Dec 17 2024 84 mins
A topic and issue I’ve been grappling with is artificial intelligence. It’s a space that has dominated so much in 2024 - news, investment, executive wish lists, fears, hopes, fantasies. Personally, I’ve just been overwhelmed and it’s a topic that’s allowed me to find compassion and empathy for all the folks out there that aren’t consumed and living the issues of environmental protection, human rights and sustainability more broadly - this stuff is technical, expansive and has a lexicon all of its own. Artificial intelligence is something I want to explore more in 2025, but to begin today’s guest is Lee Schofield.
Lee is an unusual character in the realm of AI - and not just because she’s a woman, but she's a trained economist, and her professional career has spanned investment, sales, marketing, product management and strategy. I first came across Lee at a conference in 2023 where she spoke about AI, responsible technology, and the shift from the attention economy to that of the intimacy attention. She spoke like a normal person - not an acolyte of a general purpose technology that has arrived to reshape every element and aspect of our lives for the better. She wasn’t banging a big drum proclaiming that AI was the messiah to the climate crisis, the plastic crisis, the inequality crisis, the cancer crisis, the loneliness crisis.
That take as a regular person was important for me to better understand, because if a non tech bro who was interested in AI as a tool for calendar optimisation or sales closing uplift could learn about, build an understanding of and then communicate about the overwhelming and often confronting world of AI, it helped me realise I had somewhere closer to home that was more than a listening or viewing experience. So this episode is one where I have basically no idea about the content - which hopefully is unusual. Its intent is to help me and hopefully you as well begin to learn about this big and broad and strange and bombastic and daunting and auspicious technology.
OK Lee - she offers the value of curiosity, of taking time, the necessity for the beginner’s mind, and the potential learning and growth that comes with a healthy dose of humility. I certainly need it so I remain more firmly in the realm of learning and scepticism as opposed to cynicism and sarcasm.
A heads up that this is the last interview format of the pod for 2024. Over the coming weeks I’m going to release a version of a best of that offers moments and glimpses from many of the wonderful and extraordinary guests who’ve graced Finding Nature this year. I’m really looking forward to it, and if you’re new to the show you’re in for a treat and if you’re a loyal listener get prepared to re-engage with some of your favourite listens.
We’ll be back on the first of January with a very special guest who is the perfect person to help you and I think about the year ahead, the year gone and whatever may lay ahead for all of us. I’m excited to be bringing all of this to you, so please hit that subscribe button and share it around.
Until then, wishing you a safe and satisfying festive period. Thanks for listening.
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