Humans and AI with Anna Ivanova

The Evolving Leader

How neuroscience, machine learnig and AI are shaping our future

In this episode of The Evolving Leader podcast, co-hosts Emma Sinclair and Arjun Sahdev talk to Anna Ivanova. Anna is a postdoctoral researcher at MIT and is studying the relationship between language and other aspects of human cognition using tools from cognitive neuroscience and artificial intelligence (such as large language models). This is a fascinating conversation that ultimately addresses the big question, are today’s leaders under threat from AI (now or in the near future)?

Referenced during this episode:
TEDx – To build smarter chatbots, look to the brain | Anna Ivanova (May 2023)

Other reading from Jean Gomes and Scott Allender:
Leading In A Non-Linear World (J Gomes, 2023)
The Enneagram of Emotional Intelligence (S Allender, 2023)
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The Evolving Leader is researched, written and presented by Jean Gomes and Scott Allender with production by Phil Kerby. It is an Outside production.

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Chapters

1. Introduction (00:00:00)

2. If you were invited to talk to pupils at a primary school, that is today’s generation that will grow up with AI, how would you describe your journey that has got you to where you are now, what you're focusing on and why? (00:05:01)

3. Drawing on your research, can you highlight the differences between language and thought in humans? (00:07:03)

4. Why is it so important for us to be aware of the way in which we think, the style in which we think or even the language in which we think? (00:10:11)

5. You mention that only some of us have an inner voice. How do you study that? (00:14:09)

6. Is there any correlation between neurodiversity and trends in the way (or styles) that people think? (00:16:23)

7. Moving to AI, can you tell us what large language models are and how (if at all) are they capable of thought? (00:18:46)

8. How can we use what we know about the different networks in the brain and how they interact with each other to solve multi varied problems, and apply that to developing this next wave of AI? (00:21:44)

9. If experts can get closer to engineering or understanding the relationship between the brain networks, do you think that A.I. models could actually develop superintelligence? Could they replicate a human brain? (00:25:50)

10. Do you think it's feasible for organizations to perhaps believe or consider a future where they may be running significant parts of their operation using perhaps deeply advanced AI? Is that a future that's likely to happen any time soon? (00:29:45)

11. You’ve said that language is a uniquely human construct. What would you say to those who are potentially worried that actually our unique human abilities are being disrupted faster than we could ever have thought with the rise of AI and LLM? (00:32:33)

12. It sounds like you’re saying that it’s important that we learn to use these tools as an enabler of our work rather than a disrupter. Is that accurate? (00:36:23)

13. Going back to the idea that language is a uniquely human construct. There are clearly so many languages used across different territories, could a sophisticated LLM speed an organization's ability to understand a new market in a foreign territory? (00:37:45)

14. Can we think about emotional awareness and empathy? Is there ever going to be a point where we could train an AI model to have empathy or to demonstrate those essential leadership qualities that are uniquely human at the moment? (00:41:34)

15. If there are uniquely human things that we should lean into and try to seek power from, and currently there are definitely spaces in which AIs can’t compete with humans, is there potential in the future for AIs to become more human? (00:44:56)

16. Where is your research taking you next? (00:48:50)

17. There may be people listening who are thinking, “I don’t even know what my thinking style is”. How could you help them address this? (00:50:48)