Why Traditional Work Will Last Longer Than You Think

Eleni Floros: to Fintech Bytes where finance and technology and innovation meet in conversations that actually matter. ⁓ we're talking one of the biggest questions facing every founder, operator, investor and professional right now. How do we not just survive the AI revolution but thrive in it? AIs were shaping industries faster than most people expected.

Some see disruption, others see opportunity. Okay. The truth is the winners will likely be the people who adapt early, think clearly and move decisively. So today we're diving into practical ideas, mindset shifts and strategies for navigating the AI area without the hype.

What does the AI revolution actually mean for FinTech and businesses over the next three to five years? Well, I think that has a lot of good coming our way, but I do believe in two things. ⁓ I in responsible AI ⁓ and also believe I'm what I consider myself to be an AI realist. So because of the noise that is going on between the doom and the gloom and abundance and dystopia and utopia and all these different noise that you're hearing, a lot of people are getting confused.

What is a fact is that people are scared, people are uncertain about the future and people are now starting to revolt. They are going against the data centers being built. against people that are advocating that AI will be good for you, will just take your job away, but don't worry, we'll give you a universal basic income and then you'll just sit at home and do nothing and you'll be happy. All of that is not helping anything because there is a certain pride and dignity of earning a decent living.

And for most people, is part of ⁓ it's part of society, it's where you meet friends, it's where you do something constructive, productive, whatever it is. ⁓ doesn't matter if you are clean or if you are a nurse or if you're an artist or a creative. You need to be able to do that what you want and that what makes you happy. And that has been throughout life like that.

Now we have the luxury that we're living in a world where we can do things without really having to toil as we did in the past where we were hunters and gatherers where we had to either go hunt or farm the land to have some food to eat. Now we'll just go to a local supermarket and we buy what we need or we even have it delivered at home. So what do you do as a person that you come in the situation where you are told that you are going to lose your job or worse off, you're a student and they say well you know there's no jobs available and just wait till we get the UBI through and then just wait for you to check in the mailbox.

That is a completely insane idea. First of all, who's going to pay for all of this? There is no country, government anywhere in the world that can afford to spend trillions in UBI to pay people to sit at home. We did that during the pandemic.

We gave everybody furlough. We gave everybody support. We everybody economic stimulus, whatever. And it piled up, depths after depths, into the billions and trillions.

We are now standing at three trillion for the UK ⁓ and 39 for the United States. And basically the United States right now just paying interest upon interest and it will never get out of it. It needs to find a solution. And what's the solution?

They're all looking at digital currencies, which is basically printing money just out of thin air. so if you follow that logic that governments will somehow be able to pay us, it's not going to change anything because if you have robots producing and creating products and services that nobody can afford to buy, then who are you producing it for? And then worse off, if you have unemployed people, and we're not talking about 1 or 2 % or 5 or 10%, we're talking 10%, 20%, 30%, and some even say it's going to go up to 90%.

Now, let's take a normal number, let's say 10%. 10 % will devastate just about any government. I mean, who can pay 10 % of unemployment? in any part of the world, maybe if you are Kuwait or you are Qatar or you are maybe Saudi Arabia that has sovereign wealth and they could possibly do it but they would only do it for themselves they wouldn't do it for anybody else so all of this is just creating a lot of noise and distraction so what's the solution?

the solution is we create a new technology that is going to greatly impact us well let's share the great impact with everybody How do you do this? Universal basic asset. Everybody gets to own part of what it produces. So now just imagine the IPO of SpaceX from Elon Musk is gonna be valued at about $2 trillion.

We solve world hunger and poverty with that kind of money. So should one person be in charge of all of that? And why should all the investors that invest into the IPO... get the billions and live with ⁓ happiness ever after.

Why not share a company like that? Why not make it ⁓ a national company? And each country should have one where the whole AI infrastructure is owned equally by its population. So everybody in the country owns a part of what the country is producing.

So just imagine now we are ⁓ UK. We have everybody. getting a part of whatever AI brings, whatever, all the good stuff that they're talking about, all the production does everything it produces, we share on the benefits. So they're trying to sell this argument.

Elon Musk said, well, you we're not going to give universal basic income. We're going to give universal high income. So he kind of raised the stakes without the backing. Like, okay, you're going to give more.

Who's going to give it? You're going to give it with your two trillion IPO? No. then Sam Altman published a paper, said that we're gonna split it to ⁓ billion.

So everybody on the planet, ⁓ eight billion people, will get one token, whatever you want to call it, from this whole AI experiment, which nobody even knows how it's all gonna work out and how it's all gonna pan out. It's absolutely insane. And he says that you're going to get it into computing power. Who needs compute power?

I mean, okay, if I want it, I want to be free to just take and say, okay, I need 10 hours compute power or 20 or whatever. If you're a fisher in some remote island in the Pacific, you don't need compute power, you need food. And if you're a farmer somewhere in the middle of nowhere, you want food. You don't care about compute power.

Now, of course, you live in the industrial world where we do, you might need it. And then some people might do research and ⁓ scientific research and they might need one million ⁓ compute power. But we can't be living on that basis that we're going to get compute power in exchange for living standards. We need to be able to have an income to be able to live life like we are used to it for the past 2000 years, if you can say that, because actually Comfortable living has been not that long around.

It's been about hundred years. Basically after World War II, we have lived in a relative peace, so to speak, for 78 years. So that's what people want. We want to continue that path.

And it's going to be up and downs. But if everybody would be able to participate in a universal basic asset, meaning that you own a fractional aspect of income, meaning money, that you can do with what you want in addition to what we're doing right now then the whole system stays intact because if you fire people and they're talking about 60 % of the middle class disappearing within the next five years now people argue no it's not ⁓ five it's ten or fifty whatever you have that then people are gonna lose their jobs they lose the income and then the tax ⁓ taxable base for every government disappears because the most taxes are paid by the workers 40 % Whereas the ones that are telling us about living in UBI they pay 1 % on their billions because they know how the loophole works and they know how to work the system and they can do profit shifting from one place to another that they don't have to pay taxes so If we just continue down this path the inequality is not just gonna expand it's just gonna explode because you cannot have people not being able to buy food while other people are talking billions and trillions.

is nobody that's going to sit by the sidelines hungry, unemployed and unhoused and just put up with all of this. And I can see it coming and I hope I'm totally, totally wrong about it but civil unrest is going to come sooner than people think. So now on the positive side, if introduce a UBI ⁓ and every person in the country gets a certain fractional income from the AI infrastructure the AI sovereign infrastructure of each country then people would be happy so that means you go to your work like you do whether you're a cleaner, doctor, lawyer, whatever you get your salary and then you get that little extra that instead of going to the billionaires is going to the country and then you don't have to tax people extra And the money is there.

So if they can spend billions and trillions building data centers that we can eat from all across the world, why don't we take the money and share it with the people? And then like that, the system keeps on going without any dramatic, drastic changes. People can continue living where they are. They can continue with the work that they do.

They can continue with their retirement. And the youngsters that are spending money to go to universities can come out and know there's a secure future that if they do not... get a career in a company, they might have a secondary income through universal basic asset. Now is that not a great idea for everybody to be able to participate on all the good that AI is going to bring?

Now I wanted to end this on a bit more of a hopeful note and explain a bit more about what you as an individual can do as well. Because obviously all of this is hypothetical. Will the companies who rule the world right now, the big seven, actually do this? Will governments actually step in in time?

We all don't know that. But I think you as an individual, you can try and take your necessary steps to be ahead. And I would say the first step is understanding how AI works. doing the training, doing the necessary learning that you need within your role.

And also make sure you build your personal branding. think that is one way you can really stand out from everyone else. So I wanted to bring this down to the individual and see what can you do as an individual without everything else happening around you. What can you do to proof yourself?

What would you say? Well, method that I use to most people that I speak to, especially youngsters is first you off by analysis. You analyze what is it you like to do, what can you do, what are you good at and How is that in the world? ⁓ ⁓ example, if you like to be a chef, your ⁓ is pretty much secured because, ⁓ know, ⁓ it's not going be able to be replaced by robots anytime soon, ⁓ people will not really want to eat ⁓ made by robots.

They want to see chefs. Same music creators and so on. If you are ⁓ a there is massive disruption on in that area and doctors as well. But still people will meet and will want to talk to lawyers and doctors.

So whatever you do, you need to first analyze, okay, this is what's happening in that industry and how can I apply AI to make that industry better and secure a job. Because at the end of the day, human input is going to become a very expensive commodity. People don't realize that now, but they're playing it down saying, okay, well, we'll just get the robots to do that and all that. But at the end of the day, if I...

would spend you know ⁓ thousand pounds on a lawyer I want to see a lawyer I don't want to talk to robot or you know maybe if I cannot afford it but if I'm gonna spend my hard earned money I want to see a ⁓ one number two you need to ⁓ ⁓ are the ⁓ that you have ⁓ so you need to check that apart from what you want to do how can you have a secondary income and this is very very important fractional ownership of assets. You need to have some kind of passive second income. Now if you're already working hard you will not really have time but that's the good part about AI.

You can actually have AI do things for you that you have some kind of secondary income stream and that supplements what you are making in the work that you want to do with a secondary stream. And that for me is very very important for youngsters because it's easy to do. You don't really have to go open up supermarket, you can do some kind of online digital business which will bring you some kind of income that you can ⁓ supplement your income. And third, amplify the human edge.

You need to learn about AI, which is not really rocket science. You can learn it in a day if you want to, but let's say you spread it over a month or two or three, whatever, you can learn what you need to know about AI and how to use it to your benefit. And then you gotta see how can you apply your personal input as a human to make it better. Because for example, if you're on social media, now more than 60 % is AI generated social media content and they call it slop.

Some of it is just pure nonsense and some of it just makes sense, but it's not generated by a human being, it's generated by a bot. That's not what people want. When I want to talk to, when I want to go on social media, I want to see a person talking on the screen to me. I want to read content that has been thought of critical thinking by a person, by a human being.

So if you put the human factor into whatever you do, you increase your chances to get a better job and a better life. And that can be better than what you actually planned for. Because what is the positive part? Let's say you want to be a lawyer.

Lawyers are known that in the beginning they work hard. It takes about 10 years for them to go through law school to get a degree, internships, and then to get to the point that they become partners. It's 10 years unless you're like a super duper, super intelligent person. And you work many long hours doing research and so on and so on.

With AI, you can do the research using AI. There's nothing wrong with that. Instead of reading through thousands of pages of legal books and laws and regulations, you can have AI do that. So that will give you more time.

So there you can work your regular hours and then give yourself more free time to do what you want, either your hobbies or your sidekick or whatever you want to do. And then will be able in the future, AI could even reduce the work week from five days to four to three. Some even optimistic say work will be optional. No, I do believe that work is a very important part.

It gives you value, meaning and purpose. So you need to always have that in your mind. Sitting at home doing nothing is not the solution. You need to focus on doing something that you like.

And as long as you do that what you like, you'll never have to work a day in your life. That's the thing you always told us up. ⁓ which jobs or skills become more valuable in an AI ⁓ economy? I think the most valuable skills will probably be judgment, creativity, communication, adaptability, and domain expertise.

So really owning in on a specific niche that you're passionate about. And AI can generate information, no doubt, but humans still provide context, trust. leadership and decision making. People who know how to combine AI tools with deep industry understanding will definitely stand out.

What would you say? Well, in simple terms, any job ⁓ where use a screen and a keyboard and a mouse, that job probably will not last long. So what you have to remember is we are going into a transition period. So we're not going from one day employed to next day everybody's unemployed.

⁓ It's transition period. ⁓ So jobs right now cannot be done by ⁓ robots whatever. You can have a robot ⁓ helping ⁓ older people in a nursing home, but you cannot have ⁓ robots in a hospital as yet, but it's gonna come. Now, if you do a job where you have to interact with people, which is, like for example, a nurse, a doctor, a lawyer, even a bartender, a chef, ⁓ then you have a longer time span, way longer, and for some, forever.

Basically, if you're a chef, your chances are quite good. The problem then becomes if you are doing something that people need but they cannot afford, then who's going to pay you? For example, if you're a good chef but nobody comes to your restaurant, you okay, you have a job that can be taken away by AI but you still have the economic factor that is affecting your ⁓ living. And the same goes plumbing.

Plumbing is now being announced as one of the hardest jobs to do. Yes, because The robots cannot do it, but it's going to come a time when you will not need robots because they'll make the plumbing that it doesn't break down. Because basically that's what happens, clogging and so on. And then you have a plumber and comes there and fix it.

So that's the job that's going to last long, but eventually it's going to be eliminated as well. So what we're looking at is a complete change of the economic model. the change of economic model is that you do things that involve human abilities which are critical thinking, discernment, creativity, being curious, empathy, all of those things that a robot cannot do and doesn't have. And basically common sense, because robot, even AI to this day, as much as they're talking about what it's going to do for us, and it can even beat maths and physics theories code, it cannot do the basic thing of common sense, because common sense...

and wisdom comes from people's experiences which robots do not have because robots have been designed or at least the data for to design AI has been scraped off the internet which includes good and bad data so when you have things where you need human emotions to be part of it for example courts courts they are also talking about using AI you know okay basic if you have a parking fine You know, you could put in the argument, but you'll have to pay it. let's say you have ⁓ passionate murder.

Somebody found something and murdered their partner. Then you need a judge to look at it from a human perspective, using common sense, using emotions, ⁓ using ⁓ everything, thinking that makes a judgment for a human being human. And that is the key point here. We need to keep humans in the loop.

And I firmly believe in that we need to keep humanity at the forefront of everything we do in AI. And how can professionals avoid being replaced instead of work alongside AI? So we had the most recent example now with Facebook. Again, they laid off staff and their announcement was to all staff to work from home.

And then the email started flowing in according to the time zones and you were without a job. So what I would say is treat AI like a co-pilot, not a threat. So the people who win are usually the ones who learn how to use the tools early on. If AI can automate 30 % of your work, use that extra time to focus on strategy, relationship building and higher value thinking and really understand is it that lights you up and go into that.

That's what I would say. Well, there is two sides to every coin and what you say it makes a lot of sense and it's happening a lot of people use AI as a copilot ⁓ big bosses the they see well, okay, you know now a job that takes you one hour You can do it in ten minutes so Why don't you do something else? So you do the next one which usually takes another hour and you do it in 10 minutes So there where you were doing it say in an eight hour day eight tasks You can do eight tasks in one hour sort of then they say well you still have seven hours to go You know, so why don't you do more?

So what you see is that a lot of people are getting overloaded with things that they're supposed to do Because they are more efficient, produce more and so more is expected of them. So you see a lot of people going into burnout. So that's not the solution. And then you have the ugly part of all of this.

Facebook has recently told people train the AI so they can get better and then we can use it to build AI products. And when people did that as a thank you, he fired 8,000 people. And what's going to happen is people are going to revolt. they're gonna rage and they're gonna try to stop that because that ⁓ totally unacceptable behavior and that unfortunately we cannot do much you can go on a strike which is not really a good solution or simple is what I believe is tax robots robots replaces a human being tax them twice as much simple as it can be you have to have a programs of incentives ⁓ and You want to hire a new grad student for your company?

You don't have to pay any kind of social ⁓ taxes, national insurance, nothing. Everything is tax deductible, the whole three years salary, everything included. You hire a person and you keep it for three years, it's tax deductible. And it's only tax deductible after the three years, not that they work one year and then you fire them and then you take three years of deductions.

No, no, no. Three years of working. Let them get experience and then you can decide whether you want to keep them or not. Fair is square.

At least in three years time, that person has ability to learn and to improve and to perform better. And then the disadvantage is, okay, you take somebody like Facebook, you fire 8,000 people. Well, you pay for 80,000 people taxes. Simple.

And then people will, because they look at profits and numbers. Well, then you look at economics. Should I hire people? Should I keep my people?

Or should I just... kick them out the door cold like they do. It's a total unacceptable thing and that will lead to social unrest. So instead of getting to that point, the government needs to jump out now and say, well listen, enough is enough, we love AI and we're going to tax it.

That's it. And then once that happens, companies will not have the incentive to fire people because it's going to cost them more than it's going to provide gains to them. And at the same time, it's going to be benefiting society because society, if you know that you have an opportunity, you will keep on doing that what you want to do, which is to study, learn and follow a profession that makes you happy. And you contribute in your way to the common benefit of society.

What's the biggest mistake companies when adopting? mistreated ⁓ and they lied to them and that's absolutely ⁓ disgraceful ⁓ even you want to frame it in the nice possible way you cannot do that and then fire them you cannot do that I think the worst, I think with Oracle where people have been in the company for 10, 20 years, they dedicated their whole ⁓ life to. ⁓ and even had people 30, 40 right before retirement. environment exactly and you get let go and you suddenly live in a camper van because you have no income suddenly.

It's just absolute disgrace. And I think a lot of companies are just chasing hype right now instead of solving real problems and really not thinking at all about how negatively it impacts everyone around them that they implement AI because competitors are doing it. You see every single website, every single company will say where the AI platform, doing something with AI and there's no real business case actually. And the best AI adoption is when you identify repetitive workflows, inefficiencies or customer pain points.

I think that makes total sense doing the things that are really repetitive, but to actually train people. I've even seen videos of people, companies in India, for example, training. the AI, so they have to wear cameras to film their workflow. And then I saw a comment is training yourself out of a job and it hit the nail on the coffin, you know, because what else are you doing and what choice do you have?

They say you either do it or we let you go. So obviously the employees have a lot of leverage, right? Yeah Yeah. Yeah, they squeeze you in the corner.

I believe in conscious capitalism. What is conscious capitalism? I don't believe that you shouldn't be able to earn money. If you work hard and you're smart and you do everything right and you make money, ⁓ bless you, and fair.

And this sound crazy to you, but maybe we should look towards the Chinese, where communism in collaboration with capitalism is giving everybody a better life. The Chinese right now are living better than the biggest economy in the world, the United States. where you have 60 million people living below the poverty line. So I don't really agree to what the ⁓ Chinese are doing, but if the live there and they're happy, it's better than being in a crime-ridden country where your rights are being ⁓ so ⁓ capital starts the bottom to the top.

So not by the politicians, it starts with the workers, to the managers, to the directors and everything. ⁓ You contribute. to a common which is to make money for the company and for you to get an income. And that gives everybody the opportunity to build a certain kind of lifestyle that they want.

Some people don't want to be rich. Some people just want to work at nine to five and be able to go on holidays ⁓ to have the weeks off and the nights off. Well, if you want to do that, why not? Why should you ⁓ the choice between either all or nothing?

No, you want to have that what makes you happy. You just want to know that once you worked your whole life you can go into retirement and live worry free until the day comes when you're not around anymore and the thing that they are doing which is completely wrong they are telling people you know train the AI so it can help you augment you ⁓ and then kick you out and that is not the way to do it ⁓ you have be able to give people in life and to know that okay I'm working and I'm doing what I can to improve my life, that of my community and the people around you.

Because we all live in communities, whether you live in London or you live in the countryside or in middle of nowhere or on an island, there's a certain community, a neighborhood that you live in. People know each other, people talk to each other. So what's gonna happen now, what you will see is, and I think it's very, very important, you see grassroots movements, people from the bottom saying, okay, this is it, we had enough of it. And you start voting with your wallet.

And this is a very important thing. People already stopped ordering as much on Amazon, including me, because I know how Amazon treats people that work there, how it looks at automating everything and replacing all humans with robots, even the delivery drivers, and people are not accepting it. And I'll give you another example. Amazon Fresh out where you walk in, there's nobody there except security guards to make sure you don't see all these cameras everywhere.

They know what you buy in everything. All that data is not like it goes into the garbage. It's seeing who are you, what do you buy, what are your preferences, what's your taste, how long you look at the product, what you put in your basket, what you put back, how much you pay, everything. And so that social experiment failed because now Amazon Fresh is closing down many of its stores because people just don't go to shop.

Because people want to see a human being. They don't want to see a security guard. ⁓ don't want to see a manager. They want to human being.

And the same goes with Aldi. There's ⁓ Aldi in Greenwich, which was the first one to go, called Aldi Go, which was the same concept. There's Amazon, people go in there, ⁓ You have your little app, you scan in and you walk out and you don't pay anything officially, but ⁓ gets taken off your credit card. They shut down now, just last month they shut it down because...

Amen. And they didn't shut it down. They went back to the old model where you go in and you see people at a cast register at a till. And so it shows that people do not accept that.

And that's going to get more and more and more. The more people see that automation is coming their way, the more they're going to object it, the more they're going to build fear and distrust and back up and not do anything that's going to benefit those companies that actually implement all of this. So basically what you will see is people will vote with their wallet. will not go to places.

And I tell you, people think, ⁓ you know, it's not gonna make a big difference for a company like Amazon or, you know, Sainsbury's or ⁓ name any big company. It does, believe me. ⁓ They count pennies these companies. They look at like, ooh, ⁓ we 0.

1 % less sales this month. What is going on? And then they start looking and analyzing. then they start, ⁓ now imagine.

⁓ it drops down by 10 % or 20. People just stop going and they have 20 % less sales. You will see all those companies how they're to change their mind on AI and just kicking out people and booting out people. People are going to be like, okay, you want us to be robots.

Okay, then let your robots buy your products and services. So you will see more of these grassroots movements and I'm all for it. Let's be fair, know, conscious capitalism. Let everybody share on the pie.

Thank But what I don't understand is how do those intelligent people who want to build more data centers don't think of that, that this whole cycle breaks down of people actually buying their things, you earning money, spending it again. That whole economic cycle that we've learned in economics class is completely breaking down. And that's why I don't understand why governments aren't stepping in and we'll do a podcast episode on that as well. which governments are leading the way because there are some which are already ahead, but still it's not fast enough for the pace that this is moving.

Well, this will sound crazy to you. Basically, it's eight persons, the tech bros as they call them, that are controlling eight billion people right now. They're doing things without asking anybody for permission. And that right there is explosive.

Because... Leave it. Who appointed them as leaders of the world? I mean, who appointed Sam Altman, Elon Musk, Peter Thiel?

All these people, who are they? What gives them the right to decide of our future? We were talking about zero carbon last year, only last year. Now it's completely faded.

You don't hear anything about it. Like it's non-existent. Like, okay, forget the climate change. Let it go 10 % higher.

10 degrees higher, we don't care. It's absolutely insane. So eight people basically, okay, there is a lot more because there's people working in the company, there's people in the background, there's investors, there's financial institutions, there's military, financial, pharmaceutical, complex that is doing all of this. But basically, it's 0.

001 of elite from the whole population. It's really like a fraction. that now is hoovering up all the money to get even bigger, more powerful. And as we speak right now, we have the IPO from SpaceX, which is now valued at 2 trillion.

And if you look at the last rocket launch, which was quite amazing, was incredible, ⁓ that when it came down the rocket and landed in the water, it exploded. ⁓ okay, nobody was in it, so fine. So ⁓ IPO even go up to 3 trillion. That's my guess, because for one hour space flight in perfect condition, sending a rocket up and back down and releasing 22 satellites was quite an amazing thing.

I was looking at it on YouTube. I mean, the space cam that they had on the outside of the rocket was so clear. You you felt like you were sitting in the rocket looking at it and looking at it. It was incredible.

You have to see the video. And then at the same time, you have some Sam Altman from OpenAI who's also looking at a $1 trillion IPO and then you have also What's the other one again ⁓ sorry, which is also looking at doing a one trillion ⁓ now, I don't know ⁓ OpenAI is gonna survive. I think they're be taken over by Google or Tesla ⁓ like that or by Anthropic or Anthropic is gonna be taken over and ⁓ is gonna be taken over by Tesla and Google because they have the money, you know, so they don't really need to do the IPO Well, except for Tesla and SpaceX.

what you see is ⁓ concentration of wealth and power and control into the hands of the few, controlling the rest of the world. And that is where everything goes wrong. And we are seeing governments being bought and sold. Let's not even start about Trump and America.

What is going there is absolutely insane. I mean, this is like ⁓ in daylight. just... stealing from everybody, doing whatever, shooting people.

know, America is acting like a third world country, like a dictatorship. It's incredible when you see that. So what do governments do? Well, thank God we don't live in the US.

I used to live there. It was a lovely country, but I don't know if I would ever want to go there except for holidays. We live in countries which are part of a more civilized part of the world. It's a developed Western democracy.

We have all of Europe, that's 27 countries, and we have the UK. And those are the two countries right now that are making certain progress, and EU actually the most progress. So they are saying with the EU AI Act, whatever we do, we got to keep humans in the loop. No AI that is too risky without any human supervision.

So that's already a big, big, big step. And that framework is being copied around the world. So if we can... make it better and more inclusive, Europe will become a model for the rest of the world.

We were looking at the US to do that, but it's not going to happen. And unfortunately, UK, there's a lot of undercurrents, influences from abroad. have even Elon Musk telling ⁓ politics should be run and even paying ⁓ far right to ⁓ campaign and to get ⁓ to win elections. So the ⁓ has become sort of a vassal to the United States which is a very very sad story because the UK has a lot to offer and it could do a lot more so hopefully we'll see how that goes politics are gonna adjust but what is gonna make the big difference absolutely the big difference is not going and protesting violent marches none of that your voice is power your vote is power and your money is powerful.

You can vote with your money. You can say, okay, I don't like what Amazon is doing. I'm not going to go there. You have a bank that is closing everything out and going digital and you don't go to that bank anymore.

Anything where you see that AI is just overrunning the whole infrastructure that you used to, you don't go. You don't buy stuff that is made by AI, nothing. And I'm not saying that we're not going to do it. I use AI on a daily basis, but to my benefit.

And that's how should be. AI should be used to the benefit of human beings and not the other way around. So as long as it's benefiting us, hey, we're all for it, hallelujah. But if it goes against us, then we need to let people know that we don't accept that.

And it has happened before and we can do it again. Look at what we did with climate change. We protested. Something came out of it and now America is spoiling it because they pulled out of their agreement, the Paris Agreement, and they have ⁓ destroyed it basically because they are the biggest polluters in the world.

And you see also nuclear proliferation. Before, the 70s and 80s, when there was the ⁓ Cold between Russia and the United States, they got together and said, well, enough is enough. We are not going to ⁓ produce And we're not going to proliferate. We're not going to have other countries join us.

And now that there's only a few countries that have nuclear weapons and enough to destroy the whole world 10 times over or a million times over. But we stopped it. And the same can happen now with AI. We can just stop it.

And why do we need to have super intelligence? Why don't we work with what we have and find cures for cancer and Parkinson's disease and discover new materials? nuclear fusion do things that will benefit all of us. We can get rid of pollution, we can get rid of poverty, hunger.

Let's start instead of talking about abundance in the future, let's get rid of the poverty that we have right now. That would be already very impressive. If somebody would come and say, well, you know, here is ⁓ we're going to use AI and it's going to eradicate poverty across the world. ⁓ don't think anybody will say, ⁓ no, I object to that.

No, no, no, no. Why should we not have poor people? No, everybody be like, well, let's do it. And the same with hunger and the same with famine.

Why don't give everybody enough food? There's enough money to go around to feed everybody. Why people are going hungry in this world? Why people going hungry in this country, in the United Kingdom?

And in every country in the world, why? There's no need for all of that. So we have an economic system and everything is there, wealth is there, but it's not evenly distributed. And that's where the problem begins and ends.

What habits can people to stay relevant during rapid technological change? The one thing that people don't talk about, which I think is even more important than the job displacement, future work and all the anxiety, AI fears, stress and so on, mental well-being. That's going to be the biggest challenge because to be suffering from mental challenges, and we all suffer some way or another. ⁓ you're a human being and you have feelings, you might have lost somebody, ⁓ might have been hurt by somebody.

⁓ has something in the back of their... mind that affects them somehow and people don't want to admit it and we should get off the stigma that if you have a certain mental challenge that it is wrong or it's not man enough or it's not mature enough or you should be strong and be happy. No, that's part of life. The good experience, the bad experience.

That's why we're humans. We have good sides, bad not, we have emotions, we're happy, angry, sad and that is what makes life. It's a tough rule. the variety, the motions, the up and downs.

That's why you have hormones regulating all of this, dopamine and so on. Those are things that are natural biological functions in your body to keep you going. And so what we have seen now, in the past years that we have had social media, loneliness has become horrible. A lot of people have a million friends on social media and sit at home alone and cry in their room.

It's horrible. People don't communicate, people don't interact. You see youngsters going into a restaurant instead of enjoying the conversation and the dinner, they are sitting staring on their phone, texting, posting and so on. And because of that, this atrophy of cognitive functions, because if you don't use your brain, your brain starts dying out.

You need to do critical thinking, you need to talk, you need to think, you need to write, you need to read, you need to see. Mm. And this interaction, social interaction is an integral part of society. So what you see now is that we have already this big problem of mental challenges of which anxiety and depression and loneliness are very high and self-harm unfortunately, but it's going to get worse.

So what I tell everybody is you need to build your resilience, which is not easy, but you need to realize that we are facing Challenging times and it's not gonna get better if anything is gonna get worse before it gets better So what you need to do is you need to focus on how to keep your spirits up and that is very very difficult But I can tell you one way to do it Start by talking to people talk to your friends Family contact people that you haven't seen in a while go for walk in the park go for some coffee tea Whatever makes you happy go for lunch dinner go on holidays together walk around talk but social interaction is the first step you can do in any situation to feel better and to improve your mood, your resilience and your wellbeing.

Thank you for bringing that up. think mental health obviously is a big aspect of all of it. was, or it still is such a taboo, I think to even talk about it and say that you're not doing well or that you're struggling. And me, noticed working from home, most of the time my company was fully remote.

You don't have that interaction anymore. And you really have to make a conscious effort to speak to people, talk to people, meet up with them. ⁓ And me and my friends, have this thing now that we said, do you have eight minutes? And when I messaged my friend, my friend now knows, okay, she needs me right now.

I'll make time for eight minutes and we'll talk. And it's been such because eight minutes, you always have time for eight minutes, but it's just something small that we Why eight minutes? Well, I have 18 minutes. We can sit here 18 minutes and talk if you want.

I know because they're my father, but even if you're in a busy day, I think it's a good way to just step out of it, have someone that you can call and open to. And I think we should all make space for people who are in a difficult spot and who need support. What I would say as well to brace yourself for whole change that's coming our way, would say continuous learning is also important. Um, it's becoming a non-negotiable.

think you are one of the ones in our family who was always learning, always reading, always knows about the latest news. remember always waking up in the morning and you would give me a rundown of the latest news that was happening because you were up at 5 a.m. already watching the news.

And I think even spending 20 to 30 minutes a day experimenting with new AI tools, reading industry updates, learning workflows. will give you such a head start and will make you feel more in control. And the biggest risk today is standing still while technology keeps moving. Well, so you talk about eight minutes, I have the rule of three.

So the rule of three is everything matters in three and it can be anything like for example if you go on an app you need to get to where you want to be on the app within three clicks so you go to your banking app you want to log in you want to go to accounts and you want to see what's on your account you don't want to negotiate it you don't want to read that they need want you to buy life insurance or you can get isa products or whatever what you want is three clicks you see your account now if there's anything else you want to see it's up to you Number one.

So, another rule of three. day I wake up early and I say do three things that you have to do. Which excludes specifically social Specifically, don't touch your phone. ⁓ In morning...

Huh? ⁓ So you do the three things without touching your phone. That's the rule. Exactly.

You get up in the morning. Number one, on yourself. Give you time to wake up, set your mind, drink your little tea, eat your little breakfast, whatever makes you happy. Go sit in the garden, take a walk in the park, get some oxygen, walk around the house, ⁓ a window, whatever.

Sit on the balcony. Do what makes you happy. No TV, ⁓ social media, no distraction. Number one.

Then second do... something that you have to do which you do not like. And that is very important because if you put it off and say well I'm not gonna do it today for one million one reason because to procrastinate your mind comes up like a magic it tells you you're not feeling well that's why you can't do it you need to do it tomorrow. So what you do is whatever task it is put the time on it like okay start I need to clean up my room how long will it take?

30 minutes 45 minutes one hour one hour third. So you said to yourself, one hour, I'm gonna do that. So you start cleaning. You don't think about it anymore.

You said one hour, so from eight to nine, I'm gonna clean. And you don't have to do it in the morning. You can do it at night when you are not in the mood to ⁓ anything. You can do it there ⁓ then you say, okay, I finished my task and then you have a certain fulfillment.

So you start cleaning up. and then you realize you can clean up your room in half an hour unless it's very very dirty you know if you put some effort you can clean it but you do it in one hour or one hour ten or whatever you finish and you strike it off and you feel good about yourself because it gives you a certain fulfillment and the best thing to do is number three do ⁓ you happy read a book study nothing listen to music watch a movie Do something that makes you happy. And again, set a time on it.

Binge watching for five hours, Netflix not really doing good. And I would suggest, ⁓ my perspective, the best thing to do is read. Read, learn about something, a hobby, sports, novel, read It trains your mind, it occupies your mind, ⁓ and puts you on the right track from the get-go. Because what you want to wake up, you want to avoid the bad news, you want to avoid the bad anything and focus on what's good.

And the other analogy for the 3-step program is morning miracles. I believe that all the time before lunchtime and it's scientifically proven counts as double time. Why? Because in the morning your head has been reset because of sleep.

You had your REM sleep Most people sleep good, not everybody, but you do have some sleep that resets your brain. So when you wake up, you have to look at it as an empty glass. And as the day goes by, that glass is going to get filled with good and bad. Every drop, drop by drop, it's going to fill.

And then at the end of the day, that glass is going to be half full or even full or even overflowing. But the most thinking that you're going to do, the most productivity, the best thinking, critical thinking, everything. Decision-making planning and inspiration is going to come when your mind is clear, when you can focus on one thing and one thing only. And when you do that every day, you achieve a certain momentum, a certain happiness.

Okay, I did something good. I read a book, I finished an essay or whatever, or I study a lesson and I completed it. And that gives you momentum and happiness to tackle on all the other stuff that comes after you. And then you realize that...

Although you start with three, you can do four and five or six and seven or go up to ten because it depends on what task you are. the point is to start and get that momentum going. Because once you have that momentum going, you keep on going because when you see yourself, okay, ⁓ making progress, I'm doing good, you're seeing the results, the rewards of your effort. And this is very, very crucial ⁓ see the reward of your effort in whatever you do, whether it's good, bad cleaning, whatever.

It's the reward and that gives you a natural high and natural that's when the endorphins start flowing. And of course meditation and just exercise in the morning works magic because it releases endorphins, it situates again. So in basic, whenever you can in the morning, wake up, enjoy the morning, go for a run, do some fitness, whatever. Don't think you have to do every day, one hour of heavy lifting in a gym, you can do it.

at home on a little mat you can do sit-ups, push-ups, whatever. Or just walk around, you can walk around for 20 minutes, that does also a lot of good to you. And that combined with healthy eating, and I'm not saying that I don't eat burgers or pizza every once in a while, but with healthy eating will contribute a lot to your well-being. And that's something that people can do and it costs you nothing.

You can start with a three-step program that I'm talking about, or I don't call it a program, a three-step system. works magic, believe me. Focus on the time before lunchtime, you'll be surprised how productive you are. And the reason why we're talking to lunchtime, what happens when you eat is your body needs a lot of energy to digest the food.

And that's why most people feel tired after lunch. It's normal. And then you kind of, you know, digest your food and then three, four in the afternoon, when it's about time to go home, you start getting active again. So take advantage of the natural...

Behavior of your body to your advantage and use the part where you are the most alert Have the clearest thinking it is in the morning. Believe me. Everybody should try it. Just try it We're not talking about I get a five in the morning and I wake up without alarm whatever whatever I wake up because it makes me feel happy to hear nothing and nobody and Then you know if you live in the countryside you hear the birds and the bees.

It's beautiful Yeah, you live in your own world. You open the window. You see sunshine. You're like that for me is already makes my day In your own world.

And then it only goes up because you have to remember one thing in life. Negativity is a downward spiral. Take anything in your mind, renumeration, whatever. Once you start thinking negative, it keeps on going downwards.

And once you get into that, it's hard to snap out of it. So instead of starting that way, start on the positive side. How can you build up that momentum, the positive momentum? And it works by doing exactly that.

Get up in the morning, leave your phone aside, wake up, enjoy the morning for what it is. watch the sunrise and then start doing something productive that makes you feel even better and then you keep on going and at night you finish some of the tasks that you need to do by setting a time because a lot of people overthink things like oh I have to clean up my room you know I'm gonna be busy for five hours no where do you get to five how big is your room you know or kitchen or bathroom whatever you can do it in 10 minutes you can do in 15 if you do it every day it becomes even less and then I'll give you another golden rule If you don't make a mess, you don't have to clean up.

So instead of being messy, just tidy up right when you finish and then you don't have to clean up in the first place, you know. So there's little things that you can do which make a huge difference in your life and will cost you nothing. I think for me, a good one that changed me a lot is screen one hour when you wake up ⁓ no screen time one hour before sleeping. And I'm telling you, you'll sleep so much better, no blue light.

And in the morning as well, like you say, you give yourself the time to wake up, gather your thoughts, have a slow breakfast. And a lot of people say this phone addiction is so bad for us that this one hour gives you time. to wake up and give your brain the, how do you say, slow, bright, the time to clear up and to reset. And this is another point that I want to tell you, journaling works miracles.

So I suggest strongly to everybody, I have a phone, but have a book and write down what makes you happy, your thoughts, what makes you sad, everything, put it down, write it by hand. Exactly. very important because you see the hand movement and the brain and a total system than tapping away on your phone or speaking to your phone, whatever. Right in the morning, what you want to do for the day, process your thoughts, read what you have to do, the tasks, and then at night, very important before you do that one hour shutdown off your phone, write down what has been good, what has not been good, what you need to do.

You process your thoughts. Write it down from the moment you've downloaded it, figuratively speaking, from your brain to paper, your brain empties and then you can sleep better. Because if you dive into bed and you don't do that, everything is just going in circles in ⁓ it's just getting worse. And that's why people have sleepless nights.

And of course there's times when you have major problems and it's going to be more difficult. And there's times where you're just gonna not have to worry. That's why people go on holidays so that they can forget everything. But not everybody can go on holidays whenever.

And at the end of the day, life is not about going on holidays. Life is enjoying the life that you have where you are at the time that you are. Because time never ever comes back. And you can never recoup the time that has been wasted.

So try to make the most of your time by spreading things and by doing things in small bites, small bits, do little by little and see progress because there is a direct link again scientifically proven that if you see reward after effort it makes you want to do more reward to get more effort to get more reward they've done that on mice they give them ⁓ effort they have to jump something or run through a and then when they come when they finish they get one a drop of food or sweet or whatever and then they see that the mice get more productive.

Well, we work in the same principle, you know. We don't have to eat something every time we do something, but if you know that you did something and you finished it and you're happy, it will motivate you to do more for the next one. And then it keeps on going and then you're on the right track. This was an insightful talk.

really enjoyed it. I could keep recording with you, but we'll round up for today. Stay tuned for the next one. Thank you so much for being here and please follow for more.

Thank you. Don't forget the step of three.