Jono, Ben & Megan - The Podcast - Can AI improve your everyday life? We chat to an expert!

Episode Date: August 18, 2025

AI: friend or threat? Justin Flitter from AI NZ joins us to explore if it’s moving too fast and whether it can actually improve our lives! And how you can incorporate it into everyday use!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The John O'Ben and Megan podcast, thanks to Dilma. Goodness really does taste great. Dilma, making the world a better tea. Justin. Good morning. Please confirm you're not a robot. I am not a robot. Actually, a human. Take a word for it.

Take a word for it. Okay, we've got some pictures of some traffic lights for you to work out first. Hey, very nice to talk to you. Thanks so much for your time. You're welcome. Now, obviously, a lot of chat about AI recently. Now, the people don't, this really dumb it down for me in general. What exactly is AI?

AI? Well, what is it? What are we all talking about? Well, AI is the ability for machines to think and act like humans. Okay. Are we worried, Justin? There seems to be a lot of concern around the introduction of AI and it's going to take jobs and essentially ruin the human race. Well, taking some jobs might not ruin the human race. It might actually free us up from the tedious repetitive work that some people have to do and give us the ability to focus on things, humans are really good at. Yeah, that is a good point.

It's very nice to have it take away the tedious jobs. What is something that it can do now that would have seemed like really crazy back in the day? I can create a digital avatar of myself that's cloned my voice and my gestures and everything so that in about 30 seconds I can produce a video of me saying whatever I like in about 100 different languages. Because it feels like it's really moved at a lightning speed of late.

You know, we used to look, it only felt like a year ago and we're like, ah, that's got six fingers on that photo, that's definitely AI. But now it feels like you just don't know. So the pace of development for AI is doubling about every seven months at the moment. So if we think back, it could complete tasks that would take humans a few minutes. Today, at GBT5 is doing work that would take me days to complete. Well, geez. Is it moving too fast?

It's not something that we can slow down. No. It's moving faster than anything else ever has. It is creating tension and anxiety because it is hard for people to keep up with this. Some people are well. ahead as early adopters are well ahead of others and that is creating a significant divide between the people that are building competitiveness becoming far more productive and effective than others in the workplace because they're starting to build some AI skills that will see

them out-compete their peers. You make me nervous when you say we can't slow it down because there's no way to like turn it off now or like pull the plug just. Should we be slowing it down or should we just like get on and embrace it? The best way to adapt in the future is to start learning now, right? You cannot

adapt to the world of AI if you are not starting to build your AI muscle today and yes there are risks, yes there are concerns just like there are with the international, any other technology and the best way

that you can be aware and educates yourself and others is to start learning and to start understanding how AI works and how it can benefit your world, whether that's at work or at home, doing your kids' homework, whatever it might happen to do. Okay, let's bust one myth. What's one myth you'd like to bust about AI that you hear all the time?

Is there anything that's top of mind? That everything I post in AI is going to be publicly available. Okay. Oh, so it's not? No, of course not. Oh, sorry, sorry, just doing that. That's good to know, because I ask that, I like, I confer with it a lot of the time, so I was hoping that didn't get released. I'm going to say, I'll just go into chat, TBT.

What did Ben search for yesterday? That's good to know, actually, because that is one of the things that people will often say, right? They always say, oh, well, everything you put in there that's going to suddenly come out. They don't have, they're not a database, right? They don't store everything about you. You know, these models are being trained by some of the things that we do, but they don't have explicit memory storage like database is. There are rumours, and they might just be rumors that you hear, like,

oh, this robot started talking to another robot, and then they formed their own language, and we couldn't turn the robots off. Is that a thing? Well, to the point that we couldn't turn it off. You can get two smartphones together. one can be using advanced voice mode on chat chb-t and the other one could be using voice mode on Gemini and you could ask them each a question

and they would talk to each other so they could create their own language so if you're like hey you two why don't you catch up you guys catch up catch up and start a new language we've seen some examples of that happening but I've never been able to replicate it but then you're right the battery's still going to die on you Sucker, what are you going to do when your battery goes flat?

Because one of our bosses at work, and we were talking about it a while, and he reckons it can save us, if we use it properly, he can save you like, well, it was it eight hours a week, was he saying, across that job. So, I mean, there is a way you can use it to your advantage, right? Totally. There's no way that I could run the business that I run today without having AI to run tasks for me and, you know,

to augment the work that I'm doing. So, yeah. What do you think about, because we learned, that with the latest version of chat GPT, for example, a lot of people are using it to kind of have like a relationship. They program it to talk back to them like their boyfriend and girlfriend. And when it did the update, it got rid of their boyfriend. Do you think people were going to have like relationships with AI?

Well, people already are, yes. There are AI boyfriends and girlfriends, chatbots, that you can subscribe to, create your own. You can subscribe to this. they can be companion apps. I mean, we've seen lots of tools come out over the years designed to be personal companions to learn a little bit about you.

I mean, they would have started in kind of mental health and, you know, supporting you through things that you might be finding challenging. You boys don't need to be threatened. You just need to, like, put your responses into chat GPT. Maybe you'll come across like a better partner. Great. What about the please and thank you?

You know, when you ask GPT to do something, do we need to say please and thank you? Because I'm worried that it's going to be in my boss in a few years' time. No, there's no need to be polite to AI. In fact, you know, your pleas and thank yous are just taking up more data centre, processing time and energy supply to complete that request. I do the opposite. I'm quite rude and blunt because it's the only person in my life I can be rude and blunt to.

So I'm like, not good. Another one. not good whereas Ben's like doing all the niceties could you please do this yeah like some more yeah okay so

but then when they take over the world they're going to come for me yeah first on the agenda who didn't have any manners would you say the biggest leap forward in humankind ever

it's happening right now yeah wow I would say so your advice is jump on board it's here to stay and to embrace it absolutely it's your opportunity right now to stay relevant and be relevant or not?

For those that aren't involved, what's the best way? Just get on there and just play around with it or take a course? What's your suggestion? Sign up to our AI Academy at learn.new. New Zealand. AI and join one of our workshops or webinars to start exploring things. There's also the AI Supercharger Events, which are run in Auckland and Wellington for newbies and beginners. Ask a colleague at work if they have been using chat TBT.

and to show you how to use it. I did, I'm not going to lie, I did ask it what's good questions to ask about AI to an AI expert and gosh, it had some questions. What did you think of the questions, ma'am? What'd you think of the questions, what did you think of Megan's questions? Oh, your question.

Oh, look, absolutely spot on, bang on, you know, perfect. Just absolutely nailed it. This one's from me, though, Justin. What is one thing, one surprising use way that you use AI in your day? Oh, so I'm using, there's a platform called Perplexity, which is an AI platform. Yeah, Megan loves it. And they have a new browser called Thumbit. And so I'm using a browser, which has got AI built in.

And so I can load up Spotify in the browser, and then I can give it a text prompt. Can you please create, actually I wouldn't say please, create a playlist of the best barbecue songs. from New Zealand between, you know, the 80s and 90s, and it will just automatically take over my browser. It will work and point and click and search for all the tracks that it wants to find and Spotify to build a playlist for me. Wow.

That's great. I just put in your question. You know, basically I said I'm a radio announcer for a radio show in New Zealand. What should I be using AI for? It spat me out a big list, but I love the last thing at the end to summarise. It's nice. AI is brilliant for grunt work.

scripts, prep, research and ideas but it can't replace your tone, timing and connection with listeners. That's where you shine. I'm like, oh, it's won me over. It's telling you what you want to hear, right? Yeah, it has. It's played right to my ego. It's fragile radio announcing ego.

Yeah, wow. Oh, Justin, hey, well, we could probably talk to you for hours. We really could. We'll keep your number and we'll harass you at some point in the future. I really do appreciate your time. Justin Flitter, who's the founder of New Zealand AI. You're going to have a wonderful day. Thank you very much, Tim.