The Creator Economy, EdTech, and AI's Impact with Thomas Fortoul

Automatic transcript of the recording (English); speaker labels are automatic. Timestamps open YouTube at that moment.

0:00Sacha: Okay, welcome back to AI with Sach. Today I have Thomas Fortoul. Thank you so much for joining me today. First time that we're doing this in person. Thomas helped me set this up. He's the master. He's also hosting his own podcast. Thomas, I want to start with one very simple question. Who are you?

0:19Guest: I'm Thomas. I'm how I describe myself. I mean, also the podcast. Thanks to Sasha. Thanks for having me on, first of all. But no, I just described myself as a very curious person, too many interests to count. And yeah, very interested in tech, for the most part.

0:40Sacha: And today we're at Next.ai. Very cool environment, by the way. Thomas is helping out a startup here. So we are in person. Thomas, you've stated your mission, and I'll jump straight into it. Your mission is to counter counteract the trend of consuming more on your blog, I believe, learning less and thinking even less. In today's fast pace environment, what are the biggest obstacles to cultivating genuine critical thinking? And how does your work get thinking better? As we mentioned, address these challenges?

1:13Guest: Yeah, for sure. That's a great question. Yeah, my mission, I mean, it's not a grand mission either. But I think that we're in a time where we have a lot of information, too much at times, and it's difficult to try to navigate the whole space, especially the AI and tech space. Myself, you know, I finished my computer science degree, and it's kind of my job to, you know, stay on the news on whatever's going on. You know, just in the past week, we've had so much happened that sometimes even I get overwhelmed, and it's difficult to stay up to date. So the goal that I had with my podcast, and also just what I do in general is to try to counteract that and provide a source of truth, a source of knowledge to people. And in the field, especially for tech, with the pace that it's moving at. But at the same time, it's a very exciting space, because you have that much, you know, speed of innovation, and the, you know, capabilities are endless. So that's why it's such an interesting field.

2:13And

2:14Sacha: how do you yourself stay on top of these trends? You know, as you mentioned, there's so many, so many news, so many buzzwords, so many things going on. How do you yourself manage to go through that and filter out the noise? Yeah,

2:26Guest: no, it's not easy, because you have, as you said, like, too much stuff going on. But I would just say immersing yourself in everything going on, listening, finding these kind of references, these people that seem to be experts in the field, trying to, you know, collate a sort of directory of information about people that you can follow on social media, being active and just following trends, but also, you know, recognizing the patterns and not falling in love with, you know, the new model or the new buzzword, because you'll realize that it's not there to stay very often, these things come and go and finding those patterns is very important. So I'd say then like a sort of mentality of envisioning long term, looking at history as well, history repeats itself. So trying to look at what has actually occurred in the past with, you know, tech industrial revolutions, how has it actually affected people? If you think back to, you know, like the printing press, or even like cars, we still walk around where it hasn't removed all of our transportation and all of this. So imagine with AI, you got to be realistic sometimes.

3:28But another thing I try to do, at least is with the podcast, speaking with people in executive positions, people with, you know, more of a high level view of the industry, because that's a big part of the role is to think about what's going to happen in the next couple of years and how to position a company and whatnot. So by talking with these kind of people and trying to understand what their insight is, I think you get a better understanding of where the field is headed in general.

3:55Sacha: And that leads me nicely into my next question. You interview a lot of people, diverse ranges of people, entrepreneurs, visionaries, as you mentioned. What common thread or insights have you observed about these individuals?

4:08Guest: Yeah, for sure. I'd love to ask you that too, because you do that as well. But admittedly, I haven't interviewed, you know, a wealth of people either, just a couple. But I still, you know, informally also interview and talk with a lot of these people. It's something I found very interesting. One between all of them is from the people that I've talked to, it's a lot of entrepreneurs and people that have kind of developed their own method for things or their own vision. And it comes with a lot of uncertainty, managing that uncertainty with the uncertainty we have, you know, nowadays with, you don't know what's going to happen tomorrow, in the next week, or and so on. And it's being comfortable in that uncertainty and persisting through it, knowing that, you know, you have a vision and you can execute on it. So if a certain startup has a certain vision for the world, regardless of what's going on, they, you know, they keep going, they adapt quickly and so on. And that's something I think a lot of these people have in common. But yeah, what do you think as well? What's one common thing?

5:01Sacha: Yeah, I was reflecting while you were talking about this. I think two main themes occur or like come out to me is these type, these people seem to know very well what they like, what they don't like. So they know themselves very well. And I think that helps a lot with everything. And earlier today, I was, I was talking to students in my previous master's. And what really helps navigate a career, in my opinion, is, is knowing what you like, what you don't like. I think this is extremely important. I think it goes even further when you're trying to be a visionary or someone that's considered a thought leader. The second one is adaptability. You know, you mentioned it, like there's so much movement and just so much going on that the people, if they know themselves, they also know how they can adapt to, you know, the upcoming obstacles or whatever, like new trends, technology. Those seem to me like make people, I don't know if we can call that successful or at least like successful in their own careers. I think.

6:03I don't know if you want to reflect on that.

6:04Guest: Yeah, no, for sure. I want to add something. you were mentioning, yeah, like understanding what you like, what you don't like. And I think it comes back to, you know, a lot of the self-reflective capacity that these people have, asking questions and reflecting. And that really leads you to following your own goals and not goals that other people have set for you implicitly or explicitly. Very often in my case, studying in computer science, everyone wants to be a software engineer, wants to be data analyst for the most part. And you tend to eventually follow these goals because you're in that same group. There's that kind of group mentality and trying to think more about, you know, where your skills fit into what you want to do, your career. It's not always the case that you'll end up following those goals. And I think more often than not, you probably won't. So it takes a lot of reflection. And it's, again, uncomfortable to do that, to go your own path. And that builds that resilience for people going forward, following their own goals.

7:02Sacha: So that would be sent. So you're, you're in a sense, you're, what I've just described, you're able to adapt and you're very broad in what you cover. And you touch on a variety of subjects from biotech that I know you're interested in, psychology and much more, obviously tech in general. How do you see the interplay between these seemingly disparate fields and their collective impact on the future of work? Because I know that's something you're interested in as well.

7:27Guest: Yeah, no, it's a great question. I think every field, you know, even how disconnected it might seem from something else is actually very similar in some senses and very well connected to, to other fields, especially with technology. Technology, again, is just tools to get you somewhere else where it's not, I wouldn't call it the end, more like as it needs to an end to things. And I think that's what attracted me to that. The fact that I'm interested in so many different fields, especially, you know, biology and, and these innately human, you know, that deal with the human directly, the fact that technology can interact with these domains and accelerate the research, accelerate innovation in them is, is very fascinating to me. And on the point of future of work, I mean, I feel like we're entering a time of, uh, almost like where philosophers are going to be very important architects, people that can think critically, because we'll be redesigning the way we work, the way we live. It's not a, it's a, it's a moment of a big change in history due to the, the rapid rate of innovation.

8:28And, uh, so I'm just very interested into how, you know, the future will, will look. And I think by looking at or studying these fundamental domains, such as psychology, such as, you know, biology, or even I guess physics, although I'm not usually physicist or anything, but, uh, I think looking at those gives you a really good grounding and basis for making the right decisions moving forward. Uh, and I think psychology, especially so psychology and even like philosophy.

8:53Sacha: I know you're working on a project. We've talked a little bit about it in ed tech. I'm curious to go into that as well, but also more generally, what was the catalyst that made you want to focus on the future of work, uh, with education? We've talked about this on your podcast as well, because you, because you also fundamentally, like I do believe that education is really like, you know, a key or a factor criteria that leads to success. Right. And I'm curious, so what was the catalyst that made you focus on that? And also how does it relate to, to AI and how do you, you tie all of that together? Education. Yeah.

9:30Guest: Yeah. I mean, as we mentioned in like a previous conversation as well, it's a way of, you know, transmitting knowledge and that's like the basis for, you know, all the skills we learn and everything we do moving forward. So education becomes very important when it comes to designing this, future world that we're, you know, we're actually able to design that we can actually contribute to whereas before, you know, you didn't have as much say in that where we're entering a time where, first of all, formal education is kind of lagging behind as we had talked about. Um, and in my recent conversation with Kate Arthur, we also discussed this as well. And now it's where informal and non-formal forms of education. So that's like, you know, your daily life, your relationships, not necessarily like a curriculum, these come into play, uh, more so than before. And so that's why focusing on, you know, developing the formal education and also, you know, making sure that the non-formal one is up to par and are teaching you the right skills and the right concepts is ever more important now than, than it has been before.

10:31So by focusing on education, you create, your impact is much larger than if you were to just create something by teaching people. I think the notions and the principles for going forward, I'm not saying I'm like a prophet for what you should be building, but I think the notions are some things that I like to think about and like I can transmit relatively well. And I think these things are important and people often don't think about them when they go on to do their work. It's a, it's, it's a combination of the, the scale impact, as well as the importance factor of actually, uh, you know, education as a catalyst for change.

11:09Sacha: That's awesome. I'm also curious, we're both podcasts, hosts, how do you see the creator economy like fitting into the future of work, right? Because I think in a sense, this is education, especially with the rise of tools, like AI tools, like we can use, it makes it even more accessible than ever to almost anyone, right? Like it's, it's, it's amazing. So I'm curious to see how you see that fitting into the future of work and for those making content out there.

11:37Guest: Yeah, no, it's a, it's a great question because it's a very interesting industry. I think it's something that didn't exist, you know, a couple of years ago, or I guess maybe a bit more than that, but, um, it's, as I mentioned before, that the fact that we're going to need information seekers or like, you know, bears directories of information, where to seek the right information, that that's going to lead to people seeking out individuals and people trusting, um, creators themselves on the internet, because again, the internet, you know, allows you to reach so many people, right? The scale factor again, and we're, we're having access to all these people starts to sacrifice trust a bit. You don't have, you know, you can't trust anyone on the internet. And so we don't trust as many people due to the fact there's more we can access. So we end up finding specific people that we have to trust more. And these people are like the sources of truth. And, um, uh, Malcolm Gladwell has this concept of, uh, I don't know if it's his, but mavens, people that are experts in a certain field and that know essentially everything about that field.

12:39And I think these kinds of people that follow trends and, uh, you know, follow technology, for example, are going to be very important, but I think there's a distinction to make between, or at least the assumption of content creation, which is always like, since I've seen, you know, not, not the best light, uh, it's kind of, you know, the influencer and, but I think we have to orient towards value creation. And, uh, these people are teachers, as you were mentioning, right? We're almost like educating. And I think content creators are the new teachers of the world, essentially, but we're creating value for people. And if people find it valuable, you know, they'll trust you. That's the basis for relationship. And then eventually, uh, you'll be, uh, you know, helping people up.

13:22Sacha: I love that. Um, AI is, is, is rapidly transforming industries and redefining job roles. And I see that, you know, very clearly now that I'm, that I'm working, you know, as a consultant and as, as a podcast source as well with conversations that I'm having, you're also having conversations. What are, what are the most significant, uh, significant shifts you're seeing in your conversation or just in your observations and how can individuals, cause I think there's a work of not necessarily reassuring, but to some extent, I guess it's reassuring people that they can prepare for these changes. A

14:01Guest: shift in conversation in regards to like, uh, technology or.

14:06Sacha: Yeah, just the, that you, that you're, that we're seeing in the job roles and, and just like work itself. Right.

14:13Guest: Okay. Yeah. I mean, you, you'd have to consider, you know, automation and AI affecting the workforce. And, uh, it's, it's changing a lot of the things we do from very mundane tasks, you know, helping us relieve us of that to some extent, but there's a lot of, you know, debate on whether or not we should be implementing these and should they be replacing some of the work that we do? Cause there's some, uh, some value to doing those mundane tasks. Sometimes, you know, you understand things by going through that hard process, even though it seems kind of tedious and annoying. Um, but at the same time, I think we're headed to a time where we can focus more on the creative aspect and the, the visionary aspect. So I like to think of it as a, the time for architects and designers, this critical thinking to come up and by relieving us of these tasks. And now, you know, you can have solopreneurs doing, you know, their own AI startups. Yeah. And I'll go into that, but like people can now build a lot of things with the tools they have access to and the information they have access to.

15:18And I think that's, you know, the most exciting path for the future of work.

15:22Sacha: Yeah. I've seen a, an interview, I think it was with the CEO of Entropic recently. And he was saying that essentially there is no way that AI is not going to impact a hundred percent of people. He was saying it's very clear AI is going to impact everyone. And his stake is, is very interesting. He says it's probably better that way instead of AI impacting 50% of the population. If it's impacting a hundred percent of the population, then everyone needs to have conversation because now everyone is around the table and deciding what the future is going to look like. I'm curious to get your take on, on this, this very unusual take I would, I would assume.

16:06Guest: Yeah. I think there's definitely some truth to it. I have to think about it, but diversity is a big question, right? You have to include a lot of the communities, the societies of people within this discussion of technology and AI. This kind of relates to my last conversation as well in, I don't want to plug it, like the Kate Arthur one, where we discussed being literate in AI and understanding how to use these tools, understanding what is AI to be able to talk about it and share eventually our stories. Fundamentally, if you're literate, you can, you know, contribute your experience with the world, but you can more importantly, right? Cement your, your story. You can share it. You can, uh, can stay over history. Something that, you know, if you weren't literate, for example, back then, if you didn't know how to read and write, then people, you know, a hundred years after didn't know about you. There was no historical significance of that. Going back to what you were saying, if people are not involved in the, in the discussion and aren't, first of all, educated, but second of all, involved, then they can't, you know, share their stories.

17:06They can't impact the world and they essentially become, you know, kind of left behind. One thing that I found interesting as well was the prime minister of India was saying that without India, there's going to be a huge, or they kind of need India for the future of AI because there's often a lack of diversity, including, you know, in the Western society, they kind of think, uh, they're all by themselves that the rest of the world sometimes doesn't exist. And so you have to include all these different communities and populations because, you know, we have so many different perspectives. And I think it's key for, you know, where we're designing this new world. We have to be inclusive.

17:41Sacha: I'm curious also to get your take on, on this following question. So many AI tools out there, right? Very easy to over-rely on them.

17:49Guest: Oh, I need to count.

17:49Sacha: Very easy to over-rely on them. Like, ChagPT, like, you know, I believe like was one of the tools that was used, DFAST or adopted DFAST. How do you think, or do you think that there is a risk of over-reliance on technology in the future? And if yes, how can we mitigate it or even like solve that over-reliance or is over-reliance a good thing?

18:13Guest: Yeah. I mean, ChagPT, they had what, a million users in like five days or something like this. And probably also the first one to reach like 10 or a hundred million, a huge, huge user base. People use it a lot. And I think due to that fast rate of adoption, there hasn't been the right, you know, there's, I remember this start, there's no expert in prompt engineering. And now that there might be a little bit more, but even, even so it's really about those early adopters and these people that understand the tech more than others, but even they are not like, you know, this technology has came out of nowhere almost for the layman, but it leads to quick adoption, which, you know, is often, often comes with not thinking about what you're using, not understanding it properly. And yeah, you can become very over-reliant because you don't think about the effect it has on your daily life. And so I think it has pretty terrible effects if people are over-reliant. They don't write emails anymore.

19:15They don't do any of the writing anymore. They don't translate their document anymore. You know, people can, if they're not good at their second language, they'll just like ask Chachi Biti to do it for them. So, you know, these skills that they don't use anymore, then you have to use the skills to, to maintain them or get better. So it leads to a deterioration of skills, less critical thinking. And so I'm, I'm just thinking there's going to be a big population, big amount of people that, large amount of people that are going to become, you know, bots, bots, essentially, they don't offer any additional advantage than what the you just prompted. Then what's the difference between me and giving Chachi Biti a prompt and having you do it right, hiring you, if you're just going to do that. People have to think about what value they can add and not just use the tool. Although, you know, I recommend people use AI, I personally use it. And I think it's a huge product productivity factor, so many advantages, but you have to think about why you use it. And again, immersing, immersing yourself with other users, understanding what are the good uses, what are the bad uses. There's many courses now on ChatGBT and everything online, you can definitely educate yourself watching things like this, right?

20:19Understanding that you should probably not do everything with AI, but you know, once you are very confident that you can write a certain email and you do it once in a while, then you can have it write your skeleton at least for that. And then, yeah, AI for writing is another interesting topic as well.

20:37Sacha: I had a conversation recently, I don't remember with who, but I do remember the content of it. And we were discussing and that person strongly believed that we were dangerously approaching a future where people would lose the ability of reading and writing. I know it's a very tough question. I just want to ask, do you have any opinion on that? Do you think that's, that's reasonable, like a reasonable fear? Or what's your take on this? If you want to answer that? No,

21:05Guest: I mean, I'd love to have a shot at it, but it's, it's not a terrible take. I don't think, you know, people are going to fundamentally forget how to read. But I think reading to the sense that you understand, let's say like a novel, for example, that you understand, you know, the actual intricacies of the novel, and you don't just read the words, because obviously, people can still probably read the words, but will they really understand what the morale of the book is, all these different things, and this thinking that goes behind it. I think it relates to this other, you know, concepts where when you become a little worse at something, for example, reading, let's say, and you go back to read a book, and let's say you don't understand it as much as you maybe want to, it's a little confusing, it's not as enjoyable. And the fact that it's less enjoyable makes you less inclined to continue reading. So it's like a negative feedback loop where you just end up doing less of that thing. And therefore, your reading skills just go to go to the dump. So it's, it's not a terrible take, although I don't think people will not read and write. There's some nuance to that, right? The actual understanding, I think people understand less and not able to write good content, right?

22:07It's, it's something I think people will struggle with, because you know, writing is essentially putting your thinking into words. So if you think less, then you probably gonna write worse. So yeah, it's, it's in that direction that we're headed for some people, at least.

22:21Sacha: Interesting. On a bit of a different topic, we're at Next.ai, and I know you're very interested in the startup ecosystem as well. You explore, so AI and startups, what are, what are some of the most innovative AI startups or ideas that you've heard recently, and you would like to bring up?

22:38Guest: Oh, I don't know if I have any particular ones that are striking. I mean, I know the names of quite a few here, but something I saw not too long ago was an AI startup in, like an AI psychologist almost. That was very interesting, like an AI psychologist, but turns out it was actually, you know, very well made. Because there's a lot of like obviously ethical decisions to, questions to have for that. But that was interesting. And also something about the, following the, the biological, you know, traits of somebody and doing a recurring test. I don't know, what's it called superhuman or something. And they do, you know, constant analysis on like all your vitals and all of this stuff. I don't know how it works exactly, but it seems as though, you know, it can really help maintain health and watch out for, you know, prone, prone to diseases and all these things. But yeah, there's way too many to count. I don't think it's a much magic bullet either, but it's, it's, it's definitely very, very interesting.

23:39Sacha: Let me rethink then maybe, what do you think is like the next wave of very interesting companies that are come out of this, this current wave of AI or Gen AI that we have now?

23:52Guest: I was actually looking into this, um, Harry Stebbings, he has another podcast on, on VC, and he was speaking to one of these investors who was saying, um, I kind of share his idea was that it's not necessarily the AI infrastructure and these AI, you know, startups, so to say, more so the ones that are going to create entire new business models out of AI. Me, particularly, I think there's a huge space for blockchain and AI, and by using, you know, this ledger technology and the fact that you can have everything, uh, the exchange of value be, you know, fundamental in that system, it solves a lot of the problems in relation to data security, data ethics, all these things. So when you have a new model that wants to be trained, you'll have your own data, proprietary data, and the model will have to come and ask you and probably pay you for access to that data. Whereas now we're like voluntarily giving it to these models. So that's a huge, huge space.

24:52Although I don't think it'll come in the near, near future, but, uh, it's, it's something I'm definitely looking out for.

24:58Sacha: Very interesting. So you, you think it's not going to be in the near future, but can you, can you try to guesstimate like when we can see that? Because I know blockchain has been around and ended very like hyped around 2020 and stuff like that. Now it's more gen AI. Like, when are we going to see these, these two come together? Because it has a lot of value and potential. And I'm curious, I don't follow very much block, the blockchain, like blocks and whatever's going on in that ecosystem. But did you see any kind of companies that tried doing both together or yeah?

25:35Guest: Well, not, not particularly, not that I've done like a lot of research either, but I think just the concept of the, the defi, like decentralized finance, the organization of things, it's, um, it's, it's a new platform, a new distribution of, of money, essentially of value. Whereas AI is more of a tool, you know, for all this productivity, it allows us to do a lot of new things. But what's different with blockchain is that it's a whole new system. And this new system, I think we'll need a quick tool and these fast processes that will come from AI and these, you know, AI, new tools and startups. But blockchain, it's like, yeah, without blockchain, I don't think it's gonna, it's gonna make a lot of big changes, but it's not going to revolutionize the way we like exchange currencies, for example. And that's a, it's a whole new step in, in like the evolution of, you know, our species and stuff. Imagine you can be like, yeah, I want one token or one piece of that, of this cup or something. Like that's something we might be able to do. We want to invest in, you know, this or the Mona Lisa. So there's going to be very little barrier to entry and it's going to be in a secure way.

26:35So I'm not a, you know, super blockchain expert either, but I do, I do see that kind of vision happening. And in terms of, you know, timeline, I hope it's in my lifetime, that would be pretty cool to see. Although like a bit daunting, of course, but it's, I want to be part of that change and, and, you know, bring about some good change and showing it goes in the right direction. Although, but it's, yeah, it's impossible to predict.

26:58Sacha: Of course. Towards the end of every episode, I like to ask my guests, what kind of AI trends or AI technologies they, they're, they're following. So I'm curious to see if there is anything, any, any exciting developments that you're closely following and think will gain momentum in the near future.

27:18Guest: Yeah, I would have to say, first of all, educational technology, like EdTech is the project I'm working on. I think that's a huge field. And same with a lot of the institutionalized and regulated fields, such as legal tech, very interesting. But I'm more focused on the education side. So that's something I'm looking out for. And also that, that blockchain aspect eventually, but that's, you know, more, more general, not a specific field. And another one would be biotech for sure. Yeah. In terms of research, in terms of patient care, in terms of, yeah, diagnoses. I think you can have a lot more patient centric solutions, things that are easy to, you know, follow people, although there's going to be a lot of questions to ask, like ethically and things, but that's a very, very interesting field that I want to get involved with too. And

28:13Sacha: looking ahead, what are some of the most crucial conversations that we need to be having? You know, legislation, maybe about work, maybe about education, as you mentioned, and how can we ensure that these conversations lead to action?

28:32Guest: First of all, we have to have conversations. That's the basis. Then, yeah, people have to talk, people have to contribute to their communities. So get involved, first of all. How do we ensure that in terms of regulation and all of this? I think it's just, you know, contributing as a community and thinking about things together. So for example, I don't know, here we're next day eyes, or just being here and like interacting with people is a good start. Eventually, right, the right persons will come along because it's difficult to actually make change in like the institutional level and things. But I think, you know, over time, if you're transmitting the right message, you're, you know, opening your own doors, like these own opportunities, you're making change, your own actions, step by step, you know, little things, even you can't change the world, you know, just by yourself in a second, right. But doing things even like a podcast like this, or transmitting words, inspiring people, I think leveraging that social media as much as possible for, you know, maximum impact is a good first step. And I think as long as people talk, we'll find the right ideas and the right legislations to, if any, and hopefully go in the right direction.

29:40But it's a collaborative effort. Besides it all. So just getting involved and contributing.

29:46Sacha: Agree. Thomas, I would like to leave the floor to you for any last words that you'd like to share with the audience. Could be anything. It's really my last question here. So, the floor is yours.

29:57Guest: That's, I don't know what to say. Thanks a lot for having me. It was a great time. I'm looking forward to seeing your next episodes and next missions as well. But man, I would just say, never stop learning. Always, always keep learning. Just stay on your, stay on your toes.

30:12Sacha: I couldn't agree more. Education is key. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for coming in on the podcast. Tom is really insightful. And I really enjoyed talking to you as well. So, thanks.

30:21Guest: Thanks. It was a great time.