The Curiosity Shop with Brené Brown and Adam Grant - AI, Commencement Speeches, and Why Human Thinking Still Matters | The Curiosity Shop

Episode Date: June 11, 2026

In this episode of The Curiosity Shop, Brené Brown and Adam Grant use this year’s booed commencement speeches as a launching pad to explore the role of AI in our lives. They dig into what some of those commencement addresses were missing: moral imagination, emotional honesty, and real empathy for the graduates. Brené introduces the concept of being “smitten with what’s written,” the trap of polished AI output that looks good but fails to move anything forward, and unpacks why writing is a tool for thinking, not just communicating. Adam proposes that signing your name on AI-generated content is an integrity violation, and together they work through how to give feedback, set expectations, and stay human in the middle of a technological transformation.  Show Notes: George Saunders Reflects on his Famous Convocation Address at Syracuse University (2013) - George Saunders, 2023, Syracuse University College of Arts and Sciences Values and Messages Conveyed in College Commencement Speeches - Jenifer Partch & Richard Kinnier, 2011, Current Psychology Don’t Be Afraid to Fall - Brené Brown, 2020 University of Texas at Austin (Commencement Address) Make Your Bed – Admiral William H. McRaven, 2014 University of Texas at Austin (Commencement Address) Through Disappointment You Can Gain Clarity - Conan O'Brien, 2011, Dartmouth College (Commencement Address ) Be True to Yourself - Ellen DeGeneres, 2009 Tulane University (Commencement Address)) The Importance of Kindness - Steve Carell, 2025 Northwestern University (Commencement Address) Make Failure Your Fuel - Abby Wambach, 2018 Barnard College (Commencement Address) Wolfpack: How to Come Together, Unleash Our Power, and Change the Game – Abby Wambach, 2019, Celadon Books  2026 graduates boo commencement speeches on AI - Eric Schmidt (Former Google CEO) University of Arizona; Gloria Caulfield (Real estate executive) University of Central Florida: Scott Borchetta (Big Machine Records CEO) Middle Tennessee State University, May 2026, PBS NewsHour Exploring the Paradoxes of Human Nature: The Stockdale Paradox Explained, Brené Brown and Adam Grant, May 28, 2026, The Curiosity Shop with Brené Brown and Adam Grant Strong Ground: The Lessons of Daring Leadership, the Tenacity of Paradox, and the Wisdom of the Human Spirit - Brené Brown, 2025, Random House A Whole New Mind – Daniel Pink, 2005, Riverhead Books (source of 'Symphony') AI-Generated “Workslop” Is Destroying Productivity – Kate Niederhoffer et al. (BetterUp Labs & Stanford Social Media Lab), 2025, Harvard Business Review The Biggest Tell That Something Was Written by AI – Eve Fairbanks, 2026, The Atlantic Quote Origin: I Do Not Know What I Think Until I Read What I’m Writing - Quoteresearch, 2023, Quote Investigator  Dare to lead glossary: Key language, skills, tools, and practices (including “Paint Done”) - Brené Brown,  Pilots and Passengers – BetterUp Labs & Stanford Social Media Lab 2025, BetterUp The Ghost in the Machine’s Memory: A Teacher’s Lament - Hudson Mathew, 2026, AI & Society (A Socrates warning, voiced by Plato) The Enhanced Games – inaugural event May 24, 2026, Las Vegas (founder Aron D'Souza; doping-permitted competition) Atlas of AI – Kate Crawford, 2021, Yale University Press Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, everyone. In this episode, Brunay and I are going to take, we're going to take on AI in a way that I've never really thought about before. We're going to talk about commencement speeches and what makes a great one. We're going to talk about why the booing happened and how it might have been prevented, the role of moral imagination in taking on technological change. We're also going to talk about some of the challenges we're facing with AI, particularly when collaborators dump thoughtless, maybe AI generated content on us. and then how we respond to that and whether a collaborator should have to disclose AI use when they have it. And I think we're also going to land on maybe a high note around what great content actually does. Welcome to The Curiosity Shop. A show from the Fox Media Podcast Network. Hey, Renee. Hi. Hi. How are you? I have been watching too many commencement speeches, which has been fun, but also slightly distracting.

I love a commencement address. Not all of them, but I love a good one. It's the only thing I like about graduation. Same, actually. Yeah. And man, when they deliver, they just deliver. And when they don't, they do not. They're tough. But we don't rewatch the ones that didn't. No. And have you given a commencement address? I have given three of them, I think. You? Three, actually.

And I hate to report that two of them, one was a medical school graduation, and then two of them were the University of Texas at Austin. And the first one was virtual because of COVID. It was the first time in, like, the history of the university they had to cancel commencement. So I had to do it, yes. And then I was like, whoo, that was hard. And I had to write something that would translate well to virtual. and then they're like, oh, great, we're back and we're in person so you can do this one too. I'm like, no, I can't write two commitments addresses back and back.

Yeah, they were hard. But it was fun. And the medical school one was really fun too. I think one a decade should be the limit. Yeah, I have to say, to be honest with you, I don't know that I would do one now. The environment is tough. I don't think I would either. You don't want to get booed?

You wouldn't? No, I actually don't want to get food. But I don't know. I don't know. It's wild out there. You want to talk about the booing? Well, we definitely have to talk about that. Have you seen the booing?

Yes. And I also, I just, I don't think you need a professor as your commencement speaker. Like, we teach entire classes. We spend lots of time with students. Go invite somebody who's not normally on campus to address the audience. Amen. I love it. I'm with you.

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Syracuse. Yes. You know it? Kind of 13. Yes. Yes. And so let me read it to you. So he does this really funny part where he says,

here's what I don't regret. And he tells some really terrible stories. And then he says, I don't regret any of those. And then he says, but here's something I do regret. In seventh grade, this new kid joined our class. In the interest of confidentiality, her convocation speech name will be Ellen. Ellen was small, shy. She wore these blue cat eye glasses that at the time only old ladies wore. When nervous, which was pretty much always, she had a habit of taking a strand

of hair into her mouth and chewing on it. So she came to our school in our neighborhood and was mostly ignored, occasionally teased. Does your hair taste good? That sort of thing. I can see this hurt her. I still remember the way she'd look after such an insult, eyes cast down, a little gut kicked as if having just been reminded of her place in things. She was trying as much as possible to disappear. After a while, she'd drift away, hair-strands still in mouth. At home, I imagined after school her mother would say, you know, how was your day, sweetie? And she'd say, oh, fine. And her mother would say, making any friends? And she'd go, yeah, sure, lots. Sometimes I'd see her hanging around alone in her front yard as if afraid to leave it. And then they moved. That was it. No tragedy, no big

final hazing. One day she was there, next day she wasn't. End of story. Now, why do I regret that? This is the piece that kills me, Adam. Me too. Now, why do I regret that? Why 42 years later, am I still thinking about it? Relative to most of the other kids, I was actually pretty nice to her. I never said an unkind word to her. In fact, I sometimes even mildly defended her, but still it bothers me. So here's something I know to be true, although it's a little corny and I don't quite know what to do with it. What I regret most in my life are failures of kindness. These, oh my God, this sentence, those moments when another human being was there in front of me suffering, and I responded sensibly, reservedly, mildly. Devastating. Yeah. Just, only George

Saunders could write like that, but I just think, what do I regret most in my life or failures of kindness, those moments when another human being was there in front of me suffering? And I responded sensibly, reservedly, mildly. It's such a, it's a novel way of delivering a timeless message. Mm-hmm. It's beautiful. No one ever looks back and says, yeah, I wish I was less kind to other people. No.

No. You know, and when we look back, I mean, having studied courage for so many years now, we do regret times when someone was suffering and we could have been brave. And it would have been unpopular, but we chose to respond. And this is the worst part, mildly, reservedly and sensibly. Oh, so beautiful. Okay, tell me your favorites. Well, he didn't even do anything wrong. He just failed to do something that he thought was right.

Yes. That's important. This reminds me there was a study a while back by Parch and Kinnear. It was a content analysis of commencement speech themes. So you're going to love this. What a commencement speakers talk about. And one, two, three, four. I think the top five, if I remember correctly, going in reverse order.

Number five, never give up. Number four, be true to yourself. Number three, expand your horizons. Number two, do the right thing. And number one, help others. I mean... George Saunders nailed number one and number two and kind of number four or two. I mean, those are like the five commandments.

I thought there were more than five. Yeah, no, yeah, but these are the five commencement commandments. Yeah. That used to bother me a little bit. It feels like they're homogeneous, they're trite, they become cliches. But the way that George did it, it, he pulled you into the story. And he also, thinking about regretting not being kind, it's such a different way of delivering

the message than saying, well, you know, you should help other people. And maybe that's what we need. Maybe we need to be reminded of core values in fresh ways. In fresh ways. And I think, you know, that's what I, the commencement address that I had to deliver, I had to take it into consideration. into consideration that here are these kids missing their college graduation because of the pandemic. And so my whole theme of it was the world will not ready itself for you. You know, you're going to have to find a way to be ready for the world no matter what it brings. And then I

I wove it around not getting into UT for three years. Yeah. And so... Wait, because I didn't get into UT? No, uh-uh. What? I got into UT as a high school student, but my parents were in the midst of a vicious divorce.

So I leveraged that and did like a little poster presentation on why instead of going to UT, which I did get into UT. I think it was the only... I applied to UT in fashion institute. technology, that was it, in New York, why I could get through UT in three years and hitchhiked through Europe for a year. And they were so embroiled in their own divorce that they ended up letting me do that. And when I got back, my life went off the rails. And I went in and out college, junior colleges, St. Mary's and San Antonio for like three or four years, had a 0.05 GPA,

got a job for AT&T, got promoted three times, and then finally quit AT&T to go back to college full-time when I was like 25 or 26, and they wouldn't let me in. And for like four semesters consecutively, I would get a 4.0 at the junior college and they'd say, no, another one, GPA was so bad. And so I told the story about, you know, I told the story about the perseverance there and how what I learned from it and how hard it was. And so, and I thought it was interesting because it just things sometimes don't go as planned. So, but it was, it was basically those five things wrapped in a very specific story. I mean, you must have been, like during those three years, you must have been thinking every day, like, this is perfect material for my future commencement

speech. That's how you got through it, right? No, I was thinking, God, I've got to go into the TCBY, and then change into my waiter outfit and then take a bus to the restaurant where I was waiting tables to work my way through school. So I was thinking like, this is Shitsville, man. When is this going to end? Oh, well, I'm going to have to go back and watch the full speech. Is it recorded? Yeah, I'll put a link to it in the pod. Okay, good. I can't wait to see it. Just know that under the desk where I'm sitting, I've got a lot of. I'm going to have a on bluging cutoffs in Birkenstock. And then my big floppy PhD hat.

Important information. Noted. Yeah. So I'm just thinking about commencement speeches that I've loved over the years. And there are so many. I think about, I mean, no list of commencement speeches is complete without Bill McRaven. Admiral McRaven. Make your bed.

Let's go hook him horns. Make your bed. That was a UT speech. It was so good. And I make my bed now sometimes because I'm afraid of him. No, I mean, what a lovely guy. Such a gem. I've loved every Conan O'Brien commencement speech.

Those are, I think those are always just hilarious and delightfully self-deprecating. Ellen DeGeneres gave one that I thought it was such a good, it was such a good challenging of one of the truisms that usually shows up, which is follow your passion. I'm not, I'm not going to do this justice because her deliver. was exceptional, but she says something like, follow your passion. Stay true to yourself. Never follow someone else's path. Unless you're in the woods and you're lost and you see a path,

then by all means you should take that path. That's funny. That's funny. Go, Ellen. And then I think last year, Steve Carell gave a great commencement speech, also on kindness. Oh, God, I loved it. Oh, I loved it. What was your favorite part of it? You know, I think I loved his case for being kind to other people. I thought like George Saunders, but in a very different way from a very different voice, he did it in a way that it made it feel

fresh and new. But I also just loved when he said, don't use chat GPT for personal emails. That's just sad. That's going to be a good transition to the stuff we're going to talk about today. I've got big questions for you. All right. Where are we going? We have to talk about the booing. Okay, yes. And one thing I want to add is I want to add Abby Wombach's commencement address at Barnard that became Wolfpack her book. Yes. I have to say, I've read that book 10 times. I give it away all the time. I have listened to it in the car with my kids. The leadership lessons in that book point and run. When you score the goal, the first thing you should do is point at the person who,

gave you the assist. When someone else scores the goal, the first thing you should do is run to hug that person. If you can't, I mean, we have this framed in our office, one of the quotes, one of the lessons from Wolfpack, which is if you can't lead from the bench, you can't lead anywhere. So I think Wolfpack and the commencement address that gave birth to that was one of my tops as well. I got to give a shout out there. Okay, the booing. The booing this year. The booing hurt around the world. Oh, man, I found those tough to watch. Yeah, and I have to tell you, this is probably not a, this is not most people's reaction, but I felt for the commencement speakers who are getting booed.

One, because anyone who's ever spent time on stage knows how hard it is to stand up in front of an audience and put yourself out there and bomb. And granted, anybody who's giving a commencement speech ought to have thick enough skin, they can handle it. This should not be the moment that tests your resilience. But that, that, you know, I thought coupled with the fact that the speakers I heard booed, at least, were trying to say something helpful to the audience about, look, you know, AI is upending the world.

Here's how to think about it. Here's how to, you know, how to survive and thrive in that world. I'm like, why are you booing that? And then I thought about it. And there are a lot of reasons why the booze happened. But that's where I started. How about you? Okay, so you have to understand, first of all.

You have to go into boo etiquette. Wait, there's boo etiquette? Bootiquette. Yeah. Oh, there's bootiquette. Yeah. There's bootiquette. Don't mispronounce that one.

Yeah, no, don't. So, one, as you can tell from my Houston Oilers hat today, I was raised, obviously, in a huge sports family, but I was definitely raised in a family where you did not boo. I guess there are booers and non-booers. And it will be the hardest thing about being a season ticket crazy person in sports is if I end up with sitting with other season ticket holders at games that are booers, I, you know me, I'm a moral high ground girl. Like, I just don't believe in booing. Even when the other team takes the field and people are booing, I stand up and try to clap.

Like, I think booing is bad manners. Like, I do not believe in booing. There's no words that I could tell you right now on this podcast. It will convey my disdain for booing. Can I ask you a question about that? Yes. My college roommate Palmer made me rethink my, because I also, like, I just thought booing was disrespectful and rude in all situations.

And Palmer's from Texas. And when I would make a bad pun, he would just look at me and say, boo with his big grin and I would start laughing and his way of showing playful disapproval made me think there's a time and a place for booing but it may not be the situation you're thinking about.

No, I don't, no, I'm not for Palmer's booing, your bad pun. I'd just be like, I think it's better just say, God, that sucked at him. But, and I've been on the receiving end of a couple of them, but they actually were really all good so far. But, um... Advanced apology for any bad puns I make.

No, I, I'm a puny girl. I like a pun. Um, I, I think booing. I just don't like it. It's just, I, it's the, it's like the way I was raised. And it's probably the, the, the, the, the disrespectful, irreverent. And then a lot of the times in college sports, these are kids, like walking, taking a field. Like, I just don't. But, If someone's hurt, I'm the first of my feet. And I am quiet. Like, if I was coaching a team, I'm like, take a knee. Now, you'll be pulled from the game.

This is part of sportspersonship. So I think I'm just more rule-followy. So when I'm watching them, I was like, I don't like the booze. But when I think about it, I think I have far more empathy for the students than I do for the actual speakers. Probably where it should be. I don't know, I don't know whether it should be or not.

I mean, just, I thought every AI-focused commencement address lacked moral imagination and moral clarity. And that's what commencement is about. This is about life. This is not about technological, digital transformation readiness.

This is about love and kindness and regret and resilience. I thought AI lacked two things, moral imagination, and a finger on the pulse of how kids must be feeling about the world we're handing them right now. I don't think they were booing necessarily AI as much as they were. were booing the shit show they've been handed. You know? Their inability to be as prosperous as their grandparents at this point. You know, and so I don't think a commencement address giver, let me just put, let me just

get away from the negative. We don't have to edit this part out because this is me thinking real time. Yeah, no, I like this. I think a good talk, should be selfless and a gift to the people that are spending their time listening to you, not about what you think is important, but about what they think is important and what you could contribute to that. I don't know. I was frustrated. Oh, no, I agree. I think a talk is a gift. I think your job as a speaker is to figure out what do I know that's worthy of sharing with you

that will be for your benefit. Amen. I think if you are, are a technology or business leader who's asked to give a commencement speech to college students, and you're getting asked all the time for advice on, like, how do I think about future-proofing my career? How do I get ready for a world that's in flux? It's easy to imagine. You think that's the helpful thing to talk about, especially if that's your expertise. So what I would say is what is the thing you get asked about all the time? And then how can you look at that through the lens of moral imagination, not four ways to write a prompt,

which some of these got close to, you know, and they just felt, I don't know, they just felt, they missed the mark to me. How would you think about giving? So, okay, you're sitting down with a, let's say a tech founder who's building an AI company

and they've been asked to give a commencement speech. how would you coach them through the process of using their moral imagination to say something inspiring and useful, but also real to the audience. Because we talked two episodes ago about the Stockdale paradox that you introduced and the importance of combining gritty facts with gritty faith. And I heard several of these speakers who got booed trying to do that, trying to say, look, like we, like the genies out of the bottle. We, we, like, the genies out of the bottle. We, don't know what to do about that. But we have faith that you can still go on to do great things. And we're going to do our best to share something with you that will help you on that. And

did not land for the audiences they were speaking to. But I thought that was sort of what was being attempted in some of these cases. And so I don't know if you agree with that or not. So first question is, what do you think of that? And then secondly, how would you coach them to read the room? I think that it's an elevation of, I would say to the, if really this was a tech startup CEO who was asked to do a commencement address, I think I would start with tell me your story and tell me about the most emotionally difficult parts. And then I would probably use some of those stories to talk about larger lessons in the technology.

So that abstract of the data and the milieu in which it took place, what did you learn about what it means to be human and a leader? You know, it's not, and I've seen people do that really, really well. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's great advice. Yeah. So I would say that

but the other thing is like, this is what I do for a living because grounded theory research is coming up with you should be able, it's interesting, like, this is kind of a rabbit hole, but I think you'll find it interesting. This is how I would think about it. In grounded theory research, the theories that you, the basic social process theories that you put in the world should not be connected to the kind of industry or area where they were collected. So, for example, this really interesting research on

how why people would do not resuscitate orders why there are a couple of diseases where people who have high potential of death do not have DNRs and so like you've got like end-of-life hemo dialysis patients in this study.

They found that fewer of them than most people that are sick have DNRs. They just don't have them. And then a grounded theory researcher went in for her dissertation and found out it's very difficult to simultaneously engage in very frequent medical procedures that are very painful and maintain hope

and also plan for death. Does that make sense? Yeah, it does. I don't have a DNR because I'm fighting to live right now and I cannot both fight to live and plan for death. Well, one of the most interesting applications of that was how was that theory used to understand what happened at Enron.

And how can a company that's actively in trouble be held responsible for planning an ethical death? And do you need things in place to make sure that that happens? And so I think that's about what have I learned specifically about from putting agile processes into my business that I could extrapolate and tell a bunch of 22, 24-year-olds about life. Like, get with a team, define what's done, and be ruthless in your inventory of what you're building, but also ruthless in your kindness and support toward each other. Yeah. That's a commencement at learning. Yes. Yes, it is. And, you know, when you first

started, I'm thinking, okay, AI is an elephant in this room. How do you not acknowledge it? Right. But it's so easy to acknowledge it. Just by saying up front, you're probably expecting me to give a talk about AI. I want to talk about something more important. What it means to be human. Yeah. In a time of, I mean, to be, you know, electricity, this is what we went through. You know, industrialization, this is what we went through.

You're a generation bearing witness. Yeah. And here's what we know from history. Yeah. And the lessons we know from history are deeply. human. Let's zoom out. Yes. And then zoom back in with story. Zoom out with your five commandments.

To me, I want moral imagination. And I want really interesting, specific stories to back it up. Make your bed. Nailed it. Yeah. I mean, I think almost every great act of communication, whether it's a commencement speech, whether it's a book or an article, whether it's an email, sometimes even, has both a zoom out. Let's put this in big picture context and a zoom in. Let me give you a really specific memorable story, phrase, data point.

I mean, 100%. It's interesting because last week I was like so slow on my text with you. I'm sorry about that. I was so in the weeds. I reject your apology. Texting does not have an expiration date. There is no expected response window when I text you. Really?

Yeah. Oh, I expect to text back quickly. So I'm glad we're clarifying this because I felt like shit because I was so in the weeds filming these curriculum videos for Strong Ground for the dare to lead work. And it was interesting because it was the first time because Strong Ground is the first time I've really written an entire chapter on the importance of communication. and mission critical communication, but it's exactly what you're saying, whether it's a text or an email, like emotional resonance, you know, clarity,

Chekhov's gun, don't bring in something that you're not going to, Chekhov's guns is really interesting, you know, from the Russian playwright Chekhov, who said, if you've got a gun in Act 1, don't describe it in the play or the story unless it's going to go off at some point because it's extraneous at that point. And then I'm just always looking for it.

You know, like, there's just, there's just people need to be seen and heard. And comms is a great way to do that. Yeah. And emotional resonance, moral imagination, lessons backed by stories, these go back to cave wall, caveman walls. Can I put in a request here? Yes. Okay, good. I think we need a Brne Brown book on storytelling.

You introduced yourself to the world in part as a storytelling researcher. You are a master storyteller. It's all over all the work you do, but you've never taken it on to give us your view of how to tell a great story. Will you? Oh. It's an invitation. You can reject it if you want. You can decline it for now.

It's an open invitation. What does the RSVP do? I got to think about it. Later than your texts are, but I think it's, it's a topic that everybody, like, we, we, we live our lives through stories. We communicate who we are through stories. And it's something that you have, you have so much knowledge and so much emotion around. It's kind of amazing that you've never taken it on as a topic in and of itself. Yeah, I don't think about it as art and science, really. I just talk about, like, I'm a fifth. I come from a long line of Texas bullshitters.

So I just, it's like DNA programmed, I think. But I'll think about it because I definitely respect when I see it done well. Yeah. I think more than anything, it's what, I think what I'm really a big fan of is what Dan Pink would call symphonic thinking, story, metaphor, analogy.

A book on how to do that better? Only more important in the age of AI. I'll think about it. I doubt I'm the right person. There's really good people who study that. I'll look at it. As you know well, studying something and synthesizing something

are two different skills. That's true. That's really true. Atlas of the Heart. You're right. Okay. Support for the show comes from Shopify. Starting any venture comes with a long list of what-ifs. But a big part of building a successful

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Quince.com slash curiosity. The U.S. and Iran say they've agreed on terms to end the war and reopen the Strait of Hormuz. You already see oil prices from a high of $126 a barrel down to about $80. a barrel today. That's a lot of progress. The war, of course, drove up the price of gas and other essentials and has led to some ugly polling for President Trump. Sixty-one percent of adults polled by NPR, PBS, and Marist disapprove of his handling of the economy. His handling in a certain light makes sense. His priority was preventing Iran from getting nukes. But Trump's messaging was unusual, unusual for a president. Last month, the reporter asked Trump, to what extent was he

thinking about Americans' finances when he negotiated with Iran? I don't think about American financial situation. I don't think about anybody. I think about what's he doing coming up on today explained from Vox. Okay, let's talk, you know, since we're on AI, do you want to solve a problem for me? I love solving problems more than almost anything I can think of. Okay. Oh, I love this. I didn't know problem solving was your love language. Of course you did. We chat. I did know that. Yeah, in different ways, I think. So, but I really do have a problem. I have a real problem. We received a document. It pissed me off. And it wasn't from either one of us. It was from someone else. And I forwarded it to you because I wasn't sure you had received it on separate copy. And I called the document Workslop, AI Workslop. I have big emotions about being on the receiving end of Workslop. Well, first of all, I think the back and forth we had about that made me think that I think you said, we didn't end up talking about it, but you made a comment that you were trying to be less reactive

about this kind of thing. And I heard that and I thought, well, I don't know that I want you to be less reactive because your strong reactions are part of what give you insight and passion. And then I was like, wait, maybe what you want are the strong reactions but not the reactivity. and can you separate, is it possible to separate those two things? Can you have strong reactions without being reactive? Because I think that might be the best of both worlds here. Yes.

So I have a strong reaction. I'm trying to be less reactive. I'm like, yeah, I'm here for the strong reaction. You should, you should hate work slop with every fiber of your being because should we talk about the research that our colleagues that better up did on it? Yes, we should. Or do you want to solve the problem first? Well, let me go back to the problem and let me just say one thing I'm looking to do.

This is what I'm asking for your help around. And you've already helped me by separating strong reactions with big reactivity. I want to have, I'm okay with my strong reaction. I'd like to regulate and be productive in my response. So I'd like to go big reaction, regulation, productive response. Love it. Does that make sense? Yes. And let me tell, can I, just before we go to the better up research, which I really want to talk about because I think it's so good on two fronts, actually, one on work on work slop and the other on their passengers pilot work. The reason why I have such a reaction to work slop is it shifts work to me.

it puts, it adds to my workload, which is often already at the brink. Now, you have put something in front of me that I have to, first of all, I have to have an emotional reaction. I have to spend cognitive dollars regulating. And then I have to spend even more cognitive dollars telling you why what you sent me pisses me off in a way that's constructive. That's expensive. You just cost me, if I get a hundred cognitive dollars a day, you just fricking cost me 40. No, am I kidding? That's a lot. That's a lot. So, okay, so work slop, the AI form anyway, although it could be human generated too. How are we defining it? We're talking about thoughtless prompting of AI and then basically just sending you a copy paste

of the output. Let me give the definition. Let me give the definition. So this is, so Adam and I do both do work with BetterUp, and this is Better Up's research that they did in partnership, Better Up Labs, with the Stanford Social Media Lab. And so their definition, let's use that because I think it's helpful, is, so this is AI Workslop. Workslop is work that masquerades as good work, but lacks the substance to be meaning, to meaningfully advance a given task. It's insidious. Okay, that's the definition. Let me say it again, because I think it's important. AI-generated work-slop. Masquerades is good work, but lacks the substance to meaningfully advance a given task. Oh, I think it's really good. Its insidious effect is transferring effort from creator to receiver. I mean, I go dukes up right there. Not only am I dumping work on you, but I'm also acting like I did it, which is dishonest.

Yes. And I'm claiming that I put in effort, but I'm actually. delegating without your permission. I think that's less of a case for me because I don't really, if you're using AI well and you're meaningfully advancing a task, I don't actually, I kind of expect that now with the prevalence of AI use. So it's not a credit thing for me. So I appreciate it.

The problem is that you're sending me something that masquerades is good work. that is actually not meaningful in its ability to move the task forward. So it's a little bit different. I don't think that getting credit forward is because I'm assuming that, you know, I'm only evaluating on one vector, which is meaningful advancement of task. Got it. Okay. Then I'm going to need your help in this conversation, too,

because I have a big problem with people using AI for anything they sent to me without disclosing exactly how they used it. Is that true with grammarly, the dictionary, a thesaurus? A thesaurus, no. If you've used AI to generate more than a word, if AI has written even a sentence, I want to know it. We're going to have to work on this together, you and me. Yeah, okay.

Yeah, I think that's, I think that's unfair. Wow. All right, let's talk about those sides of this. Do you want to start with your problem or mine? Um, let's stay with WorkSlot for a minute. So I want to introduce a new concept here. And I would like you to send a quarter to my favorite charity every time you work. Will you use this because it's going to be that popular? I can't wait. I think as I think when I think very few people are strong writers. Would you agree or disagree? Agree. Okay.

I think with the advent of AI, people who struggle with written communication, persuasive written communication, the problem is they're smitten with what's written. That's my new thing. They are so smitten. They are so smitten with the idea that they can hand off a work deliverable or anything that's well written. that they're because that's new for them like all of a sudden this is this beautifully crafted thing that I can turn into someone when for 40 or 50 years I have not been able to make something you know basically perfect in terms of editing so I am able to give someone something that's that's well written. And so I think because we are smitten with what's written, we don't think through the fact that good writing does not always equate to meaningfully, meaningfully advancing a task. Does that make sense? It does. Okay, I have to share this with you because I was so excited when I wrote it. Let me tell you what happened. I was listening to it as I was driving between

Houston and Austin. Because sometimes I listen to articles with an AI generated voice from magazine. So I'm a big subscriber. I love the Atlantic. And I was listening to an article. And this is an article written by Eve Fairbanks. And the name of the art, we'll link it in the show notes. And the title of the article is the biggest tell that something was written by AI. Look closely and you'll see that every part of the text is not quite right. And so here's a quote from this, and I want you to track this. I'm so dying to talk to you about this. She writes, Eve writes, Eve writes, Eve Fairbanks. The problem is that the efficiency and frictionlessness that make AI appealing to writers are the same qualities that make it feel untrustworthy to readers. And readers are right to not trust it,

no matter how much we may tell ourselves that AI is just a tool like spell check, it isn't. When we use AI to flesh out ideas, we lose the most important part of the writing process, thinking. And then she goes on to explain the writing process, which you and I know really well, which I can write a page single-spaced in Microsoft Word. And after thinking through it for one or two days can end up with a same. sentence. But that discernment process is not about writing quality. It's about idea, the meaningfulness of ideas. Why do I feel so blown away? Like I'm having, like I feel like I'm having a transcendent moment. I don't know. I mean, I, when I hear you describe that, I think,

yeah, most people look at writing as a tool for communicating. It's more important. It's more importantly a tool for thinking. It's a tool for thinking. Writing is how you work out your ideas. It's how you identify flaws in your logic and holes in your reasoning. And I think we do our best thinking when we write regularly. And the idea that people would outsource not only their communication, but their actual cognitive effort that helps them crack hard problems to a machine is terrifying to me. Yeah. Do you remember when six-word memoirs were really popular? Yeah.

Do you remember that meme? It was so fun. Mine was, I write so I know what I think. Mm-hmm. Does that make sense to you? Yeah, it's like the Mary Parker-Fillette line. How can I know what I think until I see what I write? Oh my God, I love that. I don't think I've ever heard that in my life. Is that Mary Parker-Follette? I may be misquoting her now.

We're going to have to fact check that one, Paul. We'll fact check it. It's all yours. Okay. No, you know what? I think it's E.M. Forster. I think E.M. Forster said that. Yeah.

I can see it on a like a graphic design. I think it was Forster. How can I know what I think until I see what I write? Okay. Go on. Okay. So this is what really, there's two more things I want to read you. again, I'm going back to the article from E. Fairbanks and the Atlantic. She writes, when writing is hard, it's often not just because we are tired, underfed, or inefficient, but because our mind is trying to tell us crucial things. How many draft text to colleagues

or family members have we all started in frustration, wondering why they don't feel quite right until we finally realize that they need to be rethought completely or not sent at all? Right? This is the E.M. Forrester piece. And then listen to this quote. Listen to this last thing. It's crazy. Working on AI text as an editor is like trying to operate on a body whose skin, muscle, veins, bones, and organs are all compromised. There's nothing to leave intact, nowhere to begin. Wow. Like the whole thing is the whole thing is shit that we're smitten with the written. Yeah, I think you're right. I never thought about it that way.

So somebody then is sending you something that you're not happy to receive but they were thrilled by it. And you have a problem with how to confront them. Well, I don't know if they're smitten. Were they thrilled? Or believed? I mean, I think they're smitten by the fact

that there's something in writing that's been edited and that they can send across. I don't think we can guess what the motivation, emotion that they're feeling is. Complacency, you know, thrill, who knows. Yeah, that's right. And so you have a challenge then with confronting them and giving them feedback. Yeah, because what I want to say is, oh, my God, this really strong paragraph followed by four bulleted points followed by a concise summary

is so well written and there's jack shit in here that's useful. You should definitely not lead with that. Because if you read it, not from how it flows, but from what it says, this is actually a really piss poor idea. Yeah.

That actually you are the person I depend on because you're so good at calling those things out. But you've jumped on to some LLM that has eaten your brain, and you got so smitten with how it's written, that you're not practicing discernment about what it says. Yes. So they were seduced by the form and overlooked the lack of substance in the same way that people are often blown away by a speaker's charisma

and then miss out that the content they're delivering is fluff. Yes, 100%. I think that's exactly, that's a beautiful analogy. It's the same problem. It's the writing version of that. It is. It is. But it harkens back to something that I really struggled with for 20 years teaching graduate students, which is we used to, did you ever use turn it in?com? No. Yeah, it was like a thing that you turn stuff in. We, like, our college went through like a big thing, maybe 15 years ago, where, Everything had to go through Turnitin.com to see if it was plagiarized from, it was like another digital transformation moment. Like it was it, maybe 20 years ago, was it plagiarized from the internet?

But like a little side thing of it of Turnitin.com would give you an average grade level of the writing. And the mean grade level of the writing of graduates, these graduate students would sometimes be seventh grade. And so as we... As we become less skilled in writing, we become more, the writing grift of AI becomes more seductive. Yeah, I think it does. Can I put a caveat on that before we go forward? Yeah, I probably don't want to hear it, but I need to hear it. Go ahead.

Well, no, this goes back to one of our first podcasts when we talked about the difference between ignorant and elegant simplicity. and I think that some of the books in the genre that you and I both write in, many of the best ones have been written at a seventh grade level if you actually analyze it. But the difference is they are conveying graduate level ideas at a seventh grade reading level, as opposed to your seventh grade ideas at a seventh grade reading level. Well, I'm a fan of graduate ideas at a seventh grade. I mean, I literally have a sticker on my desk. If this doesn't make sense to a fifth grader,

then you don't understand it well enough to be talking about it. So like that I hold that litmus test for my own work because that's more to me about the simplicity, the ability to translate complex ideas into simple, and to make them simple and elegant. Yep. But what I'm talking about are, what I'm talking about,

which is scarier for me in graduate school, is graduate level ideas that read as seventh grade ideas because of a lack of, because being passed through in writing classes your whole life. Yep. Because no one had the courage to say to you, you've got important ideas. I know you don't want to dissect sentences.

You want to think about your important ideas, but some way you're going to have to convey them at some point. and I don't want your great ideas to be lost or reduced. Yeah. And to your earlier point, if you don't do the hard work of figuring out how to write clear sentences about your thoughts, your thoughts are going to remain fuzzy and you're not even going to know if you have good ideas or not. Yeah, back to that. Yeah, we're back.

You're right. I agree with everything you're saying. So solve my problem for me. All right. So here's a first volley. I wonder if one way to approach this is just, just to lead, I mean, we know from extensive research on feedback that explaining why you're giving the feedback and communicating that you're doing it because you care about the person,

you believe in their capability, is important as context. So I wonder if you went to the person who sent you the work slop and you said, hey, I was really surprised reading this because I didn't see the level of discernment in it that you demonstrate it on a daily basis. can you help me understand why? Where do I say work slop? You don't have to. You don't have to label it. You're the one who's always reminding me.

I know. But I... Okay, I really want to figure this out. Everybody's dealing with this right now that is in organizations. Yeah. Is it... Okay, you're the person that sent it to me, let's say,

and we're just role-playing right now. I like where you're going. It's probably intuitively where I would go. But here's what I need to say up front, or somewhere in there, I need to say, was this generated by AI? That was my next question. I was going to let them explain it first and see if they offer it. Now we're into your question. Yes, we are. Do you know what I mean?

Yeah, you just went right from your problem to mine. But before we leave yours, I think the key is to- Oh, we're not leaving mine because mine's not solved. It's not solved. I really need your help. To break down what I'm trying to accomplish, I think the first thing to do is to clearly convey that the work was not up to your standard or their capability level. Agreed. And then secondly, to give them a chance to walk through the process that they use so you can understand it better.

And they might just immediately say, yeah, you know what? I was pressed for time and I did that with some AI prompts. and, you know, I didn't review it as carefully as I should have. That's my fault. Here's what I'm going to do differently next time. Or they might say, you know, this was a really hard task for me. And I think they might have some other explanation, right? I want to give them a chance to explain the thought process behind what they did.

You know, I guess what I'm saying is that strong reaction to me is different. If they own up to the fact right away, you know what? like I did this with AI. I was asleep at the wheel. And they take responsibility for that. Then if they say, you know, I actually thought this was really good. And here's why. I'm like, we need to have a different conversation.

Yeah, this is all, I wonder why I'm so emotionally hooked by this. Because, I mean, everything you're saying is like, I know to be true. It's what we teach. But I don't know why I'm so reactive to this. Because I think it's about shifting, the shifting of burden. Well, you know what, oh, God, it's worse. It's worse. I think there's some self-righteousness on my part.

Never. Shut up. It's never happen. No, no, I was going to frame it more. Wait, wait, wait. If you think we're going to cruise right past that, you're wrong. What do you mean? Like, am I in my kind of number one eneagram traits here?

I think you might be. I was going to frame it more charitably, actually, which is you're a doer. You take on tasks that other people could and should do, and you're happy to take full responsibility and an ownership for them. You put your best effort and your best thinking into them. And not only are other people failing to meet you in that, they're failing in even making the effort in the first place and then asking you to do more. It just feels like a violation of one of your core values.

You're an owner, and this is a complete. lack of ownership on their part. I am a radical ownership person. But other people cannot just assign ownership to you, right? That's what they're doing. You used to word transfer. Yeah, no, I don't want, yeah. Well, it means even in the research, it's an insidious effect

is transferring effort from creator to receiver. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's interesting. Yeah, this is a little bit of my stuff. This is a little bit of my, this is a little bit of my stuff, I think, around, yeah, I'm going to have to think about that. I'm going to have to talk about my coach about this. Well, I also wonder. Fuck. Another invitation to think about something, I'm sure. Great.

No, it's an invitation. Actually, I have maybe a different kind of practical solution, which is one of the, one of the things I've come to believe about feedback. I've never articulated this before, but I've been implicitly operating as if it's true. So pressure tested if you disagree. I think that a large amount of the feedback that I end up giving could be avoided if I was clearer about my expectations up front. Oh, God, same. I mean, that's that's such a, that's so insightful.

It's just a basic and consistent fail for me is, you know, somebody delivers something. I'm not happy with. I'm like, well, I didn't tell them what I wanted in the first place. I should probably do that up front. And so I wonder, you can't do this with everybody, but with the core people that you work with regularly, is the actual solution to this problem? Not how do I give feedback when I have a strong reaction. But let's have a team conversation about works lob. This is one of my triggers. If you do not want a strong negative emotional reaction from me, here is how to avoid it. And also, can we set some norms where if you send me something that I think is not up to standard and has this slap quality,

I can just say, please try again or not ready for my review yet, or, you know, have some shorthand where I don't actually even have to have the whole conversation with you. I can just signal to you, like, you are on a slippery slip right now. Do not take another step. Go back to the beginning. Is there some kind of expectation setting and norming conversation that you could have to prevent a lot of the feedback from occurring? Is my question that I am trying to ask in long form? Yeah, I mean, I think it's interesting because one of the videos that I recorded for the new curriculum yesterday was about something that we use from Dare to Lead, which is paint done. And paint done is, it's born of Agile and Scrum where they use definition of done.

And so someone running a scrum or agile process will say let's define done. So everyone's on the same page about what the expectation is before they go into the development or launching process. And so the reason why we don't use definition of done and we use paint done is because we don't just want kind of real just black and white deliverable definitions. we want it to make people feel this way. We want more warmth to it. So we use paint done, like really define done for me and then paint it and give it some color, some context. Should it feel warm?

How should it make people feel? Should it be, you know, that kind of thing? So I think painting done around AI has been a complete ball drop on my point. Like I've been using AI for two years. and I am so quick, and this is in my number one enneagram tradiness, I am so quick to assign lack of effort and complacency to something as opposed to I spent, I've probably spent, I don't know, in total over two, years, 60 hours teaching myself how to use it and not use it. And then I'm in, I'm, I'm, I'm very rigorous

in my use of it. And you haven't communicated any of that to the people you work with? No. There we go. I think that is your, that's your solution. Yeah, I just, you know why? Because I just say, then just don't use AI. Because I don't, I don't, because where am I, this probably just goes to my overstretchedness. Like, when am I going to be teaching people how to use it? And no one, and I, and I, I taught myself to use it, so either teach yourself to use it or don't use it, but don't use it in a shoddy way. Yeah. Which is not good leadership.

Really, honestly, it's not. And so, bummer. Okay. I got it. Yeah. So I did not solve your problem, but I think we've outlined a path that you could take to prevent your problem in a lot of cases. I think you did really help me because I think what you did.

did, which I love, I think you helped me get under the definition of the problem, which then led to an answer that feels familiar and values aligned with me. So I think you, yeah. Thank you and fuck. Okay. An equal measure. I think the best solutions are always a combination of the two. They're like, I kind of knew what I needed to do once the problem was defined back to me. But now I have to do the work. Yeah, and I think it also goes into like prioritization and time management on my part. Like when and how am I going to do that? Yeah.

And then I get overwhelmed. That's probably what it is. Like, oh my gosh, you know, I've got people on my team not using this the way they should. I'm a pretty, you know, this is the better up researcher research around there are pilots and there are passengers. And passengers, you know, the research is really great around how people are using it differently in the conditions. I just need to apply what I know to be true, which is teach people how to be pilots because organically a lot of people are going to be passengers because it's a new technology. Or find somebody in your team who's already using it as a pilot,

not a passenger, and ask them to lead it. It doesn't all have to fall on you, owner. Or it brings someone, yeah, or, yeah, I know, or bringing in someone externally. Yeah, who teaches this for a living. Sure. Yeah, that's smart. This episode is brought to you by L'Oreal Group. Beauty is a powerful force that moves us. That's why L'Oreal Group has built a business that is inclusive at its heart with 100% of

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All right, so this, I think this is a good segue to my problem, which is maybe in some ways more philosophical in nature. I really struggle with people using AI for anything that's written. That's not a brainstorming partner or an editing partner. I think that anything, any communication that's generated should be human drafted. And otherwise, I think you're taking credit for thoughts and words that you didn't have. And that feels like an integrity violation to me. And so if I have somebody who I'm collaborating with who has, like, who has written something and sentences or paragraphs were generated by AI, I don't feel like I can trust them anymore. Wow. I mean, that's a, that's a big rupture. Yeah. And so I think that's why you referenced that

text I sent you. I think that's why I'm so hesitant to judge. First of all, just as a basic statement of intellectual humility, I don't think I know, you know, in a lot of cases, whether something was partially AI generated or not. I don't have that much faith in my ability to judge. But even if I did, if I were to deem something workslaw, I'm basically saying as a collaborator, you're dead to me. Because you violated one of my core principles, which is you don't sign anything you didn't create yourself.

Let me, I mean, this is such an interesting conversation about why everyone got booed. because this is really tough. I mean, this is so, so I have a reaction to not taking extreme ownership of training yourself and getting good at it and applying thinking and discernment. You have a real trust violation and a real integrity violation. If anything that someone shares with you has been produced by it, which would not bother me at all. Wow. If it's good.

if it's good and it's you know because so I do you think that your your response your reactivity to it because that feels reactive to me I don't trust you dead to me feels some somewhat reactive on the scale of reactivity it's a carefully reasoned reaction um that's Adam grant level reactivity yeah I'm not emotional about it all you're just dead to me I mean Honestly, like that's kind of how it plays out. I'm like, I don't, I don't, I don't harbor any intense ill will toward you. I'm just like, yeah, this is no longer. Yeah, like this is, this is not going to work for me.

And it definitely is not going to work for you if that's how I've evaluated your work. So could we go back to the painting done? Yeah. And in the top of the collaboration, say, can you tell me about how you're using AI to support your work? Can you tell me how you're not using AI to support the work? Can you tell me about where your lines are? And let me tell you about my lines. And can we come up with a real understanding agreement and expectation about what's okay and what's not okay? Yes. Yeah. I think that would be enormously helpful. It could be easier than you're dead to me. Yeah. Much easier. And I think what's great about it is

I think you just you just made a distinction that I was hovering around but not crystallized. which is I'm perfectly comfortable with somebody using AI to search for information, but not to produce information. Yeah. I'm okay with, if I would have had the really neat paragraph, the five bullets, and the summary paragraph, and it was generated, and it really substantially forwarded an advantage. our task, and it was all written by AI, but showed your discernment and thoughtfulness, I'd be 100% okay with it.

I just wouldn't trust it. That's so interesting. I'll give you a quick example. An organization I advise, asked for my input on a piece of research they were getting ready to promote and publicize. And I looked at it. and it was a summary of some articles that were written on the topic they were covering. And I thought, oh, that's interesting.

This is not in my core areas of expertise, but I hadn't heard of these studies before. I want to learn more about them. And then I need to read the primary sources to make sure that they're representing them accurately. And I click and I find the original article. It turns out it's not research at all. It was a review paper. But it was somebody's basically, it was someone's theory, but it didn't have any data behind it. And they were presenting it as if this is a conclusion backed by evidence, as opposed to,

this is an informed opinion of some scholars. I'm like, whoa, hold on a second. Those are two very different things. You cannot call somebody's ideas that need to be tested research in the same way that somebody's careful, qualitative, investigation and content analysis or somebody's survey or experiment is research. And you're making claims that are not defensible here. And it turned out the person had used AI to generate part of it, had not, you know, hadn't sort of reviewed carefully enough to qualify what their academic sources were and weren't. And I looked at that and I thought, okay, this was, you know, this was an

honest mistake. But I think that happens all the time. That's not hallucination. It's a mild misrepresentation if you're not in our world, but it's a pretty significant one if you are in our world, right? Yeah. So here's what I would say. Here's what I would be curious about. Not what I would say, but here's what I would ask of you. I would file that under work slop. That would be a passenger versus a pilot error, not an indictment of AI, but an indictment of how AI is being used. And here's what else I would say. I believe to be true that are, and I think you'll support this, I'll be curious, that for as long

as there's been peer-reviewed evidence and review people papers. Pre-AI, people have interpreted review papers as data-driven evidence and misrepresented in articles. Yeah. I don't think this has anything to do with AI. That's not new. No, I think what that is, is an over-reliance of a passenger versus a pilot user. It's a really good point. Yeah.

Again, I think this is work slop. And I think we've talked, I don't know if we've talked about this before on the podcast, but, But when I was writing strong ground, we did everything, the whole literature review on AI. And we did the whole literature review in parallel in person, in the stacks. Yep. By PhD level researchers. One of them, the toughest person, because she was the reviewer for NIH grants for a long time. So really tough, quantitative, you know.

And what we found is 50 to 60 percent of all. all the citations from the AI didn't even exist. Yeah, it's unbelievable how much of that still happens. Right. Right. So I guess what I'm saying is I wonder if your conclusion, like the way I'm tracking your conclusion is I've seen the misuse of AI without the proper checks in place. Therefore, I distrust AI as a producer of information. therefore if you use it, you're dead to me.

It's not if you use it, it's if you use it in this way. Yes, if you use it in this way and don't represent it having been used. Accurately. I wonder if, again, if you and I are having the same paint done conversation up front. Yeah, I think we need to. But I think there's a moral part of this for me too, which is, you know, even if it was accurate, I don't want to work with people who are content to let AI do their thinking for them, period. Like that just to me is a, it's, it just feels dishonest.

Are you sure you're not number one on the or, on the enneagram? I may be multiple numbers, but I sometimes live in your camp. Okay, you just said, I don't want to work with someone who lets AI do their thinking. For them. And that is a passenger, not a pilot. I hear you on that. I guess I think, though, it's also plagiarism. Like, you can't take credit for a sentence someone else wrote.

You shouldn't take credit for a sentence a machine wrote either. I don't know. It just gets slippery there, I think, because, you know, basic Word document programs will reframe sentences for you. You know, it's like Microsoft Word will suggest a sentence. Grammarly will suggest a sentence. Yeah. Where does it end?

I mean, I don't want the sentences suggested. I want editing, but I want human content generation. I know. So your moral dilemma is I don't want to work with someone who lets AI do the thinking for them. And my moral dilemma is I don't want to work with someone who uses AI. No, we have the same moral dilemma. It's different kinds of sloppy uses of AI. It's, no, I don't think, I think it's, I think it's, I broke my pen. I was so excited.

I know it's the same world dilemma. So let's look at this. Let's just quick, because let's look at this. So key findings, this is, again, from Better Up Labs in partnership with the Stanford Social Media Lab, tracking 10,000 plus workers across 18 industries over a year, how people respond to AI, splits them into two personas, pilots, high in agency and optimism,

use AI deliberately to extend their creativity and judgment, treating every interaction as part of the work itself. Passengers, lower an agency and optimism, more pessimistic and fearful, use AI as a shortcut, or avoid it entirely. The gap isn't about technical skill, it's about mindset and relational skills and leadership communication. Here we get to the painting done, right? So key findings, the two personas, pilots score high in agency and optimism and use AI to

extend creativity and insight. I'm okay with that. I don't know that you are yet. Passenger score low in both, optimism and agency more pessimistic. This is where I think this is interesting. Mandates help, but communication helps far more. Requiring AI use raises the odds of a pilot mindset sixfold when employees are satisfied with leadership communication that ties AI to purpose and confidence.

and that likelihood then rises to 21 times as likely. So that's interesting. What does that mean to you? It makes me want to boo the people who are using AI irresponsibly. I mean, what it means to me is I think there's a difference between using AI to extend creativity and insight, which I'm supportive of. and having AI as your co-author and not listing them as your co-author. It's not a person, though, Adam. There's no plagiarizing.

Agreed. But it still seems to me that you're suggesting that you created something that you didn't. But you did create it. Because you did create it and you did so with discernment and thinking and excellent. prompt engineering and checking sources, you did create it. You just created it with a tool. So at some point, was it Socrates or Aristotle said we can't teach people to write? Because it'll stop them from thinking, one of them. You know? And so it's like, it's, this has been the case for as long as there's been advancement in tool use, right?

Yeah, but this is a different kind of tool in that it can, I mean, the term is generative AI, right? We've never had a tool before that could generate intact paragraphs, cogent sentences. And that, that to me, if you're doing that, that's true. Yeah, it just, it's a, it's a different kind of tool. And I think it's, you know, it's a little bit like, you know what, this actually, I'll give you an analogy. And I'm, I'm making this one up on this spot. So I am I am prepared to rethink it in in the middle of even trying to explain it. I love it. Lay it's that like unformed. But it feels a little bit to me substituting human generation of content with AI, using AI to generate content, feels to me like using performance

enhancing drugs. Oh my God. I knew we were going to get to the extreme games. Wait. Yeah, I'm like, go do that. Go do that in your steroid-enhanced games that I don't want to watch. Where the non-using athletes crushed it, which I love. Yeah, go ahead, tech billionaires. And the whole thing was like an advertisement for a company that sells all the peptides and all that stuff. So, yeah. The enhanced games.

I mean, not for me. But yeah, I'm just like, we need a- So you think this is the enhanced mind games? I think it is. And I think we need a separate class. Just like we don't watch Magnus Carlson in a regular tournament, have a computer aid. We would have a separate tournament if Magnus is partnered with an AI

going against other human AI teams. I want the human only team. Yeah. I mean, it's true in chess. It's true. In sports, if you're going to enhance, with tools that are generative as opposed to just, like, substituting for things that, you know, that physically are hard. Like, I don't know how to send a stone tablet to you

efficiently. But, but, you know, going from the stone tablet to the keyboard is not materially changing anything other than, yeah, I'm potentially making myself a little bit dumber because I'm not getting the movement benefits of handwriting. But it's still, it's still me, generating the thought and the idea and the phrasing. Like that is all enhanced games and it deserves to be in a separate class. I want to watch the movie that was human written. I want to hear the song that was generated by a person. I want the lyrics that came out of the heartbreak or the moment of joy and the melody

that was born from real lived emotion, not from an AI synthesis of all human emotion that's ever been documented. And I feel writing is very similar. I feel like now you've converted me to being hateful in two places because I agree with you 100%. No, I love it. No, I think these are the things

we're grappling with right now. And just to bring it back to the beginning, this is like what you just said, your beautiful micro speech about what you want and don't want, that's an AI commencement address with moral imagination. I'm going to give you my standing O. Oh, thank you.

I think it was beautiful. I think it was emotional and true and beautiful. That's what I want to hear. Yeah, and that's why it didn't work for people. Wow. You had moral imagination. It was really beautiful, Adam. Thank you.

Well, you led me there. You're welcome. By surfacing a problem, I didn't even realize. I was having. Well, you get the standing ovation commencement address, and I get two problems to take to my coach, so this shit's over. This is a wrap. Well, you're also coming away potentially with a new book topic, I hope.

But, you know, it's funny at a basic level. So I've gone from, this has been quite a metamorphosis over the course of this conversation. I have gone from your dead to me to, and here's why we should be greater than AI. I mean, I love it. I think we're wrestling with moral issues. I mean, I think that's why moral imagination has to. These are AI is a moral issue. And, you know, I wrote down something that I think in the last chapter of Strong Ground,

I talk about the three physically, spiritually and emotionally hardest points of my life where I felt so hollowed out that something radical had to change. One was my sobriety 30 years ago. One was having to get off social media for a year. And the other was after 60 to 90 days of hardcore AI use, I had the same feeling that I had before I got sober. And when I had to leave, yeah, really. And I described it as feeling hollowed out by something I didn't understand. And then I was at the Aspen Ideas Festival a couple years ago, and I did a talk with Kate Crawford, an AI scholar. And she explained that artificial intelligence is an extractive industry, an extractive industry, an

an industry of extraction, that the creation of contemporary AI systems depend on exploiting energy and mineral resources from the planet, cheap labor and data at scale. And she's like, I understand why you felt hollowed out by it. Yeah. Because that music doesn't fill me up. That poetry doesn't get under my skin. You know, and that writing doesn't move me. And those ideas don't capture my attention.

And so I doubt this will be the last AI episode we do, but it's a good start. Well said. Yeah. Moral imagination. Sign me up for more of that. All right. Until next time. Until next time.

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