May 6, 2025 • 34 mins
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The technological landscape is shifting beneath our feet, and those who fail to adapt risk being left behind. This stark reality forms the backbone of our latest episode, where we explore the concept that "AI is coming for the unmotivated" - perhaps the most crucial wake-up call of our professional generation.
TAKEAWAYS
• Recent experiences at ColorCloud event in Hamburg and during Spain's massive power outage
• Chris announces his new role at Cloud Lighthouse and ANS
• Microsoft Build conference schedule reveals heavy emphasis on AI with minimal business apps content
• The rise of "digital workforce" as a concept at major tech companies
• "AI is coming for the unmotivated" - why continuous learning is crucial for survival
• How an entire app was built using only AI prompts during a recent prompt-a-thon
• The concept of "information communism" illustrated through a real-world translation service example
• How professionals resist technological change rather than adapting their business models
• The need for "tragic imagination" to honestly confront the challenges ahead
• Why mundane, repetitive jobs will be the first to be replaced by digital workers
Don't hesitate to share your perspective with us. Stay connected for more innovative ideas and strategies to enhance your software estate. Until next time, keep pushing the boundaries and creating value.
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Thanks for listening 🚀 - Mark Smith
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Mark Smith (00:01):
Welcome to the Ecosystem Show.
We're thrilled to have you withus here.
We challenge traditionalmindsets and explore innovative
approaches to maximizing thevalue of your software estate.
We don't expect you to agreewith everything.
Challenge us, share yourthoughts and let's grow together
.
Now let's dive in it's showtime.
Chris Huntingford (00:21):
What's up everyone?
Yeah, it's been a bit of a wildcouple of weeks actually, but a
couple of us have just gottenback from Hamburg amongst the
crazy things that went downthere.
So we had the ColorCloud event,which was freaking awesome.
So I'd like to give a shout outto Matt and his team because,
(00:41):
in my opinion, they smashed itright, like I think this is
going to be one of the three bigconferences or the three
different conferences you'regoing to want to do next year,
right, I think?
I think they absolutely killedit.
And then, yeah, you know, colorcloud.
Then also experiencing, uh, thesophistication of german riots,
which was weird I don't knowhow else to explain this.
(01:01):
Man like sitting in a coffeeshop and it's like, okay, a
bunch of people going shopping,and then we'll have a casual
riot and then go back toshopping.
It's just odd, anyway, a bunchof armed guards and stuff.
So it's been a pretty wild week.
Andrew Welch (01:14):
I guess how are you guys when this event that
he's describing occurs?
Obviously, I had left, but itreminds me.
Hearing him talk about thisreminds me.
You know, for those of you whoare trying to time this, we're
recording less than two daysafter the massive power outage
(01:36):
in Spain, portugal, andorra andsouthern France right?
So for those of you who werenot up on the news on this and
Southern France, right?
So for those of you who werenot up on the news on this, 100%
of the power went out in theseregions, right?
So I had family and friendsfrom outside around the world
texting me are you affected?
And I'm like dude, 100% of thepeople here are affected.
(01:58):
Nobody is unaffected by this.
There is no power, and this wenton from probably around 1230 in
the afternoon to I think we gotour power back around maybe
eight, 30 or nine o'clock atnight in our neighborhood in
Valencia.
And but one of the things thatreally amused me about this now,
first of all, I should say thatin a way, it was scary, because
(02:19):
you know, we didn't, we, webarely had.
You had to kind of walk aroundand try to find a good cell
signal and you could maybe getsome news.
I was pretty much living off oftexts from Donna Sarkar, far,
far away from me, telling mewhat was happening in the
country that I live in.
But later I read the New YorkTimes and the New York Times
talked about there was chaos andthere were long lines at the
(02:43):
ATMs and it was just madness.
And my experience of this isthat unless the restaurant had a
gas stove right and drinkingagua de valencia and aperol
(03:08):
spritz and wine and on and onand haggling with one another
because most people didn't haveenough euros in their wallet, we
paid our bill mostly with eurosand then we offered we can pay
the rest in dollars, pounds,romanian lay or swedish kroner,
and they were totally cool withthis right.
So my experience here is thatthe at least the Spanish people,
(03:30):
and at least in Valencia arethe coolest weatherers of
catastrophic power outages inthe world.
We just all went drinking andit was a great day.
Chris Huntingford (03:40):
That's hilarious.
Andrew Welch (03:42):
Yeah.
Ana Welch (03:43):
Because it was just a day.
Andrew Welch (03:44):
Yeah, it was just like.
The same thing that would havebeen happening is going to
happen, except for the food willbe cold instead of hot.
Ana Welch (03:51):
But if it was two days or three days, nobody's got
food in their home, includingourselves.
Nobody has like any sort ofcash.
Andrew Welch (04:00):
It's like this experience has turned me into a
bit of a hoarder, though, like Ispent all of my euros and then
yesterday I went to the ATM and,instead of taking 100 euro out
to replenish my wallet, I took200 euro out, replenished my
wallet and stuck 100 euro in mysuitcase just in case and I'll
do this every month for the nextseveral months, just in case.
Mark Smith (04:23):
Yeah, and you'll not have an experience for another
five years like this now right,exactly, exactly, guys.
Chris Huntingford (04:30):
I just have to tell you this in south africa
, this power outage we call itload shedding, right, yeah, and
they literally, they literally,they literally go without power
for like days and days, and daysat a time.
Wow, everyone's got jenny's.
So, andrew, my, my advice toyou, bro, get a generator, man,
and just like, get one of thoseportable ones and a can of gas
and run around with it on yourback and then you can just like
(04:50):
fire up your laptop with can I?
Mark Smith (04:52):
please have.
Andrew Welch (04:53):
Can I also please have a like, a like, a blow
torch attached to this, justjust in case?
Oh, flamethrowers, yeah, justin case of flame.
Chris Huntingford (05:01):
Yeah, zombies okay yeah, yeah, dude, it makes
total sense to me.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Mark Smith (05:06):
But how does such a large region go out or lose
power, like what three or fourcountries affected?
Andrew Welch (05:14):
So I haven't read the news today, right Like I
think that they're stillresearching this, but the
theories that have been floatedare that you know there was some
sort of electric like fault inthe European power grid.
Another theory, of course Ithink that you know there was
some sort of electric like faultin the European power grid.
Another theory, of course Ithink that you can't.
You have to at leastinvestigate the possibility of
of cyber attack, especiallygiven the fact that Spain is, I
(05:36):
believe, nato's lowest defensebudget member.
So you know, if, if I'm not, Idon't want to.
I don't want to pontificateabout the politics of this, but
I feel like if anyone were goingto test NATO's resolve to
defend members with low militarybudgets, a cyber attack on
Spain might be something thatthey would consider.
(05:56):
So I think that they have toconsider that.
Anna read a really interestingtheory on this yesterday that
Anna take, take it away.
What did?
What did you find?
Ana Welch (06:06):
yeah, so the?
So the theory was, even thoughit was proclaimed as the cause
from like this expert who'ssaying that, uh, spain has
enhanced their, um, their greenenergy supply and farms and
everything over the winter andafter the floods and stuff, and
(06:32):
on that day it was sunnier thanbefore for this particular
supply and the networkaccumulated so much energy that
when it was pumped into thenetwork it couldn't handle it.
Like their contingency ruleswere simply not high enough,
(07:01):
which caused the whole networkto go into overload and which
caused some of the knots to stop, which caused most of the knots
to stop.
And because all of theelectrical grid is kind of
connected, this is what happened.
So, even though theyimmediately increased those
(07:22):
limits, you know know, or gotrid of the extra energy, the
butterfly effect was about 24hours.
Andrew Welch (07:31):
Basically, we needed a really big surge
protector for the whole countryand we, you know, like, like
they just don't make them.
They just don't make them thatway, I guess.
Ana Welch (07:39):
But it's a theory, it makes sense.
It comes with a lot of logicalarguments and like technical
details that I I I wouldn't knowhow to tell you, because it it
it tells you exactly how thesesystems work and that it's much
easier to actually stop them,pause them, then get them to,
(08:01):
then get them to move faster, toinclude all of that energy that
was produced yesterday.
I guess, unless there aresufficient studies and the
limits are set high enough, I'mimagining we'll have the same
issue in like July, right, butof course everybody's studying
this so that it doesn't happen.
Andrew Welch (08:22):
That's why I'm putting money in my suitcase.
Mark Smith (08:23):
It's crazy Correct.
Anyway, what's why I'm puttingmoney in my suitcase.
Andrew Welch (08:25):
It's crazy, correct Anyway.
Mark Smith (08:26):
What's been going on ?
So, since you've obviously beento Cloud Conference, you
launched the Center forTrustworthy AI, the Braavos
Forum.
I heard that Chris has got anew job.
Where are you working nowadays,chris?
Chris Huntingford (08:42):
So now it is official, I'm with Cloud
Lighthouse and ANS, so I'mspending my time now, which is
very cool.
Awesome man.
I get to do the fun things andthen the other things.
No, to be fair, it's beeninteresting, but I think what it
(09:04):
gives me is a very interestingperspective on number one, the
wider audience that we deal withat Cloud Lighthouse, because it
is much wider and it is muchmore vast and it is much more
deep, and then the kind of stateof play in the UK from an MSP
perspective.
So like what it is, that peopleare actually thinking and know
being extremely close to thecustomers, which, uh, which I
(09:27):
like right, like I've workedsomething out in the last sort
of three years.
I am very much about, like,being on the ground.
I love being in front ofcustomers and I love trying to
figure stuff out and I think,like that's, it's quite, it's
quite an interesting mix, youknow, but yeah, it's been, it's
been pretty awesome.
So I'm very, very finally happyto have this official.
I will tell you that now, causeit's been too long.
Ana Welch (09:49):
We are too, chris, especially me.
Andrew Welch (09:52):
You know Chris was .
Chris was the first personoutside.
You know apart from from Annathat that I ever even discussed
starting cloud lighthouse with.
And then, you know, it all sortof went from there, because,
chris, I talked with him andthen later that day we were
together.
It was that evening we had goneout for drinks.
We decided, let's, let's callMark Smith.
(10:15):
So we called Mark Smith andthat's how, that's how this this
all kind of took off.
Ana Welch (10:19):
But and then he went to bed.
Mark Smith (10:27):
And then I, and then he went to bed just and then I
went, I went to bed, you had anap, you had a naplet no, I had
a nighttime nap I had anall-night nap.
Chris Huntingford (10:32):
A naplet, yes , it's when you, it's when you
take some time to have a sweetlittle sleep.
Wherever you are, you can beanywhere, dude, like on a bench,
on a chair, in a bed, itdoesn't matter, and you know
that's a naplet, right?
So you did that.
It was very sweet.
Andrew Welch (10:44):
I had my naplet in my hotel room and it lasted all
night.
That's okay, dude, I'm a veryresponsible conference goer.
Chris Huntingford (10:51):
You are not a responsible conference goer,
neither am I, so let's just beclear here.
Andrew Welch (10:57):
I mean to be fair.
In Vegas at Power PlatformConference last year, I was an
incredibly responsibleconference goer.
I was in bed almost every nightby 10 o'clock.
11 o'clock I was up, I did thething.
I didn't drink too much andthen the day after the
conference I had a stroke on anairplane.
So what I think, the lessonhere, is that you know you only
(11:19):
live once.
Chris Huntingford (11:19):
So I was going to say Mark and I were
extremely responsible in Vegas,extremely responsible.
Mark Smith (11:26):
Amazingly so.
Chris Huntingford (11:27):
We were so responsible.
Mark Smith (11:31):
Have you had a chance to look at the schedule
for Build?
Chris Huntingford (11:35):
No, but I have some insight into what is
going on.
Mark Smith (11:39):
Tell us what.
What do you know?
Chris Huntingford (11:41):
So I was chatting to Donna.
I don't know.
You see, I've got to be carefulhere.
I don't actually know how muchas MVPs we can share, probably
nothing If it's so, so let's bevery very clear.
I don't know anything.
No, I I'll tell you what likethere is.
So no, they have been releasingstuff, some stuff on the MVP
(12:06):
teams, channels and things likethat.
Mark Smith (12:07):
But I think actually I'm not going to say anything
because of NDA, the skid wentlive today.
Chris Huntingford (12:09):
Oh no, no, I haven't seen that.
No, no.
Andrew Welch (12:09):
I haven't seen that.
Yeah, yeah, I haven't seen anyof the publicly available
information.
Mark Smith (12:14):
Everything's there.
And what I noticed?
Chris Huntingford (12:18):
the glaringly obvious thing that I noticed-
so are you going to call out thething that you were talking
about the other day?
Andrew Welch (12:25):
mark is going to answer his own question.
So, mark, mark, let have you.
What have you?
Uh, do you want me to say it inthe, in the kiwi voice, or?
Mark Smith (12:32):
just go for it.
Andrew Welch (12:34):
No, no, no no, no, what, what, uh, what have you
seen about build?
What are you thinking?
Mark Smith (12:38):
there was obviously a massive emphasis on ai.
Yes, color me shocked, what,what and I think there's ai I
only saw one session thatcovered anything relating to
business apps.
Chris Huntingford (12:54):
Oh, really yeah.
Mark Smith (12:56):
So if you take Copilot Studio out of the mix,
right, because that's you know,there was one Dataverse session.
Otherwise, I'm pretty sure Isaw nothing but crickets in that
space.
In fact, there wasn't even acategory selector for anything
that sits under BizApps that Icould see.
That's wild.
Ana Welch (13:16):
That is very interesting.
That is very interesting.
You know, I went to ColorCloud2, which was my very first
conference after a long time,and I went to sessions.
I love going to sessions.
Sessions are great and Irecommend that anybody, when
(13:37):
they go to a conference, just goto sessions.
Even though you're a speakerand you're there with your
buddies, sessions are very good.
You know, I learned somethingthat I didn't know about how to
you know, generate some contentwith AI and how AI has evolved.
It was Copilot Studio.
In this case, it was just goingaway from summarizing and
(14:01):
drafting things and actuallydoing stuff right with your
information.
And whilst that was really,really interesting, what was
interesting to me was just howeasy it is to lose track of how
many things are happening withAI.
(14:22):
The speaker was presenting that.
Somebody else in the audiencewere like, oh, and, by the way,
there's this new tool that cameout that actually judges how
good your prompt is.
That was, and it's on the appstore, on the microsoft app
store, and it was so interestingbecause the speaker were like,
(14:47):
oh, okay, interesting, let's,let's have a look.
And her prompt was actuallyvery good, like 90% rated 90%.
So clearly she had, she hadexperience.
But what I'm trying to say isthat there are so many things
going, going on right now andcoming coming up that how do
(15:08):
people even select what theywant to learn next, or where to
go or how not to how not to fallbehind.
And you know your hint with, bythe way, there are no more
these apps.
Sessions that build meanspeople stop it with you
(15:30):
rewriting business rules intoJavaScript and crap like that.
Just look at what's important,you know.
Start really learning what theworld is about right now,
because you will lose your job.
Somebody will come and buildthose things properly after
(15:51):
they've seen the sessions andbuild or like at conferences or
whatever.
And that doesn't mean that AItook your job.
It means that you were not goodenough to keep it.
I'm sorry, I don't know howelse to say.
Andrew Welch (16:04):
I agree, I totally agree, and there's a couple of
things that I've seen in thelast week, right, that totally
support this thesis, and ifyou're a longtime listener, this
is not the first time you'veheard us talking about this.
I feel like we could not have alarger megaphone to tell
business apps folks that theworld has moved on from what it
(16:25):
is you do and you need to moveon with it if you want to.
You know, stay in this in thisspace.
So, um, one thing that I sawlast week was at the.
The prompt-a-thon that chrisand others hosted at color cloud
on the thursday was the winningteam built an entire app
without actually doing any appdevelopment.
(16:47):
They just and chris keep mehonest on this if I'm wrong
right, but they built an entireapp using prompts.
Right, with AI actuallybuilding the app.
Right, which I think was.
It's still very early days forthat capability and for that
technology, but I think it iscertainly a sign of things to
come.
Also, last week I had a chatwith a friend of mine who is the
(17:11):
CEO of a Microsoft partner.
It is a sizable Microsoftpartner, not just one sitting in
a single country.
He's one of the, I think, themore forward-thinking leaders
within the Microsoft space andwithin business apps in
particular.
The company that he leads isreally very much associated with
Dynamics and that's theirhistorical legacy and he was
(17:33):
telling me listen, it is time tomove on Dynamics and business
apps.
The old world is dying and heis very, very proactively trying
to move his company into thisnew world.
So I just think that look atthe build schedule, look at what
Chris and company did at theprompt-a-thon last week, listen
(17:55):
to my CEO friend and listen tothe ecosystems podcast.
We could not be telling youmore clearly that, mark, can we
get a?
Can we get a?
What's dead?
What's deed?
Mark Smith (18:09):
Oh, I don't, I don't want to, I don't want to say it
, right, as I know I don't wantto say it, but here's the thing.
Here's something that and I'mpleased, anna, you indexed
heavily on this is that I lookat it like this AI is not coming
for your job, but capitalistsis Right.
(18:31):
A capitalist is coming for yourjob, right, and they're going
to use technology to enable it.
Now, one of the sessions BRK148on the build schedule is
building the digital workforce.
Right, if you don't know what adigital workforce is, google,
it, it's not you, because you'llsee, a digital workforce
doesn't breathe oxygen and itdoesn't have blood pumping
(18:52):
through its veins.
It's digital and microsoft, Ibelieve in the next six months,
you're going to hear this phraseand this is why I look for it
on build, and there it wasdigital workforce.
You're going to see a massiveindex on this phrase and it be
used more and more.
I researched today on IBM'swebsite.
(19:14):
They're talking about digitalworkforces.
Google are talking aboutdigital workforces.
Andrew Welch (19:19):
Are you sure IBM didn't call it the Watson
workforce?
Mark Smith (19:22):
No, that is digital workforce right, and so what's
becoming very clear is that Ithink the big tech companies and
maybe not going to shy awayfrom going.
It's going after jobs likenever before and one of the
stories I've heard behind itthere's a lot of smart people
(19:43):
and businesses that leavebecause they get sick of and
this actually came out of theIBM report that I read they get
sick of the drudge work thatthey do and non-innovative work,
and so the whole idea is thatif you're going to have a
digital worker take over thedrudge work you can, you're more
likely to keep these employeesyou know, as in that are, you
(20:04):
know, higher value to theorganization.
Now, the second thing that Icame across today was a post
that Meg shared on LinkedIn froma lady called Senad Bovell.
She's the way founder, founder,futurist and strategist, a
foresight advisor, new yorkbased, but she had this carousel
(20:25):
and the header was ai is comingfor the unmotivated oh,
beautiful, and I'm like yes,gold right.
That is gold right.
That is when I read it, it justkind of so.
Resonated with me strongly isthat people are taking AI as
like I'm not really into it orI've done a few prompts, but I
(20:49):
tell you like I've been indexingheavily on the O3 model from
ChatGBbt of late and honestlyand the reason I got onto it is
because a number of peoplesaying, are we getting to super
intelligence now?
Because in front of you, itwill go off, it'll go and write
(21:11):
python scripts, it'll go andaccess resources, it'll develop
stuff, just to come back and getyour answer.
I've had a, a single promptthat I've created that has run
for over 30 minutes before itgave me the answers and the
answers were just mount yourface off.
Detailed, referenceable, oh mygosh like.
(21:35):
And the thing is is that Ithink there's so many people
probably haven't even looked atthe o3 model, not doing it, not
drilling into the, itscapabilities and what it can do
to really enhance I.
I feel like in the last twoweeks I have been probably three
to four times more efficientand productive than what I can
do because of using these reallyadvanced features now in AI
(21:59):
models and Satya had this quotethat he I heard that it came
from he was presenting in Italy.
That says you cannot get fit bywatching somebody else work out
in the gym and I think it's soapplies to AI.
Chris Huntingford (22:13):
I've got to bail, so that is a good point.
I'm going to put something onLinkedIn about that, but AI is
coming for the unmotivated, so,thank you, I'm steaming that,
all right.
Cheers guys, I'll see you later.
Andrew Welch (22:24):
Chris has a call.
We can finish up here.
See you, chris, later.
Ana Welch (22:28):
So I just want to say just one thing with regards to
that.
I think that's totally true.
That's totally true.
And not drilling into thesecapabilities and it doesn't
necessarily need to be, you know, in the GPT model right now.
It can be whatever you want,right.
It can be around how AI worksand it can be around
(22:57):
sustainability in AI, and it canbe like programming I don't
know with the GitHub co-pilot,or it can be anything you want.
There are many, many, manyoptions, right?
But if you do not do it, thenyou have two options.
Either the digital worker willdo you know the grunt work, so
all of the copy pasting, it'sjust going to go away and it's
just going to get better andbetter and better, right?
(23:18):
Or you still have your jobbecause you've been there for
like 20 years and only you knowa process.
Or we always, we all knew, knowlike a process like that, right
, held together by somebody whoknows just that Excel, and
you'll be allowed to hold on toit, and then you'll be given all
(23:41):
of the other groundwork thatthe digital worker still hasn't
done yet, but you'll have noteam and it's going to be a
pretty miserable experience,pretty much grounded in fear
that you are going to lose yourjob.
So just look at some stuff, iswhat I'm saying.
I'm already in sunshine today,aren't I?
(24:05):
No, the thing is.
Mark Smith (24:07):
I'm like fully on board, like this is wake up call
.
I feel time that people reallyneed to double down on learning.
Like another Satya quote have alearn-it-all mentality.
You need to be learning thisstuff.
You need to, you know, whileyou can.
Andrew Welch (24:24):
I've been thinking about this a lot lately that we
have we're facing it's funnyhow.
It's funny how all joking asideabout the you know me getting a
hundred euro and putting it inmy suitcase for the next time
the power goes out right.
All joking aside about that,one of the things that when Anna
(24:46):
and I were reflecting on thepower outage the other day, we
were saying how, how, whatuncertain times we live in,
right?
Mark Smith (25:00):
Yeah, yeah.
Andrew Welch (25:00):
Certainly, certainly, the I grew up, I grew
up in America Right, so I waswas very fortunate to not have
to live in terribly uncertaintimes.
Anna was born in communistRomania, so had to live in very
uncertain times earlier in herlife, but certainly these are
the most uncertain times of anyof our adult lives, I would say,
(25:25):
and one of the things that I amobserving across so many
contexts, right across work andAI, and what people need to
learn, or what organizationsneed to become and what nations
need to do, not even apart fromai what, what um europe needs to
(25:46):
do in order to beself-sufficient and able to
defend itself, what uh democratsin america need to do in order
to, um, you know, reclaim uhpart of the electorate that
they've lost.
Right Like across the world andin so many different contexts,
I think that we are right nowsuffering from a lack of tragic
(26:08):
imagination, from a lack ofhonesty with ourselves and with
others about the enormity of thechallenges and the tasks that
we face right.
So when, at least you know, forme and I think I speak for all
of us when we're on this show,or when we're at a conference,
or when we're in any sort ofspace, where we are advising
(26:32):
technologists, advising ourpeers throughout the industry as
to where they need to go inorder to survive and thrive.
When I'm advising clients andworking with clients and really
giving them some tough love onwhat you are doing is a road to
failure, right?
The world needs right now, Ithink, a combination of tragic
(26:57):
imagination and ingenuity inorder to survive and thrive.
So we're not cheering for thedemise of any particular
industry or discipline or set ofknowledge, or on and on and it
goes.
We are simply, in my opinion,trying to recognize and be
forthright about the enormity ofthe challenges we face and the
(27:20):
enormity of the effort required.
You have to be motivated.
Ai is coming for theunmotivated.
Ana Welch (27:26):
Yeah, about that.
I have another story, if we'vegot time, we've got time.
So we were in Dresov, you know,looking at an office and right
in the city center.
So we were just, you know, ourco-working space was looking for
an office and I had totranslate some legal documents
(27:51):
for some procedures that we haveto do in the EU, procedures
that we have to do in the EU.
So I go to this translator'soffice and I go in and there's
just one guy in the huge,massive office right in the
center of town with likemahogany desks and like files
neatly stored.
And you know that sort ofsituation.
(28:13):
I sit down and I give him, youknow, my documents and I was
like, oh, you're not very busytoday.
He's like I assume it's afterEaster.
He's like wrong, people justdon't want to come to work
anymore.
And also most organizations wehad, you know, an agreement with
(28:37):
, they all want automatictranslations and we just correct
them, which means you know halfthe money and like double the
work to make sure everything'sright.
And right now there's AI aswell that can potentially do
some of those corrections aswell, probably.
(28:57):
So what we're really dealinghere is information communism.
I'm like okay, interesting,interesting concept.
What do you mean?
He's like well, all of thetranslations that we've done
manually over the years, they'reall recorded, right, so they're
in some cloud somewhere.
(29:17):
And then these new models arebeing trained on the work, on
our work, right, that has beenvalidated and peer reviewed.
I think it would be correctthat I get, you know, sorry, a
percentage of that income, likeif I was writing a book, because
(29:38):
that's my, you know, that's myasset.
And I'm like okay, okay, okay,in interesting situation and
dilemma, I guess here are mypapers, right, I had two, yeah,
two like birth certificate,marriage certificate, nothing,
rocket science.
Can they be done, you know, bytonight?
(29:59):
And he's like oh, it's alreadymidday, you know, these are
gonna have to be done manually.
I'm like I know I could do themmanually for you right now and
you just peer review them if you, if you want to, or like put
your stamp.
But he's like no, no, no, it'sgonna take until Friday because
we need to take it to the notaryfor them to put their stamp on
(30:22):
it.
And I'm like okay, interesting.
So you have this situation wherea person claims that AI and
automatic translation isthinking their job and their
business with their big, massiveoffice in the center of town
complaining by the fact thatpeople don't come into work or,
(30:44):
um, their biggest thing was thatthey were using google or the
ai themselves to do the uh, themanual translations and how.
That's very, very bad, butwe're in information communism
and things are taken away fromme.
So this is how some people viewthese things and, by the way, I
did not have that papers untilFriday.
I had to send an email andthreaten and stuff like that
(31:07):
because we needed thosedocuments back.
Yeah, so this is where AI iscoming from the unmotivated, the
person who's thinking thatsomebody's being, that something
is being taken away from theminstead of, just like you know,
selling those desks, puttingsome good laptops in and and,
(31:28):
and you know, doing their job,but better, you know.
So that's.
That was just an example.
You know that I, in real life.
Mark Smith (31:36):
It's a brilliant example, and the thing is that I
think that would be repeatedall over the world in so many
offices and so many locations isthat I think the days of doing
unintelligent work are going togo away.
So, in other words, if youdon't really need to think about
what you're doing and stuff,it's obviously a digital worker
(31:57):
is going to take that role.
Right, humans are going to beused for the stuff that the edge
cases, that the digital workercan't do, right, right, and so I
think that anybody that's inreally mundane, repetitive-based
jobs it's a no-brainer.
Unless you're going to re-skill, you're not going to have a job
.
Ana Welch (32:17):
If you're checking the invoices, that's no, don't
do that yeah yeah awesome.
Mark Smith (32:22):
It's been good chatting with you guys.
Um, uh, our time is up.
Um, surprisingly, mr dorringtonwas going to join us, but he is
obviously not now to get awayfrom his meeting.
Um, but, uh, hey, thankseverybody.
Feel free to drop us a messageif there's something you'd like
us to talk about specifically onthe show in the future thanks
everyone, bye guys thanks fortuning into the ecosystem show.
(32:46):
We hope you found today'sdiscussion insightful and
thought provoking, and maybe youhad a laugh or two.
Remember your feedback andchallenges.
Help us all grow, so don'thesitate to share your
perspective.
Stay connected.
Help us all grow, so don'thesitate to share your
perspective.
Stay connected with us for moreinnovative ideas and strategies
to enhance your software estate.
Until next time, keep pushingthe boundaries and creating
(33:07):
value.
See you on the next episode.
Welcome to the Ecosystem Show.
We're thrilled to have you withus here.
We challenge traditionalmindsets and explore innovative
approaches to maximizing thevalue of your software estate.
We don't expect you to agreewith everything.
Challenge us, share yourthoughts and let's grow together
.
Now let's dive in it's showtime.
Chris Huntingford (00:21):
What's up everyone?
Yeah, it's been a bit of a wildcouple of weeks actually, but a
couple of us have just gottenback from Hamburg amongst the
crazy things that went downthere.
So we had the ColorCloud event,which was freaking awesome.
So I'd like to give a shout outto Matt and his team because,
(00:41):
in my opinion, they smashed itright, like I think this is
going to be one of the three bigconferences or the three
different conferences you'regoing to want to do next year,
right, I think?
I think they absolutely killedit.
And then, yeah, you know, colorcloud.
Then also experiencing, uh, thesophistication of german riots,
which was weird I don't knowhow else to explain this.
(01:01):
Man like sitting in a coffeeshop and it's like, okay, a
bunch of people going shopping,and then we'll have a casual
riot and then go back toshopping.
It's just odd, anyway, a bunchof armed guards and stuff.
So it's been a pretty wild week.
Andrew Welch (01:14):
I guess how are you guys when this event that
he's describing occurs?
Obviously, I had left, but itreminds me.
Hearing him talk about thisreminds me.
You know, for those of you whoare trying to time this, we're
recording less than two daysafter the massive power outage
(01:36):
in Spain, portugal, andorra andsouthern France right?
So for those of you who werenot up on the news on this and
Southern France, right?
So for those of you who werenot up on the news on this, 100%
of the power went out in theseregions, right?
So I had family and friendsfrom outside around the world
texting me are you affected?
And I'm like dude, 100% of thepeople here are affected.
(01:58):
Nobody is unaffected by this.
There is no power, and this wenton from probably around 1230 in
the afternoon to I think we gotour power back around maybe
eight, 30 or nine o'clock atnight in our neighborhood in
Valencia.
And but one of the things thatreally amused me about this now,
first of all, I should say thatin a way, it was scary, because
(02:19):
you know, we didn't, we, webarely had.
You had to kind of walk aroundand try to find a good cell
signal and you could maybe getsome news.
I was pretty much living off oftexts from Donna Sarkar, far,
far away from me, telling mewhat was happening in the
country that I live in.
But later I read the New YorkTimes and the New York Times
talked about there was chaos andthere were long lines at the
(02:43):
ATMs and it was just madness.
And my experience of this isthat unless the restaurant had a
gas stove right and drinkingagua de valencia and aperol
(03:08):
spritz and wine and on and onand haggling with one another
because most people didn't haveenough euros in their wallet, we
paid our bill mostly with eurosand then we offered we can pay
the rest in dollars, pounds,romanian lay or swedish kroner,
and they were totally cool withthis right.
So my experience here is thatthe at least the Spanish people,
(03:30):
and at least in Valencia arethe coolest weatherers of
catastrophic power outages inthe world.
We just all went drinking andit was a great day.
Chris Huntingford (03:40):
That's hilarious.
Andrew Welch (03:42):
Yeah.
Ana Welch (03:43):
Because it was just a day.
Andrew Welch (03:44):
Yeah, it was just like.
The same thing that would havebeen happening is going to
happen, except for the food willbe cold instead of hot.
Ana Welch (03:51):
But if it was two days or three days, nobody's got
food in their home, includingourselves.
Nobody has like any sort ofcash.
Andrew Welch (04:00):
It's like this experience has turned me into a
bit of a hoarder, though, like Ispent all of my euros and then
yesterday I went to the ATM and,instead of taking 100 euro out
to replenish my wallet, I took200 euro out, replenished my
wallet and stuck 100 euro in mysuitcase just in case and I'll
do this every month for the nextseveral months, just in case.
Mark Smith (04:23):
Yeah, and you'll not have an experience for another
five years like this now right,exactly, exactly, guys.
Chris Huntingford (04:30):
I just have to tell you this in south africa
, this power outage we call itload shedding, right, yeah, and
they literally, they literally,they literally go without power
for like days and days, and daysat a time.
Wow, everyone's got jenny's.
So, andrew, my, my advice toyou, bro, get a generator, man,
and just like, get one of thoseportable ones and a can of gas
and run around with it on yourback and then you can just like
(04:50):
fire up your laptop with can I?
Mark Smith (04:52):
please have.
Andrew Welch (04:53):
Can I also please have a like, a like, a blow
torch attached to this, justjust in case?
Oh, flamethrowers, yeah, justin case of flame.
Chris Huntingford (05:01):
Yeah, zombies okay yeah, yeah, dude, it makes
total sense to me.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Mark Smith (05:06):
But how does such a large region go out or lose
power, like what three or fourcountries affected?
Andrew Welch (05:14):
So I haven't read the news today, right Like I
think that they're stillresearching this, but the
theories that have been floatedare that you know there was some
sort of electric like fault inthe European power grid.
Another theory, of course Ithink that you know there was
some sort of electric like faultin the European power grid.
Another theory, of course Ithink that you can't.
You have to at leastinvestigate the possibility of
of cyber attack, especiallygiven the fact that Spain is, I
(05:36):
believe, nato's lowest defensebudget member.
So you know, if, if I'm not, Idon't want to.
I don't want to pontificateabout the politics of this, but
I feel like if anyone were goingto test NATO's resolve to
defend members with low militarybudgets, a cyber attack on
Spain might be something thatthey would consider.
(05:56):
So I think that they have toconsider that.
Anna read a really interestingtheory on this yesterday that
Anna take, take it away.
What did?
What did you find?
Ana Welch (06:06):
yeah, so the?
So the theory was, even thoughit was proclaimed as the cause
from like this expert who'ssaying that, uh, spain has
enhanced their, um, their greenenergy supply and farms and
everything over the winter andafter the floods and stuff, and
(06:32):
on that day it was sunnier thanbefore for this particular
supply and the networkaccumulated so much energy that
when it was pumped into thenetwork it couldn't handle it.
Like their contingency ruleswere simply not high enough,
(07:01):
which caused the whole networkto go into overload and which
caused some of the knots to stop, which caused most of the knots
to stop.
And because all of theelectrical grid is kind of
connected, this is what happened.
So, even though theyimmediately increased those
(07:22):
limits, you know know, or gotrid of the extra energy, the
butterfly effect was about 24hours.
Andrew Welch (07:31):
Basically, we needed a really big surge
protector for the whole countryand we, you know, like, like
they just don't make them.
They just don't make them thatway, I guess.
Ana Welch (07:39):
But it's a theory, it makes sense.
It comes with a lot of logicalarguments and like technical
details that I I I wouldn't knowhow to tell you, because it it
it tells you exactly how thesesystems work and that it's much
easier to actually stop them,pause them, then get them to,
(08:01):
then get them to move faster, toinclude all of that energy that
was produced yesterday.
I guess, unless there aresufficient studies and the
limits are set high enough, I'mimagining we'll have the same
issue in like July, right, butof course everybody's studying
this so that it doesn't happen.
Andrew Welch (08:22):
That's why I'm putting money in my suitcase.
Mark Smith (08:23):
It's crazy Correct.
Anyway, what's why I'm puttingmoney in my suitcase.
Andrew Welch (08:25):
It's crazy, correct Anyway.
Mark Smith (08:26):
What's been going on ?
So, since you've obviously beento Cloud Conference, you
launched the Center forTrustworthy AI, the Braavos
Forum.
I heard that Chris has got anew job.
Where are you working nowadays,chris?
Chris Huntingford (08:42):
So now it is official, I'm with Cloud
Lighthouse and ANS, so I'mspending my time now, which is
very cool.
Awesome man.
I get to do the fun things andthen the other things.
No, to be fair, it's beeninteresting, but I think what it
(09:04):
gives me is a very interestingperspective on number one, the
wider audience that we deal withat Cloud Lighthouse, because it
is much wider and it is muchmore vast and it is much more
deep, and then the kind of stateof play in the UK from an MSP
perspective.
So like what it is, that peopleare actually thinking and know
being extremely close to thecustomers, which, uh, which I
(09:27):
like right, like I've workedsomething out in the last sort
of three years.
I am very much about, like,being on the ground.
I love being in front ofcustomers and I love trying to
figure stuff out and I think,like that's, it's quite, it's
quite an interesting mix, youknow, but yeah, it's been, it's
been pretty awesome.
So I'm very, very finally happyto have this official.
I will tell you that now, causeit's been too long.
Ana Welch (09:49):
We are too, chris, especially me.
Andrew Welch (09:52):
You know Chris was .
Chris was the first personoutside.
You know apart from from Annathat that I ever even discussed
starting cloud lighthouse with.
And then, you know, it all sortof went from there, because,
chris, I talked with him andthen later that day we were
together.
It was that evening we had goneout for drinks.
We decided, let's, let's callMark Smith.
(10:15):
So we called Mark Smith andthat's how, that's how this this
all kind of took off.
Ana Welch (10:19):
But and then he went to bed.
Mark Smith (10:27):
And then I, and then he went to bed just and then I
went, I went to bed, you had anap, you had a naplet no, I had
a nighttime nap I had anall-night nap.
Chris Huntingford (10:32):
A naplet, yes , it's when you, it's when you
take some time to have a sweetlittle sleep.
Wherever you are, you can beanywhere, dude, like on a bench,
on a chair, in a bed, itdoesn't matter, and you know
that's a naplet, right?
So you did that.
It was very sweet.
Andrew Welch (10:44):
I had my naplet in my hotel room and it lasted all
night.
That's okay, dude, I'm a veryresponsible conference goer.
Chris Huntingford (10:51):
You are not a responsible conference goer,
neither am I, so let's just beclear here.
Andrew Welch (10:57):
I mean to be fair.
In Vegas at Power PlatformConference last year, I was an
incredibly responsibleconference goer.
I was in bed almost every nightby 10 o'clock.
11 o'clock I was up, I did thething.
I didn't drink too much andthen the day after the
conference I had a stroke on anairplane.
So what I think, the lessonhere, is that you know you only
(11:19):
live once.
Chris Huntingford (11:19):
So I was going to say Mark and I were
extremely responsible in Vegas,extremely responsible.
Mark Smith (11:26):
Amazingly so.
Chris Huntingford (11:27):
We were so responsible.
Mark Smith (11:31):
Have you had a chance to look at the schedule
for Build?
Chris Huntingford (11:35):
No, but I have some insight into what is
going on.
Mark Smith (11:39):
Tell us what.
What do you know?
Chris Huntingford (11:41):
So I was chatting to Donna.
I don't know.
You see, I've got to be carefulhere.
I don't actually know how muchas MVPs we can share, probably
nothing If it's so, so let's bevery very clear.
I don't know anything.
No, I I'll tell you what likethere is.
So no, they have been releasingstuff, some stuff on the MVP
(12:06):
teams, channels and things likethat.
Mark Smith (12:07):
But I think actually I'm not going to say anything
because of NDA, the skid wentlive today.
Chris Huntingford (12:09):
Oh no, no, I haven't seen that.
No, no.
Andrew Welch (12:09):
I haven't seen that.
Yeah, yeah, I haven't seen anyof the publicly available
information.
Mark Smith (12:14):
Everything's there.
And what I noticed?
Chris Huntingford (12:18):
the glaringly obvious thing that I noticed-
so are you going to call out thething that you were talking
about the other day?
Andrew Welch (12:25):
mark is going to answer his own question.
So, mark, mark, let have you.
What have you?
Uh, do you want me to say it inthe, in the kiwi voice, or?
Mark Smith (12:32):
just go for it.
Andrew Welch (12:34):
No, no, no no, no, what, what, uh, what have you
seen about build?
What are you thinking?
Mark Smith (12:38):
there was obviously a massive emphasis on ai.
Yes, color me shocked, what,what and I think there's ai I
only saw one session thatcovered anything relating to
business apps.
Chris Huntingford (12:54):
Oh, really yeah.
Mark Smith (12:56):
So if you take Copilot Studio out of the mix,
right, because that's you know,there was one Dataverse session.
Otherwise, I'm pretty sure Isaw nothing but crickets in that
space.
In fact, there wasn't even acategory selector for anything
that sits under BizApps that Icould see.
That's wild.
Ana Welch (13:16):
That is very interesting.
That is very interesting.
You know, I went to ColorCloud2, which was my very first
conference after a long time,and I went to sessions.
I love going to sessions.
Sessions are great and Irecommend that anybody, when
(13:37):
they go to a conference, just goto sessions.
Even though you're a speakerand you're there with your
buddies, sessions are very good.
You know, I learned somethingthat I didn't know about how to
you know, generate some contentwith AI and how AI has evolved.
It was Copilot Studio.
In this case, it was just goingaway from summarizing and
(14:01):
drafting things and actuallydoing stuff right with your
information.
And whilst that was really,really interesting, what was
interesting to me was just howeasy it is to lose track of how
many things are happening withAI.
(14:22):
The speaker was presenting that.
Somebody else in the audiencewere like, oh, and, by the way,
there's this new tool that cameout that actually judges how
good your prompt is.
That was, and it's on the appstore, on the microsoft app
store, and it was so interestingbecause the speaker were like,
(14:47):
oh, okay, interesting, let's,let's have a look.
And her prompt was actuallyvery good, like 90% rated 90%.
So clearly she had, she hadexperience.
But what I'm trying to say isthat there are so many things
going, going on right now andcoming coming up that how do
(15:08):
people even select what theywant to learn next, or where to
go or how not to how not to fallbehind.
And you know your hint with, bythe way, there are no more
these apps.
Sessions that build meanspeople stop it with you
(15:30):
rewriting business rules intoJavaScript and crap like that.
Just look at what's important,you know.
Start really learning what theworld is about right now,
because you will lose your job.
Somebody will come and buildthose things properly after
(15:51):
they've seen the sessions andbuild or like at conferences or
whatever.
And that doesn't mean that AItook your job.
It means that you were not goodenough to keep it.
I'm sorry, I don't know howelse to say.
Andrew Welch (16:04):
I agree, I totally agree, and there's a couple of
things that I've seen in thelast week, right, that totally
support this thesis, and ifyou're a longtime listener, this
is not the first time you'veheard us talking about this.
I feel like we could not have alarger megaphone to tell
business apps folks that theworld has moved on from what it
(16:25):
is you do and you need to moveon with it if you want to.
You know, stay in this in thisspace.
So, um, one thing that I sawlast week was at the.
The prompt-a-thon that chrisand others hosted at color cloud
on the thursday was the winningteam built an entire app
without actually doing any appdevelopment.
(16:47):
They just and chris keep mehonest on this if I'm wrong
right, but they built an entireapp using prompts.
Right, with AI actuallybuilding the app.
Right, which I think was.
It's still very early days forthat capability and for that
technology, but I think it iscertainly a sign of things to
come.
Also, last week I had a chatwith a friend of mine who is the
(17:11):
CEO of a Microsoft partner.
It is a sizable Microsoftpartner, not just one sitting in
a single country.
He's one of the, I think, themore forward-thinking leaders
within the Microsoft space andwithin business apps in
particular.
The company that he leads isreally very much associated with
Dynamics and that's theirhistorical legacy and he was
(17:33):
telling me listen, it is time tomove on Dynamics and business
apps.
The old world is dying and heis very, very proactively trying
to move his company into thisnew world.
So I just think that look atthe build schedule, look at what
Chris and company did at theprompt-a-thon last week, listen
(17:55):
to my CEO friend and listen tothe ecosystems podcast.
We could not be telling youmore clearly that, mark, can we
get a?
Can we get a?
What's dead?
What's deed?
Mark Smith (18:09):
Oh, I don't, I don't want to, I don't want to say it
, right, as I know I don't wantto say it, but here's the thing.
Here's something that and I'mpleased, anna, you indexed
heavily on this is that I lookat it like this AI is not coming
for your job, but capitalistsis Right.
(18:31):
A capitalist is coming for yourjob, right, and they're going
to use technology to enable it.
Now, one of the sessions BRK148on the build schedule is
building the digital workforce.
Right, if you don't know what adigital workforce is, google,
it, it's not you, because you'llsee, a digital workforce
doesn't breathe oxygen and itdoesn't have blood pumping
(18:52):
through its veins.
It's digital and microsoft, Ibelieve in the next six months,
you're going to hear this phraseand this is why I look for it
on build, and there it wasdigital workforce.
You're going to see a massiveindex on this phrase and it be
used more and more.
I researched today on IBM'swebsite.
(19:14):
They're talking about digitalworkforces.
Google are talking aboutdigital workforces.
Andrew Welch (19:19):
Are you sure IBM didn't call it the Watson
workforce?
Mark Smith (19:22):
No, that is digital workforce right, and so what's
becoming very clear is that Ithink the big tech companies and
maybe not going to shy awayfrom going.
It's going after jobs likenever before and one of the
stories I've heard behind itthere's a lot of smart people
(19:43):
and businesses that leavebecause they get sick of and
this actually came out of theIBM report that I read they get
sick of the drudge work thatthey do and non-innovative work,
and so the whole idea is thatif you're going to have a
digital worker take over thedrudge work you can, you're more
likely to keep these employeesyou know, as in that are, you
(20:04):
know, higher value to theorganization.
Now, the second thing that Icame across today was a post
that Meg shared on LinkedIn froma lady called Senad Bovell.
She's the way founder, founder,futurist and strategist, a
foresight advisor, new yorkbased, but she had this carousel
(20:25):
and the header was ai is comingfor the unmotivated oh,
beautiful, and I'm like yes,gold right.
That is gold right.
That is when I read it, it justkind of so.
Resonated with me strongly isthat people are taking AI as
like I'm not really into it orI've done a few prompts, but I
(20:49):
tell you like I've been indexingheavily on the O3 model from
ChatGBbt of late and honestlyand the reason I got onto it is
because a number of peoplesaying, are we getting to super
intelligence now?
Because in front of you, itwill go off, it'll go and write
(21:11):
python scripts, it'll go andaccess resources, it'll develop
stuff, just to come back and getyour answer.
I've had a, a single promptthat I've created that has run
for over 30 minutes before itgave me the answers and the
answers were just mount yourface off.
Detailed, referenceable, oh mygosh like.
(21:35):
And the thing is is that Ithink there's so many people
probably haven't even looked atthe o3 model, not doing it, not
drilling into the, itscapabilities and what it can do
to really enhance I.
I feel like in the last twoweeks I have been probably three
to four times more efficientand productive than what I can
do because of using these reallyadvanced features now in AI
(21:59):
models and Satya had this quotethat he I heard that it came
from he was presenting in Italy.
That says you cannot get fit bywatching somebody else work out
in the gym and I think it's soapplies to AI.
Chris Huntingford (22:13):
I've got to bail, so that is a good point.
I'm going to put something onLinkedIn about that, but AI is
coming for the unmotivated, so,thank you, I'm steaming that,
all right.
Cheers guys, I'll see you later.
Andrew Welch (22:24):
Chris has a call.
We can finish up here.
See you, chris, later.
Ana Welch (22:28):
So I just want to say just one thing with regards to
that.
I think that's totally true.
That's totally true.
And not drilling into thesecapabilities and it doesn't
necessarily need to be, you know, in the GPT model right now.
It can be whatever you want,right.
It can be around how AI worksand it can be around
(22:57):
sustainability in AI, and it canbe like programming I don't
know with the GitHub co-pilot,or it can be anything you want.
There are many, many, manyoptions, right?
But if you do not do it, thenyou have two options.
Either the digital worker willdo you know the grunt work, so
all of the copy pasting, it'sjust going to go away and it's
just going to get better andbetter and better, right?
(23:18):
Or you still have your jobbecause you've been there for
like 20 years and only you knowa process.
Or we always, we all knew, knowlike a process like that, right
, held together by somebody whoknows just that Excel, and
you'll be allowed to hold on toit, and then you'll be given all
(23:41):
of the other groundwork thatthe digital worker still hasn't
done yet, but you'll have noteam and it's going to be a
pretty miserable experience,pretty much grounded in fear
that you are going to lose yourjob.
So just look at some stuff, iswhat I'm saying.
I'm already in sunshine today,aren't I?
(24:05):
No, the thing is.
Mark Smith (24:07):
I'm like fully on board, like this is wake up call
.
I feel time that people reallyneed to double down on learning.
Like another Satya quote have alearn-it-all mentality.
You need to be learning thisstuff.
You need to, you know, whileyou can.
Andrew Welch (24:24):
I've been thinking about this a lot lately that we
have we're facing it's funnyhow.
It's funny how all joking asideabout the you know me getting a
hundred euro and putting it inmy suitcase for the next time
the power goes out right.
All joking aside about that,one of the things that when Anna
(24:46):
and I were reflecting on thepower outage the other day, we
were saying how, how, whatuncertain times we live in,
right?
Mark Smith (25:00):
Yeah, yeah.
Andrew Welch (25:00):
Certainly, certainly, the I grew up, I grew
up in America Right, so I waswas very fortunate to not have
to live in terribly uncertaintimes.
Anna was born in communistRomania, so had to live in very
uncertain times earlier in herlife, but certainly these are
the most uncertain times of anyof our adult lives, I would say,
(25:25):
and one of the things that I amobserving across so many
contexts, right across work andAI, and what people need to
learn, or what organizationsneed to become and what nations
need to do, not even apart fromai what, what um europe needs to
(25:46):
do in order to beself-sufficient and able to
defend itself, what uh democratsin america need to do in order
to, um, you know, reclaim uhpart of the electorate that
they've lost.
Right Like across the world andin so many different contexts,
I think that we are right nowsuffering from a lack of tragic
(26:08):
imagination, from a lack ofhonesty with ourselves and with
others about the enormity of thechallenges and the tasks that
we face right.
So when, at least you know, forme and I think I speak for all
of us when we're on this show,or when we're at a conference,
or when we're in any sort ofspace, where we are advising
(26:32):
technologists, advising ourpeers throughout the industry as
to where they need to go inorder to survive and thrive.
When I'm advising clients andworking with clients and really
giving them some tough love onwhat you are doing is a road to
failure, right?
The world needs right now, Ithink, a combination of tragic
(26:57):
imagination and ingenuity inorder to survive and thrive.
So we're not cheering for thedemise of any particular
industry or discipline or set ofknowledge, or on and on and it
goes.
We are simply, in my opinion,trying to recognize and be
forthright about the enormity ofthe challenges we face and the
(27:20):
enormity of the effort required.
You have to be motivated.
Ai is coming for theunmotivated.
Ana Welch (27:26):
Yeah, about that.
I have another story, if we'vegot time, we've got time.
So we were in Dresov, you know,looking at an office and right
in the city center.
So we were just, you know, ourco-working space was looking for
an office and I had totranslate some legal documents
(27:51):
for some procedures that we haveto do in the EU, procedures
that we have to do in the EU.
So I go to this translator'soffice and I go in and there's
just one guy in the huge,massive office right in the
center of town with likemahogany desks and like files
neatly stored.
And you know that sort ofsituation.
(28:13):
I sit down and I give him, youknow, my documents and I was
like, oh, you're not very busytoday.
He's like I assume it's afterEaster.
He's like wrong, people justdon't want to come to work
anymore.
And also most organizations wehad, you know, an agreement with
(28:37):
, they all want automatictranslations and we just correct
them, which means you know halfthe money and like double the
work to make sure everything'sright.
And right now there's AI aswell that can potentially do
some of those corrections aswell, probably.
(28:57):
So what we're really dealinghere is information communism.
I'm like okay, interesting,interesting concept.
What do you mean?
He's like well, all of thetranslations that we've done
manually over the years, they'reall recorded, right, so they're
in some cloud somewhere.
(29:17):
And then these new models arebeing trained on the work, on
our work, right, that has beenvalidated and peer reviewed.
I think it would be correctthat I get, you know, sorry, a
percentage of that income, likeif I was writing a book, because
(29:38):
that's my, you know, that's myasset.
And I'm like okay, okay, okay,in interesting situation and
dilemma, I guess here are mypapers, right, I had two, yeah,
two like birth certificate,marriage certificate, nothing,
rocket science.
Can they be done, you know, bytonight?
(29:59):
And he's like oh, it's alreadymidday, you know, these are
gonna have to be done manually.
I'm like I know I could do themmanually for you right now and
you just peer review them if you, if you want to, or like put
your stamp.
But he's like no, no, no, it'sgonna take until Friday because
we need to take it to the notaryfor them to put their stamp on
(30:22):
it.
And I'm like okay, interesting.
So you have this situation wherea person claims that AI and
automatic translation isthinking their job and their
business with their big, massiveoffice in the center of town
complaining by the fact thatpeople don't come into work or,
(30:44):
um, their biggest thing was thatthey were using google or the
ai themselves to do the uh, themanual translations and how.
That's very, very bad, butwe're in information communism
and things are taken away fromme.
So this is how some people viewthese things and, by the way, I
did not have that papers untilFriday.
I had to send an email andthreaten and stuff like that
(31:07):
because we needed thosedocuments back.
Yeah, so this is where AI iscoming from the unmotivated, the
person who's thinking thatsomebody's being, that something
is being taken away from theminstead of, just like you know,
selling those desks, puttingsome good laptops in and and,
(31:28):
and you know, doing their job,but better, you know.
So that's.
That was just an example.
You know that I, in real life.
Mark Smith (31:36):
It's a brilliant example, and the thing is that I
think that would be repeatedall over the world in so many
offices and so many locations isthat I think the days of doing
unintelligent work are going togo away.
So, in other words, if youdon't really need to think about
what you're doing and stuff,it's obviously a digital worker
(31:57):
is going to take that role.
Right, humans are going to beused for the stuff that the edge
cases, that the digital workercan't do, right, right, and so I
think that anybody that's inreally mundane, repetitive-based
jobs it's a no-brainer.
Unless you're going to re-skill, you're not going to have a job
.
Ana Welch (32:17):
If you're checking the invoices, that's no, don't
do that yeah yeah awesome.
Mark Smith (32:22):
It's been good chatting with you guys.
Um, uh, our time is up.
Um, surprisingly, mr dorringtonwas going to join us, but he is
obviously not now to get awayfrom his meeting.
Um, but, uh, hey, thankseverybody.
Feel free to drop us a messageif there's something you'd like
us to talk about specifically onthe show in the future thanks
everyone, bye guys thanks fortuning into the ecosystem show.
(32:46):
We hope you found today'sdiscussion insightful and
thought provoking, and maybe youhad a laugh or two.
Remember your feedback andchallenges.
Help us all grow, so don'thesitate to share your
perspective.
Stay connected.
Help us all grow, so don'thesitate to share your
perspective.
Stay connected with us for moreinnovative ideas and strategies
to enhance your software estate.
Until next time, keep pushingthe boundaries and creating
(33:07):
value.
See you on the next episode.
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