December 13, 2023 • 31 mins
Happy Anniversary to Good Disruption! It's been an interesting year of good, bad, and no disruptions. From generative AI, NFTs, and cryptocurrency to renewable energy and clean meat, Yael and Mike review their predictions and discuss whether they still hold up.
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Episode Transcript
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Becky Duff (00:10):
disruption a lively discussion between UVA Darden
School of Business professors. lBrusco. cocaine and Mike Lennox
on cutting edge technologies andpractices that are challenging
the status quo.
Mike Lenox (00:32):
Good day yell.
Yael Grushka-Cockayne (00:33):
Good afternoon, Mike. How are you
doing?
Mike Lenox (00:35):
Doing? Well, I'm very excited about today's
episode because this is a veryspecial episode. This is our one
year podcasting anniversaryepisode who
Yael Grushka-Cockayne (00:45):
ironically, isn't one year anniversary like
paper or something very lowtech?
Mike Lenox (00:48):
Oh, I have no idea. It is no, it's not like diamonds
or gold or anything like that.Alright, this is our paper
anniversary. Maybe
Yael Grushka-Cockayne (00:56):
I'm wrong. But yeah, maybe
Mike Lenox (00:57):
a good disruption question paper good disruption,
bad disruption or no disruption?Fantastic
Yael Grushka-Cockayne (01:01):
question. And
Mike Lenox (01:02):
we'll go back in history. Questions. Yeah. But
instead, what we've decided todo today is revisit the topics
that we've already talked about,and see if we have any updates,
any changes, even in my opinion,and God knows I've you know,
changed my opinion on some ofthese issues on even in the one
podcast, we were filming itthere. But today, I thought we'd
break it down slightlydifferently than the order that
(01:24):
we did it when since some ofthese topics are clearly
related. So to start, I wantedto tackle three of them that we
both agreed we're gooddisruptions, three of them that
I think, have some reallyinteresting social impact, and
maybe just discuss, again, ifthere's any updates we have. So
the first one I wanted to talkabout was the idea of the
virtual workplace. This ideathat we are moving away from the
(01:47):
old idea of having to show up inthe office five days a week, and
that people are working fromhome, they're using zoom, any
updates to your thought on this?Well,
Yael Grushka-Cockayne (01:56):
I do think that we've seen a lot
happen in the past year, sincewe had Rodney here as our
guests. I think by and large, itseems to me like on one hand on
surface, not much has changed,meaning still companies kind of
splitting their time and theprofiles and employees kind of
all over the map in terms oftheir habits. Some go in every
day, some work five days athome. But I have seen quite a
(02:19):
few articles about companiesthat made complete shifts. So
some CEOs, either newlyappointed CEOs or leaders come
in and make a dramatic kind ofdeclaration around a change in
strategy. And that seems to havemixed reactions. And so we're
seeing leaders themselves kindof debate where they want to be
on that spectrum. That's whatI've noticed since Yeah,
Mike Lenox (02:41):
I think that's a great way to think about it that
the momentum behind you have tobe in the office has been
broken, and probably won't evercome back to that extreme. But
where is the balance for howmuch virtual work is still very
much up to debate, there was aninteresting article by Nicholas
bloom, Stanford economisttalking about some of the data
they have on what's justhappening on the ground. And he
(03:04):
made the the interestingobservation that this seems like
it is real, it's persistent. Andthere's reasons to believe that
this will continue, that thereare economic incentives for
allowing your workforce,especially in certain types of
jobs to work, at least somewhatfrom home. So I think, you know,
I think we're still on goodfooting here that this is a
disruption and it will continueto be and, you know, hopefully
(03:26):
it will be a good one like welike we originally thought
Yael Grushka-Cockayne (03:29):
there. Well, it's interesting because
I, the next generation ofgraduates are coming out of
colleges, the next generation ofemployees are being recruited by
these firms. And it'sinteresting to see how folks
think about the location of thework and the modality of the
work as something that they takeinto consideration in their many
(03:50):
criteria when choosing a job.I've seen individuals reject
jobs, I've seen folks kind ofchange their their thinking
about an opportunity based onwhether or not it was remote or
in the office in bothdirections. Some people are
craving that social aspect andwant a vibrant office kind of
setting. And some folks are alittle bit more skeptical. But
it's on folks radar, they'reassessing it as as part of the
(04:13):
consideration. And they'retrying to make good choices
accordingly. I don't know thatwe've necessarily seen complete
structures of organizationschange yet. The real estate in
you know, part of of things isstill up up in the air in terms
of are all headquartersdisappearing, is there still a
gravitas for having some kind ofreally fancy headquarters? Not
(04:36):
clear if that's going to reallycontinue in that in that
direction? You know, I'm alwaysthinking about infinite loop
Apple's office, I think they'reone that actually asked people
to go into the officeinterestingly, so yeah, well,
Mike Lenox (04:48):
yeah, we're gonna have a whole nother discussion
about commercial real estatedisruption, bad disruption,
disruption, but there's clearlya lot going on there. Well,
let's let's keep moving on. Oneof our other topics was
personalized health. leveragingtechnology to Um, you know,
customize your healthcare.Again, we both kind of favored
good disruption there anyanything new to report there?
Yael Grushka-Cockayne (05:08):
Not much new to report. I feel like
ironically, maybe notironically. But I feel like this
is one that is playing outslower than maybe some areas
that we've seen kind ofexponential game changing
activity, maybe because it'shealth, things take a slightly
(05:28):
different pace, folks need to bemore careful, there's a lot more
kind of checks and balancesalong the way, there's a lot
more intervention by authoritiesand regulatory bodies that it
will play out over time andthings are happening. It's just
not as immediate as maybe weseen other domains.
Mike Lenox (05:44):
Yeah. And I think that's right. This is one that's
going to have a long gestationhere. And we'll see it in
meaningful ways when youinterface with the health system
in certain ways, but maybe notfully appreciated by those of us
just kind of the general thegeneral public.
Yael Grushka-Cockayne (05:58):
Exactly. Right. Exactly. Right. But I
believe that the the generalapproach and insight from around
or adjacent to to those experts,is that everybody's keenly
looking at it and hopeful thatit will yield superior, you
know, superior outcomes for allof us. One
Mike Lenox (06:13):
hopes, another one near and dear to our hearts,
online learning online learning.Good disruption. I will point
out that when we recorded thisone, yes, it was before the
release of a little thing calledChat GPT. And the whole
fascination with large languagemodels that we have seen over
the last year. Does that change?Does it change your your
(06:36):
assessment here of onlinelearning?
Yael Grushka-Cockayne (06:38):
No, not much. I think that industry has
stabilized somewhat, there hasbeen some consolidation, in
terms of the large venues, therehas been some kind of, I think,
slow down in terms of the numberof new players in the space and
so more predictability in termsof who's who's trying and who's
(06:58):
experimenting with onlinelearning? What are the main
vendors? What are the types ofservices that they provide? I
will say that one of the biggestchanges that I've noticed in the
space of online learning is thatactually, we see more regulation
coming out, we've seen theDepartment of Education being
pretty clear in terms ofexpectations around contract
sharing, and disclosures and thelike, which may curtail some of
(07:22):
the efforts that some of the forprofit companies are putting in.
So that's going to beinteresting to see, we always
bring it up that, aside from thetechnology, the adopters, and
the and the financials and theeconomics of a certain
disruption, the regulatorybodies have a lot to say, and a
lot of control in the matter.This
Mike Lenox (07:43):
is one where as you know, I've been getting excited
about the potential, especiallyof large language models to
create robust asynchronouslearning environments. So the
idea would be, could you createa an essence a chat bot, who
could mimic some of theexperience one might have in a
Socratic classroom? And as Imentioned during that podcast, I
Yael Grushka-Cockayne (08:02):
don't see don't say it because somebody
might take it. And we want topatent Oh, sorry. Yeah, well,
Mike Lenox (08:07):
you know, everything here is, you know, confidential.
But I listen. Yeah. But again, Iwant to emphasize the point that
I don't see this as a puresubstitute for like what we do
in the classroom here, it's acompliment. And it's just
another modality, which you canenhance someone's learning. The
beauty of it, though, is withasynchronous, if you could
really pull this off, is it thescalability, again, that you
(08:28):
could be having, you know,1000s, if not millions of
students run through a fairlyrobust Socratic exchange, but in
an asynchronous environments, sothat that, to me is a giant, a
game changer in terms of thescalability of some of the stuff
we do.
Yael Grushka-Cockayne (08:41):
And maybe this is where our disruptions
collide. And like anything, manyof our disruptions on their own
are slightly weakened by orcompared to the thought of all
of these disruptions occurringsimultaneously, we see the true
potential here. So if you take achat, GPT or any large language
model and do an enterpriseversion, and customize it to for
instance, the Darden casecollection in our videos, you
(09:03):
could quickly see how you couldtrain it to do exactly what
you're saying. Ask the moreSocratic sophisticated, detailed
questions and really build somesome some history there.
Mike Lenox (09:13):
Yeah, hopefully, we'll have jobs in the future.
Yael Grushka-Cockayne (09:17):
We will orchestrate on all of these, you
know, automatic bots basedSocratic instructors. Exactly,
Mike Lenox (09:25):
exactly. All right, let's move on. We had a cluster
of those technologies that arebroadly in what we might call
clean tech. In particular, wetalked about electric vehicles,
renewable energy and clean meat.And in all three cases, again,
we were both kind of optimisticand see them as a good
disruptions here. Any, anyupdates on any three of these
(09:45):
that you want to share? Well,
Yael Grushka-Cockayne (09:47):
you are a big supporter and fan and I
think we all knew that going inand we definitely got
confirmation during our episodewith with Adam, around your
support of EVs of electricvehicles and your belief that
That's the way forward. And Idon't think that that's changed
dramatically, although I willsay that it feels to me from
what I've been reading andnoticing is that the enthusiasm
(10:08):
has, again tempered a bit, ormaybe calmed down a little bit
or been curtailed. I don't know,if it's due specifically to
various tensions that Elon Muskas a person is drawing and
critique of his otheractivities. I don't know if it's
the sense that the world afterCOVID was left with other supply
(10:31):
chain challenges that, again,are limiting some of the
development that is expected orthe delays in terms of
developing some of the thebattery capabilities. But it
seems to me like it hasn'tcontinued in the same growth
patterns that it was a few yearsago. And that, of course, can
change in a matter of a fewyears. Well, actually,
Mike Lenox (10:48):
I'm gonna bring data to bear. Okay, so it actually is
continuing to increase. And so
Yael Grushka-Cockayne (10:54):
the same rate.
Mike Lenox (10:56):
So maybe not quite the exponential growth that we
were hoping but at the sametime, we went from 15%, new
vehicle sales to 20%. This year,and that's somewhere close to 15
million new vehicles on the roadthat are EVs. So it still has
that nice upward increasingtrajectory there. So I remain
(11:17):
optimistic on this one, if youlook at things like charging
infrastructure that also isgoing through kind of an
exponential growth curve. But Iagree, I mean, nothing is
guaranteed, I do worry about thepoliticization of the of the
technology again,
Yael Grushka-Cockayne (11:30):
you mean the role of the regulatory
bodies? Well,
Mike Lenox (11:33):
I'm actually thinking more of a consumer who
that will signal something aboutyour beliefs by buying electric
vehicles, because my wholeargument is that people are
gonna start buying these becausethey're cheaper, better. And
regardless if you care aboutclimate change, or the like, but
if it's viewed as a negative toyour persona, that's that's
going to be problematic andcould likely, you know, slow it
(11:55):
down,
Yael Grushka-Cockayne (11:55):
what has been the impact? So what we have
seen happen, and we haven'trecorded that episode yet,
although I know that it's on ouron our docket to do in just a
few weeks. But what has been theimpact in your mind to
autonomous vehicles? Yeah, we'veseen in more cities, I think San
Francisco, I think other placeshave really gone or taken it
(12:17):
more seriously, and reallyinvested in certain services
that are not provided byautonomous vehicles without
drivers or driverless cars. Doesthat support the whole electric
vehicle effort? Does it is ittotally separate momentum? Tell
us what you're thinking about?Yeah,
Mike Lenox (12:32):
I mean, we're gonna do an episode on autonomous
vehicles coming up here. Butagain, there's a lot of reasons
to believe that if you're goingto build an autonomous vehicle,
an electric vehicle is theplatform to do it on, partly
because of the electricinfrastructure that you have in
an Eevee. And there's eventhings like charging, it's
easier to think of autonomouscharging than it is autonomous
putting gas in a tank. So Ithink for a variety of reasons,
(12:54):
you'll see these two disruptionskind of move, move together. How
about clean meat? You know,that's a you know, Becky, our
lead researcher here is a bigenthusiast. Yes. Are we making
any progress on it? Not
Yael Grushka-Cockayne (13:09):
that I can tell. But I must profess
that this is not my, my area ofexcitement necessarily. I'm not
rushing to the supermarkets tolook for it. I know that the
conversations have evolved, Iknow that discussions have
continued to push towardsopportunities to not only think
about alternatives to meat, butalso alternatives to how we the
(13:32):
infrastructure that we have toget us the meat. I just don't
know that folks are quitetrusting of the lab based
creations quite yet.
Mike Lenox (13:40):
Yeah. And I think this is a classic example of the
S curve, which we talked aboutfrequently that clearly we are
not in the exponential growthphase in terms of adoption of
clean meat, we're still in thatwhat we call era of ferment, no
pun intended, in this particularcase, in clean meat, and a lot
still remains to be seen.
Yael Grushka-Cockayne (14:01):
But like many, maybe it's a no
disruption, or do you think Idon't think
Mike Lenox (14:04):
it'd be ready to say that? I mean, I think that's the
question, right? It's still it'sstill up for debate whether this
truly reaches its full potentialor it becomes this this footnote
with no disruption.
Yael Grushka-Cockayne (14:14):
Maybe you can, you can share a little bit
how you think about noteverything will be assessed,
kind of, I guess, assessed expost, but like, what are some
some signposts or some things tokeep an eye out as we try to
assess the technology andunderstand the assessment?
Mike Lenox (14:29):
I think almost in all of these, you know, you look
at the cost curve. So are wegoing to see it and we would
need to see significantreductions in the cost of the
production of clean meat. Youknow, the first hamburgers that
came out were like $100,000 ahamburger like no one's
obviously paying that. So yeah,look at look at cost curves and
removing down a cost curve in away that this could could reach
prime time here. Well, let'skeep moving on. The next group
(14:53):
that we had. This is my favoriteof our discussion so far, but
before that, we didn't do itrenewable. Oh, okay. Anything on
renewables. You I think I wouldjust simply say that kind of as
we discussed, we are moving downthis cost curve, there's a lot
of energy, again, no punintended of adopting renewable
energy. At the same time, thereare still a lot of barriers in
(15:14):
terms of, you know, gridinfrastructure, battery
technology for storage as we getmore renewables on the grid. So
there's still a long path here.But I think we're still on that
trajectory.
Yael Grushka-Cockayne (15:27):
I definitely don't want to get us
down a political track. But Iwill ask, Has there been any
impact on let's say, the war andbetween Ukraine and Russia on
the development for the adoptionof clean energy?
Mike Lenox (15:40):
Well, I think a couple things I'm trying
remember, if we had talked muchabout like the inflation
Reduction Act in the UnitedStates, it has a huge surge of
investment in this industrysector. So that that's obviously
fueling again, no pun intended,investment in this area.
Clearly, the macroeconomicevents and the impacts on things
like the price of oil alsochanged the dynamics here that
(16:02):
we would favor. And I thinkespecially the idea of energy
independence, which we have inthe United States, largely,
arguably, through fracking, butEurope in particular is looking
at the situation they foundthemselves in with natural gas
and Russia, and are thinkingmuch more aggressively about
alright, we do not want to be inthis situation again. And so I
think renewables are logical onefor them to be pursuing to try
(16:25):
to get some of that energyindependence, if you will.
Perfect. Great. Alright, so thenext three are triumphant of
cryptocurrency, Metaverse and NFTs. And I'm just gonna brag
right now. I think recall thecryptocurrency crash before it
occurred. I think we recordedthat one. We were right at the
height of cryptocurrency. And asI shared on a later podcast, I
(16:49):
think we we caused the wholecrash because we were the people
listen to our podcast andrealize that the there was
really no, no disruption here.And all seriousness, you know,
we have the FTX trial going onright now. The the repercussions
of our crypto mania are beingfelt, want to be very clear,
when I say no disruption, I'vebeen talking about technological
(17:11):
shifts and change. This has beenincredibly disruptive to a lot
of people and a lot of theirsavings and the like. And in
that way, cryptocurrencyabsolutely has been disruptive.
But again, I still thinking tomy thinking that cryptocurrency
has a place in the world, it islikely to be small. It is not
this transformative technologythat the crypto enthusiasts have
(17:32):
been have been arguing. So
Yael Grushka-Cockayne (17:34):
potentially, maybe not necessarily. I mean,
there are there is disruption.But potentially it will quiet
down and just become anadditional type of investments
and an additional type of ofasset and not necessarily
replace what currently whatpeople are doing in terms of
their currency. And now how theythink about their monetary
positioning. Has it been usedfor anything good the
(17:54):
infrastructure? Well,
Mike Lenox (17:56):
that's a great, great question. Well, as we
talked about, I guess there arethere are various places in the
world where maybe hedging yourcurrent currency with crypto
could be the most logical,though again, the US dollar
seems to be generally thatdefault currency for people. So
what
Yael Grushka-Cockayne (18:16):
about the Dow is an idea, the idea of more
less centralized kind of groups,but decentralization of
authorities? What about that?Will that will is that going to
pick up and maybe a differentdomains?
Mike Lenox (18:27):
Maybe what that relates, let's let's talk about
NF TS where I actually came inand good disruption here. And so
NF T's in some ways are the youcould argue the opposite of
cryptocurrencies, because theseare exclusive assets. It's
interesting that the excitementaround them seems to have died
down now. But I think thefundamental idea that you should
be able to own a digital assetstill resonates with me like
(18:49):
there should be a way to owndigital assets and trade them
and NF T's are a logicaltechnology to allow for that. I
think
Yael Grushka-Cockayne (18:56):
the hype is, for sure curtailed like it's
not where it was even a yearago. It's not where it was even
six months ago, I don't think.So it's interesting to see how
some items of disruption aremore of a fad, if you will, and
they kind of find their naturalkind of positioning. I like the
idea of thinking about NF T'sand making sense of them and
(19:18):
owning digital assets, as yousay in the context of the
metaverse because it all madesense when we got to the meta
first episode. Yeah. Why getthese digital assets. It's nice
to have things that are digitaland that we can kind of own them
in this kind of hypotheticalworld. But only when you think
about the metaverse as a as athing that you're going to
invest in an environment thatyou're going to kind of invest
in and create an alternativeexperience.
Mike Lenox (19:39):
Right? And we were both skeptical about the
metaverse, especially the ideaof it being the single all
incompetency Oasis, as theycalled it in Ready Player One.
I'm sticking with thatassessment that there's lots of
pieces of this. There's lots ofuses of virtual reality in these
virtual environments that areincredibly helpful and a
positive disruption but I don'tThink the metaverse as maybe
(20:02):
envisioned by meta and others iscoming anytime soon. I do think
it's interesting the hype cycleswe see. And you know, we're in
the generative AI hype cycleright now. And I don't find many
people talking about themetaverse at all. And I, you
know, is Zuckerberg gonna changemeta now to like aI verse or
something new, like youngerchange the name again to meet
(20:22):
the latest fad. I do think ithighlights one of the kind of
hearts of what we're trying todo with this podcast, which is
separate out the longer termtrends and the impacts these
technologies can have from theshort term mania. And this is a
good one, but not clear thatthis is going to be that
(20:44):
transformative impact that wethat we thought,
Yael Grushka-Cockayne (20:46):
again, the hope for me is in the
intersection. Sointersectionality between
Metaverse and say generative AI,I can imagine I've been thinking
a lot actually, in most of theconversations with you around
training our faculty andthinking about educational
experiences for our students andlearning opportunities. And
(21:06):
having simulations anddimensions of our learning that
right now we either need realresources like actors and
theaters and props andinvestments to to accomplish. I
thought we could do that in themetaverse practice of firing
somebody or hiring somebody orpromoting someone. Have our
students practice toughconversations in the metaverse.
(21:26):
And if you have a generative AIthat could interact with our
students in the metaverse andthere are now CEOs of companies
in the metaverse, we can reallypush the limits of how we teach
our students. And again,
Mike Lenox (21:36):
you know, I'm all for VR and the impacts that that
could have in these virtualworlds. I just don't think
there's gonna be one allincorporating Metaverse here.
Could be proven wrong, ofcourse. All right. Well, that's
a good segue to our last group.So we've we've clearly been
talking a lot about generativeAI, we've talked it in the
context of music. We've talkedit in the context of deep fakes
and the misuse of generative AI.We've more recently talked about
(22:00):
in terms of what's happening inthe entertainment industry,
especially around what thewriter strike and the actors
strike. Where do you fall? Wheredo you fall? I have to say this
is the one that the both of ushave been a little wishy washy
on? We've been we've been kindof all over the map and our
responses to what we thinkgenerative AI is going to do
here. Yeah.
Yael Grushka-Cockayne (22:18):
And it's interesting, because I think I
changed my position, dependingon the type of application. And
maybe if I step back and say,across all industries, big
picture here, generative AI,large language models, is it a
disruptor? I think it is adisrupter. It's a disruptor, not
only for the tech itself, andwhat it can do. But for me, it's
more of a disrupter. Because itseems like everybody's paying
(22:40):
attention. So for those of usplaying around with data
science, or or implementingsolutions related to us using
data in new creative ways, andsolving new problems and
creating new products, I feellike now everybody's paying
attention. And it's partlythanks to these types of models.
Yeah,
Mike Lenox (22:57):
I'm right with you here, too. I think this is my
point again, about, you know,there are the hype cycles. And
clearly, we're in it right now.And I will make the bold
forecasts that we're going tosee at some point here, a
massive shakeout where a lot ofthese AR AI startups and AI
initiatives go away. And that,by the way, is what we expect
when we get disruption. But Ithink there's enough corpus here
(23:21):
of a really disruptivetechnology that we're going to
see it proliferate through awide number of industries,
despite there being a lot ofchurn here. The part I think I
struggle with is the good versusthe bad question here. And be
very clear, there areapplications of generative AI
that are going to be veryhelpful in advance and solve
(23:42):
problems we face in the world.But we all see the downside. And
as we've talked about, in someof the discussions we've had on
this, there are increasing callsto regulate AI. And I have to
say, I don't know what thatmeans. I don't think that is
going to happen. Yeah. And andit feels good to say it like we
need to regulate AI. But youknow, what does that mean? And
(24:03):
how can it actually bemeaningful and impactful while
not also killing the the goodside of the disruption as well?
I wish I had answers for our forour listeners, but I really
don't,
Yael Grushka-Cockayne (24:14):
perhaps a more helpful way to think about
it is once we changed ourmindset from trying to control
the AI and the usages of AI,versus putting in place and
mechanisms to protect thepeople. Yeah. And so the
regulatory authorities, thebodies, the folks that are
concentrating on putting theboundaries and the limitations
in the guardrails, maybe itwould be more productive if we
(24:35):
shift the shift the conversationto say what is it that we care
about in terms of the peoplethose who are performing the
jobs those that were worriedthat will be out of the jobs
will be replaced or strugglingto train? What is it that we
need to do to ensure the welfareof us all and and the world of
tomorrow knowing that it will bevery hard as you say, to limit
the usage of the technologyitself?
Mike Lenox (24:56):
And this was you know, I'm gonna make an advocacy
actually for the lawyers heresurprising Late, which is
sometimes just don't always dothat assigning assigning
liability. So you think aboutautonomous vehicles. So how can
we how can we regulateautonomous vehicles? Well, maybe
it's as simple as the maker ofthe AI is going to be ultimately
responsible for it and can besued when things go wrong, might
(25:18):
get the incentives alignedcorrectly so that we get good
AI, if you will, and get a gooddisruption there.
Yael Grushka-Cockayne (25:25):
I'm excited about generative AI. I'm
excited because it for once itfeels like it's forcing many
people to think, really outsidethe box. And that's refreshing.
Typically, we're all too pronefor more incremental kind of
small changes over time. Andthere's enough problems as we've
(25:47):
highlighted, we can week out inour episodes, that there's
enough things that we need tochange and improve in this
world, and we don't have time towaste. So why not hope that with
these models, we can actuallytackle big problems like climate
change, or like, you know, apoverty and health issues. Maybe
there's a way for us to actuallyovercome and if we went any of
(26:10):
those domains, I think we'll bein a much better.
Mike Lenox (26:12):
I love your optimism. I define myself as an
optimist. I think only incomparison to you am I like the
cynic on this podcast. I lovethat vision. And I do agree. You
know, the engineer at heart inme wants to like figure out how
can we leverage technology tosolve our problems? So I have
one last question. Yes, one yearanniversary? Yes. The good
disruption, podcast, gooddisruption, bad disruption, or
(26:33):
no disruption? Oh,
Yael Grushka-Cockayne (26:34):
I actually am so glad that you
asked because I wanted to pointthis out from the get go. For me
personally, like maybepredictably, it's a great
disrupt, not even a good one. Ireally enjoyed the sessions.
When you and I first chatted, Iknew I wanted to do a podcast,
I, you know, talking aboutdisruptions. I wasn't sure how I
(26:55):
felt about it. But I learned somuch from being in the studio.
And I don't know if this ishappening to you. But every time
we record a new episode, for atleast one or two weeks
afterwards, everywhere I go, Ibring up points that came up in
our conversation and actuallylonger term probably, it keeps
coming back and intoconversations. Just this week, I
(27:16):
went to a big conference that Igo to every year. And I could
reference the conversation thatwe had just last week around
issues related to copyright andthe like with and the actors
strike in Hollywood. And so notonly do I feel like I learned
from it, I think it's great tohave experts and guests and it
always is nice to hear just howdeep their knowledge is and how
(27:36):
much they're they're helping usand learning to ask the right
questions around disruption. I
Mike Lenox (27:40):
totally agree. And I think that last point is
critical. Someone I was doing apanel last week and someone
introduced me as a futurist. I'mlike, I am absolutely not a
futurist, I'm the first one totell you, I have no clue often
like where technology will beother than the Predict it's
probably going to be radicallydifferent than we can even
forecast it, you know, 10 yearsfrom now. But I do think there
(28:01):
are ways in which we can bethoughtful about thinking about
technology and how it's evolvingand what the implications are
both good and bad. And to yourpoint about our experts, you
know, having conversations withpeople talking through these
issues, getting that expertopinion, and then asking
questions that I think yousummarized it well, like that's
(28:21):
the heart of what this podcastis about. I suspect we're going
to be wrong on a whole bunch ofthese forecasts that we're
making. And that's okay, becausethat's the nature of technology.
But in many times, it's justhaving the conversation and
dealing with the implications oftechnology. That I think is the
important thing to do.
Yael Grushka-Cockayne (28:40):
Yeah, I noticed that in our title, we
don't have bad disruption, ourtitle is just good disruption.
So that that in and of itselfkind of summarizes how I feel
about our podcasts. And I dothink that our listeners also,
and you guys have been greatreaching out and sharing with us
what you learned. I do feel likefolks listen for the dialogue
and for the exchange ofthoughts, not necessarily for
(29:00):
the prediction. As much asforecaster but
Mike Lenox (29:05):
yeah, exactly. Well,
Yael Grushka-Cockayne (29:06):
what are some what are some episodes as
we wrap up to look forward to inthe next year? What do you think
we're going to be talking about?
Mike Lenox (29:12):
Oh, well, I mean, we have talked about, you know, a
number here, I definitely wantto about nuclear energy. And in
particular, there's a movementtowards what we call modular
nuclear, like small nuclearreactors, so that that one
excites me. How about you? Whatdo you have?
Yael Grushka-Cockayne (29:25):
Well, we mentioned the autonomous
vehicles. Funnily enough, whenwe started working on this, it
was on the list all along, and Iwas less excited. You know,
we've been both following what'sgoing on in Wei Mo and, and
talking about, you know, Googlecars, if you will, when it way,
way back, when and a few yearsago, there was a big hype, maybe
five, six years ago, when wejust started to kind of identify
this as an area. I was a littlereluctant and maybe less
(29:48):
enthusiastic. I thought the thetime has passed. But but I'm
excited to again, I'm seeingmore and more investment, air,
airports, investing inautonomous vehicles to you know,
take take passengers from trainstations to the airports huge
amounts of money being put intoit. And it's interesting that I
(30:09):
don't know that everybody agreesthat it's worth it or what the
promises. And I think thatthere's a lot to debate there.
Yeah. Well,
Mike Lenox (30:14):
at least two episodes that we have. Oh, yes.
And we're gonna try to increaseour, our rate of production here
in year two.
Yael Grushka-Cockayne (30:20):
And I think just to get people
excited, again, a couple ofothers that are top of mind for
me, one has to do with the newtechnology related to fashion.
Oh, yeah. So we haven't reallytalked much about it. But it's a
huge industry with a lot ofdisruption. Actually, it's just
like fast fashion or no, notfast fashion, necessarily. It
could be a high end fashion, butnew materials, new way to design
(30:42):
them 3d printing really new waysto imagine what they what
they're made out of and howthey're made. And also just
different ways to use crowds, Ithink that we're going to be
talking a little bit about sometechnology related to, to using
crowds and crowdsourcingworkforce in the future.
Mike Lenox (30:58):
If only we had an expert on the podcast who knows
a lot about crowdsourcing. Well,you know, to our listeners out
there, if you have suggestions,please, you know, send them to
us. We're always looking for,you know, interesting topics,
the world moves fast. So we canbe, you know, hopefully flexible
and respond to some of theseevolving technologies as they
come. And some of them willprobably be fads, and some will
be transformative. And that'sthe whole point of this podcast.
(31:20):
So yeah, well, it's been anactual joy. Let me give our
thanks, as always to Becky, ourresearcher extraordinaire, who
this podcast would not bepossible without her. And Gary,
of course, our producer whokeeps us on line, and he
promises me you know, we'regonna get this AI generated
music, you know, sooner orlater.
Yael Grushka-Cockayne (31:40):
We're here for the jingle, jingle.
Mike Lenox (31:41):
We need the jingle.
Yael Grushka-Cockayne (31:43):
Thank you, Mike.
Becky Duff (31:49):
Good disruption is a podcast from the University of
Virginia Darden School ofBusiness.
disruption a lively discussion between UVA Darden
School of Business professors. lBrusco. cocaine and Mike Lennox
on cutting edge technologies andpractices that are challenging
the status quo.
Mike Lenox (00:32):
Good day yell.
Yael Grushka-Cockayne (00:33):
Good afternoon, Mike. How are you
doing?
Mike Lenox (00:35):
Doing? Well, I'm very excited about today's
episode because this is a veryspecial episode. This is our one
year podcasting anniversaryepisode who
Yael Grushka-Cockayne (00:45):
ironically, isn't one year anniversary like
paper or something very lowtech?
Mike Lenox (00:48):
Oh, I have no idea. It is no, it's not like diamonds
or gold or anything like that.Alright, this is our paper
anniversary. Maybe
Yael Grushka-Cockayne (00:56):
I'm wrong. But yeah, maybe
Mike Lenox (00:57):
a good disruption question paper good disruption,
bad disruption or no disruption?Fantastic
Yael Grushka-Cockayne (01:01):
question. And
Mike Lenox (01:02):
we'll go back in history. Questions. Yeah. But
instead, what we've decided todo today is revisit the topics
that we've already talked about,and see if we have any updates,
any changes, even in my opinion,and God knows I've you know,
changed my opinion on some ofthese issues on even in the one
podcast, we were filming itthere. But today, I thought we'd
break it down slightlydifferently than the order that
(01:24):
we did it when since some ofthese topics are clearly
related. So to start, I wantedto tackle three of them that we
both agreed we're gooddisruptions, three of them that
I think, have some reallyinteresting social impact, and
maybe just discuss, again, ifthere's any updates we have. So
the first one I wanted to talkabout was the idea of the
virtual workplace. This ideathat we are moving away from the
(01:47):
old idea of having to show up inthe office five days a week, and
that people are working fromhome, they're using zoom, any
updates to your thought on this?Well,
Yael Grushka-Cockayne (01:56):
I do think that we've seen a lot
happen in the past year, sincewe had Rodney here as our
guests. I think by and large, itseems to me like on one hand on
surface, not much has changed,meaning still companies kind of
splitting their time and theprofiles and employees kind of
all over the map in terms oftheir habits. Some go in every
day, some work five days athome. But I have seen quite a
(02:19):
few articles about companiesthat made complete shifts. So
some CEOs, either newlyappointed CEOs or leaders come
in and make a dramatic kind ofdeclaration around a change in
strategy. And that seems to havemixed reactions. And so we're
seeing leaders themselves kindof debate where they want to be
on that spectrum. That's whatI've noticed since Yeah,
Mike Lenox (02:41):
I think that's a great way to think about it that
the momentum behind you have tobe in the office has been
broken, and probably won't evercome back to that extreme. But
where is the balance for howmuch virtual work is still very
much up to debate, there was aninteresting article by Nicholas
bloom, Stanford economisttalking about some of the data
they have on what's justhappening on the ground. And he
(03:04):
made the the interestingobservation that this seems like
it is real, it's persistent. Andthere's reasons to believe that
this will continue, that thereare economic incentives for
allowing your workforce,especially in certain types of
jobs to work, at least somewhatfrom home. So I think, you know,
I think we're still on goodfooting here that this is a
disruption and it will continueto be and, you know, hopefully
(03:26):
it will be a good one like welike we originally thought
Yael Grushka-Cockayne (03:29):
there. Well, it's interesting because
I, the next generation ofgraduates are coming out of
colleges, the next generation ofemployees are being recruited by
these firms. And it'sinteresting to see how folks
think about the location of thework and the modality of the
work as something that they takeinto consideration in their many
(03:50):
criteria when choosing a job.I've seen individuals reject
jobs, I've seen folks kind ofchange their their thinking
about an opportunity based onwhether or not it was remote or
in the office in bothdirections. Some people are
craving that social aspect andwant a vibrant office kind of
setting. And some folks are alittle bit more skeptical. But
it's on folks radar, they'reassessing it as as part of the
(04:13):
consideration. And they'retrying to make good choices
accordingly. I don't know thatwe've necessarily seen complete
structures of organizationschange yet. The real estate in
you know, part of of things isstill up up in the air in terms
of are all headquartersdisappearing, is there still a
gravitas for having some kind ofreally fancy headquarters? Not
(04:36):
clear if that's going to reallycontinue in that in that
direction? You know, I'm alwaysthinking about infinite loop
Apple's office, I think they'reone that actually asked people
to go into the officeinterestingly, so yeah, well,
Mike Lenox (04:48):
yeah, we're gonna have a whole nother discussion
about commercial real estatedisruption, bad disruption,
disruption, but there's clearlya lot going on there. Well,
let's let's keep moving on. Oneof our other topics was
personalized health. leveragingtechnology to Um, you know,
customize your healthcare.Again, we both kind of favored
good disruption there anyanything new to report there?
Yael Grushka-Cockayne (05:08):
Not much new to report. I feel like
ironically, maybe notironically. But I feel like this
is one that is playing outslower than maybe some areas
that we've seen kind ofexponential game changing
activity, maybe because it'shealth, things take a slightly
(05:28):
different pace, folks need to bemore careful, there's a lot more
kind of checks and balancesalong the way, there's a lot
more intervention by authoritiesand regulatory bodies that it
will play out over time andthings are happening. It's just
not as immediate as maybe weseen other domains.
Mike Lenox (05:44):
Yeah. And I think that's right. This is one that's
going to have a long gestationhere. And we'll see it in
meaningful ways when youinterface with the health system
in certain ways, but maybe notfully appreciated by those of us
just kind of the general thegeneral public.
Yael Grushka-Cockayne (05:58):
Exactly. Right. Exactly. Right. But I
believe that the the generalapproach and insight from around
or adjacent to to those experts,is that everybody's keenly
looking at it and hopeful thatit will yield superior, you
know, superior outcomes for allof us. One
Mike Lenox (06:13):
hopes, another one near and dear to our hearts,
online learning online learning.Good disruption. I will point
out that when we recorded thisone, yes, it was before the
release of a little thing calledChat GPT. And the whole
fascination with large languagemodels that we have seen over
the last year. Does that change?Does it change your your
(06:36):
assessment here of onlinelearning?
Yael Grushka-Cockayne (06:38):
No, not much. I think that industry has
stabilized somewhat, there hasbeen some consolidation, in
terms of the large venues, therehas been some kind of, I think,
slow down in terms of the numberof new players in the space and
so more predictability in termsof who's who's trying and who's
(06:58):
experimenting with onlinelearning? What are the main
vendors? What are the types ofservices that they provide? I
will say that one of the biggestchanges that I've noticed in the
space of online learning is thatactually, we see more regulation
coming out, we've seen theDepartment of Education being
pretty clear in terms ofexpectations around contract
sharing, and disclosures and thelike, which may curtail some of
(07:22):
the efforts that some of the forprofit companies are putting in.
So that's going to beinteresting to see, we always
bring it up that, aside from thetechnology, the adopters, and
the and the financials and theeconomics of a certain
disruption, the regulatorybodies have a lot to say, and a
lot of control in the matter.This
Mike Lenox (07:43):
is one where as you know, I've been getting excited
about the potential, especiallyof large language models to
create robust asynchronouslearning environments. So the
idea would be, could you createa an essence a chat bot, who
could mimic some of theexperience one might have in a
Socratic classroom? And as Imentioned during that podcast, I
Yael Grushka-Cockayne (08:02):
don't see don't say it because somebody
might take it. And we want topatent Oh, sorry. Yeah, well,
Mike Lenox (08:07):
you know, everything here is, you know, confidential.
But I listen. Yeah. But again, Iwant to emphasize the point that
I don't see this as a puresubstitute for like what we do
in the classroom here, it's acompliment. And it's just
another modality, which you canenhance someone's learning. The
beauty of it, though, is withasynchronous, if you could
really pull this off, is it thescalability, again, that you
(08:28):
could be having, you know,1000s, if not millions of
students run through a fairlyrobust Socratic exchange, but in
an asynchronous environments, sothat that, to me is a giant, a
game changer in terms of thescalability of some of the stuff
we do.
Yael Grushka-Cockayne (08:41):
And maybe this is where our disruptions
collide. And like anything, manyof our disruptions on their own
are slightly weakened by orcompared to the thought of all
of these disruptions occurringsimultaneously, we see the true
potential here. So if you take achat, GPT or any large language
model and do an enterpriseversion, and customize it to for
instance, the Darden casecollection in our videos, you
(09:03):
could quickly see how you couldtrain it to do exactly what
you're saying. Ask the moreSocratic sophisticated, detailed
questions and really build somesome some history there.
Mike Lenox (09:13):
Yeah, hopefully, we'll have jobs in the future.
Yael Grushka-Cockayne (09:17):
We will orchestrate on all of these, you
know, automatic bots basedSocratic instructors. Exactly,
Mike Lenox (09:25):
exactly. All right, let's move on. We had a cluster
of those technologies that arebroadly in what we might call
clean tech. In particular, wetalked about electric vehicles,
renewable energy and clean meat.And in all three cases, again,
we were both kind of optimisticand see them as a good
disruptions here. Any, anyupdates on any three of these
(09:45):
that you want to share? Well,
Yael Grushka-Cockayne (09:47):
you are a big supporter and fan and I
think we all knew that going inand we definitely got
confirmation during our episodewith with Adam, around your
support of EVs of electricvehicles and your belief that
That's the way forward. And Idon't think that that's changed
dramatically, although I willsay that it feels to me from
what I've been reading andnoticing is that the enthusiasm
(10:08):
has, again tempered a bit, ormaybe calmed down a little bit
or been curtailed. I don't know,if it's due specifically to
various tensions that Elon Muskas a person is drawing and
critique of his otheractivities. I don't know if it's
the sense that the world afterCOVID was left with other supply
(10:31):
chain challenges that, again,are limiting some of the
development that is expected orthe delays in terms of
developing some of the thebattery capabilities. But it
seems to me like it hasn'tcontinued in the same growth
patterns that it was a few yearsago. And that, of course, can
change in a matter of a fewyears. Well, actually,
Mike Lenox (10:48):
I'm gonna bring data to bear. Okay, so it actually is
continuing to increase. And so
Yael Grushka-Cockayne (10:54):
the same rate.
Mike Lenox (10:56):
So maybe not quite the exponential growth that we
were hoping but at the sametime, we went from 15%, new
vehicle sales to 20%. This year,and that's somewhere close to 15
million new vehicles on the roadthat are EVs. So it still has
that nice upward increasingtrajectory there. So I remain
(11:17):
optimistic on this one, if youlook at things like charging
infrastructure that also isgoing through kind of an
exponential growth curve. But Iagree, I mean, nothing is
guaranteed, I do worry about thepoliticization of the of the
technology again,
Yael Grushka-Cockayne (11:30):
you mean the role of the regulatory
bodies? Well,
Mike Lenox (11:33):
I'm actually thinking more of a consumer who
that will signal something aboutyour beliefs by buying electric
vehicles, because my wholeargument is that people are
gonna start buying these becausethey're cheaper, better. And
regardless if you care aboutclimate change, or the like, but
if it's viewed as a negative toyour persona, that's that's
going to be problematic andcould likely, you know, slow it
(11:55):
down,
Yael Grushka-Cockayne (11:55):
what has been the impact? So what we have
seen happen, and we haven'trecorded that episode yet,
although I know that it's on ouron our docket to do in just a
few weeks. But what has been theimpact in your mind to
autonomous vehicles? Yeah, we'veseen in more cities, I think San
Francisco, I think other placeshave really gone or taken it
(12:17):
more seriously, and reallyinvested in certain services
that are not provided byautonomous vehicles without
drivers or driverless cars. Doesthat support the whole electric
vehicle effort? Does it is ittotally separate momentum? Tell
us what you're thinking about?Yeah,
Mike Lenox (12:32):
I mean, we're gonna do an episode on autonomous
vehicles coming up here. Butagain, there's a lot of reasons
to believe that if you're goingto build an autonomous vehicle,
an electric vehicle is theplatform to do it on, partly
because of the electricinfrastructure that you have in
an Eevee. And there's eventhings like charging, it's
easier to think of autonomouscharging than it is autonomous
putting gas in a tank. So Ithink for a variety of reasons,
(12:54):
you'll see these two disruptionskind of move, move together. How
about clean meat? You know,that's a you know, Becky, our
lead researcher here is a bigenthusiast. Yes. Are we making
any progress on it? Not
Yael Grushka-Cockayne (13:09):
that I can tell. But I must profess
that this is not my, my area ofexcitement necessarily. I'm not
rushing to the supermarkets tolook for it. I know that the
conversations have evolved, Iknow that discussions have
continued to push towardsopportunities to not only think
about alternatives to meat, butalso alternatives to how we the
(13:32):
infrastructure that we have toget us the meat. I just don't
know that folks are quitetrusting of the lab based
creations quite yet.
Mike Lenox (13:40):
Yeah. And I think this is a classic example of the
S curve, which we talked aboutfrequently that clearly we are
not in the exponential growthphase in terms of adoption of
clean meat, we're still in thatwhat we call era of ferment, no
pun intended, in this particularcase, in clean meat, and a lot
still remains to be seen.
Yael Grushka-Cockayne (14:01):
But like many, maybe it's a no
disruption, or do you think Idon't think
Mike Lenox (14:04):
it'd be ready to say that? I mean, I think that's the
question, right? It's still it'sstill up for debate whether this
truly reaches its full potentialor it becomes this this footnote
with no disruption.
Yael Grushka-Cockayne (14:14):
Maybe you can, you can share a little bit
how you think about noteverything will be assessed,
kind of, I guess, assessed expost, but like, what are some
some signposts or some things tokeep an eye out as we try to
assess the technology andunderstand the assessment?
Mike Lenox (14:29):
I think almost in all of these, you know, you look
at the cost curve. So are wegoing to see it and we would
need to see significantreductions in the cost of the
production of clean meat. Youknow, the first hamburgers that
came out were like $100,000 ahamburger like no one's
obviously paying that. So yeah,look at look at cost curves and
removing down a cost curve in away that this could could reach
prime time here. Well, let'skeep moving on. The next group
(14:53):
that we had. This is my favoriteof our discussion so far, but
before that, we didn't do itrenewable. Oh, okay. Anything on
renewables. You I think I wouldjust simply say that kind of as
we discussed, we are moving downthis cost curve, there's a lot
of energy, again, no punintended of adopting renewable
energy. At the same time, thereare still a lot of barriers in
(15:14):
terms of, you know, gridinfrastructure, battery
technology for storage as we getmore renewables on the grid. So
there's still a long path here.But I think we're still on that
trajectory.
Yael Grushka-Cockayne (15:27):
I definitely don't want to get us
down a political track. But Iwill ask, Has there been any
impact on let's say, the war andbetween Ukraine and Russia on
the development for the adoptionof clean energy?
Mike Lenox (15:40):
Well, I think a couple things I'm trying
remember, if we had talked muchabout like the inflation
Reduction Act in the UnitedStates, it has a huge surge of
investment in this industrysector. So that that's obviously
fueling again, no pun intended,investment in this area.
Clearly, the macroeconomicevents and the impacts on things
like the price of oil alsochanged the dynamics here that
(16:02):
we would favor. And I thinkespecially the idea of energy
independence, which we have inthe United States, largely,
arguably, through fracking, butEurope in particular is looking
at the situation they foundthemselves in with natural gas
and Russia, and are thinkingmuch more aggressively about
alright, we do not want to be inthis situation again. And so I
think renewables are logical onefor them to be pursuing to try
(16:25):
to get some of that energyindependence, if you will.
Perfect. Great. Alright, so thenext three are triumphant of
cryptocurrency, Metaverse and NFTs. And I'm just gonna brag
right now. I think recall thecryptocurrency crash before it
occurred. I think we recordedthat one. We were right at the
height of cryptocurrency. And asI shared on a later podcast, I
(16:49):
think we we caused the wholecrash because we were the people
listen to our podcast andrealize that the there was
really no, no disruption here.And all seriousness, you know,
we have the FTX trial going onright now. The the repercussions
of our crypto mania are beingfelt, want to be very clear,
when I say no disruption, I'vebeen talking about technological
(17:11):
shifts and change. This has beenincredibly disruptive to a lot
of people and a lot of theirsavings and the like. And in
that way, cryptocurrencyabsolutely has been disruptive.
But again, I still thinking tomy thinking that cryptocurrency
has a place in the world, it islikely to be small. It is not
this transformative technologythat the crypto enthusiasts have
(17:32):
been have been arguing. So
Yael Grushka-Cockayne (17:34):
potentially, maybe not necessarily. I mean,
there are there is disruption.But potentially it will quiet
down and just become anadditional type of investments
and an additional type of ofasset and not necessarily
replace what currently whatpeople are doing in terms of
their currency. And now how theythink about their monetary
positioning. Has it been usedfor anything good the
(17:54):
infrastructure? Well,
Mike Lenox (17:56):
that's a great, great question. Well, as we
talked about, I guess there arethere are various places in the
world where maybe hedging yourcurrent currency with crypto
could be the most logical,though again, the US dollar
seems to be generally thatdefault currency for people. So
what
Yael Grushka-Cockayne (18:16):
about the Dow is an idea, the idea of more
less centralized kind of groups,but decentralization of
authorities? What about that?Will that will is that going to
pick up and maybe a differentdomains?
Mike Lenox (18:27):
Maybe what that relates, let's let's talk about
NF TS where I actually came inand good disruption here. And so
NF T's in some ways are the youcould argue the opposite of
cryptocurrencies, because theseare exclusive assets. It's
interesting that the excitementaround them seems to have died
down now. But I think thefundamental idea that you should
be able to own a digital assetstill resonates with me like
(18:49):
there should be a way to owndigital assets and trade them
and NF T's are a logicaltechnology to allow for that. I
think
Yael Grushka-Cockayne (18:56):
the hype is, for sure curtailed like it's
not where it was even a yearago. It's not where it was even
six months ago, I don't think.So it's interesting to see how
some items of disruption aremore of a fad, if you will, and
they kind of find their naturalkind of positioning. I like the
idea of thinking about NF T'sand making sense of them and
(19:18):
owning digital assets, as yousay in the context of the
metaverse because it all madesense when we got to the meta
first episode. Yeah. Why getthese digital assets. It's nice
to have things that are digitaland that we can kind of own them
in this kind of hypotheticalworld. But only when you think
about the metaverse as a as athing that you're going to
invest in an environment thatyou're going to kind of invest
in and create an alternativeexperience.
Mike Lenox (19:39):
Right? And we were both skeptical about the
metaverse, especially the ideaof it being the single all
incompetency Oasis, as theycalled it in Ready Player One.
I'm sticking with thatassessment that there's lots of
pieces of this. There's lots ofuses of virtual reality in these
virtual environments that areincredibly helpful and a
positive disruption but I don'tThink the metaverse as maybe
(20:02):
envisioned by meta and others iscoming anytime soon. I do think
it's interesting the hype cycleswe see. And you know, we're in
the generative AI hype cycleright now. And I don't find many
people talking about themetaverse at all. And I, you
know, is Zuckerberg gonna changemeta now to like aI verse or
something new, like youngerchange the name again to meet
(20:22):
the latest fad. I do think ithighlights one of the kind of
hearts of what we're trying todo with this podcast, which is
separate out the longer termtrends and the impacts these
technologies can have from theshort term mania. And this is a
good one, but not clear thatthis is going to be that
(20:44):
transformative impact that wethat we thought,
Yael Grushka-Cockayne (20:46):
again, the hope for me is in the
intersection. Sointersectionality between
Metaverse and say generative AI,I can imagine I've been thinking
a lot actually, in most of theconversations with you around
training our faculty andthinking about educational
experiences for our students andlearning opportunities. And
(21:06):
having simulations anddimensions of our learning that
right now we either need realresources like actors and
theaters and props andinvestments to to accomplish. I
thought we could do that in themetaverse practice of firing
somebody or hiring somebody orpromoting someone. Have our
students practice toughconversations in the metaverse.
(21:26):
And if you have a generative AIthat could interact with our
students in the metaverse andthere are now CEOs of companies
in the metaverse, we can reallypush the limits of how we teach
our students. And again,
Mike Lenox (21:36):
you know, I'm all for VR and the impacts that that
could have in these virtualworlds. I just don't think
there's gonna be one allincorporating Metaverse here.
Could be proven wrong, ofcourse. All right. Well, that's
a good segue to our last group.So we've we've clearly been
talking a lot about generativeAI, we've talked it in the
context of music. We've talkedit in the context of deep fakes
and the misuse of generative AI.We've more recently talked about
(22:00):
in terms of what's happening inthe entertainment industry,
especially around what thewriter strike and the actors
strike. Where do you fall? Wheredo you fall? I have to say this
is the one that the both of ushave been a little wishy washy
on? We've been we've been kindof all over the map and our
responses to what we thinkgenerative AI is going to do
here. Yeah.
Yael Grushka-Cockayne (22:18):
And it's interesting, because I think I
changed my position, dependingon the type of application. And
maybe if I step back and say,across all industries, big
picture here, generative AI,large language models, is it a
disruptor? I think it is adisrupter. It's a disruptor, not
only for the tech itself, andwhat it can do. But for me, it's
more of a disrupter. Because itseems like everybody's paying
(22:40):
attention. So for those of usplaying around with data
science, or or implementingsolutions related to us using
data in new creative ways, andsolving new problems and
creating new products, I feellike now everybody's paying
attention. And it's partlythanks to these types of models.
Yeah,
Mike Lenox (22:57):
I'm right with you here, too. I think this is my
point again, about, you know,there are the hype cycles. And
clearly, we're in it right now.And I will make the bold
forecasts that we're going tosee at some point here, a
massive shakeout where a lot ofthese AR AI startups and AI
initiatives go away. And that,by the way, is what we expect
when we get disruption. But Ithink there's enough corpus here
(23:21):
of a really disruptivetechnology that we're going to
see it proliferate through awide number of industries,
despite there being a lot ofchurn here. The part I think I
struggle with is the good versusthe bad question here. And be
very clear, there areapplications of generative AI
that are going to be veryhelpful in advance and solve
(23:42):
problems we face in the world.But we all see the downside. And
as we've talked about, in someof the discussions we've had on
this, there are increasing callsto regulate AI. And I have to
say, I don't know what thatmeans. I don't think that is
going to happen. Yeah. And andit feels good to say it like we
need to regulate AI. But youknow, what does that mean? And
(24:03):
how can it actually bemeaningful and impactful while
not also killing the the goodside of the disruption as well?
I wish I had answers for our forour listeners, but I really
don't,
Yael Grushka-Cockayne (24:14):
perhaps a more helpful way to think about
it is once we changed ourmindset from trying to control
the AI and the usages of AI,versus putting in place and
mechanisms to protect thepeople. Yeah. And so the
regulatory authorities, thebodies, the folks that are
concentrating on putting theboundaries and the limitations
in the guardrails, maybe itwould be more productive if we
(24:35):
shift the shift the conversationto say what is it that we care
about in terms of the peoplethose who are performing the
jobs those that were worriedthat will be out of the jobs
will be replaced or strugglingto train? What is it that we
need to do to ensure the welfareof us all and and the world of
tomorrow knowing that it will bevery hard as you say, to limit
the usage of the technologyitself?
Mike Lenox (24:56):
And this was you know, I'm gonna make an advocacy
actually for the lawyers heresurprising Late, which is
sometimes just don't always dothat assigning assigning
liability. So you think aboutautonomous vehicles. So how can
we how can we regulateautonomous vehicles? Well, maybe
it's as simple as the maker ofthe AI is going to be ultimately
responsible for it and can besued when things go wrong, might
(25:18):
get the incentives alignedcorrectly so that we get good
AI, if you will, and get a gooddisruption there.
Yael Grushka-Cockayne (25:25):
I'm excited about generative AI. I'm
excited because it for once itfeels like it's forcing many
people to think, really outsidethe box. And that's refreshing.
Typically, we're all too pronefor more incremental kind of
small changes over time. Andthere's enough problems as we've
(25:47):
highlighted, we can week out inour episodes, that there's
enough things that we need tochange and improve in this
world, and we don't have time towaste. So why not hope that with
these models, we can actuallytackle big problems like climate
change, or like, you know, apoverty and health issues. Maybe
there's a way for us to actuallyovercome and if we went any of
(26:10):
those domains, I think we'll bein a much better.
Mike Lenox (26:12):
I love your optimism. I define myself as an
optimist. I think only incomparison to you am I like the
cynic on this podcast. I lovethat vision. And I do agree. You
know, the engineer at heart inme wants to like figure out how
can we leverage technology tosolve our problems? So I have
one last question. Yes, one yearanniversary? Yes. The good
disruption, podcast, gooddisruption, bad disruption, or
(26:33):
no disruption? Oh,
Yael Grushka-Cockayne (26:34):
I actually am so glad that you
asked because I wanted to pointthis out from the get go. For me
personally, like maybepredictably, it's a great
disrupt, not even a good one. Ireally enjoyed the sessions.
When you and I first chatted, Iknew I wanted to do a podcast,
I, you know, talking aboutdisruptions. I wasn't sure how I
(26:55):
felt about it. But I learned somuch from being in the studio.
And I don't know if this ishappening to you. But every time
we record a new episode, for atleast one or two weeks
afterwards, everywhere I go, Ibring up points that came up in
our conversation and actuallylonger term probably, it keeps
coming back and intoconversations. Just this week, I
(27:16):
went to a big conference that Igo to every year. And I could
reference the conversation thatwe had just last week around
issues related to copyright andthe like with and the actors
strike in Hollywood. And so notonly do I feel like I learned
from it, I think it's great tohave experts and guests and it
always is nice to hear just howdeep their knowledge is and how
(27:36):
much they're they're helping usand learning to ask the right
questions around disruption. I
Mike Lenox (27:40):
totally agree. And I think that last point is
critical. Someone I was doing apanel last week and someone
introduced me as a futurist. I'mlike, I am absolutely not a
futurist, I'm the first one totell you, I have no clue often
like where technology will beother than the Predict it's
probably going to be radicallydifferent than we can even
forecast it, you know, 10 yearsfrom now. But I do think there
(28:01):
are ways in which we can bethoughtful about thinking about
technology and how it's evolvingand what the implications are
both good and bad. And to yourpoint about our experts, you
know, having conversations withpeople talking through these
issues, getting that expertopinion, and then asking
questions that I think yousummarized it well, like that's
(28:21):
the heart of what this podcastis about. I suspect we're going
to be wrong on a whole bunch ofthese forecasts that we're
making. And that's okay, becausethat's the nature of technology.
But in many times, it's justhaving the conversation and
dealing with the implications oftechnology. That I think is the
important thing to do.
Yael Grushka-Cockayne (28:40):
Yeah, I noticed that in our title, we
don't have bad disruption, ourtitle is just good disruption.
So that that in and of itselfkind of summarizes how I feel
about our podcasts. And I dothink that our listeners also,
and you guys have been greatreaching out and sharing with us
what you learned. I do feel likefolks listen for the dialogue
and for the exchange ofthoughts, not necessarily for
(29:00):
the prediction. As much asforecaster but
Mike Lenox (29:05):
yeah, exactly. Well,
Yael Grushka-Cockayne (29:06):
what are some what are some episodes as
we wrap up to look forward to inthe next year? What do you think
we're going to be talking about?
Mike Lenox (29:12):
Oh, well, I mean, we have talked about, you know, a
number here, I definitely wantto about nuclear energy. And in
particular, there's a movementtowards what we call modular
nuclear, like small nuclearreactors, so that that one
excites me. How about you? Whatdo you have?
Yael Grushka-Cockayne (29:25):
Well, we mentioned the autonomous
vehicles. Funnily enough, whenwe started working on this, it
was on the list all along, and Iwas less excited. You know,
we've been both following what'sgoing on in Wei Mo and, and
talking about, you know, Googlecars, if you will, when it way,
way back, when and a few yearsago, there was a big hype, maybe
five, six years ago, when wejust started to kind of identify
this as an area. I was a littlereluctant and maybe less
(29:48):
enthusiastic. I thought the thetime has passed. But but I'm
excited to again, I'm seeingmore and more investment, air,
airports, investing inautonomous vehicles to you know,
take take passengers from trainstations to the airports huge
amounts of money being put intoit. And it's interesting that I
(30:09):
don't know that everybody agreesthat it's worth it or what the
promises. And I think thatthere's a lot to debate there.
Yeah. Well,
Mike Lenox (30:14):
at least two episodes that we have. Oh, yes.
And we're gonna try to increaseour, our rate of production here
in year two.
Yael Grushka-Cockayne (30:20):
And I think just to get people
excited, again, a couple ofothers that are top of mind for
me, one has to do with the newtechnology related to fashion.
Oh, yeah. So we haven't reallytalked much about it. But it's a
huge industry with a lot ofdisruption. Actually, it's just
like fast fashion or no, notfast fashion, necessarily. It
could be a high end fashion, butnew materials, new way to design
(30:42):
them 3d printing really new waysto imagine what they what
they're made out of and howthey're made. And also just
different ways to use crowds, Ithink that we're going to be
talking a little bit about sometechnology related to, to using
crowds and crowdsourcingworkforce in the future.
Mike Lenox (30:58):
If only we had an expert on the podcast who knows
a lot about crowdsourcing. Well,you know, to our listeners out
there, if you have suggestions,please, you know, send them to
us. We're always looking for,you know, interesting topics,
the world moves fast. So we canbe, you know, hopefully flexible
and respond to some of theseevolving technologies as they
come. And some of them willprobably be fads, and some will
be transformative. And that'sthe whole point of this podcast.
(31:20):
So yeah, well, it's been anactual joy. Let me give our
thanks, as always to Becky, ourresearcher extraordinaire, who
this podcast would not bepossible without her. And Gary,
of course, our producer whokeeps us on line, and he
promises me you know, we'regonna get this AI generated
music, you know, sooner orlater.
Yael Grushka-Cockayne (31:40):
We're here for the jingle, jingle.
Mike Lenox (31:41):
We need the jingle.
Yael Grushka-Cockayne (31:43):
Thank you, Mike.
Becky Duff (31:49):
Good disruption is a podcast from the University of
Virginia Darden School ofBusiness.
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