EP 293: How AI Can Create New Economic Opportunities in Your City

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When we talk about AI, a lot of that talk is often on job displacement. And, you know, will AI take my job? And you know, although there may be job displacement, I think we don't talk enough about what happens on the other side of that and how AI can actually create new economic opportunities in your city. It's something I'm extremely excited to talk about today on Everyday AI. What's going on, y'?

All?

My name is Jordan. I'm the host of Everyday AI and this is for you. We are your daily guide to learning and leveraging generative AI to grow your company and grow your career. So we do this every single day. So make sure you if you're listening for the first time, go to your everyday AI.com Sign up for our free daily newsletter where we recap our conversation and our expert guest interview each and every day. So before we get started, let's do as we always do and tell you what's going on in the world of AI news. All right, so first, DeepMind and Harvard researchers have teamed up for an impressive AI discovery with rats. So DeepMind has developed a computerized rat with an artificial brain using movement data from real rats. The virtual rat could lead to breakthroughs in neuroscience research. So this virtual rat has biologically realistic and an accurate brain, making it a valuable tool for studying brain function and behavior. The digital model opens up opportunities for further AI simulations and research into neural circuits and brain disease. All right, we're going on the other side for our second piece of AI news because we have another new Sora competitor. So Luma AI has launched Dream Machine, a powerful AI text to video tool capable of generating videos from simple text descriptions. So the system aims to revolutionize the video production industry by making it more accessible and efficient. So yes, this is literally the second major competitor to OpenAI's Sora. But Sora is not yet released to the public. So earlier this week we talked about cling, which is only accessible right now if you have a valid Chinese phone number. However, this new tool, Dream Machine from Luma AI, is available now for everyone. So it's actually very impressive and is already Sora quality, which is actually kind of concerning because people are looking at it and saying, okay, this is actually could fool a lot of people to be used for deep fakes, misinformation, disinformation, etc, however, you can generate up to 120 frames in 120 seconds. So about 4 seconds of video in 2 minutes. However, users are reporting right now it's taking more than an hour at time for generating just because of crazy demand. So we'll have a link so that you can check that out in our newsletter. Last but not least, Parliament could be getting a new AI member. So. So a digital avatar named AI Steve is running for a seat in the British Parliament. The avatar is based on a real person, entrepreneur, Steve Endicott, and is programmed to generate policy suggestions and collect input from potential constituents. So AI technology, like I said, is now being used in politics and AI Steve is created by a company called Neural Voice and is programmed to generate policy suggestions and collect input from potential constituents. All right, well, hey, is that a politician that will now be forced to actually listen to its constituents? We'll have to wait and see. All right, but let's get into today's show. I'm extremely excited to have an industry veteran with us today on Everyday AI. So please help me welcome to the show. There we go. We have Zouin Zhang who is the Chief Responsibility AI Officer and Executive Director of AI 2030. Zhaoqian, thank you for joining the Everyday AI Show.

Thank you. And it's great honor to just come back.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, we. Hey, Zhaoqian was so good we had to come back. We talked probably about a year ago about AI in startups and now we have a completely new and very important conversation to have today. Zaochen, before we get started, tell everyone a little bit about your background and a little bit about AI 2030.

Absolutely. And so currently as what John mentioned, as you know, I'm running AI 2030. Our main mission is trying to mainstream responsible AI and to realize the potential of AI. In the meantime, to minimize the negative impact of AI to humanity. And then before that I was the global head of innovation go to market at aws. I also worked for organization like World Bank United nations and taught universities and started my own startup called FinTech for good seven or eight years ago. And with the main role to just build emerging technology based ventures.

Yeah, yeah. So just decades of experience. Yeah. So you know, now has this huge group called AI 2030, some of the brightest minds in artificial intelligence and you know, even Zouchen working in go to market with, you know, Amazon web Services, you've, you know a lot of about innovation. So with, with that in mind, how. Because I think, let's just answer that. That big elephant, right, the big elephant in the room is I think when people think about artificial intelligence and generative AI a lot of times they think of job loss, right? And people say oh, is AI going to take my job? So I mean, what is the answer to that? And you know, maybe let's talk about the flip side too on the new economic opportunities.

Yeah. And the answer is yes, AI is going to replace your job. And the traditional sense of job security doesn't exist anymore. And any job potentially can be replaced by AI and that's you know, ranging from the CEO of the company to really, you know, the technical person to just even the janitor in the, in you know, in the office building. So every job there is a risk that job will be replaced. But you know, then there's the emergence of AI and or machine and human collaborate intelligence. This is the future where that any job will be redesigned and that redesign is happening already now. And according to the IMF report that you know over 80 some million of jobs will be replaced but in by 2025 alone. And but of course that you know from the new jobs will emerge with AI and again from IMF report that number is over 90 million. And which is just by 2025 as you can see that you know AI can be called as a double sword in the specifically job market. And if we apply that at a city level and then the mayors and also the city governments need to really answer that question. Do you want your city to just really be the city impact heavily negatively by AIC that majority of the jobs in the city disappear or that no new job emerge in my city but or you want to you know, better prepare to see that although you know there are jobs are replaced but you know, we have more jobs created, you know, for citizens. I think there that's naturally there are a lot of things can be done to prepare the city, you know, for, for the future revolution.

Yeah yeah. And important studies out Jen just mentioned there. We'll be sure to share that in today's newsletter about the you know, International Monetary Fund. And you know know it says up to 60% of jobs in the west could be impacted in by 2025. Which is wild to think about. You know that that's less than two years away the end of 2025. You know, what should Zhen both business and city leaders be looking to do right? Because it seems like it's been this scramble the past year to to understand you know, generative AI and to actually put it to use. But what can city and business leaders be doing to make sure that creating Opportunity on the back end and not just focusing on productivity.

Yeah, that's the start from the the business and then city actually you know the strategy for city is very similar to the to the business and number one for the business leader is that you know, really need to have a strategy. And I had many conversations with you know, CXOs after business and a lot of them really just are don't have enough, you know, either preparation or you know in terms of resourcing the right people. They themselves are not resourcing themselves to get ready to have a new type of strategy. And just you know, two days ago in Houston at Houston convention I was sharing with you know all the energy related leaders and energy, oil, gas. And one of the key things that the most important AI model is the business model. So you can imagine that, you know, now that a lot of business are trying to just say hey if we can just bring OpenAI or you know other general generative model into my business, that's it. But that's really not it. And it can create a lot of problem. You still don't have a sustainable competitiveness and all that. Really the number one thing that really look into your AI strategy we think that AI strategy number one is really to look into your human resources and say do you have the chief AI officer and do you have people who can gave you that strategy and brand technology and business models together to redesign what are the new opportunities and what are the existing opportunities you are going to lose. And then define what will be the first the near term steps and a long term step and very similar to a city. And I was at MIT's AI summit and there that I learned that Massachusetts state and for example introduced $100 million, you know, AI budget and established you know a public private sector collaboration like AI task force. And then to really define how to leveraging you know this puppy budget to unlock more opportunity from the private sector budget or and then to just really build a strategy which can keep Massachusetts as continue to be a leader in AI similarly that you can just look into. You know again I was back for the Texas Social Enterprise Award where that's. You know this is also state level to recognize the type of innovation of which can really just match the demand with the supply. And a lot of those supply are AI driven. Come back to where I stay in Illinois and Chicago and from back door. There's a lot of actions taken by the state and the city government and try to understand what are the impact and who can just help city and state to do better planning and, and who can really just taking that, you know, plan and then to just support the operation of the plan, bring new additional resources and human capital and technology into solving the city related problems. Yeah.

And hey, as a reminder to our live stream audience, we have Zhao Cheng Zhang with us from AI 2030. So if you have questions, he's, I, I think of all the people I've met, he is one of the brightest minds in artificial intelligence and, and how businesses can impact it. So Zao Chin, something that, that you kind of referenced there is, you know, different cities have different focuses. Right. So you know, as an example, if, if we talk about, you know, New York we might think of, you know, finance and, and you know, real estate in la, we think of entertainment and you know, Houston, we think of energy. So you know, when it comes to specific cities that have, I feel that AI both has the potential to be very disruptive, yet at the same time can be extremely explosive in a good way. Especially when a city has a specific industry that it focus on. So how can leaders, especially when there is kind of a main driver in a city, how can they use AI to actually create those new economic opportunities?

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Yeah, so that's a very good question because you know, number one is that AI is going to impact all industry. And so then naturally, you know, from the city planning side where that's, you know, within your main industry and how can you keep, keep the competitive, make it competitive in the future and again, go back to you know, my, my trip in Texas that was a very, you know, specific focus in the oil, gas and energy industry. And the number one thing, you know, the, the both the business and, and the, the you know, public civil servants need to just be aware of is that you know, this industry number one is that the traditional business model will disappear. And you know, many times if you have a main industry and which means this main industry is serving existing customers, you have the current need, the current demand, current priorities which may drive you close eye for future oriented planning and resourcing. And I think a number one thing for, for, for you know, the both public and private sector is to really, you know, understand and also balance the short term and the long term goal. And really just you know, from that balance basically to just include AI related impact business model design as a priority. And as of now still, you know, from many conversations that business leaders in those major industry, in those, you know, cities and still have not realized how much and then their own industry is going to be impacted by AI. They're still trying to solve the current, you know, customer problems that they are solving well today. So I think that that's number one which is critical. Number two is really, you know, identifying who are your external innovators you can collaborate with. And in the, during the, you know, AI age naturally that controlability will be very different. Many, many, you know, businesses don't have control ability of their fate. And for example, if in your industry that large language model is the only way that you can just reinvent your business and naturally that's a foundational model. There are only very few organization working on foundational model. Naturally you will lose control. So how can you just be comfortable by making your decision and together with, you know, working in collaboration with the innovators outside of your organization. How can you design a process to engage externally, bring that insights and that new business model into your, your, your business that becoming important. And the third part which is also important again go go back to people where that, you know, I heard so many times at a technical level where that's people, you know, who are excited about AI. They are not enabled by their leadership to just, you know, taking on actions. And I gave you example every day and I receive at least 20 to 30, you know, email or request. You know, there are great talent who want to join AI 2030 because they cannot do the type of job and interact with type of expertise on AI. They got frustrated, they want to push the boundary but they are not incentivized, they are not Enabled, empowered to do so. I think that is just a missing opportunity for many of the businesses.

Another thing, Zhao Chen, that I think about, especially when it comes to local economic opportunity, right. Because I feel so much of the conversation around generative AI is either job displacement or productivity. Right. But I, I think that AI has the potential to solve many problems that, that you know, local communities or, or cities have faced and maybe have been unable to address. You know, as an example, you know, traffic, crime, safety, et cetera. How do you see that playing out you know, once, you know, once kind of city leaders can understand and actually leverage the technology. But how do you see that playing out at the city level on how AI can actually help solve some of these problems?

Yeah, that's. I will just go to, you know, the upcoming Chicago AI conference. The reason I mentioned that is this is exactly where that I you know, when you, when you talk about any other, you know, type of conference and it can only focus one thing, but because you are talking about AI, naturally it impacts all industry. So we have business leaders, you know, who will talk about how AI is transforming banking and then we have leaders who talk about, you know, how AI is just reinventing the real estate. And then we have also leaders who talk about how AI is helping them to just do media content creation different. So as you can see from the examples where that there are a lot of interesting use cases and stories and success for use case already being passed by many of the industry business leaders. And just from the CT side that how can you just really bring those use cases together from different industry and informing and bring together other type of ecosystem players and formulate a collaborative model getting them working together. I think that would be the key and because by the end of day that's every industry leader think that they are empowered or they are being impacted by AI. Naturally AI is something bigger than a small individual company and I think from the public sector how you can bring businesses together that becoming a unique asset. And I see that for city and the state government and a unique competitive advantage is that if a city or state government designed a process and also have, you know, a methodology to systematically bring bring in mind from the academic, you know, system to the together with the, you know, industry leaders from across industry together and then to formul formulate new business models and new exciting, you know, early stage pilot task and I think that will just help the city to remain to be competitive in the future.

You know, you bring up a super interesting angle there Zhao Chen. You know, kind of how cities need to kind of really find and exploit that competitive advantage into use AI to design a process around it. So it almost sounds similar like a go to market strategy, right? Like, like you know, tapping into your background there at AWS is is that how cities should be looking at AI? Like it is a, a brand new kind of product or service that they're bringing to their local economy and, and should they kind of be taking a similar approach as a, you know, a company with a big, you know, new product or service going to market?

Yeah, absolutely. And I think, you know, then we go back to you know, CT need to redefine what is your brand and what is your, the main card you have to play. And if you have that brand, you want to see, you know, how that brand being impacted by AI and that you need to design new products and which is at a city level that basically is still this industry or it's a different industry. And by the end of day city also need to understand what is the key problems that my city, the industry or business in my city help to solve those customer problems and citizen problems are changing and with the emerging technology and then to define, understand that's a problem and align the right business or solution or innovators together to really design and deploy new solutions becoming important and there that as what you said. City and the state need to really have people who can help the city to really do go to market to enhancing that brand to bring together the right stakeholders and also you know, bring them them together to do the right things and then that can, you know, help the city to remain competitive, remain just, you know, provide quality citizen services in the future.

A great, a great question here from Sean saying any. So Sean, thanks for joining us from YouTube saying any advice on how to bring along city leaders who have high negative emotion about AI in low information. Sean saying there is a pushback in some corners but they really just lack knowledge. What's the advice there Zabchen?

Yeah, so let's go back to AI 2030. Why did we just you know, started even from beginning because we saw that's exactly the gap where that's you know, from a, you know, although we focus on responsible AI but you know, just for AI side a lot of you know, similar gaps and when we talk about mainstream responsible or even mainstream AI and then naturally we are looking at different gaps existing in the system. Number one is awareness gap and number two is the talent gap. Number three is the tooling gap. No matter you just want to take on AI response or take AI responsibly and you need to first suggest raising awareness that from the leadership to your technical level and everyone need to really just aware of you know how to do AI or how to do AI responsibly. That's just at the leadership level for both public and private sector. And we organize a lot of events and promote different membership give empower members to really just raising awareness on AI. Then from the talent side that's you need to really resource the right talent to be able to do it, help you to think, help you to do it, help you even to report back. So there that's from looking at in your city and what is the key AI related problems and align the right innovators around it to provide that tooling. And that is very important. I'm involved as a core partner for United Nations Climate Change Convention and then to you know for uicc you know to promote future desirable green city. And then they're planning for the for the city Challenge with the city Challenge to map map out you know what are the desirable outcome that the mayors in different emerging market cities are thinking and then to bring the right innovation using the challenge to match them. And that's a good example how the tooling side that the gap can be filled. Then the last one is from the talent part from training and from the private sector side we identify a number of key change makers likely in the board of directors executives. Those are the people who really make significant decision and whose knowledge are not there or whose awareness are not there. And then in July we are going to deliver the responsible AI for Bottle Director training and then to enable Bottle Director to have the right framework to really help the company they advise to move forward not backward, you know to take on AI responsibly. And I think those are the key things, you know help them to address awareness, talent and tooling gaps. Those are the things that what we do and we have seen early result, you know engaging with different business.

Geez, where where else can you get such a well thought out answer you know on on that for aside from Zauchen in here on everyday AI. But you know Zachian, you said a lot about your city, you know your city. But speaking of our city, Chicago. We're both from Chicago. So your your kind of group is is putting on the Chicago AI Week starting June 24th. So we'll be sharing about that in the newsletter today. I'm excited to be chairing a panel there. But Zhao Chen as as we wrap up right because we've covered so much you know, talking about how traditional job security doesn't exist anymore and how on the flip side cities can be using AI to create new economic opportunities and how it's almost like a go to market strategy. But Zouchin, as we wrap up today's show, what's the one main takeaway that you want people to understand when it comes to how AI can create new economic opportunities?

Yeah, I think, you know, probably the easy way for me to do that is, you know, come to join us, you know, on June 25 to 26 to check out the Chicago AI Conference and then also join the 1871 AI Innovation Summit on June 27. And then we have June 28, the Web3Con. And the reason why we designed this week long program is that no single person should just give any individual business or government strategy and just to blend yourself in a community and a community of innovators, a community of thought leaders, a community of doers. I think there during this weeklam program we bring the web three related experts, financial service, healthcare, media and all coming together. I think that is a unique opportunity where that if anyone want to learn about AI and want to just also do something to enhance the contribution of your faith in not being disrupted and also develop a strategy and know that who you can collaborate with, I think that is just from one time investment and you will be able to expose to all of them.

Zao Chen, so much good information as always. It was great to have you on the Everyday AI show. We really appre appreciate your time.

Thank you.

All right y', all, as a reminder, a lot of great information. We're going to be sharing a lot more about what Zao Chen talked about and other related things in today's newsletter. So make sure check out your show notes, it's always there or just go to your everyday AI.com Sign up for that free daily newsletter. Thank you for tuning in today. We hope to see you back tomorrow and every day for more Everyday AI. Thanks y'.

All. Thank you.

And that's a wrap for today's edition of Everyday AI. Thanks for joining us. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave us a rating. It helps keep us going for a little more AI magic. Visit your everydayai.com and sign up to our daily newsletter so you don't get left behind. Go break some barriers and we'll see you next time.