Utopian Hype and Dystopian Fear of AI

Tullio Siragusa (00:11):

Good day everyone. This is Tullio Siragusa, your host of Tech Leaders Unplugged. Welcome. Today, I'm getting unplugged with Reza Rassool, who is the CTO at RealNetworks. A pleasure to have you with me this morning. We're here in California, so in California over wherever you're watching this afternoon or this evening, it's good to have you Reza and we're looking forward to this conversation.

Reza Rassool (00:34):

Tullio, are you enjoying the June gloom of California?

Tullio Siragusa (00:37):

It's been gloomy since November. I feel like we're in Seattle or London. You know, I've been trying to figure out how to get a refund for living in Southern California, without the sun. We didn't sign up for no sun. Where's the sun for this? But we're talking today. We're not talking about the weather today. We're talking about the topic is utopia hype and the dystopian fear of AI. It's a very keen topic, top of mind for a lot of folks. And really we're trying to figure out how to reconcile the conflicting narratives around artificial intelligence. There are conflicting narratives. There's a lot of fear that's being publicized around AI, and there's a lot of hope that's being publicized around AI. But before we dig into this conversation and see what we can uncover, let's get to know our guest a little bit and what's, how you got to RealNetworks? How, how are you here? What's more, give us a little bit of your story… looking forward to chatting about this topic Reza.

Reza Rassool (01:36):

Yeah, Tullio, thanks so much for the intro. Yeah, Reza Rassool, CTO RealNetworks. . How did I get here? Well, I've been in the position for seven years. It's a long journey, but prior to that, I had a career in serial startup entrepreneurship. The innovation that brought me from London, you can tell from my accent got a British accent, grew up in London. But the innovation that brought me over was we'd invented a system that allowed you to edit a movie on a computer, who thought that would be possible? So, in the early nineties that system, it was called Lightworks, we brought it to Los Angeles, to Hollywood. And that disrupted an industry there. After that that thing which was called a startup, even before the term startup was coined, we had a successful exit. And on that, I built a career of getting the choice projects in digital video, and digital audio, dabbling a bit in bio-medical implants with a cochlear implant and the bionic eye. But then followed the sort of path of digital media from the creative part of the cycle all the way through to distribution. In the jobs that I had, I was one of the founders that had a vision that video movies were going to be watched over the internet, so somebody needed to secure it in order for that to be monetized and that startup was sold to Google. I then rinsed and repeated with another startup called Zaya, which pursued the mission of generative AI. We didn't even know it was generative AI, but it was in the music space, a simple prompt in and a pop song out was the mission that also exited to Google. What did I do after that? I ran a consulting practice thinking, you know, that would be leveraging the experience I had in taking startups to exit. And then a recruiter from RealNetworks called saying, “Hey, RealNetworks needs a CTO”. And I thought the mission of turning around this beloved brand would be a worthy mission to tether my career. And so that's what I'm on.

Tullio Siragusa (04:17):

RealNetworks. Is now in the AI space, and when did that happen?

Reza Rassool (04:23):

It's interesting. So, I joined in 2016, and the mission was to turn around this beloved brand, and basically create a whole new set of foundation technologies that could power the resurgence of an ailing brand. It didn't take a genius, I don't think at that time. I think it was kind of obvious that AI could be a useful bet, of course, now it is blindingly obvious at that time. It was my gamble. So, in the sort of skunkworks way, I injected AI into as many of the product streams that I had control over. And a couple of them took hold. And the company has now pivoted towards AI from its streaming media route.

Tullio Siragusa (05:15):

All right, let's dig into the topic today. I want to start it off by observing something I saw this morning. I saw a video posting on LinkedIn, and it was this, this gentleman wearing these goggles that, that you could see right through them. And it was, it was a funny post Because it was talking about actual reality, kind of augmented reality, it's actual reality, and the guys touching the tree and in interactive, in an immersive way with Nature. And I thought it was really brilliant. And many people were asking, why do we need augmented reality when we have such beautiful actual reality? And it's a good foundation for our topic today because there are these polarized views around AI. You know, you have a lot of fear around it, and especially being pushed now is a narrative by the media. And then you have a lot of hope being pushed by those who will have a vested interest in growing AI. Where's this going to go? What needs to give? What's the real verse? I mean, pun RealNetworks. Like what's real, you know, is there, is it a little bit of both? What are your thoughts on that?

Reza Rassool (06:22):

It's interesting. I saw the exact same video. For some reason, Tullio, our news speeds must be synced because that was the first thing. And I seven o'clock in the morning, I was, I was tittering, my wife was still asleep. And kind of shaking as I saw this, where it was, it was goggles, but, but then, it was just open, and he was just looking at touching plants and so on and being utterly enthralled by it. Yeah. that, that sort of contradiction and almost dilemma between what is real and what are artificial runs right through the development that, that, that, that I've been working on. But it also is this narrative that's playing out in the press. So hot off the press, like 25, 24 hours old Mark Andreesen put out a blog post. It's worth looking at that his is more on the utopian hype side. I think it's a bit more rational than just a rosy picture of it. But his article is entitled Why AI Will Save the World. It's Worth Having a look at that. I can post a link to it afterward. You'll easily find it if you go and search for it. So that is at one extreme. And then at the other extreme is Yuval Harari, you might remember Yuval Harari from his, his textbooks, sapiens and homos and, and, and, and his, he's, he's a well-written scholar. And his post and I think it might have been and it's a video lecture he gave at the Frontiers Forum, and it was called AI In the Future of Humanity. He paints a very gloomy picture. He basically says there's nothing stopping, that's nothing that'll stop AI from taking over the world and destroying humanity. And you know, I don't put these guys in either of these in the idea of sort of “clickbaity” but they're not in that realm of clickbait sort of schlock journalists. They are they, they're scholars, and, or influential people that are deep thinkers, on both sides. So how can you have these two very disparate narratives and predictions of what's going to happen, and how do you reconcile that? So that's what I want to discuss with you today.

Tullio Siragusa (09:11):

So let's talk about both views. Let's, let's dig into each one and see if maybe there's a happy medium somewhere. There are concerns about AI replacing jobs, putting a lot of people out of work. It's already impacted several folks, you know, in the writing field, if you had a ghostwriter, for example, if you were a blogger or an author you know, you don't need that anymore ChatGPTyou can put in information and get content and edit from there and there, but there are other areas too that's being used even in technology for testing code or even writing code. There's, so much taking a test or analyzing information so much that can happen so much faster without the need of an army of analysts to do it. So it's definitely, there's some truth that it has impacted already several industries and several jobs. So let, let's dig into that, you know, what's the, the, the ultimate fear there? And why is it such a fear? Are these people not going to find something else to do? What's the, what's the thinking?

Reza Rassool (10:15):

Look so, so in a recent talk, I talked about how AI is going to change your career. Jobs used to be our identity. The very occupation that you did was typically handed down from generation to generation. It became your identity. I a shoemaker. I am a Smith. I am a Cooper who makes barrels. I am a Fletcher who makes arrows, and it became your last name. And that's how stable occupations used to be. But in the event of industrialization and the information era, you find that occupation stability occupations become more volatile and opportunistic, and they're not passed down from generation to generation. So, this is just a fact of life that maybe the occupation that you even train for and go to school for is not the thing that you're going to end up doing later on. Even in the span of one generation, you might find jobs becoming obsolete. That is something society's going to have to deal with.

Tullio Siragusa (11:38):

The fear is more along the lines of the status quo isn't going to work in an AI-driven world. I mean, that's the reality. And the fear is how do we shift our mindset? And, and you made an interesting point, you know, for a long time, you're, you, you, you were whatever your parents were, right? Yeah. And then this idea of like the US came along, you know, the great frontier and, and, and the gold rush and the opportunities that came with that. So there was this dream of this idea that you could become something else. And that's really what made the foundation of the US so cool is that it gave people the hope that they could be something else. But then a lot of things have happened since then, right? From the industrial age to the information age, and now they're, say, the sort of age of self, right? But so what needs to happen there? You know, how companies think, how people think, you know, how do we get there? You know, who's talking about that part of it? Because there's a lot of talk about the fear of losing jobs, and there's a lot of talk about the hope of what AI can do to solve problems, but fundamentally what you're saying is theirs, there needs to be a paradigm shift in consciousness as a society to adapt into this model. What does, what does that look like?

Reza Rassool (12:55):

Yeah, so education has to change. Our entire education system is still very static, still built almost around an agrarian schedule. It's not, we, when we are not arming students for a modern workplace, we're still that, that we are still prepping them for an era that no longer exists. So that unfortunately, is something that has to change. My wife is a professor, and they are debating that now in, in the colleges, you know, how do we handle AI? How do we prep our kids? Is ChatGPT a productivity tool, much like the calculator, much like spellcheck, much like, you know, all the other things that we initially banned and then eventually adopted in departments? How do we do that? But I think it's even bigger than that. I think the actual careers might not have the stability that you and I have enjoyed where you could be in one career. I largely, computer science for me, has afforded a middle-class lifestyle and funded, you know, the ability to raise a family and so on, I lament for my children. And what is the future they face and how quickly jobs are going to change?

Tullio Siragusa (14:39):

Yeah, this is definitely a lot, a lot to think about. I think the education component is key. Yeah. We've been predominantly on a repetition model, learning to repeat, learning to memorize. But the winners today are those who know how to use the tools better. It's not those who can remember more stuff. It's those who know how to leverage tools to get to the right answer. And dare I say, even in the future, some would argue, well, you know, if you're a doctor, you still have to learn all these tests, all these things and get deeper. But do you, I mean, if you've got a bot right next and you walking you through things, you have to know every little detail. So do you have to know the fundamentals? And then this AI-driven platform would, would level you up, which makes maybe consistent care possible in regard to what your education was. So there's a lot to think about. That's more the utopian idea that I'm shifting towards now. You know, so let's talk a little bit about that. What are some of the key benefits of embracing this in order to make that shift that is real, not just some pie-in-a-sky idea that is very real, that is actually happening right now in your, in your opinion?

Reza Rassool (15:52):

Sure. And you know, I think that that image that you gave, that every job you'll have an assistant I think you'll, it'll probably unfold in your working life. These become productivity tools, the so-called co-pilots. Software engineering is going to change radically. I think we are the notion of a programmer the sort of programmer that, that I was when I started out I think that job has evolved over my career and will ultimately be more of a product manager at the front end guiding a programming bot that won't have the sort of flare that a human programmer has. But it would, it would, it would understand all of the design patterns and the templates for creating software, and at least get you to a prototype level and allow you to change that. So, so that, that's it on software, I think all your productivity tools, all your office tools, very quickly you'll start seeing co-pilots in their sort of sidecar apps will augment, put, you'll write a bit of a PowerPoint slide and it'll in, in the background be generating graphics on the side, and you can, you can select them. I'm already using that. I think in most jobs you'll find some sort of AI assistant that would improve productivity. So what does that do? That sets a new normal AI will set a new normal for the expected level of productivity. Much in the same way that, I don’t know, email or the word processor set a new norm for a level of productivity. Yeah. The word processor did away with the typing pool. We were all expected to write our own memos and, and, and letters and so on. The email did away with the mail department. The mail department's gone from most enterprises. Voiceover IP did away with the switchboard. This thing, digital video did away with the video reprographics department that, that used to be, you know, most enterprises had those, and these were taxes upon corporations. In a way, this was kind of unproductive work that didn't actually lead to the end widget that they wanted to produce. So, I think AI is going to create a new normal for a level of productivity. It's the utopian view. This is, and it will raise all boats. It will increase which means that we as workers would, the drudgery in our jobs will be done by artificial intelligence. And the more creative part still. We, we have, my, my mantra is to, to programmers use, learn how to use a co-pilot, but don't give up the pilot seat.

Tullio Siragusa (19:16):

You know, you say something very interesting, and get got me thinking probably an infographic would be great to show the impact of technology and how it's reshaped all kinds of industries. You know, apps for travel, kill the travel agents. But, you know, ultimately we, we made it out. Okay. You know, people still pushed forward. I think the biggest challenge as we talk about this, I think for the very first time this movement impacts the tech industry, we've always been the industry that has reshaped other industries, yes, by digitization, but for the first time, AI is going to reshape our industry, especially all the things we've talked about, right? Development, and testing, are all the things that make up the technology industry. We are being reshaped faster than any other industry as a result of AI. And it's kind of like the makers of realizing, oh, I'm, I'm putting myself out of work, but, but that's not the thought process. So, I'm curious about how organizations need to start thinking about embracing this, you know you said productivity, so technically you still need a developer, but maybe now they're managing four or five workflows because they got four or five bots working on it. So they're providing leadership and oversight. You know, so there's, you know, what's the value of that? But ultimately, does it put the power in the business user where they can define something and have it built, and then someone else can just validate it because they have certain levels of expertise?

Reza Rassool (20:57):

Yeah, I think time to market, I think that's the big optimization that, that you get from these productivity tools. It's not being able to, not creating more stuff, but, but being able to go from idea to prototype really fast. And I think that's an upside of AI, especially in the tech space.

Tullio Siragusa (21:28):

Okay. So here, let's recap what we've discussed so far. The industry has been changing with the adoption of technology for many years. It's not new. In fact, the entire industry has completely been reshaped. We can talk about the travel industry and customer service; everything has moved towards self-service. Even the television and media industry has changed dramatically because of technology. AI is just the next evolution of that in terms of empowering individuals to level up. So when you think about productivity, I often pride myself on saying, you know, after 35 years, you kind of learn a thing or two, and you develop this thing called wisdom, which allows you to make decisions faster because you've been there, done that. And that's just something that you don't have when you're fresh out of school or you're, you're new in your career, but AI changes that <laugh> it actually can enable someone to operate at that level very quickly. So, you know, and to a certain degree, you feel proud that you've spent all these years in your industry only to realize now you got an AI bot that can help anybody that'll get that fast. So that competitive advantage is kind of gone. So, you have to rethink how you use and consume AI to your advantage. And I don't know what the answer is to that, but it's evolving very quickly. Any last-minute words you want to impart in terms of what people should be thinking about around this you know, a balanced view, perhaps as we wrap up?

Reza Rassool (22:56):

So as we wrap up, of course, you know, what we've done is we've glossed over the, the fear of the dystopian fear. Let, let me just parrot some of what Yuval Harari said especially in the area of large language models that we've now enabled AI to hack the operating system of humanity. What does he mean by that? <Laugh>? He says that language is the operating system of humanity. We communicate via language. We write our laws in language. We tell stories in the language. We pass down our wisdom in language. We've now given an artificial intelligence entree to that operating system, and he believes that there's nothing stopping it from taking over and displacing us. It's kind of a scary prediction coming from a well-respected voice. So I'm taking it seriously. I haven't processed it fully, but I'm going to urge everyone to look at the rosy picture that Mark Andreessen painted, and then contrast that with the Yuval Harari picture and think about it deeply and come up with your own opinion, write about it. I think a conversation is needed rather than the clickbait sort of blast that has been filling the press and sucking up the oxygen in the room.

Tullio Siragusa (24:43):

I think you're absolutely right, Reza. It's a very interesting perspective that for the first time we are, we've, we've historically outsourced all kinds of things, right? The gardening, the repairs in the home, the repairs, and then, we've outsourced everything we possibly can, right? But we've never outsourced thought. And there's a big risk that we're doing that with AI, that we're going to outsource our ability for us to critical to, for critical thinking opinions. So it'll be interesting to see how it plays out. I'm starting to see why there's so much push from some top leaders about curtailing or putting some ethics or some laws around it. We'll see how it plays out. Let's keep talking about it. Thanks for joining me this morning. I appreciate you being here. Stay with me as we go off there in just a second. We got more guests coming up. We have our next guest, Chris Holland, is the CTO at Certain Path which is a company that provides a field-proven technology industry expertise that puts contractors on the path to success. We're going to talk with him on the ninth, which is Friday. And then we will keep an eye out for upcoming guests on techleadersunplugged.com. You'll see all of our shows there. You'll also see the blogs. Every show becomes a blog, an opinion piece, a thought leadership piece so check that out. And of course, all the upcoming guests are published there as well. See you all back Friday, same time, same channel. Thanks for being with me again today, Reza. And take care, everybody.