Transcript
Welcome to the Flow State podcast. I am Flow State founder and managing director Stuart P Turner. In this five episode mini series we’re talking about the implications of AI, cutting through the hype to talk about real world use cases, real examples, and what it means to people in their day-to-day jobs. Terry, welcome to the Flow State podcast, thanks for coming on. For people that don’t know you, Terry is head of product data and Technology, correct? A GroupM, I don’t know if it’s in that order, sorry. Um, you’ve a fellow Yorkshire expert, illustrious career in affiliate and like demand based digital marketing, is that fair to say? Yeah, yeah. Um, so thanks for coming on and talking about the implications of AI. So first and foremost, the most important question: are robots coming for our jobs and lives, are they going to use up Humanity, are you concerned about that, and if you are, like, is it is it happening today, tomorrow, what do you think?
Um, definitely concerned. So specifically at the minute for friends who are writers or copywriters, and I see some of them, well a lot of them, some of them be using Chat to write bits for them but they still need a human eye over it. I’ve got friends who are in the TV and film industry at the minute who’ve got no income due to the writers’ strike, and they’re not even writers themselves, they’re like the producers of shows, um, but working with like American companies so they’ve they’ve got no income at the minute so I worry for people like them. Um, I’m married to a software engineer. Drivers for like driverless cars, you know, taxi drivers, bus drivers, like what what are all these types of people going to do um when when the robots do take over? But I do hope, my hope is that when they do take over, um, that the likes of nurses and teachers and people who really should be paid a lot of money will get paid what they’re meant to get paid. Yeah, interest—that’s interesting actually because nobody else has actually talked about that from a—because we’ve talked quite a bit about like the economic impact. But hypothetically speaking, and this is this isn’t maybe good for your husband, but if all the money were to be hoovered out of you know some areas of digital, what do you think it would go to? Like, yeah, yeah. I like to think, you know, the caring and the educational professions would get paid what they should be getting paid. Yeah, right, yeah. Well, do you not think that they may be usurped as well? Could you see like a use case where there’s like robot nurses I guess in the future?
No, I think stuff like—and you know what’s funny, my nan, when I was, you know, I’m I’m quite an age now, but I remember saying to my grandma when I was 12, uh, I think because computers had literally just come in to school around then. Um, I was like, I think I’m going to get into computers, and she was like, “absolutely no, it’s a passing fad, you want to be a nurse or a hairdresser,” and I was like, “okay, Nan”. And um, and fast forward 30 years and maybe 50, um, you know, in like next 20 years that I should have listened to her. I should have become a hairdresser or a nurse because yeah, I’m not sure the robots can take over that. Yeah, I’ve been just been cutting hair, you know, like I never get my haircut so it’s not really an issue for me. But like, yeah, that’s pretty interesting.
So, I mean that’s part of what I wanted to talk about, right, is like there’s a lot of crazy hype around like AI. And I don’t know if you see the same going back to what you’re saying about what’s happening with Matt, um, at GroupM, for example, but most of the AI chat at the moment seems to either be just people have updated their websites to put the letters AI on them and they’re still doing what they were doing before, or it’s really just kind of machine learning or like process automation. It’s not really like deploying proper artificial intelligence. Like, you seeing the same thing at work or do you guys have anything? I mean, GroupM do have an AI tool, a core pipe co-pilot, which is embedded into Zaxos, which, okay, that’s called optimizes campaigns and budgets. Um, but yeah, other than that what I’m seeing more is just machine learning and a lot of automation. Yeah, automating dashboards, reporting, um, all just Excel spreadsheets that were, you know, manually done being put into a BI in a Power dashboard. Yeah, right, so yeah.
More automation and ML at that level of automation and general efficiency, I assume you would agree, should be getting done anyway, right? Yeah, yeah, definitely. I mean, I think it’s exciting, but I know most normal people would not necessarily get super excited by what we just said. But yeah, no, it is super super exciting, especially for the team that we have. The the amount of man hours it takes to do even for um, well, I mean, all HR systems, Finance systems, and at the Data and Tech Team, um, because when we looked into and sat with the HR and finance teams, the amount of man hours that goes into, I don’t know, end of month or onboarding new starters or um, so yeah, automating all that—that’s interesting. I mean, like what’s the most exciting part of that? Um, or maybe not the most exciting part, but what do you think is like the most valuable part of that that doesn’t have a sort of huge negative impact on people from what’s happening across free time at the moment?
It takes the mundane away from people’s roles. Um, gives them more time to upskill, learn, do things they’re more interested in, um, because I think, yeah, the the monotony of the super boring tasks that can be automated. Yeah, yeah, um, you know, oh, you know, anything but good, yeah, anything but bad, all good. Well, look, that I think is super interesting because going back to what you said earlier about, you know, your Nan’s advice, which is obviously everyone should listen to day, what they think, so um, that’s totally sound. I think the most exciting thing that I’ve seen is um, the real world use of like, you know, Chat GPT, which is the kind of the main model everyone knows where like it does exactly what you said where you can sort of stop concentrating on the boring like you know drudgery of adult life like doing planning your shopping lists or whatever or like what are we going to eat tonight which is a common conversation I’m sure everyone has and just, you know, you can get all that done like really fast now. So I actually think that’s probably where more exciting stuff is happening. Yeah, and um, I don’t, you know, going back to what you’re saying about programmers and developers, maybe they don’t see that right now because they’ve been in a bit of an ivory Tower, yeah, with their magical knowledge of coding. But yeah, have you have you used it for any of that stuff? Like, are there any areas of your own life where you’ve been like, this, you know, predictive modeling really helped me here?
Like, or do you think they’re already— If you haven’t used it already, Chat GTP, because my husband brought that to my attention quite some time ago. Not using that. Um, but when I, um, when we’re a bit um, low on the ground with people in the teams and I’ve got to jump in and help on and influence the brief response, I’m like, oh, I’ll just pop this into Chat GTP and see what it spits out. Yeah, and um, and it does okay, it does okay, but I obviously need to throw a human eye over that. Um, but for my day-to-day life, not really. I’ve tried putting award entries. I’ve tried, you know, because everyone hates doing award entries, right? Um, but yeah, there’s not enough information in there to help me spit out an award-winning entry. Yeah, but not for my not for my day-to-day life. I’m not there yet, even though I live with someone who uses it day in, day out, even he’s not using it for his day-to-day life. Yeah, okay, yeah. And why is that, just because you think you can’t have enough value, like, you know, in in real life? Like, why why haven’t you used it yet?
I’ve probably not, there’s just nothing that’s come into my mind that I think, oh, that, you know, AI can help me with that. Yeah, right, yeah. What I need help with is like making my daughter’s lunchbox, yeah, okay, stuff that I hate doing, um, but uh, but I’ll pick in something on TV so. But I know, you know, I can endlessly scroll through all every subscription Channel. Yeah, and I know they have, you know, obviously inbuilt algorithms to help show up what I should be watching, but it’s, you know, kids’ programs. Yeah, but uh, but yeah, nothing in my physical day-to-day life at the minute, interesting.
See, I was talking to someone else about this. I think it’s interesting that you ran through that because I’ve had a very similar experience where I think, um, and especially talking about algorithms that essentially are engineered not really to help you but just to show you what’s like the most popular, which, at it just being a bit of a contrarian, like I just don’t like that way of doing stuff because I’m like, I don’t, if someone tells me there’s something super popular, I’m like, well, I’m not going to watch it. So I’m the same and that’s just happening everywhere, like all over the place. But I think where maybe when you get a better, more personal assistant style AI, like that could be a great way to address that stuff, right? Where you can just, yeah, rediscover the joy of discovery. And if you turned around and you were like, how many more times do I need to watch like, you know, insert these episodes of Bluey, which if I watch like the most recently or whatever, then you can be like, well, no, show me something else that’s, uh, you know, that I haven’t seen that is going to drive me insane this time.
Even on that thread, even with articles, like my brothers might send me an article from the UK or a video. My sister’s obsessed with TikToks. I get to and I’m like, I don’t want to click on these because then it’s going to screw in my algorithm. Yeah, yeah. And everything that I want to watch is going to be skewed towards, you know, my two brothers viewing. So even with like the the news I read or you know videos I watch, I’m really conscious, and maybe it’s because I’m in the industry, I’m conscious that I I don’t want to screw with my algorithms. But then, and on the other hand of that, I worry that I’m obviously then only being served things that I’m looking at, or like the boots on Asos that follow me around everywhere. Yeah, yeah. Or um—I mean, and this is a very personal um thing I’m about to talk about, but one of my brothers got married in Italy last August. So, you know, we all flew out and I flew over with my other brother and, you know, he works in like conservation so, you know, he’s not up on tech or anything. He’s just he’s doing like a real job. Yeah, he’s doing a real job, right, you know, he digs and whatever. And um, I remember being in the car with him and my 19 year old niece and I’m driving us, you know, through the countryside in Italy, and he’s like, you know, “I’ve, you know, I’ve been following this guy on like, you know, socials and he’s so he’s so entrepreneurial and I’m thinking, you know, I might do this,” and the more and more he spoke, I thought, I know who he’s talking about. I knew, I know, he cannot be following Andrew Tate, oh my God. And then like you know, and then he starts, you know, talking about more things, I’m thinking, oh my goodness. And you know how we all know what Andrew Tate’s like, right? So all the things he was talking about, I was thinking, I cannot let my 19 year old niece listen to this. I need to show, you know, so I’m trying to like, you know, adult and and debate with my responsibility and and be a, you know, a strong feminist. Yeah, it was awful, it was awful. And I’m trying to, I was like, yeah, but if you, this, maybe if you listen to BBC Radio 4 Woman’s Hour, you know? Um, so stuff like that worries me as well with with AI and algorithms that you’re only going to get served up.
Yeah, yeah. Well, that I think is quite an incredible and powerful example of like the darker side of how the whole internet works at the moment, right? Like, and we were chatting about this before you arrived actually about the um, the stuff, you know, when you’re inside an industry as you mentioned that you don’t know if you’re like, you know, a normal like a muggle, like a normal person, yeah. Um, but yeah, just, you know, the again, that’s what you were saying earlier, if you are getting sucked into that now and everything’s super polarized online at the moment because of that. Again, is this an area where some kind of more positive, you know, force for good type machine learning could help? Because like I feel like technology is still very much in the way of how I want to interact with things. Like the fact that you have like a crappy OS on your phone is not very helpful because you want to be able to just talk to it and get it to do stuff, right? That’ll be the dream. Um, but do you think like is there a way that you could potentially be deploying new technologies to try and fight that at the moment or is this just a done deal now?
We’re all—I’ve I spoke to Meta a few months, it was before Christmas, um, because we have an influencer business within GroupM called Inca, and we’ve launched Inca communities, which is to, you know, bring more typically, you know, every brief we’re getting in every brief response, and whether that’s, you know, the bias of the person that’s responding or what the client wants or what’s coming through. Are you sending like a diverse creator panel across? What we saw that was getting approved was your typical influencer, um, which, jump, you know, white mum, you know, yeah, number number two. So with Inca communities, what we wanted to do is A, make sure that, you know, a percentage of every brief we responded to had, you know, diverse creators, whether that be, you know, disabled, um, you know, ethnicity, language, yada yada. Um, but even then, the person who’s then approving them, they’ve also got to be on board with that. Yeah, right. Um, so we wanted to do some A/B testing on if we did a campaign, and we a couple of tests. So one would be we’d pick two very different creators, we’d tell them to say the exact same thing, we give them exact same budget, and we put the exact same boost in budget behind them and see. And, you know, we assumed that the typical influencer, you know, would end up getting the most reach. And um, and then beyond that, using the same two creators or again or two other diverse creators, giving them the same brief and then seeing what they do with their own, you know, you know, voice.
So anyway, spoke to Meta about this, and I was like, but also, is there any way you could build some form of algorithm to counteract devices of, you know, and of like, no, that like we couldn’t do that, you know, that that’s, you know, yeah, they’re like, that’s touching on when it ended. So, you know, we have taken it to the likes of Meta on how how can we make um, you know, the algorithms work in favor of, you know, yeah, you know, lower mind—you know, not lower minorities, but, you know, what I mean. And they were like, no, we just can’t do that. And then it was deemed like unethical to do the A/B testing that we put forward, yeah, right, because it was more equal than, you know, the standard approach to provide. Yeah, so I mean, we might push up, you know, if we could find a client that will do that, we’ll do, we’d love to do that A/B testing. But um, but yeah, we’ve we’ve started a conversation with Meta about if we could, you know, tweak the algorithms or push it in favor of, you know, whatever it may be.
So, yeah, that I think is really interesting because we, you know, it’s like there’s a load of interesting stuff like off the back of what you were just saying. But if you touch on the points, I think in order as you were saying about Facebook’s the worst culprit for this because obviously your classic like white guy now, pretty middle-aged network, right? There’s like, you know, planned content algorithm focused around all the things you just said. Um, it’s another big concern I think everyone’s talked about with like Chat GPT where you’re like, okay, it’s been trained on a corpus of information that is effectively like the white Western internet, which is, yeah, what most of the stuff we see is. Um, so like how, you know, how useful is that to people that sit outside that that group? Like based on what you’re saying, not particularly because all it does is, you know, build on the confirmation bias that’s already there. And um, a really really funny article actually after, you can probably find and include under this, um, about um, the rise of kind of conservative beige influences on, I think it was actually on Instagram. Um, well, there’s this kind of mini cohort of they, I think it’s mainly women, um, but there’s probably a few men in the next. It’s all kind of fashion and lifestyle oriented where all they do is promote like staying at home and like, you know, exercise amazing and like drinking herbal tea. Yeah, yeah, like and then, you know, wearing like all this really bland like pretty horrible fashion and stuff. And like, fair play, that’s how they’re like making money and like don’t begrudge anyone sort of being able to make a living from doing that. But um, the gist of the point of this article was that it was quite funny that, you know, like Gen Z and like everyone sort of in that cohort is generally sort of perceived as these sort of, you know, rule-breaking trend-sittery sort of youth cohort and they were like actually the values that are being displayed are pretty conservative. And like it’s probably as a result of all the general chaos that’s going on. Yeah, going back to what you and your dad was saying, you know, like how how do you get a job and like buy a house if you want like a normal job now? Like it’s really hard to even imagine owning something if you’re 18 now. So um, they were like, yeah, it’s not that surprising. But then what if Meta falls over? Like, you know, what if Zuckerberg loses his fight with Musk and like, you know, it takes over, like what’s going to happen then? Like, I mean, you would know from your time in affiliates, right, it’s very dangerous to put all of your eggs in someone else’s basket basically. Yeah, yeah.
I think, Kim, that’s what you’re saying, that I think that test’s super interesting because, you know, like how how can you try and fight like the algorithms that you guys are trying to test against there, the biases within all the models, like what do you think the way around that is at the moment or is there a way around it? You know, your mums and dads always watch, you know, BBC News or whatever it was, you know, unbiased, here’s the facts. I mean, well, was it unbiased, I don’t know. A machine—well, I mean, it’s a hot topic at the at the moment. I know like even when our like parents and in-laws come and stay with us, they’ve just got like News 24 on. Um, but yeah, but even, you know, I’m even with that, I’m thinking, is there is it, you know, are we seeing this? And um, I don’t know, I’m very skeptical of anyone now. Um, I like to hope and pray that something will change because I like to see in my news and in my feeds and, you know, what I read, I want to see all different viewpoints. I want I want to be debated with, I want my viewpoint to be changed. I want to, you know, you know, have a, you know, a good little argument about stuff and then you change my mind, yeah. Um, I want that, I need that, you know, I want my daughter to have that.
Um, and I think even like on a podcast I listened to the other week, Woman’s Hour on BBC, um, they had the the Chancellor of Oxford University talking, and, you know, I’d seen in the news that they’ve been a big, you know, uh, opera about um, some woman who was speaking about um, she was getting called a TERF, she was on about like, you know, women’s rights and all that jazz. And uh, some students wanted to shut down this talk and she shouldn’t be allowed to speak and, you know, and this Chancellor was like, “we’re Oxford University, like debating is in our walk“. I know, like, is that not why you go to universities? Yeah, surely you’ve got to be able to listen to viewpoints that make you a bit twitchy, and, you know, and and see what everyone rather than just being, you know, fed up everything that you believe is true, you need. So yeah, I want I want to see different viewpoints, and, you know, you know, all the things that are even in the realm of my mind. Um, how does that happen, how do we, you know, make sure it’s an even playing field, I really don’t know.
On that point though, um, on universities in the kind of critical thinking, I think this is again like an interesting current kind of conversation because the um, the point you made about her needing the human touching and dealing with like any kind of, you know, machine oriented solution, I think is a really important one. Um, but I also read, I was reading another article, I think it was on The Guardian last week about um, 24 or something UK unis which have all signed up to this like um, opt-in guidance on how to use AI models like the predictive models in education. Because obviously like all students are using them to like effectively like, you know, coach their way through the degrees, and then ironically they’re obviously paying loads of money so they’re not learning anything at all. But the funny thing I found from this was they were like, oh, well, you know, we just think that people need to, you know, understand how to use them and you know, think critically about the output and stuff. And I was like, well, is that not what you’re supposed to be teaching them anyway when you when you go there? And um, like as you would know from doing a Philosophy degree, which is like pretty esoteric subject, like that’s all you talk about is like how people think about things and how to understand different viewpoints and like, you know, like you say, not just get sucked into being like just like this. Um, but I found it quite funny because a lot of the the younger people I’ve been speaking to are like really like mad on like if they’re going to go to uni, they want to know exactly how it’s going to get them a job. And um, when I went, I went because I didn’t want to get a job. Yeah, I mean, maybe it’s just a product of the the times like you were saying. But yeah, did you um, you know, I mean, how have you found if you look back on your kind of early formative years in education now, um, do you think that stands you in a better steady to deal with everything that’s happening with the development of like, you know, algorithms, AI, like all this kind of polemic social media stuff, or do you think it’s giving you your own biases about it that you no, you don’t need to fight?
I hope social media has cocked it in the next 20 years. I hope it’s gone. Yeah, not only for, you know, for her more so like the bullying. I’ve got niece and nephews are in school now and the bullying is awful. At least when we were younger, we could just go home, shut the door, and we’d be fine. I think, you know, when we were at school, we’d have to go to the library and get books out and read a book and then write and, you know. Well, I think I think you’re raising a point there on, you know, bridging the gap between, you know, pre-pre-social media, pre-mobiles, pre not quite pre the internet but almost, and then, you know, it being part of your daily life basically. Yeah, and how that’s going to impact the next generation. Because I have the same concerns like obviously, you know, having a son as well. Like he’s sort of keen to get—they’re teaching about the internet now. They use like the Google educational tools and stuff. Um, and they’re all, you know, curious about it and I’m like, I don’t want to like tell him that you can’t use it, but at the same time, he’s at an age where you it’s hard to help him to understand that not everything that you see online is like necessarily true or like, yeah, should be listened to you or how to discern between those things, which I think is a real challenge.
I think especially within like my mum group of friends, parent group of friends, um, even by the time they get to like, you know, Year One of school, they’ve got iPads. It worries me for eyesight. I’m not like, you know, I want I want my daughter to be reading books, I want her to. I mean, and I she does have an iPad, I’m not going to lie, right? She does watch TV, she does it. Like, I was going to say, what is secret Superman skills? We’re a full-time working parents, expat with no family around us, she definitely has an iPad. But you know, especially for like long car journeys, you know, she gets an iPad. Um, but even just with like the, you know, and obviously YouTube Kids, so she’s getting adverts, you know, and I have this, “I want this monster munchie whatever blah blah blah blah”. Um, but I I just I reminisce back to like when we were younger and, you know, the longer classes and the long six-week holidays when we just be out, you know, playing in the woods or in the fields or building dens or, you know, just being out and about. And I I like to think being here in Australia, you know, Maggie will have that outdoorsy life. Um, and you know, one of the, you know, one of the main reasons I don’t want to go back to the UK is a lot of the kids are just at home on computers with VR headsets, yeah, right, on iPads. So not only does it worry me for the brand mush that I say, um, you know, I enjoy picking up and reading a proper book as well, you know. Um, and I just want I want my daughter to have that. I just so yeah, I I really worry about yeah, her brain, your eyesight, her future.
So, I think I think it was a perfectly legitimate concern because then going back to what you were saying at the at the start, like you just can’t, and you know, I suppose this touches on the whole like, you know, your sort of responsibility as a parent to, you know, look after your kids’ education as well. Like, you just can’t put that responsibility into the hands of like YouTube, which I’ve like vitriolic hatred of YouTube Kids because I I don’t know if you have the same thing. But when um, my son was younger, he briefly watched it and he got obsessed like to the point where it was like you could see him being addicted with those horrible videos of like someone just opening stuff and like getting things out of things. Yeah, and I was just like, what is this like absolute garbage, like nothing stuff? And he’s like you can see like his eyes just glazing over. I was watching it, but then he was like, “Why don’t watch another one, another one?”. Yeah, and we were just like, no, this is not this is going off like right now. It’s just like horrifying stuff and there’s some great stuff on there as well. But, you know, I was just like, again, that’s what you were saying earlier about knowing how all this is put together. I was like, they’ll just be on a loop like forever if I leave him alone. I was like, if I was a parent that wasn’t paying closer attention to what he’s watching, it could have just been sat there for like an hour and a half like just with his brain like just slowly rotting into some kind of weird cobra state. So, um, yeah, I think that is very concerning as well.
Yeah, and then even like um, helping, you know, helping to direct her into what profession she wants to go into or I just I don’t know what the future holds for our young kids, yeah, and what they will do when they’re older. Well, what is it, is your daughter like said what she wants to do? Yeah, I love hearing these though, what’s her idea of what she’s going to do? And um, in her mind it’s Mummy that goes to work, not Daddy. What does it take for the year? Yeah, she’s been into it with me, she knows I work on a computer, she, you know. Um, but when I say to her, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” Do you know what she says? “Girl, a mummy with three kids”. Like, racking him up early on, am I going to be a granny in the next like 15 years? I’m not sure, like, you’re ready for that. Yeah, but I don’t I don’t know where that’s come from. I have no idea where that’s come from, where it’s coming from—kindy or, you know, a cartoon she’s watched. But every time I ask her, I was like, “You don’t want to be a doctor or, you know,” she said, “I want to be a mummy with three children”. Fair enough, really. But yeah, it but yeah, kids, they their minds blow my mind. Yeah, it’s funny, I don’t know where she’s got that from but that’s what she wants to be, a mum. That’s pretty good, yeah. Also, recap in a year and see if she’s like changed. It’s funny because I was talking to Theo as well, I was saying the same thing. He’s gone through various different ones since he was like three or four, but now currently he was like he wants to be a um, what did he say last time? He wants to be, I think an astronaut, he said a professional gamer and a skateboarder, I think were the three that he was trying to combat. And I was like, well, you know, yeah, it’s a lot to take on at the same time, but, you know, maybe you could make that work. Yeah, I don’t know, he’s 13. Yeah, 13. And he just wants to be a YouTuber.
Yeah, see, I feel like this is where this—I’ve been again, that’s what you’re saying earlier, I think this is where like our generation, when we were younger, like not having that stuff. The fact that not to rag on like influencers and stuff because I think some of them are great because they actually do real things, but the fact that people are now like, “I want to be a YouTuber”. You’re like, you know, that is not an aspirational thing to do, just to like, when, you know, we’re sort of partly doing that now, but just to sit and stare at a screen and talk shit about like insert subjects that you don’t know about, yeah. Now is I feel like that’s the mindset you need to change, right? And like I was having a big whinge about influencer marketing like someone else, so which I won’t go back and do now, but um, yeah, again the idea that people are like, oh, I just want to be on like Instagram. And you’re like, yeah, but then all you do is spend all your time pandering to all of the things you were talking about earlier because your entire revenue stream depends on you supporting like The Meta agenda, which is to keep people on Instagram. Like that is not a job that I would want, that’s like almost like MLM style, you know. Yeah, exactly, yeah. Modern day equivalently, if you have the door knocker, you’re having a Tupperware party. Yeah, yeah. Um, if anyone would get that reference, yeah, maybe not. But yeah, when we were like probably late teens earlier, that’s when like the takeoff of like Big Brother and X Factor and everything came, right? And everyone just wanted to be famous for no reason. Yeah, yeah, like you can balance a pencil, I’m like, “I want to be famous on my nose, that’s it, that’s my thing,” yeah. Um, so yeah, 20 years ago, that’s what we wanted. Yeah, and what? To be famous for nothing. And now at least, you know, influencers are doing something. Well, that’s true, I suppose they’re selling more, you know, fueling the fast fashion industry or, you know, oh, God, yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s an interesting one, I think, but um, look, I mean, that’s what you’re saying about the uh, the future though. I think the, you know, concerns about future generations is interesting because it’s really hard to tell. I feel like now it’s really hard to tell where everything’s going to go because um, I was listening to another podcast like this and see like um, where they were talking about this over the course of about an hour that, you know, the internet as we grow up with it is so different now because it kind of got ruined by advertising, then it got more ruined by social media, now it’s been even more ruined by both of them just kind of being in a weird like death spiral together. Um, but then the, you know, the explosion of all of these models and like different ways of interacting with all of your devices could like, I mean, the internet might fall over and be completely different like in five years time, right? I mean, do you have an idea of what in an ideal world, what would you want it to look like? It’s already a fear. You know, if you had your way and you were like, you could just delete certain parts and dial up certain other parts, what would you do with it?
I’d fully shut down social media. Interesting. Um, just um, I mean, there’s some parts of it are good, you know, it gives people a voice, and but some people really don’t need a voice online, you know. Um, so I’d like to think, you know, it’s the older, just because you can say something doesn’t mean you you should, right? Yeah, yeah. But I think it’s, you know, going back to like the the AI and everything, if you think about like, um, you know, the medical world, it’s heavily um regulated. Who’s regulating what you know, what AI does and what, you know? I like to think they’ll be good, you know, some, you know, regulatory regulatory body um, brought in to, you know, make sure. And like a podcast I listened to, um, it was with uh, Kathy Burke, another British reference. I know she was interviewing a girl called Emily Atack and she was, she’s in The Inbetweeners, right, to naturally Inbetweeners and gone on to, you know, do other things. And she, yeah. And she’s done um, a TV show about the amount of abuse and trolling she gets. Um, and she tried like bringing one of the trolls on, you know, to a TV show to be like, “Why do you do this?” Like, yeah, right. Did they want to come out from there? Nope, they didn’t. So I think for stuff like that, like the the abuse, the bullying, you know, the the disinformation, the I’d like to think all that will be regulated in the coming years and that there’ll be consequences if you do, you know, yeah, um, bully. Um, because that’s the main thing that worries me about anything on the internet. Um, so yeah, regulation around around all that jazz. Um, obviously I do love the internet. I live on the other side of the world to my family, you know, I get to keep in touch with them and see what they’re doing and, you know. Um, I probably wouldn’t live here if I didn’t have that. But yeah, the main thing I want is some form of regulation.
Yeah, yeah. I think I mean, I kind of I partly agree with you because I think, well, I’m not a huge fan of regulation as a big blob, I think it’s essential to control like the wild, you know, west of basically capitalist internet, right? Because, you know, that’s what you were saying about your uh, conservationist, was it, cousin, brother? Um, you know, people who are doing like real jobs who do them out of the goodness of their heart because they like love doing something like, and not normally the people that are building digital technology are they? I mean, like people build it because they think that it could be like the next massive thing. And there was prior to the the current economic climate, people were throwing tons of money at it. So like, you know, while I’m a big fan of liberalism in general, I also think like unchecked, you know, it just it doesn’t really work, does it, right? Like I mean, people just aren’t inherently sort of that selfless, or not all of them are anyway. And, you know, I I read um, a while ago about, you know, when, you know, typewriters and computers first, you know, yeah, what do we do with all the quills? You know, before the Bill Gates and everything, not before all that, how, you know, computers were like a secretarial job. You know, so it was underpaid because, you know, they were computer women were doing it. Yeah, and then as soon as it became like a male thing, you know, hello. But um, but yeah, if I think about my three siblings, my sister works in special needs, uh, one brother’s conservation, and the other is a science teacher, right? All noble jobs, they get paid peanuts. Yeah, absolute peanuts. They’re all way more educated than I am, you know, they’re all, you know, like literally saving the world and the children and they get paid peanuts. Yeah, so I I just I’d love to see those professions, you know, paid a proper living wage so they can, you know, can have nice holidays and pay the mortgage. Yeah, and their energy bills. Yeah, hopefully have a place to live in like, you know, the next 100 years or whatever.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, look, I think um, again, this is an interesting topic because going back to what you’re saying about how people actually deploy this technology at the moment, um, and the, you know, the current sort of hyper masculine focus in certain areas of the internet like with the whole, you know, rivalry between all the, you know, big billionaires and all the other stupid stuff that’s going on. Like I think I’ve I’ve been quite surprised that um, they haven’t actually tried to sort of deploy these models in more useful areas. Like, you know, solving, if you look at like the UN, for example, or organizations organizations like NATO, surely they could be deploying interesting models to try and solve some of the thorny, like economic problems, like climate change? Yeah, well, yeah, exactly. It’s like you’ve got like there’s huge bodies of now global weather data, so how can you—I know they are modeling it all the time, right? But it just seems like those areas are much more useful and sort of big impact area to be pushing a lot of money. Inclined to the moon. Yeah, well, exactly, yeah. We’re all just building rocket ships to get off this planet rather than serving this planet. And that’s the scary thing, hey? Because like, you know, you know, the agenda behind the scenes is literally just like, you know, if you ever played a space game where like a mining tends to be quite a big, you know, loop in those games, you’re like, these are people who grew up playing that stuff and they’re like, oh, imagine all of the uh, reese, the untapped and currently claimed resources that literally floating around in space. Like it’s the only reason they’re keen to get up there is like mining 2.0, right? Like which is—have you seen this depressing WALL-E? Oh, yes, brilliant Disney film, one of the best in my top three. Yeah. Um, I just worried that that’s what it’s going to come to possibly. Yeah, everyone’s just going to be a fat blob on a spaceship floating around the universe unless we fix sometimes. Yeah, yeah. I I yeah, they should all knock their heads together and and fix this planet. Yeah, you know.
Well, that’s a funny thing, right? I mean, when you look, I know it’s very simplistic, you know, sort of way of looking at it, but you look at the amount of money they have to throw around—yeah, insane. And they’re like, oh, we just wish we could do something more. And you’re like, you know, like Elon Musk with his ill-fated Twitter buy, you’re like, maybe you shouldn’t have bought Twitter and you could have done something like that. Yeah, instead of buying a social network that, yeah, it wasn’t great, but it was one of the ones that was actually, I would say, better than some of the others in terms of its general transparency, if you ignore all the shouting on it. But you just like ruining it now. And I know it wasn’t making any money, but I mean, come on, Blue Tech, no, wait. Um, to be honest, like we’re on it for we’re only for work to promote Flow State, but I’ve been debating whether or not just to like delete the profile because it’s like, yeah, you know, it’s a mess now. As you were saying, you know, it’s a necessary evil at the moment so like the, yeah, it’s silly useful way to reach people potentially because I know how to play the game you were talking about. But, you know, is is that good? I don’t know. It’s kind of good for me at the moment because I can help build the company with it, would I rather do something else, probably.
One thing I do like about Facebook is it keeps resurfacing my memories so I can delete them from like 15 years. I didn’t get Facebook, it’s a bit personal, it was um, yeah, yeah, until I was 26 when I got Facebook. God, thank God I didn’t have Facebook when I was 13, you know, to 19. Yeah, it’s not a great age to be able to post your life online, is it, really? And yeah, I’m very, you know, I very very rarely put my daughter on social media. I don’t want to get into like 20 and being like what the chuff? Yeah, like why, you know, why is there a picture of my bare butt from 17 years ago? I have exactly the same conversation with one of my friends because we just put a blanket ban on putting photos of Theo anywhere online. And it was, you just want a piece like because my sister puts loads of stuff online all the time. Um, and I was like, I just don’t want him, I don’t want him to—yes, so same. I was like, I want to turn around when I’m 20 and be like, I’ve got like 20 years of like my entire life of photos random people have been looking at it. I know it’s just, yeah, your future employer. Yeah, exactly, oh look, here you wearing the bath, uh, you know, when you were three months old, that’s great, isn’t it, yeah? Oh, God, no, no, no. So, yeah. Um, so yeah, I like that that they keep resurfacing my memories and I can just go, oh, I said that when I was 26, delete, no, no.
I actually I went one step further a few years ago, just deleted like all my profiles apart from um, I missed one, I think I missed Reddit, but that’s anonymous anyway, it doesn’t really matter. Um, yeah, but yeah, like I deleted like Facebook stuff completely. I think I kept Instagram because that’s just random pictures of stuff, you know, that I see around. All my all done is only use Messenger. I’m like, you just get WhatsApp and they’re like, no, I just Messeng—so I’ve got to keep Facebook. I mean, like you’ve been saying about keeping in touch with the UK, I’m like, I’m only on there for that because people like my grandma’s on there, she loves it. Now, speaking of speaking of nans, she’s like constantly putting random comments on like photos from like, you know, 2014 and stuff. You know, endearing, but I’m like, can you just, just, yeah, you don’t need to resurface them, yeah.
So, yeah, so to wrap, Terry, I think I’ve covered quite a lot of grandmother, which I think was actually super interesting. But if you were going to, you know, give me your sort of um, your top concern and your top kind of where AI could be really awesome summary, what do you think is like the biggest issue for you and what do you think is like the biggest potential benefit that we could see in the next couple of years?
The biggest issue is probably my husband losing his job to me personally. Yeah, well, look, that’s that’s important. I know. And and then the the better side of it is, like I mentioned, I’m I hope that, you know, the likes of my brothers and sisters, being a sister, who do, you know, the good the good jobs, yeah? You know, the caring jobs, the educating our kids jobs, they get paid what they should get paid, you know, rather than us just sit behind a computer and, you know, twiddle a few buttons. Some more uh, very practical real world applications, like, yeah, not just more fueling the mad digital industry. No, if I’m thinking personally, yeah, it’s it’s the people I care about and how it’s going to affect them and how I would like it to affect them. Nice, yeah. I’ve got some pretty solid positive, yeah. I’d love to see the same thing, to be honest, yeah, yeah. So, let’s keep our fingers crossed, Terry. Well, look, thanks so much for coming on. Thank you, so super interesting and um, hopefully everyone who’s listening finds it interesting as well.
Congratulations, you’ve made it to the end of the show. Thanks very much for listening. I hope you enjoyed the conversation. A couple of interesting things that came out that discussion were: one, dealing with tech issues as a non-techy person is going to become a real problem for a lot of people, not one that we’ve managed to solve today. And two, how are we going to avoid getting into an even bigger echo chamber than we already have in certain environments online? If you have any thoughts on that, obviously we’d love to hear from you. Hopefully, you’re not too panicked. If you would like to hear a bit more about who we are and what we do, feel free to head over to our website theflowstate.io. Thank you.