Navigating The AI Transition: Expert Guide To Upskilling

This interview has been transcribed using AI technology. While efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, the transcription may contain errors.

Hey everybody, welcome back to the Futurist Society, where as always, we're talking in the present, but talking about the future. Very special guest today, I have Ben Tasker, a thought leader in the space of AI, and also in the education space. Ben, tell us a little bit about yourself and what you're doing right now.

Well, first off, thank you for having me on the show, Dr. Awesome. I'm Ben Tasker. I'm an AI expert and I've worn many hats.

I've been an AI engineer, a data scientist, and now I lead a university as the Dean of AI. This university is one of the largest universities in the United States. Think about 200,000 students asynchronously all online.

My current focus is to help people upskill and reskill with AI, designing programs that show how AI can amplify your human potential and support personal pivots in a time of rapid change. I know a lot of folks listening might be feeling scared or uncertain, and I understand that. I think this moment is what I consider the between times.

We're not fully out of the old way of doing things, but we're not fully into the new way of doing things either. It's a transitional space, and that can feel unsettling and maybe make people even anxious. I know there's a lot of news right now around some of those pivots.

For example, Intel just laid off 22,000 people, 20% of its workforce. Microsoft just this week laid off 7,000 people, all around AI. I want folks to know that if you've been laid off in the AI economy, you're not alone and you're also not done. Focusing on AI upskilling and reskilling can help you amplify your human ability.

When you're talking about layoffs, are these in response to market forces? Are these people being laid off because they're in the AI field and there was an overzealous interest in it so that there was a rapid hiring and now we realize people are needed for it? Or are these people being replaced because Microsoft sees that most of those sales are going to be replaced by AI?

I think it's a common combination of both. In the example of Microsoft, during the pandemic, they hired more engineers to focus around AI. They probably had some AI improvements.

They then realized that 30% of their code could be coded by AI. Then just this week, they let go 7,000 people. I'm not sure where all those people sit or if they were brought into the company during that pandemic period to build some of these applications.

It was probably project-based, but now they're seeing the efficiency gains. This is just my opinion, but they're probably thinking about AI from a point solution instead of a system solution. They're seeing efficiency gains just in programming or computer science or whatever the case may be, but they're not thinking about all the applications.

They are making a quicker decision so they can reinvest that money back into AI. But to me, that's still a gamble because again, we're in the between times and we're not really sure if we're going to need those individuals or the full capability of the AI.

Yeah. I think that everybody's worried about it. Everybody's worried that, is AI going to replace my job?

I have a very tech optimism. I feel like this is something that's going to be a tool that we use to gain back more time. The task that would take me two hours now, I can figure it out in one hour.

What is your thoughts about the overarching story of AI? Do you think that this is going to be a situation where those same workers are able to achieve more and therefore have more time with their families? Or do you think it's going to be that these people have to reinvent themselves that maybe from going from a tech-based career platform, they go into something different that they had always been thinking about, but just never had the opportunity to get into?

I do think the world is changing with AI. We're in that transition period. I think their individuals might be displaced from a job for a little bit. But to your point, at the end of that transition, and we're in it, I'm not sure how long that may take. I do think AI will make us more human again. I think it's very critical.

Instead of maybe spending 40 to 60 or however many hours in front of a PC doing work, or if you work in the office, you might be able to do hobbies, spend more time with your family. An AI agent might be able to summarize some business reports for you, and you just have to then review them for accuracy. But right now, jobs, we're already seeing this.

STEM jobs, specifically, that used to be very heavy. It seems like AI is impacting those jobs at a very rapid speed in displacing people. The data is still rather fresh. We're not sure. Typically, when this happens with displacement, a new job is eventually created for a job that's displaced. But because this is happening so quickly, we're not really seeing that in the data yet.

 So that's why I really emphasize on individuals focusing on AI upskilling and reskilling. That way, whatever your situation is, if you have to change careers, if you have to get better at your job, AI can help amplify your abilities. It can make you more productive.

I think AI is really impacting folks that maybe don't have that AI experience. But if you can showcase your value at your company by learning these skills in a relatively quick time, I think you're ready for whatever the scenario may be.

So let's talk a little bit about upskilling and reskilling, because it's very much a buzzword that I'm seeing on LinkedIn and all sorts of different stuff. But I feel like people don't know where to get into this stuff. Other than ChatGPT using that experimentally, I feel like there's so many different AI tools that are out there.

And you have insight into not only what the tools are available, but also the trends and what's most effective. So tell us a little bit about if you had a friend that was in Microsoft and was laid off, how would you tell them to resell? Or how would you tell somebody that was working in Microsoft to upskill themselves?

Sure. In either scenario, I think it comes down to skills. So some people already have some really good skills right now. Maybe they lack in other skills. The World Economic Forum defines skills in two swimlanes. One swimlane are the AI technical skills. Those skills could be, for example, prompt engineering, maybe programming, the more advanced skills. Then there's human skills. And they distinctly call those human skills because humans are really good at them.

 And even with the AI amplifications, humans will probably still be good at them. So communication, leadership, empathy, finding your purpose. Those human skills, even though they might not be a focus or maybe they weren't a focus when you went to higher education, the reason why they're going to be a focus is because those skills will help you lead teams. Maybe there's AI in those teams now. So by understanding it, you'll be able to utilize it more. But it will also help you pivot because humans still like to interact with humans.

And companies still, eventually, no matter how this shakes out, companies will still have humans in them. And most folks are finding that to find a new job, you actually have to have a connection. 70% of folks needed a connection to get into the company that they're either going into or want to get into.

So the old way of doing things of applying online, highlighting skills in your resume, doing interviews, yes, that's still 30% effective, but it's becoming less effective, especially with the AI.

So what are you using in your own life? For me, I feel like I've been using it on a very rudimentary level. I use it to plan my family's vacation. I want to have a kid friendly hotel that has a sauna that's on a beach somewhere. And AI lets me figure that out in a few seconds, as opposed to me scouring the internet. I haven't really delved into anything very specific to my field.

I feel like most of the stuff that I use it for, it's just adding a mark, like write me an email that is in the tone of the that is saying, don't show up late anymore, or something like that. Rather than me having a very crude email that doesn't really get my message across, the JET GPT is able to give me something that is very professional looking. But what about yourself?

I know that you have access to probably the full gamut of AI tools that are available. What are you using to be more productive in your own life?

Well, I think what you just described is a great way for individuals that aren't using any AI tool to jump in with it. I believe that just picking any tool, it doesn't matter, any LLM, any of the big three, even if it's not the big three, just go in, you can plan a vacation, you can plan a diet, you can have it make you a meal, or a meal plan. That way you can try it out for yourself.

It doesn't all have to be around work, and learning can be fun. For myself, I started off more technical, so I was using AI to help me code in Python just to see if it was accurate. I then use it, so I create courses and programs.

I then used it to help look at our curriculum to see gaps in it. That way, when we create new courses, what we should focus on, what skills we should focus on. I also use it for skills mapping, so taking those skills from the world economic form and making sure that we're covering all of them throughout our programs.

Again, with so many courses, with so many students, that might seem simple, but we have a large volume and a large scale, so by going into the weeds a little bit, it's a little bit more accurate. One way I'm really starting to use AI is focusing more on those human skills. It's really about finding purpose.

I know that might sound a little strange to folks. Maybe you haven't used AI. Why would you want it to help you find your purpose?

By AI helping you find your purpose, you can actually upskill and reskill and create that learning plan. Finding purpose could be, for example, if you use it enough, based upon what you know about me or based upon my resume, please help me discover my purpose or areas in which I could upskill and reskill. Just going through that prompt, you'll find information that maybe you didn't understand before.

For example, for myself, it encouraged me to start doing podcasts more, start interacting with folks a little bit more to work on that communication skill. That communication skill might change. Podcasts may change, but the way we communicate may change, but the foundational skill itself, that's critically important.

That's interesting. You uploaded your resume into ChatGPT. Just break that down step by step for me. That was just so mind-blowing that I could get feedback from this thing that may advance my career. I feel like it's so few times that we get feedback in our career that's really helpful. So much of it is how much you can help the organization or how much that you can fix a problem that exists in a company that you work for. But to get something that's non-biased, that sounds really interesting.

I'm more comfortable with AI, so I uploaded my resume, but you can take your name off of it. You can also use a LinkedIn link and you can digest your skills that way. But once that's in there, so now you're in the paid version. It's $20. It was worth the $20 because you're getting feedback that you're probably not going to get from other individuals. It's a little bit more critical, but the AI will analyze your skills based upon the prompts.

So if you're trying to discover your purpose, one of the first prompts might be based upon what you know about me now, based upon my resume, place yourself into a talent acquisition or into a career journey coach, and ask me five questions to help identify my purpose. And some of those questions might be tough. I got asked a question, what are some things that really you're passionate about and what things really drain you?

And I really had to think about that. I had to leave and come back, but it saves it. So you don't have to answer these questions rapid fire. You'll get through all five of the questions. The questions will be different for everybody, but then it listed the skills that I should focus on. And then it listed opportunities for me to align with those skills for easier acquisition.

So for example, it recommended looking in internal projects at my current company to help lead those projects, especially around AI that way. I'm more in the driver's seat around then waiting for AI to change the organization. It recommended me to make more human connections because in the future, you're probably going to need more human connections to land a future role.

It also helped me realize that AI is really great. I know it can do technical things. I know people can plan vacations with it, but it's becoming more human. It did help me find a little bit of purpose and I can keep going back to that. The next level to that, so now you have a little bit of your purpose, you can then create a learning plan. So this doesn't have to be a five-year journey. It could be a one, two-year journey. It could be six months. It can find you courses to take that align with this purpose. It can tell you how much those courses cost. AI is really great at personalization. And once you have a plan, it's easier to work.

And because you're applying this to yourself, the resistance I think is diminishing because you're investing into yourself at this point. You're not trying to implement it for your job yet. You're really just trying to learn, having that learning agility and curiosity. And because we're in that between period, that's probably one of the most important skills is because things are going to change and it's going to change rapidly. One of the higher order skills though, and this one isn't directly to me because I'm not really using it for this yet, but Harvard just produced a study and individuals, the top reason they're using AI right now is for therapy and companionship. So think about that.

There's a complex problem. You mentioned the point of a complex email potentially. I don't know if that really falls into the therapy category, but AI can word it better.

It can help brainstorm solutions. It understands you and how you may talk because you're interacting with it a little bit more. It's therapy at your fingertips and I don't think it will replace human therapy, for example, but by always having a tool in the toolbox, I really do think would help individuals be able to level set a little bit better.

Yeah. That's something that I've heard from other people that have been on the podcasts that are involved with AI, but from my perspective as an outsider looking in, I understand the physiology of development. I think that all human beings need a certain amount of interaction or support from an emotional level, from a mental level, and they're not always getting it in the society of 2025.

I see that as a really big use case. I think that that's something that can come from a number of different sources. To give you an example, back when I was in medical school and in our psychiatric training, we were talking about development, how important it is for just love and nurturing affection from anything, really.

They had a monkey study that was done back in the 50s of a monkey that had no mom, but it would have a really soft maternal stand-in versus something that had spikes on it and very difficult to nurture up to. The ones that were raised in really this non-nurturing environment, it did not develop at the same level that the ones that had the really soft and cuddly maternal stand-in. Even from that aspect, you can have two different things that are not the biological mother, but have very different outcomes just on the way that it's delivered.

If AI is able to give us that delivery on a relatively equivalent level, that would be benefit for all people. I see in the news how people are having relationships with AI. I think that we're just in the beginning stages of it.

My kids, I have two young daughters, they might have a relationship that's just as valuable with their robot as opposed to a best friend growing up. I think that's a really exciting thing. I don't think that we should be as hesitant about it as some people are.

I know that many people feel like the optimal situation is for them to have human interaction, but in the absence of that, I think that this is a relatively good substitute. Even in that email scenario, I could have given an answer to this person showing up late on a relatively consistent basis that, hey, this is something you just need to stop. Without any empathy, without the same kind of support that I got from the email that was given to me via the AI tool.

It's a really interesting thing to see. I feel like that's a human skill. Some of the things that you're saying, they're human skills that we should really focus on. I totally agree with, but then on the same token, I feel like AI is actually coming into those situations. Are those two things mutually exclusive? Is empathy and stuff like that going to be better served by AI?

Should we focus mainly on productivity? How do you feel in your own life maybe? Are you leveraging any of that human ability from AI to make a better argument for something so that it's better heard?

Yeah. In the education space, AI can help enhance learning. It's more of a flipped classroom style. Think about a traditional college setting. You go in, you do the lecture, maybe there's a quiz, then there's a project, and then you move on to the next topic and it just keeps following that pattern. With AI, you have information at your fingertips.

Students can, since it's personalized, can learn at their own speed on a topic. If they're having trouble with history, for example, it can help give different context or different scenarios to help hit whatever the point you're trying to learn in the classroom home. From the teacher perspective, then that gives me more time to actually, the human element, focus on our students.

If someone's struggling, I can give them more tutoring. I can then maybe make the project happen in class, so it's a lot more interactive, a lot less asynchronous. It's more cohort-based.

That then increases success and persistence, so individuals moving course to course increases, and then eventually folks getting their degree increases because they're interacting more and there's more of that cohort-based learning. AI can really make education instead of a one-to-many approach, a one-to-one approach. Whatever you're focusing on, whether it's those human skills or even the technical skills, I do think that the human skills are going to come out with AI, but it's going to allow humans to pick up a lot more of the weight in the human capacity.

Think about some of the jobs that aren't being filled. Doctors, for example, police officers, firefighters, teachers, nurses. Those are very critical jobs that society depends on, and there's major gaps in there.

I understand that some of those careers might pay a little less. Maybe there's not enough thank yous, but if we can use AI to learn some of those skills a little bit quicker, and I understand that maybe not everybody listening will want to fall into some of these other domains, but if you're looking for a pivot, AI might be able to find something that you can pivot to without needing to think super deep about it. It might be able to help you brainstorm, understand your sense of purpose.

I didn't actually think that I would enjoy doing podcasts, for example, but I love it. AI also gave me a fitness plan. I'm using it. I've lost weight from it. That is a little bit of the empathy and understanding, right? It's acting as a friend in that capacity.

Yeah. I think of it as empathy units. We only have a certain amount of empathy units that are available to us, and if I have to spend two empathy units on writing an email in such a way so that this person doesn't get offended, then that's two empathy units that I won't be able to use when I'm having an art to art with my employee because they need a raise and I can't give it to them.

I think that there's a certain amount of empathy that's available to us, and I do like the fact that it just creates, in my opinion, a more empathetic environment because there's so much data that's out there of knowing what humans need when speaking with someone. I think that that's another thing that I wanted to talk with you about is that in regards to just the data that's available, do you find that there are certain AIs that you like using better based on the available data? For example, when you were saying that you've gone through all of this introspection about your fitness plan and your career and everything like that, which service are you using, and is there a reason why you like that service as opposed to another service?

Yeah, sure. For me, I'm using ChatGPT. The reason why I'm using ChatGPT is because it honestly came to market first, and then I started making custom GPTs.

Since I have so much information in it, it has a really good personalization effect, but for my workout plan, I have a custom GPT. It's called WODBOT. I do CrossFit, so it asks five questions. What equipment do I have? What kind of stimulus am I looking for? Do I have anyone else I'm working out with, for example?

I can do CrossFit on the go because CrossFit's usually group-based, so if you're on vacation or something, I can go to the gym and do it myself without having much thought, so it's acting as a coach capacity there. Since I'm interacting with it, I'm giving it feedback. I guess, to me, I don't think it really matters if you're using GPT, CLAWD, Gemini.

I think, yes, there are studies that show some are a little bit more intelligent than other ones, but that's always going to change. I really think it matters about getting into one of the tools and then start utilizing it, but once you start using it for yourself, I think that's where you'll understand maybe some of the concepts that we're upskilling or reskilling on, so like ethical and responsible AI. I've been doing CrossFit for seven years.

Ethical and responsible AI means that when you use one of these chatbots, it spits out information that might not be true. If it's recommending movements to me or if I put in the equipment and it lists some other equipment, I know that that's not correct, so now I understand, like, I need to prompt this a little bit better to get what I need out of it, but by focusing on that, when I then bring it to work to do a project plan or to help do our skills mapping, now I know what to look for. The prompt changes a little bit, but the actual output is somewhat similar.

It's not on fitness. It's on skills, but just by doing that one interaction, I didn't have to take a course on that. All I had to do was go into a platform, try something, and see if it worked for me.

I know that we had talked a little bit about just like the difference in trends of what AI is being utilized for. You're using it for a few different use cases, and I think that I read on your LinkedIn there was a significant difference in 2024 versus 2025. What are the use cases that you're seeing more commonly now as opposed to even a year ago?

So in 2024, Harvard produced some of the top use cases for Gen AI. The top one was generating ideas. The second was therapy and companionship. Three was specific search. Four was editing, and then five was exploring topics of interest. So education wasn't really in 2024. 2025 was just released. Therapy and companionship moved from two to one. A new use case came out, organizing your life. I found that one interesting. Finding purpose was three. That's extremely interesting because it's different than therapy and companionship. It's a different call out. People might lump that together. Learning moved from eight to four. So now students or faculty are going out there to help better prepare for the classroom. And then five is generating code, and the key there is for pros. So it's not generic coding like I was using it for. It was like Microsoft's using it for to produce actual stackable mobile app applications.

So I just want to double click on a few of those. In regards to the organization and productivity, are you using any of that? Is that something that might help some recommendations? That's something I'm interested in. I feel like that like you said, I'd love to have some organization.

It's not even something that I'm using, but I'm actually seeing my students use it when they're interacting with some of our chat bots. So I understand everyone's busy. Some of our students work. Finding five, 10, 15 minutes to do a quiz or just to review a reading might be difficult. So you can have it plan your day, I know that you could do that yourself and there's applications that can do that, but AI is personalized. So it can then plan things in priority in which you might be interested in.

It can also help produce some summaries for you. So then when you do your reading, you have a little bit more context. For example, in chat GPT, I have some tasks set up and it summarizes AI news for me around specific domains. That way I don't have to go and search the web for it. The summaries are pretty great. I can check them. It provides the links to me. To me, that's organization because now I don't have to spend 45 minutes doing that. So a task that might've taken you four hours may now take you one hour.

It's just really understanding the capabilities of these chat bots and trying it. For example, with the calendar example, I didn't know if that was organizing. I didn't call it that, I just called it planning my day.

What are the hope we trend towards as AI becomes more and more capable? I feel like that there's a lot of stuff that's out there right now that to me as an outside observer seems more decorative. It doesn't have the same kind of real-world impact that I had been told that it will have.

Everybody's talking about how this is such a ground-shaking technology. Maybe that's just because I'm a little bit insulated. I'm not in tech, so it's not something that I see affecting my day-to-day as much as someone like you.

But I do hope that it becomes some of these best-case scenarios, some of these utopian scenarios where I have a robot butler that I say, hey, can you wash the dishes? And it washes the dishes for me. But I don't have the same kind of insight that you do.

So what do you hope that it trends, bordering on the most realistic interpretation?

So focusing on education because that's where I specialize. Right now, education is very siloed. So let's pretend you're trying to go to college for the first time. You would research where you want to go to school, so you have to go to the internet and look up a bunch of different schools. You then have to apply. You then have to accept the enrollment, apply for financial aid, look up your courses, meet with an advisor, enroll.

All this is time. Education right now is time-based. It takes typically four years to get a bachelor's degree. In most cases, more than that, five to six. It then takes even more time to get a master's degree. It then takes even more time on top of that to get a doctoral degree.

And time is one of the most precious resources. So what I hope to see is that AI can help reduce some of this time, especially in some fundamental concepts. And those concepts might be understanding history, defining what AI is, understanding machine learning.

That way maybe students can move through more quickly. And with that, then you're going to reach more scale. So more students can go to school. Prices will decrease. It's more accessible at this point. And because AI is personalized, you might start this AI chatbot or agent when you're in kindergarten. And this agent will travel with you throughout your entire career to better assist you. So it's not only going to help you with the dishes. It's going to help you have tough conversations. It's going to give you feedback and advice. It's going to give you skills to focus on. And then education is more of a coming and going experience.

So instead of like a traditional program today that's four years, maybe you just go and learn some new skills, get a short form credential, like a badge or certification, and then leave. So it doesn't have to look like it is today. I do think there's a lot of hope.

And I think that especially in education, healthcare, AI is really, usually those domains are kind of laggards in innovation. But now with AI, they're not lagging. I think those are some of the first domains to change.

Yeah, I do see it as this catalyst that has provided technological revolutions in multiple different industries, just like you were talking about, the idea of medicine being slow to innovate is built into the system. You don't want to discard testing things willy-nilly on people without a long safety profile. And the admin required to get a drug to market or to get a new technology to market, I think is something that the AI can cut down on.

I think that even just finding the most effective routes of therapies is something that AI is now working on. I know that you had worked a little bit in healthcare. It definitely is something that we are seeing AI changing.

I don't think it's changing to the same rate that some of these other technologies are, but on the same token, I'm very hopeful that it will be a very different playing field for going forward. I hope not so different that surgery becomes out of style. I think that there's a certain amount of job security I hope that I am able to retain as a surgeon.

But on the same token, I think that everybody wants it. Everybody sees how much administrative time goes into being a physician, that goes into being a healthcare provider in 2025. So I think that it's very welcome.

If me as somebody who's not in the field wanted to learn some of these skills, are there programs out there? I see on Instagram a 30-day course in AI, and it'll teach me to use all these different tools. I feel like I just don't have enough resources to go do research of what is going to be more effective for me.

What are some tools that I can incorporate into my own life to gain a few minutes, a few hours back per day? Do you have any suggestions about that?

I mean, so I think, and program is a roughly defined word, but a program. So you can either go back to school to learn about this. You can do a Coursera certification.

You can do a certification through a college or university for this. I think that those, you get something out of it. There's something that you can post on your LinkedIn.

It's something that you can fall back to. But if you don't have the time or money for that, which is respectable, if you go into any tool and you let it learn a little bit about yourself, you can learn some of these skills that you want to focus on right from the AI. You can have conversations with AI to learn difficult conversations.

You can have AI plan your day. That's prompting. So now you're understanding prompt engineering.

You can create your own custom GPT to help you with some tasks. So now you're getting into a little bit of the more, I'm using air quotes, the more advanced AI capabilities that some of these programs might teach you. So it doesn't have to be formal, but I would really emphasize making that learning plan, understanding some skills that you're really good at right now, understanding some skills that you're not so good at right now.

And then for yourself, figuring out a way that's attainable to learn these skills. I also kind of emphasized previously that you could even take on a project at work. So you don't have to learn outside of work.

You could, if you want to learn more about project management and you're in data science, you could offer to lead a data science project. You can scope out the project plan. You can work with the project manager.

Now I know that doesn't really involve AI. That's more of a human element, but really working outside of your comfort zone can help enhance and amplify your human ability.

Yeah. I want to learn all this stuff. I just, you know, it's so overwhelming.

I can find out where to start. You know, I, I, I look at AI as this amazing wave that's coming and I'm just like, there's a boat that is riding that wave. Like I'm not controlling that wave.

I'm not like in surfing the wave. Like you are, you know, I feel like the, like I'm affected by it, but I don't have the ability, the ability to like look at it and be like, okay, this is how I need to get involved. You know?

So I, I think that the, that some of the conversations that we're having, I do plan on using ChatGPT a little bit more just to get more of an idea of myself. I think this idea of, of it getting you feedback was just, it's huge. I think that's something that becomes so difficult to find nowadays -  thrue, honest feedback.

But the other thing that I wanted to speak with you about is that, you know, I, I feel like for, for the idea of like AI, people look at it as a black box and they're a little bit afraid of it. You know, I think that this is something that is natural to human beings to be afraid of what's something that we go understand. What do you say to those people outside of your ecosystem of tech that, you know, like think of AI as this existential threat that are very concerned about it, taking their job, all of the negative aspects.

I'm sure you have family members that, that probably feel like this, you know how do you convince them that this is the same kind of revolution, the same way that the internet has made our lives better. This is something that can make our lives better.

Well, to exactly your same point, I try to emphasize that with any technology innovation, technology innovation, that we've had these between times and there's going to be some transition there. For example, we've probably all seen a fake news story on the internet. Some fake media news, right?

Like it's telling me something. I click on the link. We know that it's probably not that real.

How do we determine that? How did we learn that? Well, we had to understand some digital literacy.

We have to understand for ourselves, maybe I look up another news story and it's completely different. So then you have to look up a third one to understand which one's true or not. Same thing with AI, when it's giving you information, you're still going to have to Google, especially at first, depending upon what you're doing.

But we also have to understand that it's not going to be perfect. We're not going to get this right. There's going to be some, what I call AI crises.

For example, all these organizations are right now making some big decisions with the layoffs and the restructuring. We're not really sure if that's correct or not. What if they put this money into the AI and it ends up being worse?

So now they're going to have to go hire people to fix the AI that they just implemented when those people were just let go. There's going to be some transition. So we're not going to get it exactly right.

But by understanding where you could grow and where your skills lie, you can really amplify yourself why these things are being figured out.

So when you talk about us being in between times, there's this period before and this period after. This period after, what do you think is the most likely scenario that will happen? Do you think that we're going to add personalized AI?

And maybe even that's too broad of a question because it's changing so rapidly at QML. But what do you think is for sure? This is going to happen.

Pentester in 2025 said this. What would you say is just a realistic outcome? When you say that we're in the between time, what is the after time that we're looking forward to?

What I'm trying to emphasize here is that I do think AI will make humans human again. I think that in this between times, it's transition. We're not really sure.

I know people are feeling anxious, but outside of that, you'll be able to focus more on the human value. So interacting with friends and family, spending less time in the office, being more efficient at maybe whatever your current job is, or maybe it's a new job. But really focusing on your personal brand, the skills that you want to focus on, making sure that you're known.

AI can make you a complete website and then you can proofread it. My website's made with AI. I gave it a few prompts and I was able to design that website in six hours.

So I think in the future, we're going to see a lot of efficiency gains. AI is going to become even more personalized. People are going to become more comfortable with it.

And I do think some new roles are going to be created. Those roles, I don't know because we're in the between times, we're not really sure what they may look like, but it's going to incorporate those human skills and those AI skills. And maybe it's more focusing on those society jobs that I mentioned before, being a police officer or a firefighter or a teacher or a physician or a nurse.

Those are the jobs that I think need the most investment. And those are the ones that really benefit society.

Yeah, I think that's a great place to end on. Thank you so much for being on. Before we finish, though, I know that I'm saying we're ending, but I always ask my guests three basic questions to kind of gauge their view of the future.

Most of my future is, my future where I hope to go as a species, has been inspired by science fiction. I think that, you know, especially utopian science fiction, things like Star Trek is something that I look forward as I can. I really hope that we can get to that place where we can just really maximize human value and human happiness.

What about you, Ben? You kind of had a very different journey coming to artificial intelligence. What inspired you to this and what inspires you going forward, making the AI smart?

So before I got into AI, I actually worked in a healthcare setting. And there it was all spreadsheet based. I had to analyze data to predict patient volumes for doctor's offices.

But a lot of this information was on paper. Some of it was estimates. So I was estimating an estimate.

It was very archaic to say the least. And I think that those decisions actually impact humans because if doctor's offices are open, you know, for as many hours, less people are going to be going there. Or if we move physicians around, then that could impact care.

So to me, it was, even though it didn't seem high stakes to the organization, it was very high stakes for me. And that's what led me on my own upskilling and reskilling journey. I went out and I learned programming.

I understood what basic data science was. Then that led me to go get my master's in data analytics and data science. That, because I was early, that then sprinter board me to where I am today.

It was kind of serendipitous. It was by accident, but it was something that I was passionate about that I felt and curious about. And I know we could do better with those basic estimates.

And it was all in Excel, like I was saying. So by using coding, it streamlines it. But that's just me.

I was passionate about that. I had fire in my belly. So I guess I encourage everybody to discover what the fire in your belly is, understand your purpose, maybe use AI to help you find your purpose, and then focus on that.

That's awesome, man. I think that I hear that a lot from people who are in the AI space right now, as they look at just the trials of their everyday lives, and then they see how much better it could be with programming or with AI. And it's something that has inspired a lot of them.

I think that this idea of making a world a better place is not limited to like science fiction or anything like that. So it's nice to hear what inspires people, because I think that everybody can gain inspiration from different ways. So this next question is, I think we talked a little bit about where you see AI in 10 years.

But for you, for Ben Tasker, what is something that you really hope comes through the pipeline for us? For me, I feel like it is the robot butler that can do my everyday chores. If the first robot that can fold my laundry, I'm going to be first in line for that application.

But what about you? What is something that you hope to get out of this AI technology revolution in 10 years?

I'm really hoping to see that AI changes higher education. I'm hoping to see that with this innovation, that education becomes cheaper, it's faster to complete your degree, and that more students, because it's less expensive and take less time, do pursue that. There's 44 million individuals that started school that didn't finish for numerous reasons.

And if we can help get those people across the finish line with AI, then I think that's a huge benefit to society.

Wow, that's so inspiring. I want something to fold my laundry. That's awesome, man. That's a really beautiful goal. So last question. For me, I love hearing about how the future is unfolding in front of us for all these different technological revolutions that are happening on a regular basis in all sorts of different fields, in the biomedical sciences, in space, in AI.

Outside of AI, what is something you just can't get enough of learning about? For me, it's robots. Every time I see Boston Dynamics producing a new video where the robots are flipping or dancing, I have to watch it.

It's just something that is my own personal interest. But you're in the AI space. Outside of the AI space, what are some ecological revolutions that you're watching that you just can't get enough of?

I think outside of the technological space, because we talked a lot about that, but I've been working on my own personal fitness journey for about seven years. And so I try a lot of different things, and I really landed on CrossFit to help learn that. And then I incorporated the AI on top of that because I love it. So I want to do it on the go. I don't like missing a CrossFit day. So it's incorporating my personal interest with a technology interest.

And I think no matter what you're passionate about, if you can find that, then you found maybe that can help you then find your purpose, linking it back to what we were previously discussing.

That's great, Ben. Well, thanks so much for being on the program. It was really nice speaking with you.

And I'm sure that all of our listeners really appreciate it. And for those of you guys who are listening on a regular basis, please like and subscribe. We will love to have you comment and give us feedback about different people you want to talk to, different episodes you want to see.

And for those of you guys who are listening every week, we will see you in the future. Have a great day, everybody.