[Episode 1] Good Morning, AI Happy Thanksgiving!

Welcome to Good Morning AI, your essential podcast for everything AI in the world of business, technology, and society. I'm your host, Noelle Russell, bringing you the latest insights, breakthroughs, and inspiring stories from the forefront of artificial intelligence. In a world where AI is not just a buzzword but a powerful tool for reshaping our future, we dive deep into how empowering it is for organizations, influencing our daily lives, and driving responsible innovation in the solutions that we build. With my experience across tech giants like Microsoft and IBM, AWS and Amazon Alexa, and as an advocate for mindful leadership and ethical AI practices, I am here to guide you through the complexities and the wonders of this rapidly evolving field. Each week, we'll explore diverse perspectives from industry leaders to grasp grasroots innovators, discussing how AI is being harnessed for success and where it's heading next. We'll tackle big questions like how can AI enhance human capabilities and what does responsible AI look like in practice, as well as how can leaders foster an environment of inclusive, intentional innovation. So whether you're an executive, a developer, or just AI curious, join us as we light the way to a more mindful, innovative, and AI-powered future. It's time to start your day the AI way right here on Good Morning AI.

So excited for today and for this week's episode. I've been thinking about this podcast for so very long and many of you have asked me when it was going to get started.

So I'm so excited.

So excited to be here with you all. Uh, this podcast really is coming from a place where I really just want to get the latest and greatest information about what's happening in AI. The world is moving so fast, the industry is moving so fast. New players are added, big players are shaking things up, and just having a single place you can come to to get some of the details on the latest, uh, that's happening in our industry, I figured You know what? If I can't find it, I will build it. So here we are in one of my new favorite things to do, which is share all the things that I am learning and getting involved with in the area of artificial intelligence through our new podcast, Good Morning AI. I am a morning person, and so this name came very naturally to me. But I will let you know that over the course of these podcasts, we'll probably do a few things consistently. One, we will always share with you kind of the top stories that are happening. We'll also be sharing with you not just the top stories, but also some of the good stories that are happening— AI for good and how AI is changing the world in a positive way. Also give you some really cool insight into some of the new classes and educational materials that are out there, and also a preview into some of the events that I might be speaking at, or some of the members of our AI Leadership Institute and the AI Leadership We have speakers all over the world. So as they start speaking and showing up at events and hosting user group sessions, I want to make sure you know where you can go to meet, not just of course online, but also in person. So today let's start with some of my favorite news. Okay, maybe it's not my favorite, but these are some very interesting stories that I've been following this week. So the first one is all about the skills shortage or skills challenge Recently, there was a new report released by the Business Talent Group called the 2023 Skills Index, and it highlighted a significant skills gap, which we already are feeling if we're in this field in the area of artificial intelligence and how that's going to really impact the workplace. The report itself actually emphasizes the need for businesses to upskill their workforce to actually help them stay competitive in this new space. And I think upskilling is so important. As a matter of fact, I created a guide to help with rapid upskilling, and it's actually at a website called upskilling.ai, and you can go grab it yourself if you haven't done so already. This will also add you to the list where you get notified of new episodes as we release them, but also events and other things that we're doing. But this guide is critical. And this skills gap, I, you know, I'm always one to say I'm data-driven in my approach, and I really appreciate being able to have data to back up things that I've been saying for quite some time. But it's less about how do we find the right talent and go out and recruit talent, and more about how do we engage people already in our organizations and enlighten them to understand kind of these new capabilities. What I find, especially in the world of generative AI, is I don't really need them to be mathematical experts. I don't need them to be data scientists or statisticians. I actually need them to really understand their work and be patient with a machine learning model that they're going to need to learn and train and coach into building good answers for their organization. I need people who are going to guard the truth, that are going to protect against bias. So there's a lot of different types of skills that are a little bit different than what we've seen in the past, but so exciting. Um, and this skills gap that we're seeing evolve and expand is going to be of incredible importance as companies try to stay competitive in the new age of AI. Now, another story. There, of course, are lots of organizations coming up and being born every single day to support AI. And there's a new generative AI startup called AI21, and it actually was raising funds this week. It brought in about $336 million. So this is for all you entrepreneurs out there. There is hope. You certainly can create a product, create something of value, demonstrate that value to the world, and be able to get funding for it. And I believe in this wholeheartedly. However, I'm also a believer in bootstrap— bootstrapping an organization, creating products. This is what we've done for years at the AI Leadership Institute. We do not take private funding because we want to stay agnostic in our approach, both technology-wise as well as leadership principles. And so we end up using our customers to fund our own work. But either way you decide to go, know that there's lots of opportunity. And so congratulations to AI21 Labs. Super exciting. They've got this huge amount of capital to help them grow in new and exciting ways. Can't wait to see where they're at. They're currently valued at about $1.4 billion. Now, another interesting story that, though it's come to a bit of closure, is still an active debate, which is really around artists' concerns over AI. And there's still a growing call for US copyright reform. Um, there was a lot of activity actually, uh, with copyright in the early days of generative AI and ChatGPT as soon as it hit the market, but there's a lot of work to be done. Um, there's some, you know, really interesting, uh, impact studies that are being done on creative industries artists, country singers, novelists, video game artists, voice actors. They're all advocating for regulations to help protect their livelihoods from the potential threat of AI. Now, I will say that I am a believer that this technology is incredibly useful and important. And what I found is that over, um, some detailed research in this space, that there are ways to actually augment an artist's role, you know, what they do every day. There's a way to take away some of the rudimentary or frustrating portions of their career, of their jobs, and really talk through and to an AI system to actually help them build better, faster, more, even more creative outcomes. So I think we're just in the beginning of this. It's something that we need to definitely keep an eye on and keep a lookout for. Now, other things that I am— of course, I would be remiss in this week's episode if I didn't mention OpenAI's leadership challenges. They've had some recent turmoil there, including the firing and then subsequent reinstatement of their co-founder and CEO. They've also— people are now a little bit more concerned about the volatility of these types of leadership changes. This type of instability at one of the leading AI organizations has actually sparked some discussions about the broader implications of this kind of advancement and direction of generative AI, right? What happens in a world where there's this kind of friction that shows up and all of a sudden the leader of an organization that is serving millions, maybe billions of requests and tons of people across tons of different countries, like, Wow, that could be pretty unsettling, not only for the board and investors of that company, but also for consumers and for those of us worried about what's at stake and what is at risk when these types of leadership changes happen. Some of you have heard me say on stages, I'm always kind of joking that we're one acquisition away from the Death Star. And we've seen this certainly show up in some technologies. Like, you never know. Right now, I feel very good about the leaders that are heading up some of the largest technology companies in the world. However, we are one retirement away, right, from that being an amazing leader to it turning into a leader who prioritizes things differently, who thinks about the world in profit and revenue as opposed to in people and in clarity of thought. So, a little bit worrisome when our entire kind of existence kind of sits on the balance of this leadership dynamic and that it's completely right now based on kind of these leaders that are voluntarily taking these positions for these companies. So, so this, this OpenAI leadership challenge that happened and, you know, the firing and then rehiring and, you know, what happened to the interim CEO, obviously still the CTO and an incredible woman. We hope to have her on our podcast someday. This incredible opportunity for us to, to really examine the importance of diversity in executive leadership. And we'll talk much more about that in a future episode. But oh my goodness, what an interesting weekend we had. Now, there's some other interesting news as well over at Meta. Meta announced a significant reshuffle of its AI teams. Most of the members of the Responsible AI team are now being moved into Meta's Generative AI team, which actually was formed earlier this year to focus on developing generative AI projects and products. The restructuring reflects the company's increased focus on generative AI and its applications, which is great. And actually, I'm excited to hear that. It's not that they've let go of their responsible AI team, but have repurposed them. And I do think that when you're building generative AI solutions on top of foundation models, that these foundation models have a lot of inherent bias. And so having a responsible AI team very closely aligned with those generative and foundational model products and projects, I think, is actually a great direction. So super excited to see that. So those are just some of the latest and greatest news. You can definitely see some of the notes in our, our show notes. You can see where I got this information if you want to read up a little bit more. A few more things I want to share with you. One, to shift our focus a little bit to an inspiring AI for good story, there is a small village that has decided to leverage, and maybe they were encouraged to leverage, an AI-powered water purification system. And it turns out that it's making a huge difference. This system uses machine learning, so it's not a— oh my gosh, not a generative AI project, but more a traditional machine learning project. But it optimizes the purification process. It ensures safe drinking water for an entire community. It's a beautiful example of how AI can be used to improve lives and support sustainable development. I will tell you, for those of you listening, this week is Thanksgiving week. It was Black Friday yesterday. And so I, of course, did my part and contributed another $1,000 or more to the GDP and purchased some things. One thing that I purchased was an AI-supported garden. So I went to Gardyn, G-A-R-D-Y-N, bought a new 3.0 package. It's not here yet, I just bought it, but I'm excited because it allows me to do, it allows me to leverage sensors, which I'm a big fan of, to monitor the garden itself. I don't need a green thumb, I don't need to be inherently good at it, and it allows me to go in and Leverage AI to build a garden, grow my own vegetation, which I'm super excited about. So it has lots of different types of lettuces. I think they're, um, for those of you who see this today, um, though, uh, the— it's an exciting, you know, product because it allows you to select what kind of vegetation, but also allows you to grow flowers, it allows you to grow herbs. Um, I'm very interested in eating a little cleaner in the new year, so wanted to build. It does take some time. I also like gardens for another reason, um, and it's more of a leadership development reason, which is around like when I garden, when I grow something, like it's, it's a long-term process, right? I'm a big quick win, like go in there, build it, do it soon, not later. Um, I like to be very kind of— I like quick return. Returns. That's why I'm a great seller. Um, and so I like to go in and figure out, you know, how can I do something quickly. With gardening, there is no quick returns, right? With gardening, you have to be, um, very patient, and you have to continuously be disciplined in your care for something, even if it doesn't immediately provide you a result. And so I think it's really cool and very interesting, uh, concept, right, to build this garden. I will have help, thank goodness, because I don't want the whole thing to shrivel up in front of my children. Um, but I also— the kids get to get involved, right? So my kids are going to help So you'll see us, we'll post a lot of this on social media, but really exciting stuff. Another, you know, in my mind, like using AI for good helps someone like me who's busy and traveling also take care of a garden that can help feed my family fresh fruits and vegetables grown in our own house. So amazing. I'm really excited for it. Okay, so as we dive deeper into the world of AI, I'm always wanting to encourage you in inspire you to expand your AI knowledge. And there's a couple things I like to keep in mind as you do that. Number one, stay curious. Keep exploring these latest AI trends and developments. Stay focused on these AI topics—blogs, podcasts, newsletters, anything you can do. And of course, I'm here to support you. So we have an AI newsletter called the AI Leadership Memo, um, and it goes out every single week. We also have, uh, of course, this podcast, Good Morning AI. So welcome, so glad you're here. But also you could take a look at the AI Leadership Institute website, and we have a host of blogs that you can follow. And if nothing else, follow me on LinkedIn. You could just do a search for Noelle Russell. You can add the words AI, and I'll pop right up. But I probably will pop up regardless. And on LinkedIn, of course, you will see me post and repost other people, other blogs, other influencers that are sharing the message. So Staying curious and constantly listening to the buzz is great. Some of you might be overwhelmed by that. So one thing that I do, because I do get overwhelmed by lots of information, is I pick a good— a couple of good sources. And those couple of good sources happens to be one, Stanford. There's an organization there called Human-Centered AI. Love what they do. They've got lots of projects that kind of end up feeding my need for curious innovation. But at the same time, I end up seeing exactly what they're putting into— what, what they're seeing in research show up in products. So it keeps me ahead of the curve, which I love. And then another area is Towards Data Science. I love this organization and the content that they put out. So if you're looking for a couple things, and of course I want you to follow my content, but if you're looking for a couple other things to focus on, So you're not overwhelmed with tons of information. Those are my top 2 favorites. And of course, I'll give you new favorites as they evolve. The second thing I want to share with you around diving deeper and kind of staying in the spirit of expanding your knowledge is hands-on learning. It's really important how no matter where you are technically, right? If you are an executive, an architect, a developer, a user experience researcher, like no matter where you sit on the spectrum of things that you are doing with your life, putting your hands on artificial intelligence is critical. You'll see actually later today I'll be posting a video we took yesterday. We got a brand new robot, uh, in our house called Moxie, and so we'll be sharing with you a little bit about that. But it gives my entire family hands-on experience with AI, with learning, training a robot, with— I mean, obviously, uh, the, the Alexa devices that we use in our house are a consistent, consistent part of us leveraging it. But I also use ChatGPT every day. I also leverage Poe.com to get access to multiple models. So there's tons of things that I do, but the most important thing is to get your fingers on a keyboard and start talking to AI systems. See how they respond, inspect their answers. Such an incredible time, but the best way to learn is by doing. Another thing I'll share with you, and actually if you download the upskilling.ai guide, you'll see this as well, is that I have hands-on learning exercises. And so in these hands-on learning exercises, they're basically GitHub repos. They're not mine. I got them from Microsoft. I think I, I probably focused on Microsoft because they are really great at building these kind of learning solution playbooks. The nice thing about these playbooks is you do not need to write code. You don't even necessarily need to understand it. Because you can just step through it. The documentation is very clear. You can step through the code, see what it's doing, and you actually learn what the code is doing as you do it. And I'd encourage you to at least do one. There's also a set of classes, deeplearning.ai. So when you're building, you know, when you're thinking about a solution, going to deeplearning.ai, taking their Generative AI for Everyone class, which I recently took, or taking their AI for Everyone class or specializing in a specific area. All of these are an incredible way to stay current and kind of— and all of them have hands-on learning exercises that you can use to actually get practical experience with this. That being said, many people are wondering, you know, how do I get these skills? How do I get a job in this space? And I will tell you, the number one way to get a job in the area of generative AI is to be a builder. So You, if you don't know Python, go to freecodecamp.org and sign up. And if you can donate while you do that, please do. Not, not everyone can afford to do that, but if you are in that position, please do. Great cause. Many, many, many of my mentees and coaching clients have leveraged this to get a, just a start in what Python is and how it's used. So learn by doing. Start building projects. As you build these projects, start thinking of new projects you can build. On your own, start editing the projects that you've got. Um, so exciting, what an exciting time. You also have the ability, if you choose to invest in this, in building your own GPT model, right? You could build your own GPT model right in, uh, OpenAI's ChatGPT toolset, right? This is a great example. Build a few of them, right, that leverage different data sources that you have available, that are publicly available, such an exciting time to be in the space because you can develop expertise without any official classical training if that's not immediately available to you. The last thing I'll encourage you to do— we have a couple really amazing things happening in the world of AI— is to network. Network with professionals like me, like many of my friends across the industry. There are so many different things that you could be doing. I know we are, you know, we're in Um, what— I guess we're in the, um, closing part of the year, right? This is Thanksgiving week. So you'll, um— I think it's really important that you realize, like, there's not a lot of events, but there are a couple really good ones. One is called Code Forward. The Code Forward event, um, is held by Modev and team. At the exact same time, they're also hosting the Gov AI, or Government AI Summit. I will be a keynote of both of those events. They are in the first of December and they will be in Washington, D.C. So you can go check out those websites and get information about how you can attend. I do think there's some virtual attendance possibilities as well. So get out there and network with professionals. I will have a December event here in South Florida, which is where me and my family live, where we will host an event at Miami Dade College, one of the best applied AI schools in the world. And we'll be hosting a generative AI user group there. We are up to about 200 members. We grow every single month, so it's super exciting. If you're local or in the South Florida area, or if you're here just for the holidays, hopefully you'll look us up. You can find us at, uh, SF— I think it's called SF, it might be South Florida, but SF, um, oh no, I think it's South Florida. Anyway, South Florida User, uh, South Florida Generative AI User Group on meetup.com. So go look us up, sign up. You'll also see the the notes and the link in the show notes. So it is such an exciting time to be in this space. I'm so glad that you decided to be here. You know, for anyone here who is an aspiring leader, here is a key tip. I want you to embrace the concept of ethical AI, right? You might not think you're a specialist in this area. You might not think that that's something that you want to do, but I want you to think about As a leader, like, how can you champion organizations to think about transparency and fairness and inclusion? How can you think about, you know, what are you doing with AI? What tools do you have that have AI in them? How are you considering them, right? It not only helps us as an organization have advocates for this inside of companies, but it also helps us build trust, not just with those who are building the technology, but also with those who are using it. Now, as we wrap up this first episode, I do want to leave you with a thought-provoking quote from one of my favorite people, George Bernard Shaw. Now, he said this, and it's actually just the beginning of the quote, so I encourage you to go look it up and see the rest of it. But this is how it goes, and I actually believe it wholeheartedly. The true joy in life is being used for a purpose. Isn't that true, right? When you're used for a purpose. The true joy in life is being used for a purpose, recognized by yourself as a mighty one. And in the context of AI, this recognition, right, being, being able to recognize and pursue a mighty purpose of using this technology for a greater good with mindfulness and responsibility. What greater purpose? Well, there's a lot of great purposes out there, but a great purpose for us to go after as we not only learn this for our own benefit and the ability for us to build companies and grow organizations, but also to actually build a better world that's more accessible and inclusive for everyone. Thanks for joining me today on Good Morning AI. Remember to check out our Generative AI Blueprint at Upskilling AI for more resources. And don't forget to stay curious, stay inspired, and I'll see you next time. Thank you for tuning in to Good Morning AI.

It's been a pleasure sharing today's insights and stories with you. I'm Noelle Russell, and as we wrap up this episode, remember that the journey with AI is continuous and ever-evolving. If you're looking to deepen your understanding and skills in AI, don't forget to visit visit our Generative AI Skills Blueprint at upskilling.ai. This is a resource tailored for executives, business leaders, architects, and developers, and it offers a comprehensive guide to harnessing the power of AI responsibly and effectively. At upskilling.ai, you'll find practical tools, in-depth analysis, and insightful tips to empower you and your organization in the AI landscape. Whether Whether you're building your first AI projects or scaling existing initiatives, our Generative AI Upskilling Blueprint is your go-to guide for success. So stay curious, stay informed, and most importantly, stay mindful as you navigate this world of AI. And join us again next week for more engaging discussions and enlightening stories on Good Morning AI. Until then, keep innovating, keep learning, and remember, With great power comes great responsibility.