy and through reading books and whatnot. And so
you know, I remember as a kid we would have
book textbooks in our backpacks and whatnot. Not necessarily anymore
because of these new technologies. And I believe we're in
the beginning of the start of the Second Industrial Revolution
as a precursor to quantum computing, which will happen in
(06:30):
the next fifteen years, but as a in order to
understand that humans can retain knowledge not just through reading,
but through very quickly you know, short form videos or
listening at a faster speed on YouTube. I mean, that's
just we're just scratching the surface on how a brain
(06:52):
retains information and we're and then when you think of
it through the prism of okay, well, what happens when
your brain is enhanced with technology, albeit a computer chip,
then you're just at the start of an even greater conversation.
But the transfer of knowledge to humans. Yes, it relates
to children, but it also relates to adults in this
world as well.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
Very interesting stuff. Joining us on the phone line, Kevin
SERRELLI a futurist. How can people listen to this type
of conversation? We've mentioned your show. How can people find
it in? What can they expect on your show?
Speaker 2 (07:26):
Well, thank you so much for asking that you search
for Hello Future with Kevin Sirilli on the iHeart app
and we put on a new episode every day. We
talk about all things in the future. You can also
visit me at MTF dot tv. MTF stands for Meet
the Future. It's MTF dot tv and that's the easiest
way to find the podcast as well.
Thank you so much for having me. How are you.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
I'm good. I'm good. I've I see a few things
that are on your list today, and I'm really interesting.
The idea of mass automation is a thing that I
can't help but think about. And I'm sure a lot
of people who are warehouse workers or people who are
in the industry, you know, delivery, what's that going to
look like? And it sounds like Amazon specifically has some
(00:26):
big plans to automate in the future. What does this
look like and what will this look like for human
jobs moving forward?
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Well, I'm going to pour some cold water on this
New York Times article that came out that said Amazon
is replacing six hundred thousand people with robots, and candidly,
it gets everybody all scared. Now, Amazon has pushed back
aggressively and said, Okay, they're going to be working alongside
the humans, and that they're really more like cobots. When
(00:53):
people share the word robots, they think of humanoids, and
that's not necessarily real. Robotics is not necessarily the same
as robots, and so you shouldn't think of the terminator
and Arnold Schwarzeneger, you know, taking over your jobs. It's
more like they're going to be able to lift heavy,
heavy things and be able to do that at a
(01:15):
scale much much larger than in the past.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
Yeah, So if you are, you know, thinking about workers
in what this looks like for you know, a human
job in the relatively near futures, say over the next
decade or so, do you think that the technology is
going to come rapidly enough that these jobs will get
in some way replaced or do you honestly think that,
you know, we're going to be kind of in a
(01:41):
scenario where humans are still going to be needed. It
just is going to be kind of like a redistribution
of what a human would be doing on a job
like this.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
The latter. It's a great question. You know, the word
calculator actually comes from a human's job. People when they
hear the word calculator, they think of the device, obviously,
the peace, the technology. But back in the old days,
the calculator was a person who performed math. Then the
technology came and the job shifted from the human to
the device and a calculator. Now we all think of
(02:11):
a calculator, But people didn't stop doing math. People didn't
lose their jobs over math. What happened was they became
computer programmers, and computer programmers started programming the calculators. Now
artificial intelligence has come along, and artificial intelligence is likely
going to start becoming a computer programmer to program things.
It doesn't mean that every computer programmer is going to
(02:33):
lose their job. It means that those people are going
to have jobs that we haven't even thought of yet.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Interesting. Kevin surreally a futurist joining us. Always fun to
talk about this stuff. Also, this is another thing that
I noticed. There was a guy, I can't remember what school,
but he was at his own graduation and he had
his laptop or a tablet with him, and he was
showing off his AI assistant that had apparently helped him
write some of the essays that he needed to graduate.
(03:01):
And it makes me wonder what I could have potentially
achieved with this type of technology at my fingertips, and
what my professors would have thought if I would have
even tried to use something like this like groc or chat,
GPT or any of these other big AI assistants for students.
So what's the present and the future look like for
(03:25):
students and their use of artificial intelligence?
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Well, the president is that nobody knows and the teaching
community whether or not they should be allowing students to
use artificial intelligence. The future is they're going to be
using artificial intelligence. But we can't teach our kids. And
I've been interviewing folks on the show Hello Future on
iHeartMedia's app about this very question, and these are some
of the themes we explore. We can't teach our kids
(03:50):
not to use the technology, like in the Communist Party
of China, for example, during exam week, they shut off
and block on their Internet the chat, GPTs and the
other AI so that their students can't use them. I
think that's a really nineteen eighty four way to do things.
I think that innovation is always what helps societies thrive,
(04:10):
and so we can't teach kids to prepare them for
the world of nineteen fifty or a Norman Rockwell painting.
We have to be letting them and empowering them to
create and shape the future and how to use AI
to build a future for the betterment of our country,
I would argue. And so I think when we think
about these things, that's how we should think about them.
(04:32):
And maybe we need to really take a dramatic, hard
look at some of the lessons that we're teaching our
students in elementary school, in middle school, and in high
school and obviously in college, because maybe we need some
new subject materials like tech literacy or tech ethics or
things like that that are less antiquated than what they're
(04:54):
being taught.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
Now. Yeah, I think the you mentioned a calculator kind
of example, And you know, I don't know when the
decision was made, but when I was still in high school,
we had to biographing calculator to help us with some
of our algebra, calculus and all that stuff. And you know,
a lot of that stuff ended up being over my head,
(05:15):
but it was a tool that I knew I would
have been able to use if I went into engineering
or whatever, you know, the job would have created to
have that at my fingertips. Doesn't it make sense from
a teacher's perspective to maybe find ways to educate on
harnessing that as a tool like a calculator would be
for you know, a math issue. Or is this just
more a situation of, well, you're not doing the work,
(05:37):
and we don't want to give you credit for not
doing the work, even though maybe their way of teaching
might be a bit antiquated with the introduction of artificial intelligence.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
You're spot on. I mean, you're absolutely spot on. Now,
for the record, I was playing Snood on my TI
eighty three plus calculator when I was in high school,
which is probably why I didn't go into mathematics. But
you have figured out how to put games on our calculators.
But to your point, I think what you're also touching
on is that the transfer of knowledge for a human
and the transfer of knowledge for centuries, has really been
(06:10):
through literacy and through reading books and whatnot. And so
you know, I remember as a kid we would have
book textbooks in our backpacks and whatnot. Not necessarily anymore
because of these new technologies. And I believe we're in
the beginning of the start of the Second Industrial Revolution
as a precursor to quantum computing, which will happen in
(06:30):
the next fifteen years, but as a in order to
understand that humans can retain knowledge not just through reading,
but through very quickly you know, short form videos or
listening at a faster speed on YouTube. I mean, that's
just we're just scratching the surface on how a brain
(06:52):
retains information and we're and then when you think of
it through the prism of okay, well, what happens when
your brain is enhanced with technology, albeit a computer chip,
then you're just at the start of an even greater conversation.
But the transfer of knowledge to humans. Yes, it relates
to children, but it also relates to adults in this
world as well.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
Very interesting stuff. Joining us on the phone line, Kevin
SERRELLI a futurist. How can people listen to this type
of conversation? We've mentioned your show. How can people find
it in? What can they expect on your show?
Speaker 2 (07:26):
Well, thank you so much for asking that you search
for Hello Future with Kevin Sirilli on the iHeart app
and we put on a new episode every day. We
talk about all things in the future. You can also
visit me at MTF dot tv. MTF stands for Meet
the Future. It's MTF dot tv and that's the easiest
way to find the podcast as well.
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