Few voices in technology resonate as clearly and powerfully as David Shrier’s. As AI redefines the boundaries of what’s possible in business, leadership, and society, Shrier is guiding global enterprises and governments through the intricate challenges and unprecedented opportunities this new era presents. His work, steeped in academic rigor and practical application, has made him a leader in AI and innovation.
In his latest book, Shrier, the Managing Director of Visionary Future LLC and a Professor of Practice at Imperial College London offers a compelling exploration of AI’s transformative impact on leadership. As we delve into the themes of his latest research, we’ll discuss the industries poised for disruption, the critical skills needed in an AI-driven world, and the ethical frameworks that must guide this technological revolution. Shrier’s insights are particularly pertinent as we approach Techonomy 24: Leading with Intelligence , where Shrier will speak on November 19th, about the ins-and-outs of navigating an AI-enhanced future. (Tickets are available here)
Join us as we explore Shrier’s vision for a world where AI doesn’t just automate tasks but elevates human potential, creating a more equitable and innovative society. His perspective is not just about keeping pace with change—it’s about leading it.
This year’s Techonomy conference theme is “Leading with Intelligence.” Ideally, we have always strived for that, but how will AI change those old leadership models?
The new generations of AI offer us the opportunity to unlock new horizons of capability for human intelligence and democratize access to technology in ways we’ve never had before. This will create the potential for a fundamental restructuring of the design of organizations, the nature of work, and ultimately the construction of society.
Almost all automation technologies have resulted in job losses. What industries do you think will be hit the hardest?
Visionary Future collaborated extensively with Evercore on this, and the top industries likely to be impacted are high technology, financial services, management, consulting, and law. I discuss this in more detail in my new book.
Your book Welcome to AI: A Human Guide to Artificial Intelligence discusses the necessity of reskilling workers for the AI age. What are the most critical skills that professionals should focus on developing to remain relevant?
Emotional intelligence and creativity are human skills that are difficult to replace with AI. The other critical skills professionals need to develop relate to cognitive flexibility and the ability to learn. The pace of change is accelerating, so we will need to learn new skills and gain knowledge every few months.
This requires retraining our brains to acquire information faster. In the book, I lay out the five principles of cognitive flexibility that you can begin to apply.
What should governments and businesses do to ensure AI leads to job creation rather than destruction?
Job creation, for its own sake, is not necessarily healthy. The question is how we can amplify human prosperity, which may require rethinking how we structure society. For example, do we introduce universal basic income or some other kind of social safety net? If we can be massively more productive with AI requiring the work of fewer people, how should we spend that labor dividend?
That said, it is absolutely true that people who know how to use AI will replace people who do not. So, it’s important that we raise overall AI literacy.
You’ve mentioned that China is investing heavily in AI research and education. Is the U.S. trying to deny that country access to the most advanced chip technologies? Is that a wise policy? Is it working?
The U.S. is actively trying to limit China’s access to advanced technologies, and it is working to a degree. However, the U.S. is still heavily dependent on manufacturing in Taiwan, which is a geopolitical risk factor that will become more significant in the coming years. Diversifying the source of advanced AI chips is definitely a smart move.
However China is putting its own limits on artificial intelligence for other reasons. For example, models that have more than 5% of politically objectionable content are prohibited. This creates the risk that China generative AI systems will always be less intelligent than free-market AI, because of this limitation.
Your lectures discuss AI’s potential to transform the business environment positively. How AI can create a more beneficial society, particularly regarding ethical leadership?
We may see the potential to use AI systems to promote greater fairness and better compliance and translate ethics into tactical action. If we harness AI properly, we can also use it to help people collaborate better and create an overall more positive business environment.
You have also written about the importance of addressing climate change. How can AI help address that? At the moment, it is simply driving up energy usage.
AI is definitely a big problem right now concerning energy consumption and carbon. There’s also a significant amount of water usage in the cooling systems, each query consumes one bottle of water. But new AI systems can help with climate remediation, including taking carbon directly out of industrial emissions. We have the potential to use AI to solve the problems of AI.
What do you think is the biggest misconception about the AI revolution?
The biggest misconception about AI is the belief in perfection: if we replace something a person does, it must be replaced by something perfect. People are not perfect. If an AI is significantly better than a person at something but not perfect, we should embrace that. For example, autonomous cars. We would save 1 million lives annually if we adopted autonomous cars everywhere
However, people jump on the errors and accidents in the AI systems and attribute a higher expectation of machine systems than they do other people.
What surprised you most about how this technology has rolled out?
I had expected the adoption to be slower than it has been. I’ve been playing around with artificial intelligence since 1991, and I’ve watched people resist successive waves of improvement for several decades. The speed with which Generative AI took off has been nothing short of stunning.
