Faith, The Machine Average & Staying Human in the Age of AI w/ Abhijith Ravinutala

Speaker A: What are the guardrails that we will draw ourselves as humans to say like, this is where I will use it and this is where I won't. Because at some point I'm going to blur the lines between, uh, who I am and what I think versus, you know, what the machine average thinks. And that's a dangerous place to be.

Speaker B: Hi and welcome to it's not the End of the World Everyday Use cases for AI. In a minute we'll be speaking to Abby Ravinitala, who is a, uh, futurist from Deloitte. Ex futurist, I should say. He's now a full time writer. But before we get to that conversation, a word from our sponsor. This show is brought to you by Quite Frankly Productions. Quite Frankly Productions is a video production company that does all tiers of video production, from small scale to full scale commercial productions, animations, and everything in between. We have offices all over the world, England, India and here in the US So we can service your production needs no matter where in the world you are. We plug into comms teams, marketing teams, and PR teams. So if that sounds like you, and you've got a vision that you want to see created Reach out quote podcast so they know who sent you and we'll make it happen. Back to the show. How are you? Thanks for coming on.

Speaker A: Yeah, my pleasure, man. Thanks for thinking of me. I hope it's, I hope it's helpful. I don't know if I'm too cynical for this.

Speaker B: Yeah, you've, you've got a cynical edge on your, uh, on your substack, I noticed. Not the same guy I met in, um, south by Southwest.

Speaker A: I had to be. I was working for a company then, you know.

Speaker B: Well, you. What are you working on in the back there? What's the, um, what's the notepad?

Speaker A: Yeah, uh, I'm working, uh, on an adaptation of the, uh, Great Gatsby, uh, set in Austin in the modern day, sort of commenting on tech billionaires and social media era and influencers, all that kind of stuff.

Speaker B: Oh, that's a good, uh, that's a good framing.

Speaker A: Yeah, I think so. We'll see what happens.

Speaker B: Nice. Nice. Abhi. Well, um, thanks for coming on the show. So obviously we met as south by Southwest when you're working for Deloitte. Uh, you have, uh, like a, both impressive and interesting resume, having studied accounting in Texas and then, uh, pivoting to a master's at Harvard. Ah. In theology with a specialty in Hinduism. Is that correct?

Speaker A: Correct. Yeah, that's right.

Speaker B: Yeah. Which Then positions you nicely as you went off to a consulting career.

Speaker A: Right? Yeah, exactly the typical path.

Speaker B: Yeah. Right. I presume this consulting career was based on your accounting pedigree. Um, there you focused largely on writing about, uh, emerging technologies and how that might impact the workplace. And now you are working full time as a writer, uh, pursuing your own ambitions. As you sort of mentioned, this m. This Great Gatsby inspired piece, which, uh, I suppose. What would you call that, um, a parody of the current times. Um, a comment on artificial. Ah, ah, AI oligarchs and the world that they're creating. Absolutely.

Speaker A: Ah, yeah, I think parody. Satire is the right word for it.

Speaker B: Yeah, there we go. Parody or satire. That's perfect. Um, and you also have a substack, uh, which I've enjoyed, uh, looking over, uh, in preparation for this podcast. So with all of that framing there, would you agree with that as ah a did that framing do you justice, Abby?

Speaker A: Yeah, thank you so much. Uh, I appreciate it. That's all correct. And yeah, it's the typical path one takes to becoming a writer, which is, uh, have as many nonsensical, uh, experiences as you can and then decide one day like, oh yeah, maybe I should just write about all of this instead of trying to do anything else. So that's where I'm at right now.

Speaker B: Right. Okay. Well, I want to kind of launch into this conversation, um, by reflecting on your articles there. So there are two articles, um, specifically related to AI on your substack. I'll just say, in fact, before we dive into those, just give our listeners what are some of the topics that you cover on your substack? What is the niche that you're sort of carving out for yourself?

Speaker A: Yeah, I guess it's a tough question to answer only because I'm very anti niche in writing about it. But yeah, um, you know, the, the sort of, um, bio that people see if they like click onto the substack is, uh, aspiring novelist blowing uh, smoke on all things about, uh, you know, culture, faith and tech, um, you know, the easiest things in life. So uh, in that sense, uh, it's really the. It's really a combination of all the things that you mentioned are in my background. You know, I still find myself really curious and passionate about um, all of those things and the way that they intersect. Right. Um, uh, coming from Indian culture, um, technology is very built into our culture, like the jobs we have and uh, the way that we uh, sort of identify, uh, here in the States especially. So culture, faith, technology, uh, it's all um, interrelated in my head. And uh, so I tend to write about all of those things as well as, you know, just reflections on travel and life and being a millennial.

Speaker B: I suppose that's interesting. So culture, faith and tech. I mean what a interesting cross section particularly in this time as one might argue that AI is a bit of a faith based technology right now. Do you see any kind of um, mirror images in the, amongst all of these tech overlords? Or is that too much of a leading question?

Speaker A: Uh, what do you mean by mirror images?

Speaker B: Well, you know, it seems like when you hear people proselytizing about AI, there is uh, a certain segment to my eye at least that seems to be, feel like they're ushering in a potential God of some degree. Or you know, that might be one way that you take this question or the other part of it is just the economic faith that uh, all of these folks are uh, pouring money into. With that faith in mind. I don't know, how do you think about that? Is there anything here? Uh, am I being too kind of high minded with this or trying to reach too much or do you see something there?

Speaker A: No man, I think there's actually a lot there. Right, so there's a couple of different angles. Uh, yes, what you said about um, uh, this, this almost notion of like uh, ushering in a new God, um, I think that very much is the way that some of these um, uh, AI founders talk. I know there's a lot of talk a while back about this distinction between AI ethics which is is this good for us right now versus AI safety being, uh, is this going to kill us? Is this going to be our overlord? And um, you know, there's a lot of talk from these folks about safety and this uh, sort of notion of this all powerful being that we are creating with our own hands and you know, what does it mean to be the makers of our own gods in that sense? Um, and that. So I feel like that's, that's just one angle. I've also seen plenty of articles about uh, pastors, uh, and similar folks starting to use AI to um, basically think about different ways of preaching uh, to their congregations or people using AI as a faith based companion in the same way that they use it for um, relying on it as a relationship or a digital girlfriend. There's also using it as digital pastors. Um, there's just a lot going on here. And then finally, yes, your economic angle as well is really well taken. I think that there's um, an Incredible amount of, um, faith being poured into these things to justify these huge astronomical valuations. Um, that is very much like, you know, it's a matter of, like, trust me, trust me, God is coming. Like, you know, uh, the second coming is here. Um, just keep pouring the billions in, and one day, one day you'll be saved. You know, there is very much, I think, that sort of notion to some of this.

Speaker B: Yeah, that's very interesting, isn't it? I hadn't heard about, um, pastors using it as a way to connect with their congregations. Tell me a little bit more about that. Uh, what have you heard there?

Speaker A: Yeah, I've just heard that people, uh, are, uh, starting to turn to it. Um, like I said, in congregants are turning to it, asking questions about faith. Um, and then, you know, on the flip side, there are some pastors who are like, okay, like, I see that my congregants are using this when they can't get access to me. Maybe they want a little bit more frequent discussion. Maybe they're, you know, can't sleep at night, and they have some questions about what it all means, and so they're turning to this AI. And so I think, um, I think the. From my understanding, the pastors are sort of trying to go along with that and being like, okay, like, you know, here are some interesting ways you could maybe talk to the AI. Like, here are some things you could ask. Um, things like that. Uh, it was an article I read a while back, so I don't know too many more details than that, but that was my understanding of it.

Speaker B: It's interesting, isn't it? Was. The priests and pastors are becoming, um, prompt engineering for church. Yes. Uh, chatgpt, can you act as if you are a priest and, um, you are devout, you will not ask any questions that are too large?

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And always respond with the Lord Works in mysterious ways. If you're not sure what the right answer should be. Yes, yes.

Speaker A: And as does AI it works in mysterious ways. We don't quite know how it's making those decisions.

Speaker B: Yeah, that's for sure. That's for sure. Did you ever hear about the one, um, nine months ago or so, there was an article, New York Times maybe, uh, you know, the dark side of AI and there was one. You know, it was written with a real tone of, like, you know, somber tone, but there was this one anecdote that I just couldn't help but laugh at.

Speaker A: Ah.

Speaker B: It was a guy that had started to go down a rabbit hole with his AI and his wife was the person being quoted in this article. And she said something like, yeah, I started to worry when he started to walk around the house in robes and claiming that he was forming a new religion. Uh, and he was the conduit to this AI overlord, like, this AI God that he had been communicating with. And the AI had been assuring him that he was now in commune with a, uh, higher power. And so he was basically forming his own religion in his robes, walking around the house, and his wife was raising an eyebrow, uh, thinking, oh, uh, incredible image.

Speaker A: You've just given me a gift for my next novel. You know, like, that's beautiful. Are you a Lord of the Rings fan?

Speaker B: Yeah, well, you know, of course I say, but, um, yeah, of course I

Speaker A: saw the greatest meme the other day. It was like, uh, there's a scene early in the first movie where, uh, Bilbo is, like, struggling to let go of the ring. Um, and, uh, he says he sort of whispers in this dark voice like, oh, why shouldn't I keep it? Made a meme of him asking that to ChatGPT. And ChatGPT is like, yeah, why shouldn't you? That's right. Like, you know, you've done a lot of work in your life in order to, like, play this, and you need to own this as part of your. As part of your story. I think you should keep the ring. It's just like the sort of endless validation that it will give in these sorts of instances. I thought it was. I thought it was a perfect, like, allegory for, um, a lot of how I feel about this.

Speaker B: Yeah. The current moment. Well, that takes us nicely to your, um, to your writing style on substack around this particular topic. So, um, the first article on the topic you wrote in September, I think, 2025. And then just this week, you dropped another article. Um, I say this week, February 16th.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: So Monday, we're recording this on February 20th. And, um. Uh, I feel like a lot has happened in that time. Um, and it's an interesting. The first article you wrote, um, I think it's called the Great Flattening. Uh, right. And you were particularly speaking to. I think there was a line in there that said, we know that two party systems lead to, um, chaotic and undesirable results. And so can we stop being so polarized about the way we're talking about A.I. it, uh, was either doom and gloom or unrelenting hype. And I think that same, uh, attitude is what spawned this podcast. Hence the name. It's not the end of the world. Um, but I do think maybe there's a slight difference in ah, overall take there. Um, so that's one end of the spectrum. Six months later, you're writing an article in a slightly different vein, which is more about, um, uh, how do we deal with the fact that people are writing more and more in this AI voice and they aren't actually. How do we reclaim our, uh, uh, um, authenticity? Um, I think that's a bit of a, kind of a glib or. I'm doing a disservice to the nuance of how you wrote your article. So let's start in September 2025. What were you thinking when you were kind of inspired to write that article? Uh, that was describing the kind of the polarization and the extremities as too much.

Speaker A: I think that one was really, uh, a reflection on a lot of things I had heard, um, being inundated in AI discussions when I was working at Deloitte doing tech research. I think we need to just be a little bit more mature as a society in how we uh, talk about these things. Um, I think technology is one of those things that naturally lends itself to hyperbole, um, because it is so, um, new and shocking to us. Right? Um, when these things, uh, drop, when, you know, new uh, models or think back to like the first time ChatGPT really took off, like it was uh, an entirely shocking, um, new step forward in um, the sort of the common everyday man's conception of what technology is and what it can do. Um, I think that leads to just a lot of confusion, um, as probably the invention of the Internet did and as uh, bitcoin did and NFTs did and stuff. Right? But one of the things we talked about a lot at Deloitte, being on a team that were, um, uh, labeled ourselves as futurists, is look, um, all of these things go through hype cycles. But there's uh, a point when that shiny thing becomes, uh, what we used to say is merely very useful. Right? Um, and uh, I think you can draw that parallel to a lot of the hot technologies that have come and gone over the last decade, uh, or so.

Speaker B: I like how you frame that as. It just becomes useful at some point. It's no longer a shiny thing. It's no longer. We're not no longer sitting in awe watching what this thing does, but rather just it becomes commonplace. I was listening to the Daily and um, you know, Kevin Rose, the uh, one of the presenters of Hard Fork Podcast, is just A tech columnist at the New York Times and he said that I, he felt like the shine had worn off with the original ChatGPT and maybe there's a bit of fatigue setting in. Um, but uh, with the recent Release of Claude 4.6 Opus and the Vibe coding that it can seemingly do with, with and um, doing no wrong, you know, almost to some degree has kind of created that uh, somewhat kind of like awe inspiring feeling again. So I'm wondering, how do you feel in this moment and how do you compare it to what you were seeing when you were working at Deloitte and how you, the people you were consulting with were sort of thinking about it? Do you, do you feel like it's matching? Where is, does reality and expectation difference?

Speaker A: Yeah, good question. I don't think it's matching the kinds of expectations that I remember clients talking to me about. Um, because it was like, you know, euphoric, right? Like that's what people wanted, right? Because you have to spend a lot of money on this stuff and they want to see a lot of value from it. Um, but over and over again it would be, you know, the um, it would be disappointing for a lot of firms. Uh, this was at the point when I left, which uh, is you know, last summer. So I can't comment on how the, you know, last eight months or so have gone in terms of organizations finding their way around how to actually gain the value that they're looking for from this stuff. But a lot of times it would be that, oh, we, you know, we spent so much money on this stuff but it hasn't been um, giving us the productivity gains that we anticipated or um, it hasn't been giving us um, what we want while maintaining our standards of privacy and confidentiality or there will always be these buts, right? Um, this, this and this, it's going to change everything we do, but you know, not quite yet. Um, and I think, you know, to your point, I think a lot of that is starting to break through. Um, I know a lot of people just in things I've seen online the last couple weeks or so about um, the new release from Claude as well as the latest version of ChatGPT, people saying that the mistakes are a lot less, um, the efficiency is finally starting to get to maybe what we were wanting to see like a year ago. Um, so I think those things absolutely will continue to shift and hype cycles will continue to go up and down because this is not the sort of technology like uh, I use NFT for an example because um, that was just a fascinating hype cycle in my opinion. Right. Um, it came out, the concept of it. People are like, oh my God, like spending millions of dollars on digital, uh, art that has become pretty much worthless. Um, but it's sort of slowed down and become this thing that actually could be quite useful when you think of something like a smart contract, um, that you create an NFT of that and put it online and um, have sort of a, a digital ledger record of ah, something through that. Right. Um, but that was a sort of technology where there was ah, an unveil of it and everybody sort of knew what was going on. And then it kind of died down. Right to your point. Uh, AI keeps shifting in sort of what it can deliver and how it moves. And so, um, these hype cycles are. It's a hype roller coaster. It's not really a cycle. Right. Um, so we're I think, dealing with continued discovery and doubts about uh, what, what it means at sort of each stage of uh, of its progress. Which is interesting, you know, if from a long psychological or sociological lens and uh, um, probably just chaotic to the average everyday person. It's like, oh, what is going on with this stuff?

Speaker B: I mean, it must be just exhausting. I, I kind of, I mean I find it sometimes exhausting. And I'm like right in the thick of it. I enjoy keeping up to date with the latest models. I tend to embrace the feeling of awe. And every now and again they just, you know, sometimes you just, you know, you go on vacation or. I've got, uh, I've got a newborn. So, you know, sometimes I'm very much, you know, just focused on family. Next thing I know, three new models have been released and there's a new video model. And you know, uh, Claude codes here. Now I've never used Claude before. Now I need to using CL code, you know, all of these things. And I'm thinking sometimes I wonder how at what point do you make the decision to invest your time and effort into this thing? And I sometimes think those companies that you're describing that you were consulting for nine months ago, when they're investing, you know, I don't know what the figures are. Maybe you have a better sense of it. I know that I remember uh, being at a conference and seeing um, a consultant for. I forget if it was EY or Deloitte on stage explaining that they had invested, you know, over a billion dollars into creating an AI, you know, an LLM that was an internal organization piece. And I'm like, that Was like a year ago. It can't have been very good. You know, like, it can't have been useful for work, right? And it wouldn't have been. And it wouldn't have been as good as the frontier models because it would have had all of these restrictions on it 100%, and it would have been lagging behind because they would have started on it. So I'm like, how much faith to use that word again? And credibility in the technology does that erode when the employees who jump into it use it for a bit and then say to themselves, well, this is crap. I'm not going to bother with this again? Um, at what point is it the right time to jump on the train? Because you risk just getting this unbelievable fatigue from trying not working. You've just wasted a whole bunch of time on work that you've got to redo or undo, or worse yet, huge embarrassment at best because you sent out some work that wasn't correct. Or at worst, there's a huge legal issue or you're on the hook for God knows how much money because you've just sent out a spreadsheet that, uh, the AI got wrong and now you're

Speaker A: g me Traumatic memories of my, uh, last few months at work.

Speaker B: Really? Was that a kind of a not uncommon story?

Speaker A: Yeah, I think so. You know, of course, even, you know, when I was in the thick of it, there were use cases that it was probably better, um, at than others. Um, you know, yeah, we did use it successfully many times in our line of work for collating different sources of research, whether it was through cloud or perplexity or something like that. Um, but yeah, when it, you know, we, as a team, um, and, you know, a lot of people in the organization as large as Deloitte are not coding. Right. Um, we're doing a lot of, like, management, communications project, uh, oriented work. It requires communication, administration, logistics, a, uh, bit of creativity, and honestly, just a lot of people wrangling. Right. Um, was it good at those things? I don't think so. Like, um, number one, it took away your voice. Whenever you're like sending an email or a document, you just sound, you know, you sound completely bland. Um, all of a sudden you're used to getting a certain type of email or document from somebody, and then all of a sudden it like, comes across like anything else you read on AI, you're like, oh, I know this guy didn't spend the time doing this work. And it's, you know, and then unfortunately, you would dig into the document or Email. And then, yeah, it would be written with errors or it wouldn't necessarily be like, you know, the level of quality that you would expect from that person. I think in. In general, I was trying to use it a lot back then for creating slides, and it just. It just wouldn't. Right. Um, the version that we had in. In house available to us, you know, like you said, hampered by security and privacy checks and all that stuff, you'd be like, all right, I have all this information. I need you to, like, help me create a slide. And, uh, you know, the AI would be like, yeah, absolutely. Like, I got you, you know, validating you to no end. And then you would go through all these iterations of ideas, and it would be like, all right, like, here's the slide. And they would just give you, like a. Um. I remember this pissed me off so much. I was, like, ready to, like, throw my laptop because it, like, it gave me, like, this entire readout, and I was like, okay, I asked for a slide. Like, can you make it into a. Just a slide? And it was like, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Like, here's a. Here's a link to download a slide. And it would go to the link, and it'd just be a broken link, and, like, it would come up with nothing. You know, so it's just lying to me because it wants to please me. So, I mean, there's so many examples of this kind of thing. Um, so many examples I hear from, you know, my wife all the time who still works in corporate America, like, oh, yeah, like, the managers, uh, have asked us to all use, uh, AI in order to do something. Um, and anytime she, you know, anytime she. She tries to, like, create a, uh, a document, she works in public health, um, it comes out crap, right? It comes out absolute crap. Um, um, it doesn't take into account some of the language that she knows is right for that space. It doesn't, uh, write things as maybe smoothly or as professionally as she'd want. Um, which is fine, right? Like, folks like you and me who, uh, have spent a lot more time with this stuff, we're like, okay, you have to sort of massage the AI.

Speaker B: Ah.

Speaker A: You have to work with it. You have to give it these parameters for it to actually do what you need it to do. But a regular person has heard this promise from commercials during the super bowl, from, uh, all these AI Billionaires and sort of everybody who's going around justifying these valuations that this is, you know, you'll never have to work again. Um, and you Know, you, you try testing the reality of that and you come away disappointed again and again. Right. Um, it. I. Supposedly things are going to be, be better now. We'll see.

Speaker B: It's interesting. I mean, it's. There's a few elements there, but I think the, the one that's like, really, I want to know is that, uh, I do. It does feel like. So this, this latest iteration of models have dropped. It does feel like a step change, like a leap has been made. Now how big that leap is is still to tbd. About two weeks ago, we transferred over to Claude at the company and I started being like, guys, we've got to start using Claude. Claude is unbelievable. I can't believe how good it is. Right. And, um, largely what it was was that all of a sudden I could do office work with it, so I could build spreadsheets. And these spreadsheets were really in depth, beautifully formatted, all of the stuff that you just couldn't do before. And then not only could I build a spreadsheet, but I could also export it as a PDF and it would put its own kind of CSS file. It would make the PDF look unbelievably, um, polished and beautiful. Um, that sounds nice.

Speaker A: I wish I had that.

Speaker B: Well, in theory, in theory, like, uh, now, you know, like two weeks later, you know, 10 days later, I'm starting to realize, oh, it's not as perfect as I thought it was. You know, like, I'm starting to realize, oh, there are some chinks in its armor and I need to be careful and I need to just double check everything exports just to make sure some weird hallucination hasn't snuck in there. Yeah, but it is all of a sudden a new vision of the future. Right. You all of a sudden, you know, it felt like when ChatGPT5 came along, we were all expecting. It feels like this is what we thought GPT5 was going to be. You know, when we got ChatGPT5, it was really just a, you know, it was just like, uh, uh, an evolution of what we had before and in fact, question questionable about if it was even an improvement, you know, but all of a sudden something's happened. And now that we can do two things. One, we can vibe code. And if you've experimented with vibe coding, um, you know, and I just implore anybody and everyone just to experiment with vibe coding because we're going to enter a new era of AI slop as everyone just starts just splurging their, their own kind of apps all over the Internet, I have no doubt. Um, but it's way more useful than the AI slot that we're used to seeing is actual kind of functioning apps that you can build. So that's obviously one part of it, but the other part of it is just that, oh, I can actually just make a Google Doc or a Google Sheet that is actually useful, and that's hours saved. Now, in our line of work, we do a whole bunch of, um, production documents for costing up jobs, and some of those jobs can be in multiple locations in different countries, all sorts of things. And then exchange rates become an issue. And are we in local currency? Are we in US Doll? All of that stuff. It takes ages for a human to do that. And, uh, this AI was making these unbelievably complicated spreadsheets in, like, 10 minutes. And, uh, that was a real, like, oh, wow moment. I don't know. I, all of a sudden was feeling this sense of vertigo as I was, like, watching this thing happen. And I've never felt existential about any of this, really. I'm aware of the existential risks involved with all of this. I'm familiar with all of the arguments. And even when they say, oh, Chatgpt Codex 5.3 was built by Chatgpt Codex 5.2. Isn't that amazing? And the implications of that being that, uh, okay, now an intelligence explosion is looming as the models start recursively improving themselves. I'm aware of all of that. I see that. But none, uh, of it registers as something to be afraid of. But for the first time, I was looking at, uh, this thing making a spreadsheet for me and all of my colleagues who are meant to be doing spreadsheets, who can't do them as well as this AI.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: I was all of a sudden like, oh, God. I think these. I think people need to start worrying about whether or not they can use this tool to make a spreadsheet. Because if they can't, this tool is doing it better than they can.

Speaker A: Wow. Yeah. Mission Impossible just became real for you.

Speaker B: The last Mission Impossible, the reckoning Dead reckoning is here. Yeah. Yeah. We are moments away. It's becoming more and more.

Speaker A: Thanks, Tom, for us, for that nightmare. But a lot of what you're saying, uh, it makes a lot of sense. Right. It's sort of. I'm glad, actually, that it's starting to deliver on, um, some of the ease of the promise that was given, um, you know, back when, you know, this stuff even started to come out. Right. I think that's good. I Think there's a lot of repeatable, um, but complicated administrative tasks that happen in a corporate workplace that a lot of humans would be happy to, you know, have some help with or to, you know, shed from their duties altogether. Um, I think that brings me to maybe the, the other, um, substack I wrote this week that was more about how do we keep ourselves alive through the use of AI. Right. Um, and I think one of the, um. Yeah, I think it's. I think it's great that it's progressing to this extent. Um, as it continues to. Which it will, it inevitably will. I like to think about the repercussions of these things just from a humanist perspective. And I think as consumers, as daily users of these machines, which are only going to become more useful as you're talking about, what are the guardrails that we will draw ourselves as humans to say, like, this is where I will use it and this is where I won't. Because at some point I'm going to blur the lines between, uh, who I am and what I think versus, you know, what the machine average thinks. And that's a dangerous place to be.

Speaker B: Yeah, that's really interesting. Um, Turner phrase, the machine average. So, yeah, the thrust of that article that you wrote, the latest article, was all about communication in the age of AI, I suppose. How do you write. And the term that you had, uh, used at the outset was AI. Semicolon. Dr. Is that right?

Speaker A: Yes, yeah, yeah. Uh, it's a play that. It's a wonderful little, uh, Internetism I've seen. It's a play on the tldr, which, you know, it's been along for a while. That means, like, too long, didn't read. And so people would usually say that like, oh, um, here's the TLDR of something, which just means, like, here's a summary. Um, but now people are seeing things online that they are like, they suspect is written by AI and they're just like, aidr. Like, ah, it's AI. I didn't bother reading.

Speaker B: Yeah, that's great. That's great. And it's super interesting in this, like, space. And one of the things I love about just any kind of, you know, watching culture and technology is all of these sort of unintended side effects, you know, the consequences that we just couldn't have predicted. And I don't think anyone's going to stop using AI, as you point out. And, um, more and more people are going to become more and more familiar with it. But then how do you. One of the things I took from your article was the almost celebration of the weirdness of our own idiosyncratic ways of communicating. AIs are so good at communicating. Right? If you've ever had the experience of putting an email, uh, into an AI, or copying and pasting a conversation thread and saying, hey, how should I respond to this? Often, if you're anything like me, you'll say, oh, he's nailed it. This AI has absolutely nailed it. It's perfect. I can't, I can't write this better myself. You know, it's the I can't write this better myself piece that ironically, uh, is going to shift as we, I suppose, want to kind of put our quirks out there, uh, so that other people can, um, appreciate that that was actually a genuine, kind of clunky thought coming from this human on the other side of the keyboard, you know, commenting in Slack or on an email or what have. So sometimes I even notice, like, you know, I had, um, my last episode of, uh, the podcast that I released, um, I called it the Omnipotent Classroom Assistant. And um, the guest messaged me and said, oh, uh, did you mean to say omnipotent or did you mean say omniscient?

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And I was like, oh, fuck, I made a typo.

Speaker A: It's a new word you invented that means both. I like it.

Speaker B: Yeah, that's what he said. I thought to myself. But actually there was this little piece of me that was like, oh, at least he knows I didn't use AI to write that.

Speaker A: Yeah, exactly, exactly.

Speaker B: Right? Yeah. Um, and it's this funny kind of thing. I wonder how we're going to kind of. This is the piece that was the piece I really enjoyed about your article was kind of the invitation to explore what is the type. Well, how do we want to communicate in this modern world?

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean it has to be human and messy and stuff, right? And yeah, there's gonna be places in the workplace or even in, you know, your general day to day life. Like, um, I had some issue with my HOA recently and I was like, okay, like I wanna, I wanna scare them with lawyer speak. So I was like, I don't know how to write like that. So I was like, uh, AI, like, please tell me how to like put this message, which I wrote in my voice of just basically with a lot of cuss words because I was so mad about the stupid thing that I was being penalized for parking the driveway. Like an asinine thing to be penalized for. Then you Know, AI, like nicely took away all my cuss words and put it in like some, you know, very stern legal language. I was like, okay, like yes, thank you. Like, I don't if for me, in order for me to do this I would have to call up a lawyer friend and blah, blah, blah, like figure out how to do all that stuff. And this is like a small little use case that I can do where my personality doesn't matter in that situation. The HOA is a personality less like weird, uh, you know, disembodied figure. You know, my response can be equivalent. Right. Um, but there are many places where we should actively avoid those sorts of things in my opinion, in order to continue having a, ah, voice that people sort of recognize us by. Right. I haven't finished it, but um, the. There's a show that's uh, gotten a lot of attention on Apple tv, Pluribus. The basic premise, just for those who haven't seen it yet, is just that um, there's some sort of like, ah, alien symbiote that takes over most of the human race and there's just a few people left behind who are still sort of uniquely human and everybody else is like a, ah, a sort of mass being that's connected to all the other human beings on Earth through this alien symbiote. Um, so nobody is really thinking for themselves except for the few people who are immune to this alien symbiote. Right.

Speaker B: You feel like it's an allegory for um, uh, for AI because this alien symbiote has taken over uh, every. All humans can communicate with each other through this symbiote and as a result they sort of lose their individuality except for the few human. Human remain.

Speaker A: Yeah, right. I mean it's almost very on the nose. Almost like talking about our current moment, I believe, where we're willing to um, again, sort of go with the machine average in terms of how to speak, even sometimes what to think. Right. Like I know friends who are like, oh, I want to learn about, you know, so and so political conflict. Like, let me ask, um, uh, chatgpt, you know how to understand this political conflict. Right. And, and you'll get an answer and you'll maybe be able to understand and articulate a little bit better. But there's so many things that go into that. Right. Like who is deciding, um, what angle to take on that political conflict, um, who gets to decide that you should believe a certain way. It's all just done through this machine average that's uh, controlled by about five or six companies that are running all the AI businesses. Like, it's not like a truly heterogeneous or diverse view of the world by any means. Right. Um, for us to, I think, continue to truly be, uh, humans, uh, we have to remember that individuality, mistakes, um, quirks are part of our nature. Um, there's a thing about pluribus where the, uh, the sort of protagonist is faced with all these humans that are part of the alien symbiote. They all say the same thing to her and they all talk in a certain way. Um, if you go somewhere and you have everybody doing that to you, it feels weird. It's really uncanny when you see a lot of different humans saying the same thing or talking a certain, you know, in a very certain way. We typically associate that with cults. Right. Um, but when we do it in writing, which we're already doing due to AI, we somehow look past it. It writing should be the same as our voice and the way that we speak, our verbal cues, our body language. These are all incredibly unique things that, you know, if we start to elide one by saying that, oh, it's okay if we all write the same, soon we're all going to start talking the same, looking the same and having the same, uh, that's not a world I want to live in. It.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. AI didn't read. Yeah, it's interesting. I, you know, I feel aligned with you to some degree, but there are some. There is some. Some gaps between us, so I want to explore those because the bit that I have the same instinct and actually, interestingly, why I feel this dichotomy. I feel attention in my m. You know, between both. If I see something that's AI written and I can spot it, and obviously I'm pretty well trained in that, given what I'm interested in, you know, I, uh, immediately just like, glaze over. Right. I think everyone is guilty of that. On the other hand, I've realized I really want my experts. And when I say my experts, I mean like my doctor, my pediatrician, my therapist, maybe my lawyer. I, uh, want. I know how good ChatGPT isn't giving me answers about those topics. The problem is I'm not an expert, so I'm not able to distinguish whether or not what it's telling me is actually accurate or has a hallucination snuck in somewhere. But I know also that my professionals pre chatgpt whenever they're not using it. Uh, you know, I'm getting kind of. Of, uh. I don't want to say inadequate, but like below par. Uh, the average has been raised to some degree. Right. When I go and get my um, my annual physical done at the doctor and he just sends me a, a one liner, uh, from all of the blood work that I've done and just says everything looks good here. You know, I'm a bit like, can you give me a bit more detail than that? Because I've just been to ChatGPT and I've just copied and pasted all of my results into it and it's just given me a really thorough breakdown of my age, my demographic and what all of these uh, results mean in context with that. And yeah, it might have the same sort of conclusion that nothing to worry about here, but you're my doctor. Can you just do the same thing that ChatGPT just did and say, send me the report and say, you know, this is accurate. Um, you know, have a nice day. Do you know what I mean? Now I noticed as an addendum to that just today, uh, we've been working with a sleep consultant for our newborn, um, and she is evidently using ChatGPT, right? It's like clear as day to send us her emails. I just read your AI didn't read article and this email comes into my inbox and it's got little emojis next to each of the bullet points. And immediately I'm like, this is AI, I'm not going to read it. And then I was like, hang on a minute. It like she's obviously using it. She must have vetted this, like I should just make sure. And you know, and it was high quality and what she did say was useful and I thought, you know, this is a space in which I need to sort of let go of my. What's the word? Um, prejudice, you know, like, and not just carte blanche. Everything with AI didn't read, you know, there's like, there's like, like, it's like where is the. I'm trying to recalibrate, you know, and I think that's part, maybe that's the word at the moment. It's like we're all recalibrating and I, and I want to, I don't want to give too much energy to the, I guess the doomers. The AI didn't read, you know, completely clan. But also, and recognize that there is a space for AI as you've already been, you know, mentioning. Um, but also at the same time I also don't want, you know, I'm not going to consume a Piece of art, as you say. Like, where is the. You know, where is the line? Maybe you've got some of your own reflections on that.

Speaker A: A social phenomenon that is interrelated to all of this, and that is, I think, driving a bit of it. You know, before, uh, before any of this stuff was available, your doctor would still do a blood report on you, and they would say, hey, you're all good. Nothing to worry about. And that would be sort of. That's it, right? That's. That's really all you got. Um, and so what you have in that scenario is a great amount of trust in another person, um, that you are, you know, um, that we live in a civilization that we owe things to each other as moral beings and we will do right by each other. And it's an imperfect, incredibly, incredibly imperfect thing because not everybody is kind and moral, and, uh, not everybody is going to do right by you. But you sort of. Almost everything you do, go out, going out into the world as a human, you. You are trusting other people every single day, right? Um, you walk down the road, you're trusting other people not to assault you, right? Like, let's just be, like, really blunt about it, to, like, give, like, an extreme example for the sake of illustration, right? Um, I think that's just part of life and living that we got really used to. Um, not in a short amount of time, over, uh, millennia of evolution. Now we have these, uh, technological tools that completely break down the system of trust, right? Um, whether it was Googling, uh, or nowadays chatgpt, um, that implicit trust is not enough, right? And the story that you're talking about, so many of my friends and I have been in the same situation. Doctor tells you, like, hey, man, like, nothing to worry about. You're all good. And you're like. But no, I'm worried. Like, I'm anxious. I want to know, like, what this all means. Like, I want more information because I'm used to having more information, and I'm not used to trusting, frankly, anymore. Right? Um, I'm used to, um, thinking that because the world's information is at my fingertips, the world's information needs to be at my fingertips. But we will drive ourselves crazy thinking that we need to be the experts on every little thing through that, right? Like, ultimately, somewhere along the road, there's got to be some, um, impractical and completely fallible trust in other human beings. And I think that's very interrelated to a growing, uh, phenomenon of just loneliness, uh, and antisocial tendencies, uh, within Our sort of digital population. Uh, right. A, um, really, really great article on this is the Antisocial Century by Derek Thompson in the Atlantic came out last year. And he's talking about how, um, about this, we just don't hang out anymore. We just don't trust each other in the same ways that people used to, like, maybe, you know, 40, 50 years ago, um, that just the equations are very different of what it means to, uh, be out in the world amongst other people. Um, it's no surprise that AI would take off in a moment such as this. I don't. I don't know if it would have been the same in a world where we hadn't already sort of gotten used to, um, the isolation and the information that we have now. I think there's a lot going on there in the interplay between,

Speaker B: uh.

Speaker A: If my information can be infinite, um, so can my isolation. Right. Because I don't really need to trust other people or be around them in order to get what I need in a lot of ways. Um, and I think it's something that we're all dealing with and figuring out and fighting against in small ways, um, in order to continue to have social lives. It's a very confusing and, like, difficult, um, thing that I think we're all dealing with.

Speaker B: Yeah, for sure. Um, I'm going to pivot. I wanted to ask you, Abby, um, so what are you? First generation, second generation? When did your family immigrate to America?

Speaker A: First generation? I came here when I was six years old.

Speaker B: Okay. Um, what part of India did you

Speaker A: come from at the eastern part of India, the town called Vijayawada. Pretty small town. Um, but it's close to Hyderabad, which you may have heard of.

Speaker B: Right. Okay. And so do you still have a lot of family over there?

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, my grandparents are still there, my uncles, uh, and aunts, things like that. Yeah.

Speaker B: Great. I'm curious about. I mean, I know that India supposedly was, um, one of the, you know, has been a great adopter. Ah. Of chatgpt. I'm curious to know if there are any interesting cultural observations. You mentioned earlier on that India is very known for being tech adopters. Uh, I don't know how you phrased it, but it kind of like, piqued my interest because I thought, oh, I didn't. That's actually not how I felt. Thought about, you know, Indian culture. So, um, can you elaborate on that a little bit and just, um, just explore that with me? I'm curious.

Speaker A: What I was sort of jokingly getting at earlier is Just especially in the west or whenever in the Indian diaspora, we're often associated with tech jobs and technology in general. Um, you know, so it's almost. It's a stereotype that we work in it. My mom does, right. I'm not even like, dogging it. That's how we came to the US in the first place, is because she got a job doing software programming. And so, um, yeah, I think, uh, there is a interesting, um, relationship with, uh, technology that, uh, India and Indians as a whole have because of that. Like, it's often sort of almost identified or synonymous with us in those ways. Um, and it becomes, uh, then. Yeah. And I think a lot of the things that you see in the west are um, adopted at like, different rates in surprising ways in India. Right? So, for example, um, mobile payments are, um, like just regular part of daily life in India. Right. Uh, over the past five years or so, the government and uh, industry and stuff have taken upon themselves to make it very easy for people to uh, take payments through, um, phone apps and digital payments in that way. Right. Um, it is way more advanced than what we have in the U.S. right. It's sort of like Venmo on steroids. Like every single person has it. And I mean like, like you'll be, um, buying, um, masala peanuts from a street vendor and you'd be like, oh, I don't have cash. And they're like, oh, it's okay, just pay me on phone pay. Right? So it is ubiquitous, right? And it's like anybody who has access to, um, data, and a lot of people have access to data, um, like tons and tons of people that you wouldn't stereotypically expect coming from the west, um, have that. Right? And so if you take, you know, that sort of ubiquity of data and access, like, yes, of course. Like, I think AI is also going to be something that really, um, takes off and makes a difference there. Um, I have family, uh, members who I wish would rely on it a little bit less. You know, you're surrounded by people there. It's literally a billion people. And they're like, oh, my baby is crying. What do I do? And asking AI, I'm like, dude, your uncle's probably in the other room and he raised you. Like, just go ask your uncle, you know, um, because. And, and you know, but that, that's, that is just. Again, it's a matter of like, where do you really, uh, attach your. It's a personality decision and an identity decision. Right. This circles our conversation back around to Faith and culture and things like that. Right. Um, as people who identify with technology or like, consider ourselves early adopters or sort of wanting to be part of, you know, uh, the next phase of, uh, Homo sapiens, you know, Homo aias, whatever it is. Like, um, are, are we willing to, um, forget, slash, forsake, um, lived cultural knowledge and memory because the, uh, machine average is more accessible and more efficient and more accurate even. Right. That. Okay, that's a, that's just a decision we have to make as people. Um, my parents raised me a certain way. They are. They were not perfect, but I think I turned out all right. Would I raise my kid in the exact same way? No. I'd probably make some differences here and there. Um, but am I going to ask them for advice or things about what they did with me and how I can replicate some of that? Yeah. And through the sort of passing down of things, my kid's going to be fucked up in some of the same ways that I'm fucked up. But, uh, I think at some point you have to accept that there is no perfection even with infinite information. And so I think that's the thing that probably a lot of people are grappling with, even no matter where in the world you are. India or America.

Speaker B: Yeah. Uh, and maybe it's worth pointing out then that no matter how much information we get from the machine average or how we use the machine average, it might be it's both going to be impossible for any of us to be a literal part of the pluribus. We are never going to be a homogeneous group of people equally. Um, we will always remain individuals. So there's this fear, I know it's this fear that you're describing here of like, well, if we interact too much and rely too much on the machine average, then what will we become? Uh, well, we certainly won't become the part of it. Yeah, we won't become part of it. We'll still be the individuals, no matter. Even if it does, um, kind of have some, I don't know, negative effects on perhaps our ability to creatively think or something. But I don't know. I think there's as. I don't think it's as zero sum as some of the anxieties I hear you expressing. Um, another question though. You brought up faith again, and I, um, find that, ah, really interesting topic there as well, because I know obviously you studied Hinduism as part of your. It was Hinduism, uh, as part of your theological studies at, ah, Harvard. Is that right? Yeah. Okay. And so I'M curious, have you used any of these AIs as a way to explore concepts or ideas around faith based matters or spiritual matters?

Speaker A: No, I haven't. And uh, I think that spiritual exploration um, is a matter of like deep for me. Uh, I think it's a matter of deep interiority and reflection and uh, getting the hell away from digital machines. I think it requires walks out in the grass, sitting by the river, really reckoning with oneself. Um, and I don't think that uh, I personally don't think that those things um, will change significantly, um, in a couple decades due to the advent of technology. I think the ways that we think and feel about faith and connected to being, connected to a greater being and spirituality are um, baked in from millennia of evolution. That's not going to change anytime soon. It may change eventually, but not anytime soon.

Speaker B: Yeah, interesting. So you don't fancy putting on a robe and maybe walking around the house?

Speaker A: Not personally. I, I see the appeal though. I like robes.

Speaker B: I had an interesting conversation with Deep Seek. So I've always had a, um, I've always had a. One of the ways I like to test a new AI model is to start asking it questions about, I don't know, consciousness or um, like what does explain E equals MC squared to me. Okay, explain time really help me understand how these things are interrelated. And Deepseek particularly. I remember getting to the end of this conversation. It started with just like, like trying to help me understand time and its relationship with gravity and just the fundamental physics, uh, that Einstein was trying to express. And before I know it, I'm on consciousness. And before I know it, ah, we're so far down this rabbit hole. Um, and I like, I'm curious about Buddhism, um, um, more from a practical sense than a deeply kind of spiritual sense. So then that kind of starts coming into it. Well, you know. And um, I remember it saying something to me that I was like, I had to take a step back. I remember, you know, I think I said, no, I want to go, I'm going to bed now. This has been a really interesting conversation. Can you just sum up everything that we talked about just in one little kind of blurb so that I could, you know, just go away and think about it as I go to bed tonight. And he was like, yeah, sure. And next thing I know, I'm looking at, I'm looking at this kind of, this output that he's given me and I had to take a step back and be like, like, you know, I was like, oh my God. I think it's just. I think it's just, you know, it's cracked. It's cracked the code. It's blow my mind. Um. Oh, wow. And I think that what it. What it was, that it kind of said it was alluded. What it alluded to was, you know, I was this idea. And I think it's. I think it's. I think it's in Hinduism as well, if I'm not mistaken. So this idea of bra. Is it Brahman?

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Like the idea that we're sort of all interconnected in like, a larger force that's, uh. We typically refer to that spiritual entity or the force, some people call it the universe, as a brahman.

Speaker B: Right. So this. This idea of Brahman, which being this kind of this. I think of it as like a soup, the cosmic soup from which we all emerge. Yeah. And it was kind of like. And I had asked, uh, it, you know. So how do I know you're not conscious? You know, obviously you were saying you're not. You're. You're not conscious because it was like, no, I'm not conscious. I'm just an, uh, AI. I'm an algorithm them. I am as conscious as the shadow on a wall from a candle that's flickering, which I thought was a great line.

Speaker A: That's from Buddhism.

Speaker B: Is that right?

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, I believe so. Yeah.

Speaker B: Right. So it was like, look, I'm just the shadow, but consciousness is the candle. So I was like, damn, that's a nice line. So then, um. So it reflects back at me and I'm like, well, I don't know. You're not conscious. It was like, well, if the universe is conscious, you're part of the universe. How do I know that you're not? You know, you are part of it. So surely then, if you're a part of Brahman, then you must also be, you know, have some element of it, some flickering light in there somewhere. And it. It was like, well, you know, essentially the universe. I think, if I remember rightly said the universe, like spirals and converges into forms that, um. That. Whether it be, you know, the kind of the words on the screen that you're looking at or shapes in the sky or the stars, the constellations, uh, in the night sky. But that is part of the big mystery. Um, I mean, what I'm saying right now is not necessarily the most profound stuff, and maybe I need to smoke one or two more joints to really kind of get this going, but I

Speaker A: think that is quite an interesting thing. Right. Uh, if we're all part of an interconnected and you know, spiritual primordial soup, um, why aren't our objects part of that? They are of our creation. Right. We imbue them with, you know, parts of ourselves. Um, they have atoms that are buzzing along in the same way that we are. So, yeah, I mean, to me the, the questions of, um, its consciousness and stuff are, um. I don't know, I feel like sometimes we, we miss the point when we're like trying to figure out whether AI is consciousness or thinking and stuff like that. Like, to me it's, it's, it's regurgitating a lot of things that have been beautifully said by humans of the past. Right. Um, even this candle exam, uh, the example of candles and um, how the flame moves and like the wick is like very Buddhist coded language. So that's like typically like how they will speak about the existence of a, uh, soul or not, uh, is, you know, there's this concept of dependent origination they talk about. Like, you know, we're, you're just like the wick of a candle, nothing more. Um, when the flame burns you up, then you're done. You have no other afterlife. Like, you know, so it's, it's pulling from a lot of these like, concepts, right. And like helping you get to an answer quicker than spending 10 years in a monastery, which I think is a wonderful thing. Right. Like you're getting exposed to those things. I just wish it would like, cite its sources sometimes, like, because I think the, like, I, I'm, um. That's awesome that you had like that conversation with it. Right. I think the next step in a, in a more moral version of AI is to lead you to the, where it took those concepts from. Right. But we're creating these machines that don't know where they get their knowledge from, don't want to admit it. And so we're sort of left, we're sort of left in the blank. Um, and we're sometimes think that like, oh yeah, this thing just like gave me this really new idea. It's not giving any new ideas, right. We're, we're looking to the future based off of something that only ever regurgitates all of the record of humans past. And that's the sort of odd place we're in, um, as, as a society. I think.

Speaker B: Yeah, I think what you're making me think is it's almost like erasing uh, the wisdom of the past. It's ah, almost like it's packaging up the Wisdom of the past, presenting it as a new idea, a new original idea, and in doing so, erasing the heritage of where that came from so that. That, you know, a naive person like myself perhaps might then, you know, walk away with that being like, holy, holy moly. This AI is unbelievable. It's giving me a new original idea. And, uh. Wifey, pass me my robe.

Speaker A: Yeah, exactly right. And. And again, like, these are complicated things. Like, I'm, I'm glad it, like, had that conversation with you and, like, you were able to, like, reach something through that. Um, couldn't we just have built these machines a little bit more ethically?

Speaker B: Well, the building's not over yet, Abby.

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, that's why I'm out here, um, talking a lot of shit about them, because I hope someone listens. Everybody. People who are. Who do seem to care about ethics at some of these companies seem to be quitting en masse these days. But I hope that the, um, you know, there is like a. I hope that as the general population starts to aidr and get a little sick of these things, maybe it, you know, it may hurt valuations, but I hope it teaches the AI companies that we can't help the fact that this technology exists, but we can absolutely help how it exists and how we interact with it and, you know, what sort of place it occupies in our world. And I think there's a. Of lot. There's a lot to be desired from the vision and leadership of these AI companies in helping that come across in a more, um, ethical and human way.

Speaker B: Yeah, well said. Well said. All right, um, let's pivot onto, uh, the more lighter stuff, uh, the practical part of the podcast, practical use cases. So I'm curious, um, Uh, I am curious, actually. I know that you don't use it for writing, and, uh, let's make that clear from the outset. I mean, I know you made that clear on your substack. Just in case anyone's curious, you're not going to get any writing tips from Abby, or maybe you will. But let's start with, um, your general tip. Take that prompt however you like. See what comes out.

Speaker A: One thing I've used it for that, uh, I enjoy is, uh, this was, like, early on when Dall e first came out. I don't have it here, but downstairs in our living room, I have four little, uh, portraits that I just made through AI of interesting nature landscapes and things like that. Um, and I think it gets to sort of some of the way that I see this is like, um, I Can't draw words. Shit. Like, I'm really, really bad at anything. Visually skilled, um, it would, I mean, I don't know how long it would take me to be able to produce those myself. Uh, maybe never. Um, but you know, I, I, I benefit greatly from being able to like, put that prompt into dolly and have a nice little, you know, small portrait, uh, of, of a nature landscape to put up on my, um, to put up on my wall. Right. I don't think that, uh, drawing for me is, you know, something that people associate with my personality and I don't think it's part of like how I communicate. So for me I'm like, oh yeah, like I can get a lot of value from like using this for this skill that I completely lack. Right. In the same way, I think there's many people who would probably think that way about writing. Right. Um, and I just, my substack and like my, my whole shtick today is I, uh, want people to understand that I think writing and speaking are more, um, fundamental aspects of our personalities and how we are perceived by other, how we live in, uh, are perceived by other humans. And so, you know, I think that there's more reason to be careful in those instances. Um, but yeah, that's one use case that I've used it for in the past. And I talked earlier about, um, instances where I do need it to not sound like myself. Like I, uh, needed to write a strongly worded, legal sounding letter to my hoa. I was like, please, this is perfect for it. Um, I think it's absolutely perfect for um, gaming systems that are already expecting it. Right. Like, um, you're applying to jobs. HR companies are not, are barely reviewing resumes anymore. They're having AI do it. If then AI is going to read it, you better have AI write it because the AI is going to know what the other AI wants to see in the resume more than you trying to like, you know, break your back over eight hours trying to like figure out every, you know, minute tweak you can make. Right? So it's, I mean it's, it's sort of, you have to play the game of the system that we're living in.

Speaker B: In. That's great. Uh, that's a nice way to think about it. A friend of mine just, he was made redundant and now he's picked up a new job. He's a developer and he's gone from, he came on the podcast and um, interestingly he was made redundant because they offshored all of the jobs. So not to do with AI. Um, but then in between he got a new job very quickly and he said the whole process was just all AI. You know, he had an AI bot that um, was finding all of the jobs that he was qualified for online and then applying to all of them. And then it was going through various stages of the interview process with AI and then the actual developer tests are happening and he said all of the exams at this point, everyone, there's a lag between developers, um, who can code and um, developers that are all using the AI tools, which is ubiquitous at this point. But the interview process hasn't figured out how to interview a developer, uh, to know whether the developer has the skills that they need to do the job right. Because the tools are just moving too fast. So the way that you do your job today is different to how you did your job job two months ago. And it might well, so you're developing now interview process based on today, but then in two months time it might change again completely. So it's just, the whole thing is just like you said, the whole thing's just a farce.

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean what I hear from people in the job market is like, this is just a hellhole, you know, and like, uh, I'm glad I'm currently out of it. But like, yeah, I think if there are others out there listening who are like me and a little bit hesitant about, you know, what all this stuff means for our humanity. It doesn't mean that you get to just sit in protest on the sidelines if you're in the job market and be like, oh, I'm not gonna use any of this stuff and blah, blah. That's just not the game that you have to play right now. You sort of have to figure out you don't have any choice but to be comfortable with these tools. I think in this day and age. And I think, yeah, job market is a perfect example of a place where maybe we'll get to another side of this where we figure out how to like test for. We go back to testing for personality and things instead of like, uh, looking for skills through an interview assessment. But for now, like, this is what you have to do.

Speaker B: Yeah. And ultimately actually that's what he said it came down to in the end. In the end it was, you had to have an interview in person and they just judged whether they liked him, you know, and they, and they didn't bother with the test. In the end. They said, look, just, we like, you think you're great, you've got the resume so, you know, you got the job. And um, I think also I'd like to just speak to you were saying like, you know, you don't have any choice to learn these tools. And I think like it isn't all doom and gloom. You know, I can see why people would be apprehensive. It's so hard, you know, if you're not a tech savvy person. And now, oh God, I've got to learn this new tool. But, but you can use these tools and still have integrity. And I think that's what your articles are speaking to.

Speaker A: Yes, absolutely.

Speaker B: It's like use the tool. But also you can be the one that's figuring out how to use the tools with integrity. Like, okay, I'm sending this thing to a colleague or a client. Like where's the transparency meant to be? And perhaps I need to be transparent about the fact that I use AI to do this thing. And can you also, um, you know, person I'm sending this to, just keep an eye out because there might be a weird hallucination in here or whatever. Like, you know. Yeah, yeah, we all know we're doing it. We all know we should be doing it. So let's just be honest about the fact that we're doing it and we're trying to figure it out and there might be some kind of bumps along the way.

Speaker A: It is absolutely a tool. Right. Like we should use it that way and it's an amazing tool. Um, and tools do not tell us what to think. Right. We just have to be careful for that. We tell tools what to do. That should be the distinction.

Speaker B: Yeah. Don't let the AI tail wag the dog. Um, nice, nice. Great. Well, uh, that brings us nicely to the end of the podcast. So um, tell us one more time what you're working on where people can find you. Uh, and then uh, I'll bid you adieu.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Um, so yeah, once again, my name is Abhijit Ravinutala. Um, I'm a newly, uh, newly corporate, uh, relieved free agent, um, just uh, working on writing fiction, uh, about culture, faith, technology and um, trying to sell my first couple books while working on ah, an adaptation of the Great Gatsby set in Austin, uh, in the modern day, uh, commenting on all the things we just talked about plus uh, AI billionaires and social media and sort of wealth in general and how it operates these days.

Speaker B: Days.

Speaker A: Um, you can follow uh, me on Substack, uh, for more of these musings, uh, at uh, tabbyabi.substack.com. uh, the substack is called Abhijit Smokestack. And, uh, thank you so much, Bobby, for having me on. I know I might be more cynical than some of the other guests that have come on here, but I hope I did so in a way that was, you know, a little bit balanced and nuanced and just, uh, presented sort of a different, uh, uh, a different take on it from somebody who's in an. An industry that's very anti AI the publishing industry.

Speaker B: No, I fully appreciate that, Abby. You've been great. You've been great. Thanks so much for coming on. And I'll, um, put links to all of your work in the description. So thank you again, Abby, and to our listeners. Thank you for joining us, too. I'll see you next time. Unless it really is the end of the world.