June 22, 2025 • 12 mins
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We're witnessing a significant acceleration in AI development with major implications for the workforce. This week has brought striking revelations about AI's rapid advancement, from government warnings to corporate restructuring announcements and insights from AI pioneers.
• UK government minister warning that workers must incorporate AI into workflows or risk being left behind
• Amazon announcing they will replace human roles with AI, affecting their 1.5 million US employees
• Mark Zuckerberg offering $100 million sign-on fees to build a team of 50 elite developers for general-purpose AI
• Geoffrey Hinton, "godfather of AI," explaining why AI differs from previous technologies in its job displacement potential
• Real-world example of a developer completing in 3 days what would have previously taken 3 weeks or months using AI tools
• Recognition that AI adoption is not a fad but a fundamental shift backed by enormous investment
• The importance of developing "brain state intelligence" to work effectively with AI technologies
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
hello, habit mechanics.
Dr john finn here, hope you'rehaving a great week so far.
So the the last week has beenvery interesting in terms of ai
and its developments.
We started the week, in the ukat least, with, I think, the
(00:23):
government minister fortechnology and innovation saying
that UK workers really neededto start building AI into their
workflows or they'd get leftbehind.
I think that was an article inthe Guardian newspaper.
(00:44):
I think that was an article inthe Guardian newspaper.
We saw Amazon was really thefirst big company.
Amazon employ 1.5 million peoplein the US and significant
numbers of other people or ofpeople in other countries saying
they publicly came out and saidthat we will be replacing some
(01:09):
human roles with AI and you knowno guarantees about would the
technology create new roles?
They didn't know, they thoughtit might, but they weren't sure.
We ourselves gave our firstalthough we've given many online
(01:30):
talks about this.
We gave our first um in-persontalk to one of our partners um,
and in fact it's one of ourpartner schools that we've
worked with for, I think, 13 or14 years now, and we were
(01:51):
speaking to their parents, whoare a great group of people,
very rich, diverse professionalbackgrounds, many in the city of
London, but also many in manyworking in the city of London,
but also many working in theother core sectors in London.
So it was great to talk to themabout creating high-performing
(02:17):
human AI teams and get theirthoughts and their feedback.
Some of the insights that wereshared in the conversations
afterwards surprised me at thespeed things are going and, in
fact, the sums of money that arebeing invested in by some
businesses.
So that was really insightful.
(02:40):
The story has come into themainstream.
That Mark Zuckerberg.
So this is just anotherinteresting thing that we've
seen this week coming to themainstream.
Mark Zuckerberg is paying $100million yes, $100 million
sign-on fees as he tries toassemble a team of, I think, 50,
(03:05):
what he might call superdevelopers working on general
purpose AI.
So, rather than these kind ofspecific agents we're seeing
emerging rapidly creating an AIwhich is general, more
(03:29):
human-like and possiblysurpassing human intelligence or
humans' ability.
Well, yeah, to learn, which iswhat intelligence is, and I
think probably a conversationfor the podcast, because we
sometimes misunderstand whatintelligence means.
It's just about learning.
So that's been going on and Ijust think in every direction we
(03:51):
look, we can see businesses arestarting to make this
transition to smaller teams ofhumans who are working with AI
technologies and who can deliversignificantly more value to the
business.
(04:13):
And the other thing that I'veheard this week is Geoffrey
Hinton, who is the godfather ofAI, and he was quoted in a BBC
article that talked about thisAmazon statement, and Geoffrey
(04:37):
Hinton spoke on a popularpodcast.
Geoffrey Hinton is basicallythe guy who has worked on neural
networks all his life and thereare other AI models out there,
but he persisted with neuralnetworks and eventually got them
to work, and neural networksare the core technology that are
(05:00):
driving the AI tools we'reusing today, and it was Geoffrey
Hinton Geoffrey Hinton's storythat really got me interested in
these new AI technologies acouple of years ago when I read
the Genius Makers book, becausehe's the protagonist of that
(05:22):
book.
So he's a London academic and Ithink he used to work at UCL,
but there wasn't much appetitefor neural networks in the UK so
he eventually moved to canadaand that's where he's done most
of his academic work, butessentially a lot of the the
(05:45):
leading thinkers in the ai spaceare his students, um, and
jeffrey hinton, with some of hisstudents, created a business
that they sold to google and um,very interesting character.
You should check him out.
But he's talking about the, thepotential of ai, both in what
(06:10):
it can do in a beneficial way,but both some of the potential
downsides.
But what is very interesting iswe hear a it's a bit of a
narrative out there yeah, aboutai, people saying, yeah, but it
will create new jobs, won't it?
Because all new technologiescreate new jobs and people use
(06:30):
different examples.
The one I know is thetypewriter.
People thought the typewriterwould put people out of work and
it created more jobs and lotsof other technologies have done
the same.
And in this podcast he's sayingAI is different.
He doesn't believe we'll createlots of new jobs because it can
(06:53):
do most of what most people getpaid to do every day.
So this is the reality check,because it can do most of what
most people get to do every day.
So this is the reality check,and sometimes I feel like it's
just us saying this stuff, butit's not.
It's real.
We're not scaremongering.
It's absolutely real.
We want to help people toprepare and to thrive in an
AI-powered world and I think AIgives us the opportunity to do
(07:16):
that, but only if we can getbrain state intelligent.
So I just think we've had areally interesting week which
has, I think, put a spotlight onthe pace of AI development and
it's moving faster than anybodythought in January.
(07:41):
Because, you know, in Januarythere's a lot of reports coming
out around this stuff and it wasall kind of projected that, oh,
in five years time we might seethese things.
But you know, six months laterwe're starting to see big shifts
big shifts in language, shiftsin positioning, big shifts in
case studies.
Another thing I spoke to afriend this week who's a
(08:03):
developer and he was just sayingthat he developed a little
Chrome plugin Not so little,pretty clever.
Most of us couldn't do it, buthe said that he was able to
create that in three days usingai powered tools.
Previously he said that similarproject would have taken him
(08:27):
more like three weeks and, um,or maybe even three months.
I can't remember after, butit's one of those two, both
impressive, right, and he wassaying he felt like an octopus
that he just had.
He could just move so quickly.
So, yeah, just so, so, sointeresting.
(08:50):
We started the year withpredictions, but now we're
seeing reality, we're seeing thereal-time impact of these
technologies and a lot of thepeople I speak to.
They're getting massivebenefits from these technologies
.
But again, the key is it'sbrain state intelligence.
Some people are scared of thetechnologies.
(09:11):
I completely understand thatand I have seen quite an adverse
reaction from some people.
I completely understand thatand I have seen quite an adverse
reaction from some people.
Yeah, and it's understandable.
But I think ultimately, oncepeople start to try these
technologies and they can seewhat they can do and and they
(09:32):
can recognise that it's justsimply a way to outsource,
instead of having to use yourown brain to do everything you
know, we never have enough timein the day to do that, we never
have enough brain power everyday to do what we want to get
done we can outsource some ofthat brain power in a very
cost-effective way.
(09:52):
But yeah, that's just a bit ofa reflection really, and I think
I'll come back and talk aboutneural networks in a different
pod.
But I think the main, the maininsight I've taken away from
(10:13):
this week, is just how quicklythings are moving and, of course
, they're just the things thatwe see in the public domain.
Having spent many years workingin professional sport behind
the scenes, you learn that mostof what you read in the sports
page is certainly about theteams I was involved in.
Either wasn't Well, it's oftennot reported the things that are
(10:41):
actually going on, or if theyare reported, they're very
delayed.
So this is only what we knowabout, right, but anyway, that's
just the data that we can useright now to guide us.
But I think the main message isthis is not going away.
(11:02):
It's not a fad, it's not themillennium uh bug, it's um, it's
here.
The sums of money that havebeen invested in it are enormous
.
The results some people aregetting already and the
technologies baby like areenormous, and I know that we can
all use it.
If we learn how to use itproperly, we'll be safer and it
(11:30):
can help us to be healthier,happier and at our best more
often.
So thank you for listening.
Remember, we've got our freemini course where we talk about
how to create high performinghuman AI teams, and if you
(11:54):
haven't got Train your Brain forthe Air Evolution book yet,
that's getting a lot of tractionas well.
So if you haven't got it, getit.
If you've already got it, readit.
Read it again.
Put the things into practice.
Yeah, we've got some excitingnews about some training we're
working on at the moment, justto make it easier for people to
(12:16):
put these things into practice.
So wherever we are right now,it's not fixed, it's not
deterministic.
Wherever our brain state scoreis, we can do better and that's
why we always say you're onlyone brain state, habit away.
hello, habit mechanics.
Dr john finn here, hope you'rehaving a great week so far.
So the the last week has beenvery interesting in terms of ai
and its developments.
We started the week, in the ukat least, with, I think, the
(00:23):
government minister fortechnology and innovation saying
that UK workers really neededto start building AI into their
workflows or they'd get leftbehind.
I think that was an article inthe Guardian newspaper.
(00:44):
I think that was an article inthe Guardian newspaper.
We saw Amazon was really thefirst big company.
Amazon employ 1.5 million peoplein the US and significant
numbers of other people or ofpeople in other countries saying
they publicly came out and saidthat we will be replacing some
(01:09):
human roles with AI and you knowno guarantees about would the
technology create new roles?
They didn't know, they thoughtit might, but they weren't sure.
We ourselves gave our firstalthough we've given many online
(01:30):
talks about this.
We gave our first um in-persontalk to one of our partners um,
and in fact it's one of ourpartner schools that we've
worked with for, I think, 13 or14 years now, and we were
(01:51):
speaking to their parents, whoare a great group of people,
very rich, diverse professionalbackgrounds, many in the city of
London, but also many in manyworking in the city of London,
but also many working in theother core sectors in London.
So it was great to talk to themabout creating high-performing
(02:17):
human AI teams and get theirthoughts and their feedback.
Some of the insights that wereshared in the conversations
afterwards surprised me at thespeed things are going and, in
fact, the sums of money that arebeing invested in by some
businesses.
So that was really insightful.
(02:40):
The story has come into themainstream.
That Mark Zuckerberg.
So this is just anotherinteresting thing that we've
seen this week coming to themainstream.
Mark Zuckerberg is paying $100million yes, $100 million
sign-on fees as he tries toassemble a team of, I think, 50,
(03:05):
what he might call superdevelopers working on general
purpose AI.
So, rather than these kind ofspecific agents we're seeing
emerging rapidly creating an AIwhich is general, more
(03:29):
human-like and possiblysurpassing human intelligence or
humans' ability.
Well, yeah, to learn, which iswhat intelligence is, and I
think probably a conversationfor the podcast, because we
sometimes misunderstand whatintelligence means.
It's just about learning.
So that's been going on and Ijust think in every direction we
(03:51):
look, we can see businesses arestarting to make this
transition to smaller teams ofhumans who are working with AI
technologies and who can deliversignificantly more value to the
business.
(04:13):
And the other thing that I'veheard this week is Geoffrey
Hinton, who is the godfather ofAI, and he was quoted in a BBC
article that talked about thisAmazon statement, and Geoffrey
(04:37):
Hinton spoke on a popularpodcast.
Geoffrey Hinton is basicallythe guy who has worked on neural
networks all his life and thereare other AI models out there,
but he persisted with neuralnetworks and eventually got them
to work, and neural networksare the core technology that are
(05:00):
driving the AI tools we'reusing today, and it was Geoffrey
Hinton Geoffrey Hinton's storythat really got me interested in
these new AI technologies acouple of years ago when I read
the Genius Makers book, becausehe's the protagonist of that
(05:22):
book.
So he's a London academic and Ithink he used to work at UCL,
but there wasn't much appetitefor neural networks in the UK so
he eventually moved to canadaand that's where he's done most
of his academic work, butessentially a lot of the the
(05:45):
leading thinkers in the ai spaceare his students, um, and
jeffrey hinton, with some of hisstudents, created a business
that they sold to google and um,very interesting character.
You should check him out.
But he's talking about the, thepotential of ai, both in what
(06:10):
it can do in a beneficial way,but both some of the potential
downsides.
But what is very interesting iswe hear a it's a bit of a
narrative out there yeah, aboutai, people saying, yeah, but it
will create new jobs, won't it?
Because all new technologiescreate new jobs and people use
(06:30):
different examples.
The one I know is thetypewriter.
People thought the typewriterwould put people out of work and
it created more jobs and lotsof other technologies have done
the same.
And in this podcast he's sayingAI is different.
He doesn't believe we'll createlots of new jobs because it can
(06:53):
do most of what most people getpaid to do every day.
So this is the reality check,because it can do most of what
most people get to do every day.
So this is the reality check,and sometimes I feel like it's
just us saying this stuff, butit's not.
It's real.
We're not scaremongering.
It's absolutely real.
We want to help people toprepare and to thrive in an
AI-powered world and I think AIgives us the opportunity to do
(07:16):
that, but only if we can getbrain state intelligent.
So I just think we've had areally interesting week which
has, I think, put a spotlight onthe pace of AI development and
it's moving faster than anybodythought in January.
(07:41):
Because, you know, in Januarythere's a lot of reports coming
out around this stuff and it wasall kind of projected that, oh,
in five years time we might seethese things.
But you know, six months laterwe're starting to see big shifts
big shifts in language, shiftsin positioning, big shifts in
case studies.
Another thing I spoke to afriend this week who's a
(08:03):
developer and he was just sayingthat he developed a little
Chrome plugin Not so little,pretty clever.
Most of us couldn't do it, buthe said that he was able to
create that in three days usingai powered tools.
Previously he said that similarproject would have taken him
(08:27):
more like three weeks and, um,or maybe even three months.
I can't remember after, butit's one of those two, both
impressive, right, and he wassaying he felt like an octopus
that he just had.
He could just move so quickly.
So, yeah, just so, so, sointeresting.
(08:50):
We started the year withpredictions, but now we're
seeing reality, we're seeing thereal-time impact of these
technologies and a lot of thepeople I speak to.
They're getting massivebenefits from these technologies
.
But again, the key is it'sbrain state intelligence.
Some people are scared of thetechnologies.
(09:11):
I completely understand thatand I have seen quite an adverse
reaction from some people.
I completely understand thatand I have seen quite an adverse
reaction from some people.
Yeah, and it's understandable.
But I think ultimately, oncepeople start to try these
technologies and they can seewhat they can do and and they
(09:32):
can recognise that it's justsimply a way to outsource,
instead of having to use yourown brain to do everything you
know, we never have enough timein the day to do that, we never
have enough brain power everyday to do what we want to get
done we can outsource some ofthat brain power in a very
cost-effective way.
(09:52):
But yeah, that's just a bit ofa reflection really, and I think
I'll come back and talk aboutneural networks in a different
pod.
But I think the main, the maininsight I've taken away from
(10:13):
this week, is just how quicklythings are moving and, of course
, they're just the things thatwe see in the public domain.
Having spent many years workingin professional sport behind
the scenes, you learn that mostof what you read in the sports
page is certainly about theteams I was involved in.
Either wasn't Well, it's oftennot reported the things that are
(10:41):
actually going on, or if theyare reported, they're very
delayed.
So this is only what we knowabout, right, but anyway, that's
just the data that we can useright now to guide us.
But I think the main message isthis is not going away.
(11:02):
It's not a fad, it's not themillennium uh bug, it's um, it's
here.
The sums of money that havebeen invested in it are enormous
.
The results some people aregetting already and the
technologies baby like areenormous, and I know that we can
all use it.
If we learn how to use itproperly, we'll be safer and it
(11:30):
can help us to be healthier,happier and at our best more
often.
So thank you for listening.
Remember, we've got our freemini course where we talk about
how to create high performinghuman AI teams, and if you
(11:54):
haven't got Train your Brain forthe Air Evolution book yet,
that's getting a lot of tractionas well.
So if you haven't got it, getit.
If you've already got it, readit.
Read it again.
Put the things into practice.
Yeah, we've got some excitingnews about some training we're
working on at the moment, justto make it easier for people to
(12:16):
put these things into practice.
So wherever we are right now,it's not fixed, it's not
deterministic.
Wherever our brain state scoreis, we can do better and that's
why we always say you're onlyone brain state, habit away.
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