Podcast
Humans + AI
Hosted by Ross Dawson · EN
Exploring and unlocking the potential of AI for individuals, organizations, and humanity
17episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
Kathleen deLaski on reimagining higher education, generational mobility, building AI skills, and human originality (AC Ep43)
5d ago00:38:36Tap to summarize“There’s a real ‘skillification’ movement where you just want to get the training you need when you need it.” –Kathleen deLaski About Kathleen deLaski Kathleen deLaski is the founder and board chair of Education Design Lab, which helps reimagine higher education. She is a senior advisor to Harvard’s Project on the Workforce and on the advisory board of the Taubman Center at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. Kathleen is author of Who Needs College Anymore? Imagining a Future Where Degrees Won’t Matter. Website: whoneedscollegeanymore.org eddesignlab.org LinkedIn Profile: Kathleen deLaski What you will learn The evolving value of college degrees in a rapidly changing economy Who benefits most from higher education, including four key learner profiles The rise of ‘skillification’ and alternative pathways to career readiness How employers assess degrees and non-degree credentials in today’s job market The impact of AI on both education and workplace expectations Why AI literacy—and understanding its limits—matters for career success The growing divide between technical and non-technical learners regarding AI adoption Practical strategies for maximizing uniquely human skills—like originality and judgment—in an AI-powered world Episode Resources Transcript Ross Dawson: Kathleen, it’s a delight to have you on the show. Kathleen deLaski: Thanks for having me, Ross. Ross: So, amongst many other things to your name, you have a fairly recent book out called “Who Needs College Anymore?” So, does anyone need college anymore? Kathleen: Yes, the answer is yes. There are people who are looking to bash the notion of a three- or four-year university degree, but they need to look somewhere else. What I try to do in the book is serve two audiences. One is universities—what we call colleges in the US—who are actually in a state of panic right now about surveys showing that people are not valuing degrees anymore. It’s a perfect moment to reassess: what does a degree need to deliver as we approach the mid-21st century? That’s the hot topic, the debate that’s raging. To frame the question, “Who needs college anymore?” is to say, “Wow, you need to step up your value proposition in this age,” especially when, at least here, the number of 18-year-olds is dwindling and we have AI and technological solutions that allow people to get skills as needed. There’s a real ‘skillification’ movement where you just want to get the training you need when you need it. There’s also a questioning of hanging around to learn about the liberal arts, to do your philosophy, English, or history required classes—can’t we get right to the skills? That’s the debate that’s raging. So, colleges need to hear this message; that was one audience. Secondly, I know so many students—even in my own family—who are trying to parse the different messages they’re hearing. One message is, “You absolutely need a four-year degree if you want to get a ‘good job.'” The other message is, “College isn’t worth it anymore; you can just get the skills you need and get the job.” Meanwhile, families think the price tag is going up and up. Here, it’s staggering—although, in reality, universities in the US have actually begun to hold prices and even give a lot of discounts because they’re short on the number of folks coming through the door. So, all these confusing messages—I think families also need to understand who exactly, among different types of learners, does need a degree and who doesn’t. Which jobs, which age groups, which learning types? I actually walk through all those using a human-centered design approach. Ross: Human-centered is a good way to go. So I and others have talked about the unbundling of higher education, and there are a number of elements to that, including the educational processes, the social connections, sometimes the physical place, the links with employers and credentials. Of all the facets bundled together in a degree, the real focus, of course, is on the certifica...
Transcribe →
David Vivancos on the end of knowledge, cognitive flourishing, resilient societies, and artificial democracy (AC Ep42)
2w ago00:35:59Tap to summarize“Delegating knowledge is not the same as delegating wisdom. You learn by experience, and if you don’t have any experiences…you will get cognitive atrophy.” –David Vivancos About David Vivancos David Vivancos is an AI, data, and neuroscience serial entrepreneur, having cofounded five startups since 1995. He is a frequent keynote speaker and is the author of six books, including the Artificiology series. Website: vivancos.com LinkedIn Profile: David Vivancos What you will learn Why embracing advanced AI is crucial for human progress How shifting from digitization to automation and datification redefines value The evolving distinction between human-acquired and AI-generated knowledge How to avoid cognitive atrophy and actively exercise your mind alongside AI What cognitive flourishing means in a world of widespread AI augmentation Ways AI can transform and personalize education across all levels The importance of coexistence training as we prepare for AGI’s societal integration Why rethinking human identity, humility, and social structures is essential for a future with machine citizens Episode Resources Transcript Ross Dawson: David, it is wonderful to have you on the show. David Vivancos: Thank you very much, Ross. Glad to be here. Ross: So you have a more developed, or some would say, extreme view of the relative role of humans plus AI. I’d love to dig into where you think things are going, and how we can best respond. Perhaps the starting point is, you say that we should not be resisting or pushing back. We should fully embrace the shift towards very high levels of AI capability, or at some point, AGI. David: Yeah, that’s fully my point. I think we are in a moment in history where we are really building this technology that one day is not going to be a technology anymore. So, the sooner we start to embrace it, to teach it, and to be really in sync with what we are creating day by day, the better off we will be. So yes, my point of view is that we should embrace it. We should start building as soon as possible. We should fix most of the problems that humans have had over the last millennia, and some of these problems could be solved by using AI. So basically, our “fourth brain”—we have the three-part brain, but in reality, there’s only one brain—this fourth brain, AI, will help us solve all of these issues. So yes, it’s an opportunity. Ross: Yes. I mean, I think there’s always two sides—as in, every opportunity has a challenge, every challenge has an opportunity. So I always think we need to acknowledge challenges and focus on opportunities. I think we’ll get onto that in discussing some of the cognitive implications. You have a series of books which have really told the story over time around this. One of them was “Automate or Be Automated.” This idea of saying, well, there are things which machines, in the broader sense, can do in automating things. So, how would you frame that now, in terms of what it is that can be automated, and how do we position ourselves relative to that? Where do machines start to do what humans have done? David: Yep. I’ve been in this business of trying to build the impossible for the last 30-plus years. “Automate or Be Automated,” the book you mentioned, is from about six years ago. When I started creating and building technology, also about VR and many other things, about 30 years ago, the first companies were internet companies. Back then, what we did is what people now call digitization. But over the last 20–25 years, what we’ve mostly been doing is datification—gathering data and using that data for companies to grow and to understand what happens in the world. But over the last maybe 10 or 11 years, what I call the new golden age of AI, we are starting to build the capabilities to use that data to really build algorithms. Once we have that, we can start to automate, and with this automation, basically what we regain is time. I think time is our most precious asset, along with health and the people we love. Being able to stop doing these repetiti...
Transcribe →
Jon Husband on wirearchy, web weaving, the relational economy, and drift diving (AC Ep41)
3w ago00:38:14Tap to summarize“What I’m really interested in and fascinated about is that, as AI penetrates and spreads throughout the workplace and gets placed into or integrated into workflows, the first thing that happens is that people in the mix are going to have to learn how to use AI and learn why to use AI when they do.” –Jon Husband About Jon Husband Jon Husband is the Founder and Principal of Wirearchy, a creative research and experimentation laboratory exploring the crossroads of AI and networked workplaces and society. He works as a coach, consultant, speaker and writer, and has co-authored three books, including Wirearchy. Website: wirearchy.com LinkedIn Profile: Jon Husband What you will learn The origins and evolution of wirearchy as a response to traditional organizational hierarchies How AI integration is reshaping knowledge work, workflows, and tacit knowledge within organizations The persistence of Taylorist job evaluation and why traditional work design remains resistant to change The rise of the relational economy and the increasing value of human judgment, trust, and relationships beyond financial exchange New approaches and tools for surfacing and mapping intangible or non-financial value exchanges in organizations The concept of emergence and the need to foster conditions for positive outcomes in complex adaptive systems Challenges and opportunities as organizations shift from rigid, control-based management to adaptive, networked, feedback-driven models Why coaching, facilitation, and skills like listening and allowing for emergence will be critical in navigating AI-augmented workplaces Episode Resources Transcript Ross Dawson: Jon, it is wonderful to have you on the show. Jon: Thank you very much, Ross, it’s good to see you again. Ross Dawson: We’ve known of each other and each other’s work for a very, very long time now from, I suppose, the roots of—yeah, I suppose you can crudely say—the intersection of knowledge and networks. So, as I think many of us who have come from that background, we now are thinking about humans and their relative role to AI. Some people will know of your wirearchy and a lot of your work of the past; others will not. So I’d love to just start off with: what is the concept of wirearchy? And then, how is that morphing or evolving, or are you building on that in how you’re thinking now? We’ll dig in and explore that. Jon: Okay, well, I started paying attention to knowledge work and work in organizations and so on as I changed careers in my early 30s, moving from banking, where I was in management, into management consulting. I ended up working for a large global HR consulting firm that, amongst several others—all the major consulting firms that address organizational issues—have services where they do what’s called job evaluation. What job evaluation does is put a size or a measure or a weight to a job, which then basically places it on the organization chart. I spent quite a few years writing thousands of job descriptions and helping streamline workflows and so on and so forth. So, when the internet came along, I had always been an avid reader, and I suppose a wannabe futurist—a wannabe Ross Dawson, if you will. I was reading all sorts of books back then. Instead of dating, because I was single in my mid-30s, I was spending Friday nights reading books about organizations, like “The Living Company” by Arie de Geus, the Tofflers’ work, “Powershift,” certainly Peter Drucker’s work. There was one day—well, I was reading all of these books, and all of the books were about the coming Information Age. The Information Age had not arrived yet; this was roughly late ’80s, early ’90s. All of a sudden, we hit 1994. I’m sitting in London, and I was just told by my team leader in my consulting firm that I was going to be proposed as one of the next global partners. Three weeks later, I quit my job in the consulting firm because I had begun to feel very uneasy about the work I was doing. If I was made a partner, your job becomes basically selling larger projects to keep the younger consultants employed. I realized that I would be selling methods that I had come to not believe in anymore, and the reason for that is that all of the job evaluation me...
Transcribe →
Michael Gebert on designing freedom, human self-determination, cognitive sovereignty, and systems of agency (AC Ep40)
4w ago00:37:43Tap to summarize“Freedom no longer exists outside the systems, and it depends on the design. Coming back to the design, it’s about understanding that we need to distinguish between intelligent systems and agency.” –Dr Michael Gebert About Dr Michael Gebert Dr Michael Gebert is Chairman of the European Blockchain Association and co-founder of AI Expert Forum. He works at the intersection of artificial intelligence, digital sovereignty, and institutional responsibility. His book 2079 – Designing Freedom is just out. Website: 2079.life LinkedIn Profile: Dr Michael Gebert What you will learn How the concept of freedom extends beyond politics and economics to personal agency in an AI-driven world Why cognitive sovereignty is essential for maintaining individual responsibility and accountability as intelligent systems become more pervasive The shift from making decisions ourselves to designing the frameworks and conditions for decision-making with AI involvement How to distinguish optimization from true human empowerment when integrating AI tools into personal and organizational life Practical routines and metacognitive strategies for individuals to retain agency when collaborating with large language models and intelligent systems Why organizational leaders must prioritize cognitive sovereignty and human potential early in AI deployment, not just technical efficiency Insights into the challenges and importance of embedding frameworks for freedom and cognitive sovereignty within corporate, governmental, and policy structures The critical need for ambassadors of freedom within institutions to promote reflection, ongoing discussion, and the integration of responsible AI practices across all levels Episode Resources Transcript Ross Dawson: Michael. It is awesome to have you on the show. Michael Gebert: Hey, great to be on the show. Thanks for having me. Ross Dawson: So we connected first, probably around 15 years ago, and we were both involved in crowds, creating value from many people. And I think, you know, there’s one of the interesting points now is, I guess, you know, we still live in a world of many people. We’re trying to create collective value. AI is laid over that. So it’s interesting to see that journey from where we’ve come to where we are today. Michael Gebert: Absolutely, and I really remember visually when we first had contact about this very exciting topic of crowdsourcing and empowerment of the crowd, and really making people believe, not only in themselves, but really in communities. And therefore, not only strengths in terms of crowdfunding, crowd investing, their financial gains, but also being empowered in what they do. And this is a very fundamental, I would say, even a right for humanity to reflect on and do that. I think the methodology and technology back then helped a lot. And to be honest, I’m still partly involved in some of those efforts. Even the big crowdfunding platforms, also here in Europe and in Germany, are vital and really active. Of course, not in that dramatic media shift hype that we experienced, but they’re still there, and it proves that it’s a concept that should stay. Ross Dawson: Yep, absolutely. You know, there’s obviously collective intelligence, amongst other facets. But this goes to, I think, the frame of your new book, 2079, Designing Freedom. So freedom is an interesting word, and something which I hope we all aspire to. Michael Gebert: Yeah, you know, freedom, of course, is one of those very multifaceted words, right? It could be translated in a political context. It could be translated in an economic concept, meaning monetary-wise. It could be translated—and this is my translation—in a very personal, one-to-one reflection about how do I as a human being see myself in that surrounding, bombarded not only by information but by intelligent systems, basically AI as we describe them, and all that is behind those systems. Ross Dawson: So there’s a few things I want to dig into here. And I guess there’s another word there: designing. Obviously, at a societal infrastructure layer, we want to be able to design the systems whereby we can all individually have that freedom of choic...
Transcribe →
Marshall Kirkpatrick on cognitive levers, combinatorial possibilities, symphonic thinking, and compound learning (AC Ep39)
Apr 800:39:41Tap to summarize“The technology we’re working with today really makes a lot of those best practices and mental models and the whole toolkit more accessible than ever to more people.” –Marshall Kirkpatrick About Marshall Kirkpatrick Marshall Kirkpatrick is founder of sustainabilty consultancy Earth Catalyst and AI thinking tool What’s Up With That. His many previous roles include founder of influence network analysis tool Little Bird, which was acquired by Sprinklr, where he was last Vice President Market Research. Website: whatsupwiththat.app LinkedIn Profile: Marshall Kirkpatrick What you will learn How generative AI transforms cognitive tools and lowers barriers to advanced thinking Techniques to combine human and AI-powered sensemaking for richer insights Practical strategies for filtering and extracting value from infinite information The importance and application of diverse mental models in modern decision-making Methods to balance manual cognitive work with AI assistance for optimal outcomes The role of adaptive interfaces in enhancing individual cognitive capacity Metacognitive approaches to networks and how AI can foster organizational awareness Ethical and societal implications of democratizing access to AI-powered cognitive enhancements Episode Resources Transcript Ross Dawson: Marshall, it is awesome to have you back on the show. Marshall Kirkpatrick: Oh, thank you, Ross. It’s such a pleasure to be reconnecting with you here. Thanks for having me on. Ross Dawson: So back you were very, very early on in the podcast when it was Thriving on Overload, and it was interviews with the book, and you got incorporated—some of the wonderful things you were doing in Thriving on Overload. So I think today, in this world of generative AI, which has transformed everything, including the way in which we think, the Thriving on Overload themes are still super, super relevant, and in a way, we need to be talking about them more. That theme at the time was finite cognition, infinite information. How do we work well with it? I don’t know if our cognition has become more finite, but the information has become more infinite, and there’s just more and more. But also, it cuts two ways, as in, what is the source of all the information? AI is also a tool. So anyway, let’s segue from some of your cognitive thinking tools, technology-enabled cognitive thinking tools and so on, which we looked at. So how do you—where are we? 2026, what do you think about human cognition in our current universe? Marshall Kirkpatrick: Well, especially when you frame it up in Thriving on Overload terms. I mean, those were four, five long years ago that we last spoke, and the book that came out of it was just fantastic. I think it has some timeless qualities, and I think that the technology we’re working with today really makes a lot of those best practices and mental models and the whole toolkit more accessible than ever to more people. That’s what I hope. I think that, yeah, between individuals and organizations, there’s so much that, historically, someone like you or me or the people closest in our networks were willing and able to do and excited to do, that many other people said, “That sounds like a lot of work.” The bar is lower now, because a lot of just the raw cognitive processing can be outsourced into a technology that serves as a lever. Ross Dawson: Well, I mean, that idea of levers for these cognitive tools is interesting. I guess, the very crude way of saying it is, we’ve got inputs into our human brain, and then we are processing information. I’m just thinking out loud a bit here, but it’s like, okay, we have tools to be able to filter, to present, to find what is most relevant, to present it to us in the ways which are most useful—very obvious, like summarization, visualization. Then as we are processing it ourselves, we have dialog, or we can have interlocutors who we can engage with and be able to refine and help our thinking. Does that sort of make sense, or how would you flesh that out? Marshall Kirkpatrick: Yeah, I mean, when you put it that way, i...
Transcribe →
Nina Begus on artificial humanities, AI archetypes, limiting and productive metaphors, and human extension (AC Ep38)
Apr 100:34:46Tap to summarize“Fiction has this unprecedented power in tech spaces. The more I started talking to engineers about their technical problems, the more I realized there’s so much more that humanities could offer.” –Nina Begus About Nina Begus Nina Begus is a researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, leading a research group on artificial humanities, and the founder of InterpretAI. She is author of Artificial Humanities: A Fictional Perspective on Language in AI, which received an Artificiality Institute Award, and First Encounters with AI. Website: ninabegus.com LinkedIn Profile: Nina Begus Book: Artificial Humanities What you will learn How ancient myths and archetypes influence our understanding and design of AI Why the humanities—literature, philosophy, and the arts—are crucial for developing more thoughtful and innovative AI systems The dangers of limiting AI concepts to human-centered metaphors and the need for new, more expansive imaginaries How metaphors shape our interactions with AI products and the user experiences companies choose to enable The challenges and possibilities of imagining forms of machine intelligence and language beyond human templates Why collaboration between technical experts and humanists opens new frontiers for creativity and responsible technology What makes writing and artistic creation uniquely human, and how AI amplifies—not replaces—these impulses Practical ways artists, engineers, and thinkers can work together to explore new relationships and futures with AI Episode Resources Transcript Ross Dawson: Nina, it is wonderful to have you on the show. Nina Begus: Thank you for having me. Ross Dawson: You’ve written this very interesting book, Artificial Humanities, and I think there’s a lot to dig into. But what does that mean? What do you mean by artificial humanities? Nina Begus: Well, this was really a new framework that I’ve developed while I was working on the relationship between AI and fiction, and I started working on this about 15 years ago when I realized that fiction has this unprecedented power in tech spaces. So this is how it all started, but then the more I started talking to engineers about their technical problems, the more I realized there’s so much more that humanities could offer in this collaborative, generative approach that I’ve developed. I would say that now, as the field stands, it’s really a way to explore and demonstrate how humanities—as broad as science and technology studies, literary studies, film, philosophy, rhetoric, history of technology—how all of these fields can help us address the most pressing issues in AI development and use. And it’s been important to me that this approach uses traditional humanistic methods, theory, conceptual work, history, ethical approaches, but also that it’s collaborative and exploratory and experimental in this way that you can look back into the past and at the present to make a more informed choice about the future. You can speculate about different possibilities with it. Ross Dawson: Well, art is an expression of the human psyche, or even more, it is the fullest expression of humanity, and that’s what art tries to do. Also, I’m a deep believer in archetypes, human archetypes, and things which are intrinsic to who we are, and that’s something which you can only really uncover through the arts. Now we have arguably seen all these archetypes play out in real time, these modern myths being created right now in the stories being told of how AI is being created. So I think it’s extraordinarily relevant to look back at how we have depicted machines through our history and our relationship to them. Nina Begus: Yes, this is the reason why I started exploring this topic, actually, because there were so many ancient myths, these archetypal narratives that I’ve seen at the same time, both in technological products that were coming to the market and in the way technologists were thinking about it, and also in fictional products and films and novels in the way we imagined AI. I framed my book around the Pygmalion myth, but there ar...
Transcribe →
Henrik von Scheel on making people smarter, wealthier and healthier, biophysical data, resilient learning, and human evolution (AC Ep37)
Mar 2500:47:06Tap to summarize“The center of any change that we’re doing in the fourth industrial revolution is always the human being, because humans have an ability to adopt, adapt to skills, and adjust to an environment.” –Henrik von Scheel About Henrik von Scheel Henrik von Scheel is Co-Founder of advisory firm Strategic Intelligence, Chairman of the Climate Asset Trust, Vice Chairman of Regulatory Intelligence Committee, and Professor of Strategy, Arthur Lok Jack School of Business, among other roles. He is best known as originator of Industry 4.0, with many awards and extensive global recognition of his work. Website: von-scheel.com LinkedIn Profile: Henrik von Scheel What you will learn Why human-centered AI is crucial for widespread societal prosperity The impact of AI hype cycles, media narratives, and the realities of technology adoption How equitable wealth distribution and capital allocation in AI can shape economic outcomes Risks around data ownership, privacy, and the importance of controlling your own data in the AI era Divergent approaches to AI regulation in the US, EU, and China, and the implications for global AI leadership The importance of trust calibration and intentional human-AI collaboration in practical applications How education and lifelong learning can be reshaped by AI to support individualized growth and mistake-enabled reasoning Opportunities for AI to amplify individual talents, address educational gaps, and enable more specialized and innovative skills Episode Resources Transcript Ross Dawson: Henrik, it is wonderful to have you on the show. Henrik von Scheel: Thank you very much for having me, Ross. Ross Dawson: So I think we’re pretty aligned in believing that we need to approach AI from a human-centered perspective and how it can bring us prosperity. So I’d just love to start with, how do you think about how we should be thinking about AI? Henrik von Scheel: Well, I think, like every technology that comes into play, it brings a lot of changes to us. But I think the center of any change that we’re doing in the fourth industrial revolution is always the human being, because humans have an ability to adapt, adapt to skills, and adjust to an environment. So technology is something that we apply, but it’s the strategy on how we adapt with it that makes a difference. It’s never the technology itself. So I’m excited. It’s one of the most exciting periods for the industry and for us as people. Ross Dawson: There’s a phrase which I’ve heard you say more than once around AI should make us smarter, healthier, and wealthier. So if that’s the case, how do we frame it? How do we start to get on that journey? Henrik von Scheel: So I think what people experience today in AI is that they experience a lot of media hype—large language models, ChatGPT, and all of this—and they consume it from the media. So there’s a big hype around it, and I believe that AI is about to crash fundamentally, but crashing in technology is not bad, right? There are a lot of promises and then an inability to deliver, and then it crashes. What you hear in the media today is very much driven by a story of them raising funds because it’s so expensive, and so they are promising the world of everything and nothing, and the reality looks a little bit better. The world that they are presenting is that you will be replaced, and you will be happy, and you’ll be served by everything else. And somehow it will work out. We don’t know how, but it will work out. And that’s not a future that is really a real future. The future must include that everybody gets smarter, wealthier, and healthier. And when I say everybody, I mean not only the guys that have money, that they become more rich, or the middle class. It’s like everybody in society should get smarter from AI. That means part of the things that they need to learn or how human evolution works should be better, and it should make us healthier people and wealthier people. So it should not only be that we sacrifice our convenience with our freedom, with our privacy, with our environmen...
Transcribe →
Joanna Michalska on AI governance, decision architectures, accountability pathways, and neuroscience in organizational transformation (AC Ep36)
Mar 1800:34:04Tap to summarize“Determining accountability, the ability to intervene, the time to intervention, the time to stop, pause, change, alter—there are so many different layers that need to be thought through.” –Joanna Michalska About Dr Joanna Michalska Dr Joanna Michalska is Founder of Ethica Group Ltd., Co-Founder of The Strategic Centre, and an advisor to boards on AI risk, ethics, and governance. She holds a PhD in Strategic Enterprise Risk Management and has twenty years’ experience leading enterprise risk, strategy and transformation at J.P. Morgan and HSBC. Website: ethicagroup.ai LinkedIn Profile: Dr Joanna Michalska What you will learn How boards and executives can rethink governance and accountability in the age of AI The importance of embedding governance into organizational ecosystems for agile, responsible AI adoption How to map and assign human accountability for both automated and hybrid AI-human decisions The decision architecture needed for scalable oversight, intervention, and escalation pathways Practical examples of effective AI oversight in areas like fraud detection and exception handling Steps for complying with new regulations like the EU AI Act, including inventorying AI systems and risk tiering Why human qualities like emotional intelligence, psychological safety, and honest communication are critical in AI-driven organizations How leaders can foster organizational resilience and help teams adapt by building AI literacy, retraining, and supporting personal growth Episode Resources Transcript Ross Dawson: Joanna, it’s a delight to have you on the show. Joanna Michalska: Well, thank you for having me, Ross. Ross Dawson: So, AI is wonderful, but it also brings us into a whole lot of new territory where we have to be careful in various ways. I’d love to just hear, first of all, the big framing around how boards and executive teams need to be thinking about governance and accountability as AI is incorporated more and more into work and organizations. Joanna Michalska: I think we’re all very excited about the capability that exists today to help us enhance our performance and the way we think about strategic execution for our organizations. It has multidimensional consequences for how we adapt it. What’s very important right now is, as executives and boards think about accelerating their ambitions and growth plans, there needs to be awareness of two components. First, how do we as leaders, as humans, need to adapt to that new environment? There are new conditions, or perhaps existing conditions that really need to be enhanced. They’re very important to exist in order to be able to adapt and to scale. Second, do we actually have the right systems in place to enable that scale? I think it’s important to recognize that, yes, governance has always existed, but the way it existed was more as external supporting scaffolding, rather than being built into an organizational ecosystem. We also need to have the right leadership in place to ensure that decisions are made in the right way and the organization is designed in a much more robust, agile way. These two conditions are critical for not only increasing adoption, but also doing so in a safe and responsible way, especially as we expand our ambitions for the future. It’s exciting, but there’s also a lot of caution and a lot of questions being asked by executives at this time. Ross Dawson: Yes and I guess the more we can address those concerns upfront, the more it enables us to do. I have this idea of minimum viable governance—at least having some governance in place so we don’t go too badly astray. But I always think of governance for transformation as: how do you set governance not as a brake to slow you, but in fact to accelerate you, because you have confidence in how you’re going about it? Joanna Michalska: Absolutely! I think the mindset shift is very important, because governance, to your point, has always been seen as a compliance-driven thing that we must do because regulators require us to, and we need to demonstrate we have these policies and procedures in place and the right people in the right positions. Now, what the new enviro...
Transcribe →
Cornelia C. Walther on AI for Inspired Action, return on values, prosocial AI, and the hybrid tipping zone (AC Ep35)
Mar 1200:36:05Tap to summarize“You and I, we’re part of this last analog generation. We had the opportunity to grow up in a time and age where our brains had to evolve against friction.” –Cornelia C. Walther About Cornelia C. Walther Cornelia C. Walther is Senior Fellow at Wharton School, a Visiting Research Fellow at Harvard University, and the Director of POZE, a global alliance for systemic change. She is author of many books, with her latest book, Artificial Intelligence for Inspired Action (AI4IA), due out shortly. She was previously a humanitarian leader working for over 20 years at the United Nations driving social change globally. Website: pozebeingchange LinkedIn Profile: Cornelia C. Walther University Profile: knowledge.wharton What you will learn How the ‘hybrid tipping zone’ between humans and AI shapes society’s future The dangers and consequences of ‘agency decay’ as individuals delegate critical thinking and action to AI The four accelerating phenomena influencing humanity: agency decay, AI mainstreaming, AI supremacy, and planetary deterioration Actionable frameworks, including ‘double literacy’ and the ‘A frame’, to balance human and algorithmic intelligence What defines ‘pro social AI’ and strategies to design, measure, and advocate for AI systems that benefit people and the planet The need to move beyond traditional ethics toward values-driven AI development and organizational ‘return on values’ Leadership principles for creating humane technology and building unique, purpose-led organizations in the age of AI Global contrasts in AI development (US, Europe, China, and the Global South) and emerging examples of pro social AI initiatives Episode Resources Transcript Ross Dawson: Cornelia, it is fantastic to have you on the show Cornelia Walther: Thank you for having me Ross. Ross: So your work is very wonderfully humans plus AI, in being able to look at humans and humanity and how we can amplify the best as possible. That’s one really interesting starting point is your idea of the hybrid tipping zone. Could you share with us what that is? Cornelia: Yes, happy to. I would argue that we’re currently navigating a very dangerous transition where we have four disconnected yet mutually accelerating phenomena happening. At the micro level, we have agency decay, and I’m sure we’ll talk more about that later, but individuals are gradually delegating ever more of their thinking, feeling, and doing to AI. We’re losing not only control, but also the appetite and ability to take on all of these aspects, which are part of being ourselves. At the meso level, we have AI mainstreaming, where institutions—public, private, academic—are rushing to jump on the AI train, even though there are no medium or long-term evidences about how the consequences will play out. Then at the macro level, we have the race towards AI supremacy, which, if we’re honest, is not just something that the tech giants are engaged in, but also governments, because this is not just about money, it’s also about power and geopolitical rivalry. And finally, at the meta level, we have the deterioration of the planet, with seven out of nine boundaries now crossed, some with partially irreversible damages. Now, you have these four phenomena happening in parallel, simultaneously, and mutually accelerating each other. So the time to do something—and I would argue that the human level is the one where we have the most leeway, at least for now, to act—is now. You and I, we’re part of this last analog generation. We had the opportunity to grow up in a time and age where our brains had to evolve against friction. I don’t know about you, but I didn’t have a cell phone when I was a child, so I still remember my grandmother’s phone number from when I was five years old. Today, I barely remember my own. Same thing with Google Maps—when was the last time you went to a city and explored with a paper map? Now, ...
Transcribe →
Ross Dawson on Humans + AI Agentic Systems (AC Ep34)
Mar 400:19:12Tap to summarize“Transparency has to be built into the structure so that you know where the decision is made, what authorizations are given, and have an audit trail visible so you can always see what is going on.” –Ross Dawson About Ross Dawson Ross Dawson is a futurist, keynote speaker, strategy advisor, author, and host of Amplifying Cognition podcast. He is Chairman of the Advanced Human Technologies group of companies and Founder of Humans + AI startup Informivity. He has delivered keynote speeches and strategy workshops in 33 countries and is the bestselling author of 5 books, most recently Thriving on Overload. Website: Collaborating with AI Agents Intelligent AI Delegation Agentic Interactions LinkedIn Profile: Ross Dawson What you will learn How human-AI teams outperform human-only teams in productivity and efficiency The crucial role of understanding AI strengths and limitations when designing collaborative workflows Ways AI collaboration can lead to output homogenization and strategies to preserve human creativity Key principles of intelligent delegation within multi-agent AI systems, including dynamic assessment and trust Understanding accountability, transparency, and auditability in decision-making with autonomous AI agents How user intent and ‘machine fluency’ impact the effectiveness of AI agents in economic and organizational contexts The emergence of an ‘agentic economy’ and its implications for fairness, capability gaps, and representation Counterintuitive findings on AI-mediated negotiation, particularly advantages for women, and what it reveals about AI-human interaction Episode Resources Transcript Ross Dawson: This episode is a little bit different. Instead of doing an interview with somebody remarkable, as usual, today I’m going to just share a bit of an update and then share insights from three recent research papers that dig into something which I think is exceptionally important, which is how humans work with AI agentic systems. And we’ll look at a few different layers of that, from how small humans plus agent teams work through to how we can delegate decisions to AI through to some of the broader implications. But first, a bit of an update. 2026 seems to be moving exceptionally fast. It’s a very interesting time to be alive, and I think it’s pretty even hard to see what the end of this year is going to look like. So for me, I am doing my client work as usual. So I’ve got keynotes around the world on usually various things related to AI, the future of AI, humans plus AI, and so on. A few industry-specific ones in financial services and so on. And also doing some work as an advisor on AI transformation programs, so helping organizations and their leaders to frame the pathways, drawing on my AI roadmap framework in how it is you look at the phases, mapping those out, working out the issues, and being able to guide and coach the leaders to do that effectively. But the rest of my time is focused on three ventures, and I’ll share some more about these later on. But these are fairly evidently tied to my core interests. Fractious is our AI for strategy app. So this was really building a way in which we can capture the detailed nuance of the strategic thinking of leaders of the organization, to disambiguate it, to clarify it, and enable that to then be built into strategic options, strategic hypotheses, and to be able to evolve effectively. So that’ll be in beta soon. Please reach out if you’re interested in being part of the beta program, and that’ll go to market. So that’s deeply involved in that. We also have our Thought Weaver software, rebuilding previous software which had already built on AI-augmented thinking workflows. So again, that’ll be going to beta. That’s more an individual tool that will be going into beta in the next weeks. So again, go to Thought Weaver. Actually, don’t—the website isn’t updated yet—but I’ll let you know when it’s out, or keep posted for updates on that. And also building ...
Transcribe →