Transcript

Rob

How can we make authentic connections and stay grounded in an artificially intelligent world this week on the Mental Wealth podcast, we were delighted to welcome back Emily Papps, founder of remaketherules. We discuss how technology can interfere with our decisions and the tangible steps we can take. Today to regroup and refocus on our long term plans, we think you’re really gonna like this.

Emily, thank you so much for joining us yet again. It’s always a pleasure to have your company.

Emily

Thank you so much for having me. I’m really looking forward to another conversation.

Rob

Last time we had a fascinating discussion about decision making and dating. How do people approach dating in the modern world with applications and all the decisions that they have to make in their romantic lives? Today, I want to talk about one of my favorite topics, technology and decision making. The quick pace of technology is to me, something that is. Both frightening and exciting, and I think it’s something that a lot of people, I think I can speak. For at least people in my friend group, a lot of people are asking me about things like AI and how do I how do I approach business? How do I approach employment opportunities with the decisions that they’re making? The first question is how do you deal with decision making fatigue? There’s so many decisions now that people have to make each day. In their day-to-day lives, whether it’s simply as simple as ordering food, it’s like 50,000 food apps you. Can choose from. That how do you respond to certain emails? How do you approach decision making fatigue as an individual or what would you say to one of your clients?

Emily

I think one of the original conceits of remake the rules and why. I really got pulled into doing the work that I do and having the conversations that we’re having right now is this idea, that decision fatigue is now sort of omnipresent in our lives, just as you described. So this experience that so many people are having where you are just out of energy have overextended. The energy that you have to make good decisions. And that over exertion is going to impact the decisions you make right in a negative way. So it’s going to get harder and harder to make decisions. So yeah, it is a it is a very tough situation that a lot of folks finding themselves in.

Rob

I’m thinking a lot about information architecture. The vast majority of people like us right now, staring at a a flashing screen and. In terms of them and trying to comprehend the information that is there, sort of a general advice you would give to someone that is trying to make sense of new information that they’re getting, making sense of the reliability of the information that they’re getting. How does one make sense of this new sort of AI focused world where we’re getting information possibly from a source that is not human?

Emily

The information age, as you say, we’re looking at screens right now. This is how we’re ingesting a lot of this new information, this incredibly increased quantity of information that we’re all able to access now, right. That is because of the information age. That is because of the digital age. And I think that the really kind of insidious aspect of living in the information age is that on one hand, we are given these incredibly powerful tools with tons of potential and told that now that you have these, everything should be easier, right? But those tools themselves. Are actually making things way harder. They are destabilizing the ways that we used to be able to navigate the world, navigate information, make. Decisions. So I believe that there is another side to this that eventually we are going to build tools and the skills to maybe incorporate this novel technology into the way that we navigate into the way that we make decisions. That is precisely what I help people do. But until we get there, it is like a real quicksand situation.

Rob

Yeah, I’m wondering what that bridge is like. How do we get there? How do we do that in the modern world, which is changing so quickly, I think about I’m just gonna talk about my personal journey and digital marketing and I see people searching for information on Google. You’ve probably seen it. The AI overviews when you’re searching for something. Used to be Wikipedia, would you to show up and then maybe they’ll be some other trusted media source, whatever. But now it’s an AI overview. Now it’s just it’s Google technically Googles information that they own that space. How does someone engage with that information and how do you trust that is something that I think about quite often because you really don’t know where that data is going from there.

Emily

The first thing that I absolutely recommend that folks do is give themselves grace and give themselves space. So start with acknowledging that this is not a reflection of personal failure. This is a truly unprecedented situation that we are finding ourselves in, and we are doing our best to navigate it. And to figure it out so we can all pause and be like, OK, it’s not just me, it’s not.

Rob

Just me. That’s a great point about pausing and thinking about what the heck is.

Speaker

May.

Rob

Going what am I actually looking at right? What am I reading? Where is this coming from? Something that I reflect on all the time is. Is is this information designed to elicit a certain emotion? Is it a marketing thing? The stories that tend to be more tragic tend to be the highest clicks. What emotion do they want to elicit, whether it’s anxiety or some sort of emotion that they’re feeling after, you know, using social media for a while? For example, that’s a great point about community that you made like the the idea of, like, get outside and take a pool is like look around for a while, right?

Emily

There’s lots of different ways that making of space. First of all, we’ve already kind of forgiven ourselves for feeling so lost in this world because we are. We’re all lost in this. Right. And now we’re trying to figure out how to reorient. Right. Are we reoriented into our lived experience in the physical world, which is a very important place to be oriented to? That is where we exist most of the time? Or are we reorienting to how did my brain and body end up feeling these feelings and thinking these? This is something I do with all kinds of clients. Did this thought feeling problem originate from inside of my own body from my own lived experience or was it brought to me on this superhighway of information and feelings, right. And now it’s inside of me and now I’m scrambling to figure out what’s going on to figure out a solution to a problem. But I literally didn’t know existed 10 seconds ago. So just kind of figuring out what what is actually happening here. And to that in two, we are going to have to prioritize what really matters to us. We cannot address every experience and every question as if it is the most important moment of our lives. We are going to burn out so fast. The fatigue is going to get worse, but people have priorities. They have things that they really want to invest time and energy in. And you’re just gonna have to let the other stuff go and treat it. Maybe with more of this benign curiosity that’s happening, it’s around. Maybe I’ll learn something from it, but this is not a critical problem that I need to solve right now.

Rob

Right. It’s it’s almost as if people take ownership of the problem that they’re reading about and it becomes their own stress. It’s not personal, failing when you don’t know how to connect with the information that you’re seeing. But you also don’t have to take ownership of a negative. News story you. Don’t have to let that impact to your emotional state. Start with the things that are impacting you the most. And sort of go from there. From my personal experience, I can just speak to that in terms of Facebook, I realized about 10 years ago. You have friends that are using it all the time and you’re getting up. It’s at like 4:00 AM when they’re out and come back from the bar and I don’t really care about any of these. It doesn’t have any positive impact on my life. It’s almost like if others are using this technology, right. You wanna feel like you belong, whether it’s a friend group or your company or whoever is using the social media, you want to feel a part of something. So you use it because everyone else is using it. You’re saying. Build a community based on that separation. Build a community outside of the thing that everyone else is using.

Emily

I think that that is such a good example. This sort of like potential for constant updates on people that we maybe do love and care about and want to build relationships with and spend more time with, right. That being said, as you or I or whoever are. Building meaningful relationships and having these connections and the conversations never would. Maybe I’d be like you know what I really wanna do to like really level up our relationship is to know what you’re doing at 4:00 AM. Every. Day, right. Right. That is actually not a very important part of our important relationship. Potentially is being brought to us, and because it is being brought to us, we are kind of normalizing it into that relationship. Because that is just kind of how our brains work, right? As we are sort of as our environment changes, we kind of assume that that is the way the environment is supposed to be. But that isn’t necessarily true, right? And then there are opportunities to again change our environment back or or modify it for a way that works well for us.

Rob

Illness feels like there’s a separation going on and where it’s almost like it’s the opposite of what the original intent of the Internet was, where everyone’s going to their information silos and we don’t really know where that information is coming from. Do you see signs of hope for how the information architecture is being built or are you one of those people who? Who says we need to get rid of this technology? Is there a societal value? Do you think that some? Of these candidates.

Emily

I think there can be and it just depends on what we’re going to do. You know, I think what I’ll start with is that we are already on untested ground and we are creating these tools with incredible power that are also on right, every everything that we’re kind of doing now. Is totally untrue. And we do not know what is going to happen. We certainly have agency in it on an individual scale, but more than that, these are going to be questions on institutional scales and societal scales. So as AI continues to get better, one of the impacts that we’re going to see is a greater increase in not knowing what is real and what isn’t real. That is going to become a really huge problem for us. It already is a very big problem for us and what we are gonna need to do culturally, socially, institution. Is promote structures that deep incentivize false information fraud? These types of nefarious uses of this technology that is going to be very important. And also on a smaller scale, we’re going to need to really start focusing on our local communities, our physical spaces in person, communities and relationships, so that we have strong foundations, can be responsible for helping to confirm some of the information that is being shared about my local community, right. That is sort of Labor. That I can help do for as an individual, but to help my community. And and we are each going to need to do that and we’re each going to need to build the skills to be able to do that, right, to confirm this information and to have these conversations. So building those skills, building that community and then also building those institutional structures is is going to be paramount.

Rob

I would imagine that society will change like that would have to start with seniors. To perhaps more vulnerable to the the criminal element of that kind of change forward and those kind of things, you know, like an educational structure, maybe government. It has to sort of start with somewhere, right structure, where people get educated about the risks of the technology, more so than anything else.

Emily

Yeah, I mean, safety is like a very large concern, right, both societally and individually. You’re talking about the senior most folks and education for these novel technologies is a big component in being able to navigate them and understand them and kind of see what they are and what is actually happening and what. Working but also there is sort of senior in the consolidation of power and decision making and we have some leaders in the Community who are able to have greater impacts on a larger population of people just because of the position that they hold and in the past when I’ve worked with folks who are at high levels. Of leadership it’s it’s definitely interesting to see the struggle of catching up because they are not immune to this like lightning speed change in technology and in collaborative thinking and decision making with these technology tools. One of the other principle can teach you know that I work under is that our information technology tools have outpaced our ability to use them and incorporate them in our systems and decision making, right. So and they are continuing to develop. So I am attempting to write make that space and have these conversations with folks to kind of. Catch up. To do that work and do that labor to figure out how to better think about these problems. Think about these tools and and use them better and more responsibly.

Mukund

For senior citizens, how would you help them differentiate between real and AI?

Emily

That is certainly something that I have experienced personally and that lots of folks in my cohort are experiencing personally too. And I think that. More so than these sort of individual skills of tells, which I actually think are going to become obsolete so quickly that they would be not useful. It would be completely rebuilding the system at which people are ingesting and accessing information. So right again, are we just becoming these entities where there are screens everywhere and information coming at us at us at us and we are sort of passively absorbing it. I do not think that that is a good way to learn. I do not think that was a good way to ingest information and to grow and to make better decisions so refigure. Saying like starting with a question, I have a problem. I have a question. I have information that I need or would prefer to would enjoy learning about and growing and now I’m going to seek out information and that seeking out right. So we’re first we’re starting with. Seeking. Out because I have an important question that I want to answer. Then that seeking also will have some guardrails around. A community that is known or understood has been built, that is experts trusted individuals right, depending on what the problem is that we’re looking for. Known scientists, right, that this is where I’m going to be acquiring. That information, and so right it isn’t these little look for the weird hands and the AI images, right? It’s really more about totally changing our relationship with how we access.

Rob

Yeah, I was just thinking about people that might be vulnerable to issues with solid or whatever it is you have to say to them. You know, if I call you, just think of it as you’re not speaking and just don’t give any information. If I ask you anything, any personal information don’t provide. It’s almost like you have to be so precautionary. Now in your day-to-day. Experience we all sort of know that we as have a sort of a tacit understanding that we don’t share our banking information via e-mail. That is sort of the most basic element that we now have to transfer to people that are more vulnerable in society. The ability to communicate now is changing very rapidly and produce media that is very realistic is a little terrifying.

Emily

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And and have you guys listened to some of that AI podcast technology?

Rob

You can still make out its AI, but it’s getting so realistic it’s they’ve got the pauses, they’ve got the cadence, they’ve got the voices down. It could be a. Month or two and. It could be able to create podcasts like this.

Emily

And I think then there’s kind of the interesting question of what? Is the point because I think that a lot of people get into podcasting either hosting or guesting in order to have interesting conversations that they enjoy having with other people who also want to have them. So then if I want to get to people to educate, how are they gonna find it? There can maybe be a pretty narrow window. Of problems that we’re solving versus problems that. Creating.

Mukund

There’s no emotion with that here. There’s kind of an emotion going that’s air driven. There’s no real emotion. Everything just content.

Emily

And not just content, but content that’s usually built on some sort of idealized average. So kind of like you’re saying we’re not going to get maybe some of these more meaningful or rare or interesting or variable interactions.

Rob

If you’re a business owner dealing with these technology problems right now, is there steps you can take to improve your decision making for your business while also adapting to this new sort of information architecture that we’re dealing with?

Emily

For sure. So one example I’ll give is kind of similar to some of the problems that we’ve already been talking about in solutions and it’s amazing how frequently these problems show up over and over and over again in our lives, specific to small business owners is that the extent to which? Folks, salespeople are showing up on their doorstep in their inbox, on their phones with a technology solution to a problem that they didn’t know that. They had, right? And one of the interesting things that I find with this problem is that is the extent to which it can really hit business owners. And so I’ve worked with some people who really struggle with this sort of outreach and calls and these sales pitches because they feel like someone is telling them something about their business. That they don’t already know, and that makes them feel like a really bad business owner and that they shouldn’t be doing what they’re doing and they don’t know what they’re doing. And it really shifts this sort of power dynamic about who knows what. About what this person does for 8 hours minimum every single day, and so the first thing that we talk about is what they do and don’t know about their own business, right. And the fact that they are the expert period in what they do, right, these small business owners, this idea that is it possible that somebody can bring them a piece of information that they don’t know. Of course. Does that mean that this person understands the INS and outs of their business better than they do? Absolutely. It does not. So here in this dynamic, it’s really not necessarily about. Understanding the technology problem that this person is attempting to discuss with the business owner. It is about. Giving that grace and giving that space and saying what I usually do with folks, we build a social script about how to say this is something I’m gonna research or no thank you or what have you so that they can step back. Reassess. Do whatever research that they need to do, or just decide you know what? Again, this was not a problem that I knew existed yesterday. I do not think I actually have this problem. That is OK. I believe in myself. I trust myself and I’m gonna move on with my day. So definitely a very common problem. My encounter.

Rob

It’s almost likely they’ve got to sort of figure out what was my objective in starting this business. It must be difficult to remain true to that continuing objective when you have thousands of emails now coming through from various different directions and sort of make decisions for your business in that space. That’s a it’s a great point you make about taking pause and just separating yourself from all the information. Coming at you and sort of thinking for a second, what is it that you want from the information? It’s an. Interesting, I really like.

Emily

That idea, as well as separating yourself from the expectation that you. You should understand every problem that you ever might encounter, including the ones that are based on novel technology that didn’t exist when you started your business. Just the conversations that I’ve had, some of the things that come to mind is someone who’s asked to choose what middle school to send their kid to so they have, like, here in Colorado we have. Choice and so, and there’s all these sort of like bells and whistles that the schools do to try to get folks to choose them, but talk about weighing heavy on your mind, you’re making a decision for your child about where they’re gonna go to school. And is it important that they have a dance studio? Is it important that they have a makerspace? What am I supposed to do as a parent when I’m being asked what school to send my child to? And for that question, and for so many other questions that feel very impactful and indeed are and can be very impactful. To folks, what I recommend that people do is just really get very serious and very limited about what is going to be most important in this outcome. Does it matter that there’s a makerspace if this young person’s already fully invested? And doing this sort of activity is on this like great educational and experiential curve to do that then, yeah, that might actually matter. But if that is not a part of their lives already, then then no, it probably doesn’t matter. So kind of similar to dating is that we just gotta pick two or three things that really are likely. To impact the development of this young person and then to figure out what information will tell me as the. Parent, which of these schools is likely to have the most positive impact on on that one or two things? Well, what we were talking earlier, Rob, one of the really interesting things you touched on that I’d love to ask you more about, is this fear of increasing reliance on technology that you? I don’t understand or it’s new, so I’d just be really curious about if you wanna share the specifics of like which technologies kind of give you that angst and and what that angst? Yes.

Rob

My fear is mostly based on the way the Internet is going and business reliance, personal reliance, relationship reliance that we’ve all sort of touched upon in this conversation. Billions of people are now reliant on an architecture that we don’t really know where the information is coming from, right? So. Someone like myself, who reads a lot of newspapers. It’s the I see conversations that people are having based on a news story that is, I know for a fact it’s just nonsense. So they’ve got the information from I’m all sick of now correcting people when I have to do so. I guess my biggest fear is that we’re heading in a direction where certain powerful people are controlling the flow of information. There’s no longer. Democratized information source. It’s certainly more becoming from fewer and fewer sources. More billionaires are owning newspapers, more billionaires are owning media companies. My I guess my concern is what is going to happen with the world? What is going to happen with all this? These changes taking place. That is my.

Emily

Major concern I generally do consider myself an optimist. That being said. Humans do not have a good track record of getting things right on the first time. We just don’t and that is what we are living through right now. We are being asked to do something for the first time every day and it’s rocky. It’s going real rocky and I think the question is how quickly we’re gonna be able to positively adjust. And how I kind of conceive of this the the big underlying overarching problem here? Is the extent to which we are choosing to outsource our thinking, our knowledge, our decision making, and our trust in all of those systems. So as we sort of expand our own cognition and decision making to these external tools, these computational software tools, the pattern that I am seeing. Is not a balancing of that where essentially we say hey, very powerful tool that has a specialized utility. Why don’t you help me with this one specialized task? And then I’m going to and then you’re going to hand it back to me. And then I’m going to spend some time evaluating it, thinking about it, doing some of my specialized tasks, right, which is verifying whether or not it feels right compared to other sources compared to my own experience etcetera, etcetera, that that we’re not doing the trade off right. It isn’t being collaborative. Enough. We are just fully outsourcing and I think that is a huge problem.

Rob

Yeah.

Emily

So when I work with folks, and when I when I talk about what to do about this. It is building that better collaboration where I and other humans are at the center of it and that I am using these tools to bring information back to me, back to other experts, right that we are doing it collaboratively in a way that systematically will have a higher likelihood of being. Accurate of actually helping me of actually building these pro social systems and figuring out how to do that is a skill right that we don’t know how to do yet because all this technology is new, but we need to we got. Figure it out.

Rob

Yeah, it’s almost like there has to be a secure passkey between the human side and the AI side so that you know who is using this tool and where you’re getting the. Information from. That sort of system hasn’t been built yet, but we need something that can sort of trust and verify this data that we’re getting and to help us sort of deal with this overload of information that we’re getting. It’s a different issue, but the trust side of things is becoming ever more crucial.

Emily

Hopefully we are learning a very critical and important lesson about collective action with each other and collective action with our tools to where we also need to be. Very strong participants in that collaboration.

Rob

Collaboration. That’s a great, that’s a great way of phrasing it, Emily. I always appreciate your time. Thank you so much for both relieving a lot of my concerns and also just placating me and sort of listening to some of my rambling about this technology, but I appreciate your expertise on this and. Thank you so much.

Emily

Thank you so much for having me. It’s been great.

Mukund

Yeah. Thank you, Emily. Thank you for coming back. I’m sure we will bother you again with the with a couple of more episodes. Thank you, rob.

Emily

Yeah, that’d be great.

Rob

Thank you, Mukund. It was great to see you both and thank you everybody listening. We appreciate it.