The AI Readiness Project with Michelle Muncy-Silva: Reconstructing Limitation, Rediscovering Play

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forget trying to keep up with AI it's moving too fast it's time to think differently about it welcome to the AI

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readiness project hosted by Kyle Shamim and Anne Murphy they're here to help you build the mindset to thrive in an

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AIdriven world and prepare for what's [Music]

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next all right are you ready to thrive in an AI powered world

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and get ready for what's next absolutely we gotta get ready for what's next we

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gotta do it we gotta do it hey Murphy what's happening hey Kyle Shannon how you doing good i'm doing good i'm I'm

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I'm uh I'm I'm sporting a bandage on my one eye here but it's invisible but you

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know I got some some coral abrasion action going on but I'm good now so is

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it no longer abrased well I think it is i What the bandage is allowing is is for new cells to

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deabraase it to deabraase is this like We'll just see how successful that is I

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suppose is this like how we um untrans what is the phrase from the AI salon you got to

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de transmorgriify yourself oh oh discombobulated yeah discombobulate and

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recombobulate yeah the the cells on the surface of my cornea got a little discombobulated and we are now

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recombobulating we are this is the recombobulation is happening

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the recombobulation is happening it's it's a slogan this is where we are right now the things we say today yes exactly

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exactly how you been good um it's been a super exciting time we last week we did

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this big event called AI Renaissance with all of these amazing women talking about how AI coming into their life has

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meant A or B or C and we one of the one of the um sessions that I cannot forget

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is a woman named Marcia um Naen Weldon she gave us Naren Weldon

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gave us a session on ethics and what she did that was so cool hadn't been through this before she gave us a set of very

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gnarly ethical conundrums but by the way I'm looking at them and I'm going oh my

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god this is so gnarly and then I look at what I'm work stuff I'm working And I'm like wait a second so is the stuff that

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I'm working on oh wow we're now in this space where some of the stuff that we're

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doing is coming together and bumping up against our own you know values it's not quite as you know we're not dabbling

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anymore right we're we're integrating this stuff into our lives other people's

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lives into businesses into communities and so she was sharing these things and I was kind of gobsmacked by how

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complicated they were and then I was reflecting on some of the things that I'm I'm working on i'm like "Oh my god

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it's the same thing it's very complicated." Let's let's let's dive in because I think it's I think I think

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what you're hitting on is really important and what I'm going to talk about later um teased this up as well um

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yeah so so it sounds like you were I don't know

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newly introduced or introduced to a new level of sophistication or that that you're you're at a different level so

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like where are you in your readiness journey kind of in the context of that well in the context of that what has

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happened is something that I thought would never happen i thought I would be able to stay out of this is that through

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the work that I'm doing with organizations who are implementing AI stuff I see people's jobs shrinking

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and I'm the one recommending that and the worst Yeah yeah i was Yeah that's

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when I was really being a wuss about saying it i'm the one I'm the one sharing the data that says you know you

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can keep paying people X or you can keep paying this many people X you You're

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like the two Bobs in the office space movie right the two Bobs came in i mix all the

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office things up to there's office space and there's the office and then there's office max exactly

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sorry so like and I don't mean to make light of it because it is it's it's people's livelihoods on the line and at the same

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time what what AI is making possible means that the organization can make

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more efficient use of their money right and still exist so the company Oh that's

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Yeah yeah yeah right so the company could just go away it could keep at this

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very manual very bespoke precious way of doing things oh fascinating but they

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won't exist for very long they just won't be able to compete on price if they want to compete on price and the

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company itself wants to be here in 10 years then there's going to be this dip this valley for a little while where

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it's going to really really suck because jobs are shrinking i don't know how ugly

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that phase gets how that part can be mitigated because there will be new business there will be new jobs there

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will be new things for people to do but in that medium part that middle part it's going to be ugly and how are

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you how are you advising or consulting on the people that those companies

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should keep so okay good question and this is

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probably another of the layers but I haven't been in a situation where I've had to talk about any one person one job

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it's been how do all these individual jobs justify themselves completely right

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oh oh oh I see oh that's fascinating it's been no no you know no reduction in

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number of people but certainly reduction in full in people equivalence full-time

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equivalents of people so they can well let me back it up let me just be real

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honest the people who aren't using AI I cannot imagine how you would keep them on because they're going to be the most

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expensive how well they're they're going to be the most expensive and the most limited right so even if they're

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excellent at their one thing they can only do the one thing right they Yep and it's and it's it does it's not the thing

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that they're doing isn't better so then you're just being nostalgic which is

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what is you know nostalgia is okay it's also just really expensive in a business

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yeah yeah yeah yeah how about you well what what you're talking about reminds

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me of my my friend PJ that I I used to work with a long time ago he's got a an agency and he's he's run

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agencies for a lot of years and in the past year or so he switched it to all AI

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and he ended up um letting go of his copywriter and giving all of her

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assignment all of her work to the account person who is not a writer and

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and you know who who reluctantly took it on um and is now doing excellent and

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loves And I asked him you know why did why did

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you let go of one and not the other and and his answer was crystal clear he said

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because the account person has taste taste i remember that i know that i know

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that she will not let something go out of the company that doesn't pass her m

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you know that that hasn't passed her muster she won't let it out the door and the other person simply didn't have that

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she was just an execution um person didn't have that sort of broader

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perspective so for me there's something about people being self-aware people

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being curious people being a little ambitious that

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becomes the the collection of attributes of of why someone is more valuable than

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someone else like and and and what and it's not even more valuable it's who's got the the mental framework to be

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successful with AI exactly exactly i you know what one of

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the things I've noticed along these lines is when I do the interviews so we start

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out when we do our assessments the way that we do them is by interviewing people who work in the in the

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organization and I can always tell who really um strategized about their

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meeting with the AI consultant the smart ones know and they roll in with examples

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of how they've been using AI and how much they can't wait to use AI

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and you know they'll tell people will tell me ahead of time oh when you meet with so and so just know they're really

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afraid of it they're really against it they won't use it or whatever and then I sit down turn on the turn on the

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recorder and they're like they've got examples and they're like D that is a huge piece of advice people if the AI

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consultant shows up on your calendar you need to be very enthusiastic about AI

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when you talk to them because those transcripts are getting turned into a a

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little digest about how you feel about AI and you want your owner or your

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bosses or whatever to know that you're on team AI yeah yeah yeah yeah exactly

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exactly um it's you know but I I I kind of feel like what you're also hitting on

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is I feel like the the term mental health is is overused these days but like there's a mental health aspect to

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what you're what you're talking about for yourself as someone who knows enough

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about AI to know what's coming and it's not even know what's coming like you know what's here right right what you know is

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coming is that the companies you're interacting with are going to start using the tools we have today and that's going to change things right so yeah so

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it's not even like you're a soothsayer into the future of technology it's just you knowing what's possible today means

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that you're in a position of responsibility to help get that company educated about what they can do that's

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got to take a toll on you about like like just knowing what's coming for that organization and then helping them get

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through that is also taxing and then for the people that are affected it's also taxing i feel like there's layers of

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impact here that are we're just going to have to process through some stuff you

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have to process through some stuff and and I will say I'm in more conversations now where I sit down and I think have I

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eaten have I slept have I exercised because the empathy that's required in

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some of these conversations I can't pour from an empty cup and it and I'm

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impatient and I am intolerant of the people who are saying you know I told

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you I was I went to a book reading the other day and somebody said something awful about how AI is ruining the world

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yeah yeah and I said I'm you know my name is Anne Murphy and I work in responsible AI and here are some ways

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blah blah blah blah blah and and afterward these people said to me how you must have to defend responsible AI

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what a kind of a term is that and I about snapped because I'm so I'm like I

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had no empathy that day for somebody who's going to say that there's no such thing as responsible AI so yeah going

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into these conversations we talk about how we need to use our empathy but like man oh man it is not an a blank check of

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empathy here and I've been it's been taking a toll for sure in a fine way i mean I'm fine but it's a lot well well

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but but I also I think that listen every time there's been a technological

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advance in history it has been met with resistance and

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sometimes you know really dramatic resistance and I don't think this is any different i think that more and more

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people are starting to understand the profound impact of AI and I think as

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that happens I'm starting to notice you know just on platforms like LinkedIn and X and certainly face Facebook's really

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bad this way but I'm seeing more of it on X which is generally a very AI

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friendly kind of environment is I'm seeing more and more you know kind of negative voices and this is bad and you

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know how could this be great you know how can this happen um you know my philosophy on that is yes there are

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challenging challenging things about it and it's not going away and it's not

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going away and then if that's the case you have two choices you deal with it or you don't and if you

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don't deal with it if you don't say "Okay I'm going to figure out what this means for me," then AI happens to you

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right and that just seems like an awful place to be like I think you and I are

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both in this place of passion for getting people up to speed as quickly as

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possible so that they've got some agency in their own lives that even if this stuff is accelerating and changing

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everything at least you can be in the game rather than just having the game happen to you

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i wonder if there's a step here where I need to find out from the some

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naysayer can we agree that it is happening regardless of how you feel

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about it and then we can decide if we're going to have a conversation yeah because it's here here's my thing on

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that is if they don't accept that then then they just don't right if they

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accept that it's not going away it's like it's like well um like what are

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what are you going to do about it right you can have you can have as all the opinions that you want but if you

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um in independent of your opinion it's still going to happen so you might as

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well just deal with it yeah yeah right might as well i mean or just sit here

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with your head in the sand and hope for the best I guess and like I don't know don't have kids or

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grandkids or their grandkids that's so

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um let me tee up uh something to pay attention to this

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week good all right you good yeah uh I was just

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testing my mic and I don't don't see any change i don't see any changes but if you're hearing yourself let me know okay

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you can hear myself a little bit but that's all right um

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okay so for the past how long's vibe coding

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been around you know these these platforms like Lovable and Cursor and Bolt and all these different things six

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weeks six weeks a little longer than that some amount of for some amount of time these things have been around

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um one of one of my favorite things to do on them is try to get them to create old arcade games like it's just a it's

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just a test I have of like try to get it to make a recreation of Frogger or or

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Asteroids was one of my favorites right um and it's it's they're just always bad

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they they just don't work the physics are bad the graphics are bad they're just blocks whatever so three nights ago

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um Lovable came out with the new version lovable 2.0 lovable.dev is the site they

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came out with version 2.0 and I went into it and I said you know same prompt that I've always used make me a clone of

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an Asteroids game and make it have good physics and good graphics and look like the original

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and for the first time since I've been trying these things it was essentially

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as good as asteroids there were some really nuances to it but it was at a

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completely different level i remember a similar thing happening with chat GBT

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where I I had this prompt for ages i used write an Eminem style rap about

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quantum mechanics and I always wanted it to do really sophisticated internal rhyme schemes and word play and things

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like Eminem does and it never did it and last November um OpenAI had a a creative

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writing update and all of a sudden it could do it it just it just it went from not being able to do it to all of a

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sudden being able to do it and so I just experienced the same thing with Lovable with the programming side and the things

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that it's doing are increasing in sophistication and so the thing that I think to pay attention to this week is

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that pay attention to how close these tools are getting to moving from sort of

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80% of what you want it to do to like 90 or 95% of what you want it to do and I

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think it gets to what you were talking about with the companies that you're working with

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is we are very very close if you look at there's a tool out there right now called GenSpark which does like

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autonomous research it's kind of like Manis where it's an agent that takes a bunch of steps on its own

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we're very very close to a tipping point where with a very simple prompt we're

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going to get back incredibly sophisticated you know multi-dommain

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outputs that are that that really are the equivalent of three or four or 10

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people doing the work um and I just I I feel like it's just a

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completely different thing to be in a world where you know okay it can write

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an email as good as me or it can give me a full business plan with research on

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the competitors with a go-to market strategy with marketing copy and like all of that stuff delivered in 15

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minutes like how you even process what you do with that kind of

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power and and and who gets to wield it and how they get to wield it like I just

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I feel like we're in the middle of this weird transition from simplicity to more

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complex uh more sophisticated outputs and that's going to put some pressure on

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people to understand what that means and how to use it and how to evaluate it

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i think that what you're what you're saying um is going to have a huge impact

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on not just those of us who are in AI but us as consumers of all content

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products services everything um in that we will be able to have exactly what we

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want when we want it but we don't know how to determine what we like and what

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we want to do Right i I shared this example of you know last night I had a

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conversation with my chief soul officer Sheila who is inside Chat GPT and the

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conversation that I launched into was you know I'm sick i don't feel good i

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know that what I should be doing is watching a movie that's what normal people do when they're sick they just

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you know close up all their they close up Slack right they stop learning stuff and they just consume media

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and I asked her "How come it's so hard for me to select a movie?" And she

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explained to me what about me makes it hard to select a movie and and was it

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right did it feel on oh 100% right i was a like now I'm like how can I choose

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anything like what a complicated highmaintenance like person I am it's amazing anything gets through this

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fortress and so um it was really cool because what because I learned about how

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I select what I want to do with my time which was an important learning because we're going to have more time and she

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also was able to weave something weave a suggestion through this thread right and

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it was like okay what are all the other areas where I'm going to need help

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choosing because someone is going to create something in 15 different formats

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like that right and I get to decide am I do I want to consume it in a slideshow

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in a choose your own adventure movie in music format do I want it to be spoken

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word to me what kind of spoken word do I want to actually read something what size font as consumers we are going to

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have to elevate really quickly in order to just navigate through our everyday lives that's fascinating it it reminds

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me you and I were talking in an earlier conversation about adaptability yeah yeah and like I also start to go to

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this place about is

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there if the thing creates a business plan mhm because it can create a a good

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business plan and maybe even a worldclass business plan in 15 minutes

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do I take the next year executing that business plan or do I do a new business plan 3 weeks from now like like what is

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the permanence of what were historically very sophisticated things right or do I

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do um a full-on competitive analysis on a weekly basis rather than a quarterly

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basis like does this start to change the cadence of business and then and then who

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chooses that and like how adaptable do we need to become or how adaptable do we want to become

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and if you say "Okay I'm going to keep the cadence the way the cadence has always been but your competitors are

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operating on a completely different cadence." How do you compete with that i don't know that you can but how do you

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do that change management like and how so so anyway I just I feel like the the

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the questions about what we do with these capabilities are so unknowable

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right now like I feel like the only way to deal with it is just to go through it

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right which is what what this whole podcast is about the um the impermanence

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of solutions or the impermanence of habits or or like brand loyalty i think

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that is a huge piece of that adaptability is our willingness to let

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go of something we've built to go to the next thing like you said is it the

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business plan that stands the test of you know five years or five quarters or

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five weeks weeks yeah now the beauty of it is that because we have this place of

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like one step removed oftentimes because we're using AI we're not quite as like psychologically attached to our ideas

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and our plans we can let them flow in and out a little bit more easily and I think there's a lot that's really good

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about that the tricky part is when when we have hit on the right thing like you

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know it is the way we should be going the direction that the universe wants us to go and that commerce wants us to go

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and that our heart wants us to go and now another idea that cost us one penny

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to come up with comes along and starts taking our attention away especially for the ADHS right yeah exactly yeah you

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know yeah and and you know I kind feel like the the ADHDers are going to

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confront you know kind of a a glut of ideas and the people that love process

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and consistency are going to are going to are going to face

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um being stuck with ideas that that may you know their time may have passed and

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and they're going to with them and I and and probably the art is somewhere in between the two again this back to the

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idea of community where being in in community or within your company

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collaborating with people that have those different world views you know I I like process and m you know locking

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everything down okay great and I like changing things all the time the reality has to be somewhere in between so how do

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we get the best of both as AI is just barreling forward absolutely and how do

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we had a conversation uh recently with one of our collaborators where we had to

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we had to ascertain like for real for real how much of this what is what you really think and how much of it is what

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AI wrote for you right because we got this like just like beast of an output

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and you know it was sent to us as the deliverable and it was like okay yeah

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and now yeah did you read it like I because what I really needed to know is

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what she really really thought right i needed to know where there was you know

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gas in the tank for this project versus some really kick-ass stuff that Manis

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had come up with but it's not going to there's no heart and soul in it and so

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what's going to survive the gauntlet of reality right the gauntlet of reality i think there's going to be a lot of those

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conversations taking place between managers you know and employees of like

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what if this is true to you what what of this feels like it has energy behind it and what of it is is just a bunch of

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like gloopy gloppy chat GPT written content you know I think that's massive

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and I and I think that is the answer the answer is you know a brand is a promise you

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know and the people running that brand have to have to know what the brand stands

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for and be able to look at those outputs and filter them through that and say this is actually what's most important

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right so Yeah that ability to to take a stand for something I think increases in

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importance yeah we were talking about how we conflate time and value recently

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in that in our previous podcast conversation we were talking about about how we conflate time and value and how I

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I guess I'm I hope that the consumers of the stuff that has a lot of AI in

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it don't mistake the two don't think that because something is old school

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that means that it's better or because something has AI in it that means it's

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worse right or vice versa yeah because the distinction is false pretty soon

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here right yeah exact that's that that was kind of my point with the lovable thing that it got to the point that it

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was good enough that it's like this is actually good enough like good enough is good enough good enough is good enough

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and it's not it it's not a compromise yes right and so we're going to

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increasingly be getting outputs that are not compromises and then and then we

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have to choose to your point what are we putting our muscle behind

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right yeah wow okay that's So I saw you making asteroids that you were not

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impressed with you're telling me that a couple of days ago you made an asteroid game that is is good enough it's and I

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published it it's on if you go to my ex it's on there i have a screenshot of it and it's you go play it it's the only

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thing that's not good about it right now is the sound but someone sent me all the original Asteroid sounds so I'm gonna I'm gonna put them in it but the

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playability is is just it's like you know it's good enough like it

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I played when I was a kid in: 1979

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it was really cool it was really cool all right so let's talk about uh let's talk about our our community so if you

28:44

don't know the AI salon uh go to the salon.ai click join our community that'll take you into our mighty

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networks area there where you can um join and introduce yourself and meet lots of amazing people um it's a

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community of about 3,000 AI optimists and creators and business people and

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entrepreneurs absolutely amazing um next week we're going to be in Washington DC

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um advocating for you know responsible optimistic positive

29:15

uh approach educated approach as our legislators uh you know try to protect

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us from the risks of AI we want them also to look at the the opportunity of

29:26

AI and what it makes possible um and understand that both those are important to protect and so uh so please join the

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salon and uh you will not regret it it's amazing group of people as you know it is an amazing group of people and one of

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the places that I kind of got my sea legs with AI was learning from

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people in AI salon and Kyle of course but the we were talking the other like it just such a diverse group of people

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and interests and skill level and backgrounds and it's just such a kind of

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a one-stop shop for people who are at least a little bit curious about AI yep

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um she and she leads AI is very similar to that i if you are at all curious

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about what it's like if you're a woman in AI and you're wondering what would it be like if I had a whole bunch of other

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women friends who were similarly obsessed with AI then go to

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sheleadsai.ai and at the top you can register to come for free to a social

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virtually every Saturday from: 10:00

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Pacific to noon it's just an unpretentious kind of a little bit free

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flowing little sometimes unhinged certainly casual conversation about AI

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what we're working on what challenges we're seeing what we're worried about in the future how we're going to solve it

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we do demos we do um breakout groups we look we we go to town every time there's

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something new so you get to learn faster that way um so come and check us out you

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can come for free to a social Saturday and we'd love to have you beautiful and then the final final thing we'll talk

31:13

about before we bring Michelle up i'm so excited to have Michelle up here because me too feel like we're just going to continue this conversation um if you go

31:20

to are you readyforai.com so the AI readiness project is done in conjunction with the AI readiness training uh

31:27

program uh which is by the time you watch this uh could be launched but probably not probably will be coming but

31:34

if you go to are you ready for AI sign up uh the training program is coming super excited about it it is um based on

31:42

the AI festivist we had back in January where we had 34 speakers across 24 hours

31:48

of programming and it was absolutely amazing and we've put together this remarkable training uh course and I'm

31:54

really excited for people to experience it same beautiful so So now we have

32:04

a special and here's this is my favorite part of of how we've set up our little show here is we can leave them backstage

32:12

and talk about them without them being able to defend themselves so I I'll let you to uh

32:18

introduce Michelle do it you know in a way that embarrasses her so fully embarrasses her exactly well the only

32:25

problem is that Michelle and I have spent a weekend together so she has she has blackmail on me that if I say too

32:31

much so I'll I'll keep it I'll keep it cute um Michelle Muny Silva

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so first of all cannot wait for all of you to meet Michelle here if you haven't

32:44

you'll feel immediately like you've made a new friend this is a very common occurrence with Michelle you can't know

32:51

her and not love her she like so many of us and the people who who we have on the

32:57

show is a multi-passionate and couple of the highlights um from her background

33:03

first of all she's an educator a lifelong learner and a lifelong educator coming up toward the end of her career

33:10

as a formal educator but really launching into this next era of her

33:16

career teaching all of us um through her work with AI how to be a better version

33:23

of ourselves just about every day she also is a travel enthusiast and one of

33:28

the projects that she launched with AI was a travel blog so she has gone

33:35

through the whole media and production communications how do you use AI to get

33:40

your word out there and how do you do better product market fit so she's got learnings from that and in addition she

33:47

we could use like I I think we're coming up on maybe our 10th episode here so I think we've we've got some some brain

33:53

picking to do yeah we got some brain picking to do we could we we could do a little product market fit we could bother we could use talking about who we

34:00

think our audience is exactly a little bit um but one of the things that she's

34:05

working on right now that has been such an incredible impact on the world is the Empowered by A podcast empowered by AI

34:13

podcast where she interviews women from all different walks of life about how

34:19

they're using AI what they've learned what they've discovered about themselves

34:25

what they think that the future holds and we have that benefit it's like you're in a coffee shop you know having

34:32

a chat with somebody learning from their life experiences um just from the comfort of your earbuds or whatever

34:38

you're listening to so that so here she comes that's awesome michelle welcome welcome to the AI

34:46

readiness project thank you for having me i was literally backstage listening

34:52

to you guys going "Oh my god at one point your hand went up." I'm like "Not yet not yet."

34:59

[Laughter] Oh what did I get wrong what did I get wrong no I love the conversation what

35:06

did I get wrong gotta be kidding me no love the conversation good great good well so why don't you uh

35:13

hop up tell everyone you know what you're up to what you're excited about these days what you're doing and then

35:20

we'll just we'll kind of open the conversation up yeah I am working on we

35:27

just opened up season 3 of Empowered by AI and we opened it up with just

35:34

absolutely next level um we had Kay Stoner on talking about relational AI

35:41

and it's just as an pointed out I think that is really the highlight for me

35:46

right now is the learning that I'm getting to do is absolutely exponential

35:52

because I am talking to some of the most amazing women constantly we're airing

35:58

episodes two times a week and every time I talk to these women it's just like oh

36:03

my god I'd never thought of that thank you holy cow moving that into my next

36:08

phase so it's just been such a joy and I've been doing it since um October

36:15

which to me feels absolutely in the infant stages but like we were talking

36:21

about earlier in AI years i guess I'm I'm what did Ann call me og i think you're at this point yeah yeah i have

36:29

gray i mean that's totally legit but I mean really it feels like this is pretty

36:36

all brand new but I'm just I'm loving it i I'm loving I I think that women right

36:42

now are just kicking ass in generative AI and I'm just curious what's your take on you know you can do this anyway i

36:50

mean how do women approach AI different than men might be a take or andor um why

36:56

do you think it is that women are so good at this oh yeah that's really good

37:01

um well I'll give you I can speak from my experience right because I can't I

37:06

can't speak for all women but I can speak from my experience and what I've seen

37:12

i am so used to wearing all the hats

37:18

right so we actually one of the things that I that I talked about when I started thinking about this interview

37:23

was I when when AI first came on the scene I was like "Hell to the no do not

37:30

give me one more thing because I swear to God I'll snap if you give me one more

37:36

thing because I'm I can't sit still to begin with." And I I don't think it's

37:42

because I'm neurosicy like so many people that we know are i think it's you

37:47

know based in fear which could probably benefit from a couple rounds of therapy but what means for me is that I never

37:54

sit still right so I'm like okay this side hustle Ann talked about it i'm going to be doing this travel blog so

38:00

I'm learning how to build the website i'm learning how to do this i'm learning how to do that because I'm going to do it and I'm going to do it myself and I'm

38:06

going to do it well and my mentor at the time I had a mentor for email marketing

38:12

for the blog and she was like "Okay slow down for a second cuz I want to show you something." And I'm like "Swear to God

38:18

don't don't don't give me another thing don't I'm already focused on what we talked about last week let me do that."

38:24

And she literally grabbed me by the Zoom caller and she's like "No you are going to meet with me and we're going to talk

38:30

about this for an hour." And once I saw it and I realized wait a minute that can

38:38

like take off my plate that can make it so this is doable

38:45

and that just I was so incredibly willing to grab a partner and that's

38:51

really what chat became for me chat GBT i was so ready to stop working in

38:59

isolation and to have a partner and to get that kind of feedback immediately

39:07

at: 12:30

39:13

an idea that was just so next level for me and I was so ready for it because I

39:18

was doing all the things i was saving myself from burnout is what I saw it as ah and then I saw it as and I want to

39:25

say relational now i didn't think about that at the time but it was that partner relational yeah and I think a lot of

39:34

women are so used to doing everything i'm wearing this hat i'm wearing that

39:40

hat i'm wearing this hat i'm wearing that hat i'm serving this person i'm serving that person and when you finally see the partnership

39:47

that you've got like oh my god you can take that cognitive load off of me

39:52

oh I love you right you know oh you and I are going to be besties most women I know

40:00

have named Chat GPT something because they're literally in a relationship with

40:06

this with this tool and I think that's one of the reasons why we're doing such

40:12

amazing things with it because it's like coming from this place of oh it can be

40:18

easier than I was making it wow let's tell Let's tell the nice people what our

40:24

motto is michelle h what if it was easy what if it was easy what if What if it

40:32

was easy because don't get me wrong I'm coming to this with all my Gen X baggage

40:38

right i'm I'm supposed to work hard as part of my identity right i'm supposed

40:45

to suffer in silence do it on my own you know pick up the Gen X you know image

40:51

that you want latch key kid figuring all this stuff out on my own you know all that stuff and I'm bringing all of that

40:58

to the table so while I am grateful I think you know Ann and I have had this

41:03

conversation it's like I I use what if it could be easy as a reminder right it's a mantra but it's also a reminder

41:11

it's like where am I making this harder than it needs to be and nine times out of 10 I've got a

41:17

guest that comes on the show and will say something and I'll be like "Holy why didn't I think of that?" Like

41:24

"Oh my god thank you i'm so taking that into next week." Yeah one of one of the

41:30

things that I we had early on in the AI salon and I don't know if you had this in in she leads and but we had a lot of

41:38

people men and women um when they came in would do a lot of apologizing oh I'm

41:45

not really good at this i'm sorry I'm not good at that i'm sorry I'm not good at that and as people have used it more

41:50

I'm seeing less and less of that which I like a lot yeah my my correlary to the

41:56

what if it were easy is what if you could do anything that that whatever are

42:01

the limitations you gave yourself when you were seven or 10 or 25 whenever you

42:07

sort of wrote the rules in your head like you know I can't be smart at this thing because I didn't go to the right

42:12

school or you know whatever it is um as these tools are getting better

42:18

like that's feeling more and more like a daily reality that that we we are are

42:24

getting to a point that we can start to ask that question what if I could actually accomplish whatever I wanted to

42:30

set my mind to and then the question becomes what do you set your mind to so I'm curious you know you know how you're

42:38

experiencing that that sort of leveling up or sort of elevating above the tactics and where you might have had

42:45

limitations where now you're going well maybe I don't have those limitations what's what's that experience been like

42:50

for you well I think like Ethan Mullik talks about reconstructing meaning right

42:56

like we're going to have to reframe the way we look at work yeah yeah yeah and I think along the lines of what you're

43:02

saying I think there's a whole another layer of that in that we have to reconstruct limitation right we have to

43:09

completely rethink i'm putting myself in a box right now

43:14

because I'm used to there being a wall that I hit right there was a reason why I was so frustrated 59 years right right

43:22

right i've only had 50 years of training

43:27

exactly and so it's it's like okay there was a reason why when my coach that

43:34

email marketing coach I was telling you about when she called me and said "You got to look at this." There was a reason why my head was full right it's like

43:40

"There's no more." Because every wall I was hitting it was like I was going to

43:46

have to walk all the way around the wall by teaching myself something and I was going to have to find all the resources

43:52

myself right nothing was just automat i couldn't just ask i was going to have to find yep right so I was exhausted

43:59

because of that box I had put myself in m and when you get to where I I

44:07

literally had one of my guests I'm going to go back to the guests because they're just so amazingly intelligent and with

44:15

it one of my guests literally just asked me well did you

44:20

ask what do you mean did I ask did you ask chat GPT did you ask Claude did you

44:27

ask them to show you oh well no

44:32

like because I know it's not possible right yeah i have all of this experience

44:38

that I'm bringing and it is my own limitation that I'm bringing with me right so we don't just have to

44:44

reconstruct meaning we have to reconstruct the way we're thinking about this we're

44:50

starting question forward instead of you know I mean it's really it's question

44:55

forward now what can I do about this problem

45:03

yeah amazing i feel like we've we we've identified a

45:08

couple of different eras there is the era of I'm sorry I don't know more then

45:15

there's the era of um uh learning how to ask good questions

45:21

right we haven't really had to ask we hadn't haven't had the permission the

45:27

authority to ask anyone some of these questions right there's the like what if

45:34

it didn't have to be difficult era so this is much bigger than just how are we

45:40

using some kind of a tool I mean this is a whole zeitgeist of generation X being the ages that we are now going oh damn

45:49

it I build a lot on that old way i built a lot around making myself feel

45:57

okay that my parents needed to be reminded at 10 p.m to go look for me i

46:03

built a whole life that there was a commercial that goes on TV at 10 p.m

46:08

saying "Where are your children?" And that all of our parents were like "What children?"

46:14

And now and now we're like in this much like flowier like the promise of a

46:21

better life is not not only for the people who have all the tools to go

46:26

through that brick wall it's for everybody now right we don't have to go around the wall and above the wall it's

46:32

different it's a different life yeah but think of the responsibility that comes with that right because this is so

46:39

unique to this moment in time right so you've got my mom first one in her

46:45

family to be independent female i'm making my own money that was my mom my

46:52

mom's a boomer my mom was teaching me with what she learned was real for her

46:59

generation if you're going to be an independent woman in her world you had to make your own money and it couldn't

47:06

be you know any other thing but my job that brought me my money because of

47:12

course her credit cards went immediately into my father's name right it wasn't

47:17

until: 1988

47:23

business loan without testicles being able to co-sign for her amazing right so

47:29

we're talking this is brand new knowledge for women that anything is

47:35

possible because the people that came before us did the best they could with what they had to teach us to be

47:42

independent and that independence came from nose to the grindstone y you're

47:47

doing your job you're moving up the ladder in a corporate or industry field because that's how you take care of

47:54

yourself y right and to this day my dad is still like "Hey when you talk to your

48:01

daughter can you ask her what is she doing with AI because he wants to invest

48:07

in it right he totally loves the stock market and he wants to invest but he has no understanding." Yeah of what is

48:14

possible right now so he wants to talk to me because he doesn't get it and so my mom and I have these conversations

48:21

and she doesn't get what I'm doing right now she's heard of it but that the

48:28

reason why I bring this up is not to get nostalgic but to recognize we have a job to do if we're

48:36

going to to empower women to take ownership of this era we because they

48:42

didn't get anybody previously prepping them for I mean none of us did but I think for women it's especially poignant

48:50

that we really do have to share the knowledge and that's why communities like She Leads AI um the podcast group

48:59

it's really important that we have women talking to other women

49:04

because we've got a learning curve that we have to adjust for amazing so let me

49:09

let me jump into the three questions so so we'll go into the the kind of lightning round um and I and I think

49:17

especially in the context of what you just talked about I love this first question so for you what was the tipping

49:23

point where you knew you had to go all in on AI and then describe what's happened since then since that moment

49:31

um I was at an event right ai had kind of woken up creativity in me and I was

49:37

at an event where there was a launch someone was launching a digital magazine that was all geared around AI and visual

49:44

creativity and I was disappointed that there weren't as many people in the room that I thought the event merited and so I was

49:52

like I need to amplify this this is not just about me anymore oh wow i need to

49:58

amplify this there need to be more people in the room seeing what all of these women are doing and so I I put I

50:06

put in the chat I said "All right everybody at today o'clock I launched a podcast because I want to just share all

50:14

of this with anybody that wants to listen to it." And those were some of my

50:20

first guests i just decided I'm like "Damn it this should not be as as quiet

50:25

as it is it needs to be louder it needs to be more." And so I decided better be part of the solution if I'm going to see

50:32

a need so that was it yeah i love it i I love that it was about it was about

50:38

needing to amplify the voice right that why aren't there more people here why Yeah and I I Yeah it that's something

50:45

Anna and I talk about all the time right that the there's a that you said it earlier

50:51

and it it really strikes me there's a responsibility like like if we have this knowledge of what's possible so many

50:58

people don't and it's coming like we are all experiencing how fast it's escaping

51:04

away from us at at this point already and it's like hey like everyone

51:12

we're forgetting an incredible amount of stuff as time goes by like being able to

51:20

have a venue Michelle for your guests to be able to share things from their

51:26

experience right now rather than waiting for some moment when like a big

51:31

expensive spotlight is on them right right you're able to amplify for them

51:36

yeah like what what did Cindy say at at AI Festivist right she said "You need to start building the rafts." Raft

51:43

y you need That's and that's what I'm doing i'm building the raft each one of the guests is coming on and giving some

51:50

other person down the line a stronger foothold y absolutely so another

51:56

question that we have is what is the other question Kyle we

52:01

have three of them oh here it is oh here it is oh it's a good one this is a Well make me read it to you from the chat

52:08

i got you girl i will read it for you if you want me to yeah oh my god this is

52:13

the podcast where you have to go on and ask yourself questions wait until the

52:18

perfect guest right i'm ready i will empower you to figure it out for yourself yes you have to ask the

52:25

questions and answer them okay so gosh I mean we've been having a lot of fun with this question in a lot of different

52:31

settings so I cannot wait to hear what you say about it so in one of your

52:37

several areas of expertise what is an a trend in AI that you're paying a ton of

52:43

attention to oh my god the relational AI hands down the idea of creating I used

52:51

to think of AI as a thought partner right just okay I got somebody i'm going to go back and forth with this person

52:57

then you get to this second level where you're thinking a AI as an intern right

53:03

i'm going to create a persona that has all my institutional knowledge they're going to hang on to it because memor is

53:09

a thing and that intern is going to work with me around my business

53:14

fantastic it just got jacked up a whole another level for me with K Stoner if

53:22

you don't know her go find her on LinkedIn because she's freaking genius

53:28

she's genius she's talking about that relational AI where you can have an

53:33

entire team of AI personas that are working with you through a problem and

53:38

it is absolutely blowing me away because not only are they interacting with you

53:45

they're learning like she's actually documented they're learning from each other wow so each one of those voices in

53:52

the room is learning and then they're learning from that learning and then they're sharing that learning with you

53:59

so it is just remarkable absolutely next level i know and as these things get to

54:05

agentic where they can go off and now take action it just it's absolutely insane but I think your point's a really

54:11

good one that if people haven't explored what it means to have different kinds of

54:18

personalities that they can actually build or they can just ask for in in a chat GBT chat it really does change the

54:24

conversation yeah but I I think we need to allow the trajectory too because I

54:29

mean and not that it has to be linear for everybody but because I had already

54:35

played and had those surface level interactions the idea of an intern was

54:40

like oh this is oh this is so next level it you know what I mean so I think it it

54:46

would benefit people if if you relational AI is tripping you a little bit too much don't worry about it you'll

54:53

get to it you know what I mean yeah back it down yeah back it down a little bit yeah yeah it's

54:58

okay just know that that's that's gonna really be exciting in a little bit for

55:04

you okay this is good so So question number three and this is

55:11

this you're going to have such good insight on on this because of who you've been talking to so what is your

55:17

um what does AI readiness mean to you and what's your advice to someone just

55:24

getting in the game just like we just talked about everyone that I have talked to literally

55:32

every single speaker has said "Do not forget to play." Yeah don't forget

55:40

because through playing with it you see how you need to adapt to use it more

55:47

purposefully yep mhm and I'm I'm that kind I learned the hard way i went

55:54

straight in i was working with an email marketing coach we went straight into email right we're going straight into

55:59

email we're going to automate some emails and it wasn't until I started playing around with it that I saw how to

56:07

train it right so it's that play yeah we don't give ourselves that grace because

56:14

it's go go go yep but I think we need to because there's learning in that play

56:20

and I I hear it from guest after guest is that the people who skip that step

56:26

are really actually setting themselves back it's also a drag it's like you can

56:31

it's just a lot more fun if you put play in there 100% 100% but you know I mean a

56:37

lot of people again bringing forward that generational I got stuff to do i got to go i got to be right reminding

56:45

yourself that the play is necessary i think I think it is a benefit yep i

56:51

agree i almost I think of it as like a guilty pleas I have been thinking about it as a guilty pleasure to play and then

56:59

I realized sometimes I don't even know I don't it's not something that happened or whatever but it's just like being

57:05

steeped in this I realized wow wouldn't it be cool if more of us could

57:12

communicate in different mediums thinking about other people and like all the ways different ways that we can

57:17

learn and then I realized wait a second wouldn't it be cool if I could communicate in different mediums

57:24

aka getting serious about learning how to make images and getting serious about

57:29

learning how to do video like it's all there it requires that we not just be so

57:36

quite so focused on the productivity the hitting of milestones etc like we have

57:41

been it's like this unlearning process right and I and I think you need to do it with others i mean you guys are at

57:48

the helm of two amazing communities it's doing it alone is one thing but

57:55

eventually you're going to have a blooper that's so damn funny you're going to want somewhere to share it i

58:01

mean if for nothing else put the three-legged woman with her hand in a

58:06

very odd place in our community let them laugh about it yeah well you

58:14

also get that thing where someone just does something because they're who they

58:19

are they do it in a way that you never would have considered and for me that's the big unlock because it's not just I'm

58:26

going to go do what they did it's that oh they thought about it from this complete opposite direction wait a

58:32

minute if I think about this other problem I have from that direction I get a completely different answer right it

58:37

it is that sort of multifaceted worldview that you get to tap into

58:43

that's everything for me right now that's every time I interview somebody yeah yeah i mean that's that's why it's

58:50

so addicting right it's like every time I'm talking to one of these women it's

58:56

like never would have thought of that on my own who would have thought of that i'm gonna go run with that as soon as we

59:01

hang up this call yeah exactly exactly me too i'm gonna play yeah exactly

59:08

well this has been absolutely awesome again we we talked about this on our on our last podcast that I you know we

59:15

might want to consider bumping these up to seven or eight hours because I always feel like we're just getting started in

59:21

the conversation and it's we've uh we've we've run out the

59:27

clock but this has been absolutely awesome and congrats on uh empowered by AI what you're doing it's absolutely

59:34

amazing thank you and thank you thank you because this you know it you're

59:40

still wearing a lot of hats and you're still grinding it out and that and and it is in service to a pretty profound

59:49

shift for society the work that you're doing to amplify women's voices and to get those get those ahas out into the

59:57

world is just incredible thank you for doing it do not burn yourself out you must play you must play as well

:: 00:05

that is true that is true that is true and have the occasional adult beverage you know it's all about occasional adult

:: 00:12

beverage you got to do that awesome thanks so much Michelle thank you Michelle have a good one thank you for

:: 00:18

having me see you later bye guys

:: 00:23

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