DISCOVER TOP TECH VOICES: The Future of Technology: What Awaits Us with William Higham

[Music] William hyim has an uncanny ability to predict the future as a leading futurist and consumer Trend expert William advises some of the world's largest brands on what consumers will want before they even know it themselves he's worked with Amazon BBC and HSBC but his predictions go far beyond numbers they touch human behavior are you curious about the habits will adopt in the next decade or how changing Lifestyles will influ infuence technology William Hy's insights in engaging storytelling make him a must-watch guest blending science With A Touch of Magic hello today I'm joined by William hyim he's a futurist and consumer Trend expert with a bit of an uncanny ability to predict what's coming next thank you so much for joining me looking forward to it so look can we just zoom out a second how do you know what trends are coming around the corner well first of all I've been doing this about 20 years now so you have a bit of an instinct for things but it does more of a science to it than a lot of people think it is very much around you know if if you we don't as humans because a lot of what I do is around people humans how we react and what are what we're going to do in future and we don't just change for no reason we don't suddenly become sustainable just wake up in the morning we're suddenly sustainable um what typically happens is things will act upon us so we'll be happily going around our business and then economic decline suddenly impact us and we start worrying about money or we start hearing more and more about climate and therefore that affects us so if you can pick up on what how people feel now and you know classic research stuff how are people feeling what their udes generally then start thinking about what these kind of drivers are coming so things like economy geopolitics Society all of those things coming through what's likely to come over the next two to five years then you just go okay well if these are coming this is how people feel now and you know a bit about psychology you say right they're going to feel like that in future so they're going to be going through this kind of tunnel of of drivers and things impacting them and then by the end it's like okay I'm scared I don't want to spend on anything big you know or alternatively I don't really care about making it in terms of money but I really care about my family or those sorts of things so it's it's getting those attitudes if you can and from there you can just predict what the behaviors are it's interesting because you're really keeping a sense of how people are feeling and their emotions but then that's feeding into what's coming next in capitalism almost but but that's it it I mean success whether it's in terms of technology or or you know in terms of retail or whatever it is is based almost entirely on how people feel because if people you know people buy things yes sometimes because they they need them but a lot of the time because they want them and they wanting things is is down to yeah what what their needs are at the time and so yeah a lot of emotion in there you really have to you're kind of part um journalist and part psychiatrist really that's kind of you know do you ever feel like you're some kind of science-based fortune teller uh yeah I'd probably earn more if I was a fortune teller um yeah I mean it's a science based that that as long as you say that it's fine when you say fortune teller it's not so much but um it is it is an art and a science it really is it's it's you have to to base it on something you know I have I say I wouldn't have survived in the industry for 20 years if if it didn't have a basis um so yeah I mean it's it's like with products I could walk into you know for companies creating products and say look these show me what products you got coming up and I'll I'll know what I think consumers are likely to be feeling over the next five years and I could say okay I think they're going to want this product but not want that product um and and the feeling it's not all about feeling because the feeling can impact what they do as well that's the thing so I'm having to predict behaviors but yeah feelings are easier to get to before other people do that's the thing is that everybody notices behaviors as soon as people start doing more of this or less of that everyone knows it and that's the other thing now I started off kind of not quite pre- internet but beginnings of the internet be began at the beginning of the 21st century and so when we were doing that we were trying to find out what the cool kids in South Pao were doing and uh a few of the different sort of trend companies came up then and um that was very much yeah what what what's cool what's happening um but then it start we started realizing two things one all this stuff's quite nice for marketing but what does it mean for strategy uh and also by the time the internet really got going anybody could pick up on those Trends it's not about finding the trends it's about working out what they mean you know what it means for your company that's that's really what this is about um if people are going to be doing X well can you take advantage of that can you help them can you you know get rid of these products and start doing more of those products and so fascinating okay well I'm excited to pick your brain um I want to start by talking about work and it's already changed so much with um all these technological advancements right now but how do you envisage work evolving even more over the next decade yeah I think work has the way we work and the way the organization struct structured I think are are set for huge shifts really um I mean I run my own company so I'm kind of much more comfortable with startup attitudes um but I think more and more companies are going to need that kind of agile startup mentality because if was one you know it used to be easier to predict specific events uh than it is now now one of the things I'm predicting is how uncertain things are going to be this is we're in a much more uncertain period okay than we were it's funny to predict that something's going to be uncertain I mean yeah well in a sense if you're saying to people I can't tell you exactly what's going to happen but I know something's going to happen so you better be ready for it I mean as I say it used to be that I could predict to an extent 10 years out now the way the world is set up in terms of all of you know we're kind of global village now and everything affects everybody else so you've got all of these you've got more and more kind of Black Swan events impacting across the globe things we can't expect so certainly I could pick up on which Technologies are going to work um and so on things like this but the one thing I can say to people absolutely guaranteed is that you have to be ready for whatever comes and your company needs to be set up structurally to be able to change to be able to Pivot you know we we look at what happened during covid and some companies did really well because they were able to Pivot um you know some of the the kind of the restaurants that went um into delivery very quickly or um some of the travel companies that that changed things it was yeah there was a lot of pivoting then and so I think that's the that's an essential part so predict these things are likely to happen but something huge is going to happen and you better be ready for it I saw you predicted that agility and resilience are going to be super important factors for businesses to consider in the future and really Implement um what about skills like as a worker what are the most important skills that they should be developing well it's interesting now people are starting to to be sort of more skills-based in terms of their um their Recruitment and I think so skills as opposed to qualifications and I think this is really a a smart step you know it's it's something that HR departs are starting to do and they need to do more of so the idea of thinking we're going to take somebody on who's good at certain things and when we'll be able to slot them in I think part of agility is as I said is is being able to to respond quickly and well to whatever comes so if you know what your skills are again this is something where AI can help AI is going to really help within HR um because it's going to be you're going to be able to do kind of a a skills audit and we're seeing again more companies starting to do this so be able to identify what skill sets you have across your uh Workforce and this can be kind of core skills which people have qualifications in and they're very good at this and that's their department but also lots of non-core skills so these people are very good um you know in terms of resilience all these people are very good uh terms of creating communities or you know so those sorts of human skills are going to be more and more important how are you going to measure those and what are you going to use to put them into a data set though if you're going to use AI to measure worker skills um I think I mean every company's going to do it differently I imagine but I think you can again this is the thing this is part of of the change that's required I think it's increasingly going to be uh a bit of trial and error how can we identify what those skills are and I think it will be about kind of changing um how you're judging people so actually you know more questionnaires finding out what people're interested in more observing interactions between people um and I think yeah starting to understand you changing the metrics basically instead of just going right this person can work their way up a up a ladder uh which is why a lot of the reasons we promote people now um it's more about okay what what we've identified a skill this person is popular within their group why is that what could help with that is there somewhere else that we could use that information but even things like what your hobbies what are your interests are you skilled because we need to you know companies are going to need to start doing providing more advice for people and they've got all of this kind of knowledge I I don't think the workplace has always been a very healthy place to be and I think actually if we're starting to say human skills empathy these kinds of traits are something to be admired and something that are positive for the company I think observing those is a real positive because essentially what you're talking about is mining the human data of your business to optimize your Workforce and then would you say that the person at the top perhaps could also look to AI to make the best strategic decisions or yeah you said it better than I ever could fantastic exactly right but it's also not just the people at the top because that's one of the other things now increasingly if we are having this more uncertain future future where we are going to have to change a lot uh quite quickly then I think we need to be a bit more team spaced from a you know in terms of responsibilities and and um reporting structures so actually yes there's an element where by by there's always going to be somebody at the top and there's always going to be a board probably but at the same time I think giving your employees more autonomy creating these kind of groups you know as I said it is we are we do need to look more from a kind of autonomous sorry a more a more startup point of view you know um this idea of of these little huddles of little Skunk Works of of people working together on a project I think you know the silos of marketing and finance uh and so on it doesn't work for the world we're in now and certainly won't work for the world we're in the future and I think from a technological point of view I think we now have some great technology to be able to to enable people to do this the the communications technology we have as you said the AI to be able to analyze this I mean it's it's comp it's relatively easy to uh to get a sense of what a similarish future is going to be like it's really hard even for me who's been doing this a long time to get your head around what a very different future is going to be like and I think we are headed towards a very different future now well you know that was going to be my next question because it's all very well talking about this but as you know if you've run a company for 10 years um are you really going to feel comfortable handing over important delegation decisions to an AI and actually I think with the advancements of AI the biggest shift we're facing if you agree might be um in the kind of consumer Behavior and the human getting okay with giving up a level of control yes interestingly looking at the stats consumers are initially some of the the the their reactions and responses to AI was not great in terms of CX in terms of the consumer experience and the user experience they were like oh we don't like these you know we don't like Bots we don't like this because it it it jars but as AI become smarter we've actually started seeing that that all the stats are shown that people are actually starting to really like this and in fact quite a few young people are quite enjoying being able to talk to bots as opposed to humans because it's a lot less freaky um you don't have to worry about how they respond but I think actually we are starting to see that that was something that that surprised me the speed at which people are starting to go yeah I don't mind this and I I think it's the same with data I mean I think it is hard because as I say you you know there is there are dangers with with uh data breaches and there are you know from in terms of medical insurance in terms of you know Financial scams and so on the next 10 years are probably going to see about one of the biggest shifts in terms of our environment um and how we interact with with technology and and what impact it's going to have us since probably the start of the internet you know more impact probably than even just having the smartphone because really the smartphone was just a a way of taking that with you and it had an impact but but I think in you know trying to think back to before the internet uh I'm old enough to remember before the internet and I you we couldn't have imagined what a world with the internet was like and I think to an extent that's true in terms of data now I think we're just starting to get to we're kind of at the the start of of that world now we're starting to to notice things are starting to to to identify as where we go so for us the idea of of oh you know internet of things and my phone being recognized by something else so far has been really clunky and it's you know just last night trying to get online in my hotel room uh having to type in my name I you know my email address about three times and or going to my mom's house with my son trying to uh get on to um Disney plus you know typing in on the uh control pad trying to get my name in it's such a clunky experience trying to to do this at the moment but I say within 10 years that'll become so smooth that we'll barely notice that these things are happening we'll just you know your Disney plus will just follow you all around the room it'll follow you all around the world wherever you go and it'll just it'll come yeah you touched upon a few things that I want to pick up on then um first of all we're seeing a lot of predictions in um the user experience in customer service um being really buoyant if that's a word by AI um and like alongside the advancements in like voice technology and like voice cloning and stuff um so I imagine that's probably going to be a world you know you mentioned that do you think that customers will have a right to know if they're talking to a bot though oh good question um again stats people want to know if they're talking to a bot uh interestingly in yeah I I think that's fine I mean I don't I I wouldn't worry about that because I think this is the point is that now we're starting to see that people don't mind talking to a bot so there's no harm in telling him it's a bot it's it's funny we've we always anthropomorphize things as humans it's a natural thing that we do and so so if you can have a conversation with this technology what makes it different to a human it's it's we're getting into some really interesting ethical and philosophical arguments here and but we you know this is a a tech conversation and yet we're doing this but I think we're going to have to no matter what sort of company you are we are going to be getting into these questions what what is a person what is a relationship you know those sorts of questions because I have a relationship with uh you know my voice activated uh device at home mhm um we talk to it um but also it's starting to have a relationship with us it's starting to understand what we want I mean these this is quite freaky stuff but I do think we are increasing going to have relationships with our technology there are right I think if we're looking at the way that technolog is going to develop I think there are probably four directions it's going to go okay um so it's going to be more personal um so AI is going to enable us to be able to inter you know person technology will recognize specific traits about us ultimately you know we'll be offered Things based on what we've done much more cleverly than we that's happened in the past so it's going to be personal it's going to be um subliminal so we're going to wherever we go things will be happening our devices will talk to each other it's going to be sustainable it's going to have to be but it's also going to be more natural and I think this is where more human if you like but yeah so I think it's it's we're going to see more voice we're going to see more intuitive technology we're going to see more touch more gesture because actually this works we we you know look at the takeup when when voice activation went in the number of people buying voice activated devices this was a need that people had you know this was not a technology searching for a need this was a technology answer a need um so yes I think we will find more and more technology we'll be able to interact with it in a much more human way and on that level you know it will recognize us on a personal level we will interact with it on a human level there are some huge huge ethical issues coming of people becoming to attach to their personal assistance yes I think there is a a danger the technology Gap there is potential danger there absolutely um anybody who doesn't have access to this yal Harari in homodeus I think made a very very good point about this and a terrifying point which was that ultimately the more that technology that the access to technology benefits you the The Wider the gap between the Haves and the Have Nots I think this is a huge problem um I think it's essential that we'd close the technology Gap and I'm I'm interested to know to what extent potentially the markets could do this a little bit in the in the sense that if consumers don't want um to have an internet or social media that that has a negative impact on their mental health and they see there are some social media companies that are caring about that and some that aren't ultimately they'll be they'll graduate towards the ones that care and the ones that don't care about people's mental health will suffer in terms of numbers so again being an optimist one would hope that actually we've seen recently in terms from a sustainability point of view that actually a lot of companies now have had to become more sustainable been forced to from the bottom up from Consumer Power and I wonder if potentially the negative aspects of of AI and the negative aspects of of social media and so on might have the same impact oh there's two things I want to pick up on there first is um it's quite a lot of pressure then as a business owner to think about how your actions might affect the kind of responsible and right use of a new technology that the legislation isn't even written for yet but would that be your message to business owners yes my message to business holders is is ultimately your consum you have to provide for your consumers otherwise they'll leave you um and so if you are creating a technology that could have a malign impact on your consumers from a business point of view that's not a good idea it can help in the short term it's not going to help in the long term and as I say I think anybody who doesn't believe that just has to look at sustainability and and climate issues um in terms of the number of companies that have suffered from that um also you know yeah so I think yeah absolutely I think companies do need to think about the impact it's look it's from a in terms of creating technology I think it's a it's a difficult thing I don't think um if we look at at Facebook a lot of the people within Facebook said they genuinely didn't know what was going to happen with Facebook and you can sign of understand that because actually you know how could you have understood the impact of that but I think the key is to constantly keep checking it so yeah I don't think I don't think you should expect somebody who creates technology to be able to understand what's going to happen in future with it but I think anybody who uses that technology has a a responsibility to um to ensure that it's not done for harm and as I say there's a business case for that do you predict a shift in the way that we use social media then you mentioned Facebook and mentioned the effect on people's mental health do you predict a change either in the way that we use it or a rise of new platforms or any other anything else it's it's hard to to predict that one um I think I think the way that people use social media to an extent is changing I think one of the most interesting areas in terms of social media has been the kind of the creation of small groups um and they're actually increasing now that the social media is about groups whether that's family groups friendship groups and I think look again looking at whatsapp and the likes of that it's no surprise that there obviously link between Facebook and WhatsApp they're both in effect picking up on the same Trend which is people increasingly want to be part of a community now and feel safer you know in an uncertain world you feel safer as part of a community so I think on that level we're already starting to see that happening much more um these small independent groups on social media and are starting to have more power and starting to have more impact uh so I think that is already changing in terms I think we are also very much seeing people limiting the amount of social media they're doing um so yes I think we will see a change whether people will gravitate to new platforms the problem with that is you know it's you want to be on a platform that your friends are on that your family are on so it's quite hard to jump to a new platform if they're not on it yet so that that's the issue I think if some of the big social media companies see their numbers falling off they will do something about it and if that means they have to become less toxic then they will do that unless they're crazy and they don't care about the money which maybe some people who own one of the big social media companies is you know if if you're a billionaire and you own the social media company you don't care whether it survives or not and you just you know it's a platform for you to push your views that's a different matter M but if you own a social media company and it's a business yeah in the long run you need to to make the consumers care about it it's interesting the if you look at the companies that have been disrupted uh or the the industries that have been disrupted very often they're the Industries or the companies that customers didn't really like or or found it wasn't a particularly enjoyable experience dealing with I come out of the music industry and you know when I was in the music industry doing marketing I'd sit around I'd be in meetings and people would say right we putting we've got an greatest hits album coming out and it's going to have one extra track that you can't get anywhere else so people who've already got all these other are going to have to buy it and you're thinking and at the time I probably thought oh that's the way we do it but looking back on it it's like that was a pretty toxic relationship with your consumers that in effect you're trying to fool them into spending money so to me it was no surprise when file sharing happened and people were yeah well you know record companies you've been ripping us off so we'll rip you off and I think you know to an extent people were not huge fans of the the way that taxes worked so when Uber came along it seemed like a better way to work so that's the thing if if if a company or a sector is the type of thing people don't like if there's something about them they don't like they more like to shift mhm you mentioned taxes and the music industry is there a sector at the moment that you think's ripe for Innovation then um I think Finance is hugely right for Innovation um I think some of the comp some of the banks now starting to to to get it right but I think uh yeah that's that's hugely rip for change um insurance I think AI is going to have a big impact on that uh I think if we are monitoring ourselves much more or other people monitoring us um then I think that again could have an impact I think one of the things that's most interesting is looking at um you know people the car insurance for instance that now you can have a a black box fitted in your car if you're a safe driver then it will prove that you know so so you you um it'll if you can prove that you're a safe driver by having this black box in your car then your insurance premiums will go down so that's a use of monitoring that has a huge benefit for the individual uh again in terms of of people's Health I've got my little Fitbit here and again the amount of monitoring I'm doing now on myself uh is growing so I think it'll be interested to see what happens there and that that's going to have an impact on on insurance on Health Care on so on um lots of lots of areas ripe for disruption it's a lot of data isn't it it's a lot of tracking and that's what's so exciting about AI you know it can sort through sways of data and like put out interesting bits and things but it's a lot of um the law hasn't quite caught up in many ways and we're giving away our data willy-nilly let's be honest so what do you think needs to happen security-wise as things go more digital I think I think AI could have a very positive impact on security in the sense that I think there are ways you know whether it's using blockchain and AI or um using AI uh and internet things or whatever we're using to be able to encrypt things in a way that you really can only find it yourself so I I think people should be putting a lot of money into those areas because I think data is absolutely kind of the future we' we've touched on it it's you know the world is going to be governed more and more by data both from an individual point of view and from a business point of view so I think maintaining the security of that data is going to be more and more important not just to businesses but to the individuals as well so I think that's key there is a slightly more there is another way so when when we're talking now as I say it was easier in the past to predict with more certainty nowadays I'm having to predict maybe one or two potential scenarios and so I think this is one of those areas where it could go one of two ways it could be that uh we find find a way to encrypt data in such a way that people can't break into it there may be some way of doing that that we find soon maybe Quantum Computing might do it that you know combining that with AI um so that will be great and if that's the case we just keep on that way and people can maintain their own data and then people will be able to sell their own personal data and and have control over it and and so on so that's one route the other route is we may shift into an area by it's so easy to breach data that you can't keep it safe in which case maybe we just have a very open system and things have to change on that level if you look at what um Bridgewater Associates are doing Ray Delio who who runs that he talks about sort of radical transparency and within the company it's very much about everything is open you know our books are open um they're an asset management company our books are open everybody can see everything we do all the you know the staff can see how much other people are making everybody's monitored but everybody can see what's monitored this idea of of everything being open the way that the systems are set up at the moment like Insurance things like that it's not going to work for that but maybe that's how it's going to have to go that actually everything is open there are no secrets and we're going to have to change the systems in order to accommodate that and that is to me is slightly more exciting actually do you think web three which I know is a bit of a kind of tired word now you know it's going to take off hugely and then it didn't but a lot of people are still quite optimistic about it it is a really interesting concept if it ever comes to fruition you know you talk you kind of use business and governments interchangeably when it comes to who's going to make the rules of the future um and if we're in this web 2 world where just a few companies kind of seem to run what we think is the internet do you think that web 3 is going to be instrumental when it comes to changing the way that technology impacts our society and potentially in a fairer way I love the concept of web 3 I when I first heard about it I was very excited by it but it feels a bit like a kind of crazy Bitcoin world when you get closer to it and I think that's my fear about it is it's it doesn't it doesn't feel like a safe place and I think that will put people off I I think the concept though of of a web um that is run from the bottom up is great uh but realistically I think it's better to have a few benign dictatorships than it is to have um something whereby I don't know there's something about bad it whereby I don't necessarily trust the actor actors who are on there and um it does feel quite techy I'm not sure a lot of people will be feel comfortable moving on to it but yes the idea of of of a of the web being a place that is not top down would be fantastic and I think what's interesting one of the reasons I was excited when I first heard about it was because to me the the the biggest Trend when it comes to Consumers over the last 5 years and probably over the next 10 years is around community and self sustaining communities whether that's from a sustainability point of view a climate point of view or whether it's from an emotional or a business point of view you know we saw we were already starting to see locality taking off as an important thing for people even before covid Co kind of supercharged that you know the relationship with people people helping each other out getting shopping for each other I think lots of people got to know their neighbors that hadn't done before and this is true across the globe um in a lot of societies that didn't have that close locality anyway and I think this is natural at a time where people are less trusting kind of upwards as it were to the old traditional places they used to trust to the government to the media to you know they can't trust upwards as much so I think more and more people trusting sideways which is people like me friends and family neighbors other citizens other consumers consumer reviews those kind of things so I think there is definitely room for um Community up uh sites but I think I'm not sure that the people who are running those sites need to sorry the people who are involved in those sites need to run them necessarily I think you know it would be perfectly possible to have a benign Facebook I think I believe um but it needs to listen to um the people who are on it a lot more and as I say I think so so whether it's Facebook or whatever the social media site is I think one of the reasons Tik Tok took off well is I think it they picked up on what what people were asking for and and they listened to an extent to to people YouTube's very good at that YouTube's very good at picking up on they understand that the performers and the influencers on YouTube are their life blood they've picked up on that so they provide them with you know with money but they also provide them with advice they help them uh so I think let's look for somewhere where we can have an impact if they if actually customers can have an impact on on big businesses and those big businesses can have a positive impact on their lives I'm not surprised as a shift towards them so you mentioned people are putting more owners on community do you think in a world where we become increasingly digitalized using AI to make decisions for us even at times do the emotional labor do you think the in-person um event are going to become even more important very much so uh we've already started seeing that I think that's that's the thing I think it's not a a kind of Zero Sum game it's not like we're going for digital or IRL it's the combination of the two and I think that's what we've seen over the last few years is people starting and we'll see it much more over the next 10 is people using technology to create the best real life experience I think that's the thing I think now it's it's about technology that's that's useful and that can create these things so actually to an extent um you know if you look at what happened with Co it brought a lot of people together on one level in terms of of the kind of the you know the online pop quizzes and uh people who are who were video chatting relatives they hadn't video chatted before and suddenly that became more of a community and so actually I think think technology has the ability to bring people together on that level but yes you're also right in the technology can be alienating and certainly in the past has been alienating because it puts a barrier between you um and so it has encouraged people to to want to have more in real life experiences uh if you look at Millennials and particularly gen Z gen Zed they're actually some of the people who are driving the this move towards IRL um you you know it should be surely that oh well the younger generations of the tech Generation all they care about is Tech it's like actually no they like in real life you know 60% of of people said they'd much rather go and Shop in you know a physical store than they would online oh wow you know it's this experience it's it's interacting with other people that keeps you human and Alive um technology has a hugely important place but actually it's much more important to to have this onetoone relationship I think it's interesting like um the popularity of like gigs and festivals has like sh through the roof um very much so I think I think people say that technology dehumanizes people I actually think what we're starting to see and we will see over the next 10 years is that humans will humanize technology I think that's what's going to happen in what way I think we'll create a technology that that we can interact with on a human level whether that's emotionally through voice and so on or whether that's actually physically in terms of haptics and so on but what we're you know the further away from a box that we can make our technology the better so you know human relationships are what drives us all so what we're doing I think and we will start seeing is we will make these machines become as human as we can so that we've got a better relationship with them I mean because we're way past uncanny valley now in terms of our you know relationship with Bots is becoming almost so realistic um you mentioned genen Z how do you feel about loneliness because I've seen the stats that like genz is the lonliest generation ever and it just happens to coincide with like the rise of AI and does that concern you you know you mentioned you had a son yes I think there there are concerns um I worry about the relationship between a child on the screen or a human on a screen but I think I think the tech is out there I think the the key thing is to ensure that you know as a parent I think it's important that you um ensure your child has sort of ethical and emotional characteristics whether are not there with the screen if that makes sense so I think the screens are here it's it's like yes you can limit them to an extent uh but we're going to be living in a world where screens are a big part of it so I think it's making sure that the screen doesn't take over as a sort of teacher of ethics and morals and so on um and also the other problem with the screen of course it's you know it's to do with um attention spans and things like that those those to me are the most troubling uh is the fact that children are are potentially if you're on a screen you're playing a game that's incredibly uh you know so many synapses are going at once and that's really exciting compared to a walk in the woods but I think we need them both so I think it's it's going to be about sensible use of both we want in real life and screens because there's positives and negatives about both of them uh and I think that's true for us as individuals and for our children and and so on I was just going to say I think the thing is about I mean you made a good point about the fact that jenzy being a lonely generation coincided with the rise of AI or to an extent I'd say maybe the rise of yeah the increasing digitization um of the world I think there is some link there um but I think it's not necessarily the C I think we're becom it's quite a lonely world out there so I think that there's a potential for screens and Technology to help in terms of loneliness rather than hinder um you know to to bring people closer together Communications technology can potentially bring you closer you know if if if you are a fan of a particular you know if you have a hobby or you're a fan of a particular TV show or whatever when I was growing up it wasn't really really away unless somebody at school had the same interests for you to talk to anybody about it now you can talk to people around the globe so it's important that we try and pick up on the positives of this and boost those positives and at the same time as consumers work together to try to take away the negatives because it's here it's not it's not going anywhere so we have to live with it I'm not denying there's like incredible collaborations and like you know culture would be totally different without um artists that have on the internet I've made great friends on the internet that's definitely no denying that but um we're seeing the biggest use case of AI characters being therapists and romantic Partners um we talked about j z how do you feel about that alongside those same stats that we were talking about which is the rise of loneliness and young people yes I think it's a it's an interesting area I think we we mustn't put everything onto digitization because I think there's a lot of other things happening in the world that um is is is making people lonely you know I think the fact that more and more you know for the last however many years people have moved away from home in the past um quite you know may going to University or families have moved apart to go for jobs and so on so that again has that impact I think sometimes the messages that media um can put out about what's important you know we had some quite negative things throughout the '90s about what was important in people's lives emotionally and so on so I think it's not just the fact that social media and screens and so on is impacting things I think there's a lot of other things that have been going on in society that have created this feeling of both loneliness and a kind of emotional toxicity I think we need to change that I think actually if you look at the the concept of um focusing on your own mental health and trying to improve your own mental health and how important that is um I think actually a lot of that has come out of social media I think a lot of the the debate the positive debate on Mental Health has come from some celebrities on on social media being honest about their mental health and I think that's a real positive I think actually what's happening in terms of identity and body image and mental health discussions now is much healthier in this world than it was when I was growing up because we didn't have an outlet for this and I think again you have to be very careful when you say that jenz are the loneliest generation in the world there is a possibility that they're the most aware of their loneliness generation has ever been not necessarily the lonliest um I think you know we we there are things in society that make make people lonely um and I think as I said if there's an outlet for it I think the toxicity though of some of the social media now is is is proving negative I agree you know Fosters a culture where Niche communities can rise to the top and then people don't mind like identifying themselves with that and it has been in the past you know having bad mental health which has been a taboo but if the rise of AI therapist is like you know some of the biggest um uh impacts of AI that was at the moment like for example how would you feel about your son talking to an AI therapist um I if I felt that my that the AI therapist was smart was well Tred and would be able to keep uh data secure I would be fine with um my son talking to an online therapist and actually I think if if having a conversation with a machine is a is going to make people feel better um that I think it's a good thing I think that the I think the problem is you know having a relationship with anybody is is it has potential good and bad things I certainly don't want to downplay some of the negatives of social media some of the negatives of Technology of course there are and we've allowed some of those to take over in in in certain areas um and we do have to be very careful but at the same time this te technology has often been able to get us out of some of the negatives that maybe technolog has got us into uh so I think it it's it's you know it's here as I say the technology is here um the social media sites are here it would be great if we could legislate against hate speech much more if we could make a much less toxic atmosphere online in terms of things like bullying that so that you know those sorts of areas need to be dealt with whether that's dealt with by communities by businesses by governments I think we have to look at that and companies do need to be held account on that level but I think in terms of of the potential benefits of technology I think they're huge I think you know technology has the ability to bring communities together technology has the ability to help people feel better about themselves um you know technology technology is is is a word for tools that we use you know it's it's not necessarily just digital stuff we've always used technology mhm so we touched upon the idea of technology for emotional support but what about technology for physical support you said that you use a Fitbit so you're constantly tracking do you have any predictions in that area I think it's it's interesting that the the rise of the Fitbit coincides with people checking the symptoms online you know whatever 70% of people check the symptoms online before going to a doctor across Europe um I think what's happened is increasingly because we've lost a lot of faith and trust in kind of the establishment in institutions um we've had to become more self-sufficient and we will become more self-sufficient in future technology enabled us to do this so more and more people now as I say they're they're checking you know if if you can't get to see a doctor for a while now because of of the situation in your local area uh because of the economy etc etc then you have to start doing it yourself so you look online and check your symptoms see if there's anything you can do increasingly you're using some sort of tracker they reckon by 2030 half the population going to have some sort of health tracker uh to keep an eye on things yourself I think we are seeing people wanting to and having to become more self-sufficient and I think technology could potentially positive for this um I think yeah I think what we can learn about ourselves I mean these things have the potential to save people's lives they really do um by keeping an eye on on your intake of calories what your you know your heart rates all of these kinds of things I think they're fantastic I certainly want you know my my son to have one of these do you think that the NHS needs to get a bit wiser to these like P personal monitor ing devices then and like Implement them into their strategies I think we have a uh we have always had a basic problem which is very often the institutions and the people who run the institutions don't understand new technologies um it's just not natural you know they they I think what we need to do it's fair enough because they often the people who are in charge of Institutions grew up before these things took place um and so but so there po I think they're because they're becoming so important they need to listen to the people who do understand about it so I think you're right I think the NHS definitely could benefit from um getting more involved in uh these sort of devices using these devices I mean I think some doctors are doing but I think it's interesting I think we're a fascinating and scary time generally in that I think certainly for the younger generation there almost a year zero kind of feeling about how the way that we do things generally okay we've we've we've brought up a uh a very intelligent educated questioning generation of people and they're starting to question all the things that we did it's like okay why do you do it that way why do we have to do it this way and so I think things like the way that we run um uh you know doctor surgeries and so on it's ripe for um for potential disruption but I think on on both not just on a uh a technological point of view though so in the same way that now more and more doctors are starting to talk about people do you have a you know health tracker then maybe look at doing this whilst at the same time offering um kind of nature therapies you know uh go into the woods walk in the woods for a while do that I think you know I think people are afraid that but you sometimes by disrupt ing that it's all we've got it's all got to be technological disruption but actually maybe if we're question everything maybe there are positives about that as well what I've heard from you a lot in this conversation is like if it's fair to say putting the owners on the individual like you talked about how businesses might be really important when it comes to setting legislation and then just now you talked about how it's going to be more up to us as individuals to monitor our own health rather than rely on doctors but I also heard you talk about the importance of community and relying on people around us which feels somewhat at odds do you think that's a fair summary it is uh a very fair point I think it's it is interesting that kind of the rise of self-sufficiency and the growth of Community are coming around about the same time um I think what I'd say is it's uh not so much do it yourself as do it ourselves I think the idea of individuals as part of a community is is growing so yes I'm very wary of of uh we're often hearing now government sort of talking about oh yes you need to do that yourselves um and it's up to you to do this though I think that's I'm not suggesting that we should put the onus on individuals to do things I'm suggesting that potentially the way to a positive nation is if more and more IND idual do things themselves and then but join up as communities um so I've never been a great one for you know I say the 90s was very much that wa ' 80s and 90s was sort of the era of the individual you know Society is dead all of this kind of thing actually I think we're in a much more positive space in that yes we are having to do some things ourselves but but broadly the communities are starting to do things more themselves and I think we will see that having an impact I think we will'll start to see more and more kind of community Gatekeepers we've already see it with you know when when certain coffee shops trying to come into certain communities they're kept out by the communities and that was a you know the first the start of it but increasingly communities of parents are having an influence on schools communities having an influence positive influence on local hospitals and so on I think if if the system is not fixed somebody's got to fix it and if the government isn't fixing it and big business isn't fixing it then the communities are going to need to fix it from the bottom up do you predict a rise in activism then I think we will see a rise we're already seeing a rise in activism I think people are at this stage it's increasingly going to be about local activism I think um we're starting to see more and more of that people trying to have some sort of influence uh on what's happening in their lives and I think you know we're in this Global world where people have less and less influence on what happens to them because things are being influenced by a few companies a few actors a few countries um so I think anything that people can do to try and make a difference they will do and so yes that's probably called activism isn't it so yes it'll be people increasingly trying to change things in terms of the you know improve their local hospitals their schools people trying to change the way that social media is is governed on an individual level yeah I think we'll see more social activism and do you predict that new technologies will supercharge the power of community yes I think there's no question that that technology will enable people to have a individuals to have a greater influence on the world uh we've seen it in some of the countries where where people were being put down we saw you know the the um Arab Spring and so on I think there are thing lessons people have to learn from that but in terms of the ability of technology to empower individuals and Empower communities I think it's huge and I think it will grow we're not quite sure yet exactly what AI is going to do uh but I think it's it's certainly going to empower individuals I would say in terms of from an emotional point of view as well as from a a technical point of view as well um I think AI is you know the fact that people want things to be personalized towards them uh and the AI is going to be able to do this is reflection of the fact that more and more people are saying hear me as an individual uh all the identity politics that coming up now is totally tied in with that and I think the more that we're that technology has personalized towards us either as individuals or communities the more that we will therefore feel okay well that's that's great and I want more of that I think it'll actually Empower people to to feel they do have more of a voice although we touched on the economic Gap in access to technology and how that might widen things between the Haves and Have Nots what about the age Gap I think it's a there is an issue now I think there is an age Gap in terms of the knowledge of technology is if technology has a huge huge impact on any life I think people who did not learn about that technology at school will have a disadvantage so I think we need to help and by we I'm inan the community and I mean businesses uh and the government I guess um need to help people with education around this they need to show people how to do it so I think more and more kind of community groups of younger and older people helping each other out we've actually got a Young Generation now that cares very much about older people and so we'll probably want to help do that I think there another thing as well when we're talking about businesses I think again the consumer is an incre increasingly important part of any business now um it's pretty much the number one uh part of any business I think therefore the more that you can attract and retain customers the better therefore the more that you can give customers the more you can help customers the better so I think if there are customers that are not understanding enough about new technology or customers that don't have access to new technology then companies will benefit from providing that I think if companies can help teach people if companies can put money into libraries or can put money into um public Wi-Fi things of that sort I do think that's a would be a real positive for both the customers and for the businesses you mentioned developing human skills is a good strategy to employ to Future proove yourself what do you mean by human skills and how can I develop them um I suppose human skills are um skills human skills uh are things that technology finds difficult to do um at the moment I think technology ultimately might end up being able to do with the use down the line but technology AI for instance is is is less it analyze fairly basic things but it's not as good yet at drawing conclusions from that so people who are good at being able to um yeah analyze and make decisions based on that I think people who are good at interacting with people so whether you're managing from above or From Below uh I think that's important so find yes finding uh relationship skills those sorts of things uh I think it be useful to have you mentioned human skills are going to be some of the most valuable to develop in the technological age what are human skills and how do I go about bettering mine I think human skills uh typically the things that machines are not yet able to do so well so I think um pulling out good ideas uh new strategies it's very good at kind of analyzing data and presenting things but it's not necessarily very good at choosing which those are so I think strategic skills on that level uh the ability to make those sort of choices is good and it's something you can learn I also think the ability to um to bring people together whether that's top down as a manager or uh to be able to bring a team together from kind of bottom up I think those sorts of skills and again those can be learned so I think those are are things things that are transferable as well so something so you know knowing about sales for instance is something you could do whatever the company because what you need to be is is if you've I I did some work with um universities recently I was talking to them about how how you can prepare somebody and saying that universities need to change because University in the past is all been about teaching you one thing that you can do all your life and that's not the way the world's going to work anymore you need to learn lots of things over your life CU what if you learned about something you know a particular type of biotech and then suddenly it's irrelevant anymore because something else has come through so learn um things that can be transferred so a basic skill like sales would be useful to have because he can whatever happens even if what you were doing it's changed and I think also if you know a lot about one particular thing that's going to be useful be a nerd you know be a geek about one one area um because in this crazy world we've got out there there's going to be people who want that knowledge and that advice to it'll be worth having well Geeks shallon here at the Earth I'm going to go work on my human skills thank you so much for joining us my pleasure enjoyed it very much [Music]

2025-03-22 15:47

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