Rushing AI Innovation is a Trillion-Dollar Mistake

Eleonore Pratoussy, Head of Marketing Cassette and co-host The Impossible Brief podcast (00:00.492)
You've spent time in the US, in Europe, China. If you had to bet on which one gets AI right, where is your money?

Ian Alden Russell, guest
I love a direct question and I'll give you a direct answer.

Ben Taylor, CEO Cassette and co-host The Impossible Brief podcast (00:16.59)
Hello and welcome to The Impossible Brief, a podcast about leading when technology moves faster than organisations can change. My name is Ben Taylor. I'm joined by my co host Eleanor Pretussi. Hi Ben. Hello, and we're here today with Ian Alden Russell. Ian is based in the US, is a thinker and a strategist with a PhD from Trinity College in Dublin and a background in the humanities and the arts. He works today across AI transformation and brand strategy consulting and approaches AI the way he'd approach any new text asking who built it and why. Hi, Ian.

Ian Alden Russell, guest
Hi Ben. Hi Eleonore. Lovely to be with you today. Hi.

Ben Taylor, CEO Cassette and co-host The Impossible Brief podcast
Thanks for coming. It's great to have you.

Eleonore Pratoussy, Head of Marketing Cassette and co-host The Impossible Brief podcast
Ian, you've spent time in the US, in Europe, China. If you had to bet on which one gets AI right, where is your money?

Ian Alden Russell, guest (01:03.51)
I love a direct question and I'll give you a direct answer. Europe. Now, the reasoning behind that has a lot to do with my experiences, my life, my my values. I do believe passionately that there is potential right now for us to build a tremendous human-centered future. And I think that this technology is an incredible mirror for who we are, how we behave. And I think it really does put us, these generations that are alive in human history right now, really at a pivotal moment. And I'm excited to explore it. And I do think that Europe has been asking some of the best questions, the most thoughtful questions. And that may mean they move a little bit slower than others, but in terms of the future that I hope we have, meaning a transformed, augmented human potential in the world, I think that the European perspective right now is incredibly vital to be listening to.

Ben Taylor, CEO Cassette and co-host The Impossible Brief podcast
I'm I'm fascinated to hear that your opinion of who gets this right has landed on on Europe, particularly someone who's based in the US and has seen what is obviously happening across the US, Europe and China. I think a lot of people watching or listening right now would not expect Europe to to to come through. I certainly wouldn't have expected Europe to be to be named as where you would place your bets. so I'm I'm really interested to hear why why you think that versus either the US or China where we are currently seeing biggest leaps in in innovation and technology over over Europe.

Ian Alden Russell, guest
What I would say is AI is a tremendous mirror in terms of cultural values, how people will approach their potential in the world. I think technology is an extension of how we behave. And you're right to notice that China and the US are moving very quickly and the innovation is astounding. I do think also between those two, there's an extreme oscillation between a completely unregulated or or or less regulated or deregulated environment.

Ian Alden Russell, guest (03:10.838)
And then perhaps an incredibly regulated environment, all in service of different values, like putting forest putting business first, putting social welfare first. And I think that in Europe, there is a much more you know technocratic approach. And that does slow things down, but I do think that it allows Europe to do something that it's always done well, which is understand that culture is one of its greatest assets and that it's humans. That are generating that culture. And so there needs to be a careful, considered approach to how we enable the integration of human behavior, human communication, human culture within the systems that we're developing. If I was to, you know, deepen things historically, I feel like Europe learned a lot of lessons in the twentieth century, particularly after World War Two. There were incredible consequences because of you know competing economics, but also competing cultural standpoints. And we don't have to rehast that history, but you know, development of the EC and later the EU was really predicated on understanding the necessity for there to be a much more sophisticated way of thinking about integration, diversity, collaboration, federation slash confederation. But I think that Europe very intentionally has been thinking about that. And one of the outgrowths of that was originally was like protecting agricultural systems. The CARP common agri agricultural policy, for those who know, like definitely had impacts in terms of a standardization of agriculture in Europe. And later there was a slowing down of that relative to genetically modified food. And so, simply put, in Europe you have to mark that food is genetically modified. In the US, you don't so much. Maybe the market might suggest it's advantageous to do so, but it's required. and in an AI or digital services landscape, the introduction of GDPR was heralded as being, you know, the the death knell of European competitiveness in a data or digital landscape. And that's clearly false. Europe is doing just fine. In fact, GDPR is almost like water or air at this stage. I I'd say most folks don't even necessarily think too much about it. I'm not saying that there aren't businesses that had to adapt. There were costs. But one of the things that I think was very important after World War Two was understanding that it was necessary to do business differently.

Ian Alden Russell, guest (05:29.582)
Because the way cultural affairs, business affairs, economic affairs have been handled up until that point ended a particularly difficult moment for humanity. And so I think Europe is rightly trying to think ahead as best it can in order to mitigate that and keep humanity and human creativity and human productivity centered in the frame.

Ben Taylor, CEO Cassette and co-host The Impossible Brief podcast
And and how does that vary from what you see in the US and also in China? And I'm particularly interested about what you see in China because I think a lot of us have a a sort of a a a pretty good understanding of the US, but less so about China.

Ian Alden Russell, guest
That's a great question. they it's interesting. They sort of mirror one another in certain ways. and just you know, in the moment when we're recording this particularly poignant, in the US there's a court case that's a federal court case that's making its way through the system regarding meta and its relationship to to children under to minors in terms of to what extent were they designing systems that were taking advantages taking advantage of minors in ways that others might deem as highly inappropriate. In a Chinese context, it was years ago, three plus years ago, in 2023, there was a law on the protection of minors that was passed in China. And that's actually built on top of a a pre a pre-established preced legal standard called the Personal Information Protection Law, which is in 2021. And simply put, it it just put I would argue from at least from a Chinese perspective, we could say common sense limitations on how adolescents should be accessing the internet. So between 10 PM and 6 a.m., those who are minors are not have do not have access to the internet via their smartphones. and there's further details in terms of like r restricting the amount of internet usage that occurs during the day. But what's what's notable is both this court case, the litigiousness in the US system and this central policy within China.

Ian Alden Russell, guest (07:29.196)
Are both pointing at the exact same issue. And what's fascinating to me is that, I mean, I may be proven wrong and I hope not to be, that in Europe, this has been central and of concern from the beginning. And so in this case, we see two other systems that are making much more striking counterpoints or counterbalances to the prevailing winds. what would a what would a future look like where there's completely unregulated relationship to Social media, computer technology, AI.

Eleonore Pratoussy, Head of Marketing Cassette and co-host The Impossible Brief podcast
It's not. Yeah, and to your point, we didn't like Europe didn't have the same level of issues than the US and Australia, for example, thanks to GDPR. Because the level of targeting, if we take meta targeting towards children, they would do emotional targeting. So if a child was posting a selfie, then deleting it, they would target that child with a beauty product. So there's lots of emotional targeting. They would target words like depression, feeling down, any s any anything that the child would be writing would then be targeted. These are fully forbidden in in in Europe. And so to that level, I think that's where Europe has that legacy of being very governance heavy and a bit old. And you know, like as we discussed with a previous a previous speaker who was an AI ethicist, she was arguing that it was quite slow and and the governance needs to speed up a bit further. But I I believe that that yeah, there is this inheritance of the government being heavily involved and so having quite a lot of legislation. The US, it's fully business led and governance equals legal risks, which equals lack of innovation. And in China, it's very much that approach of we are the parents and we will dictate when and how you can use the tech. So it's quite interesting that from those three setups we can really

Eleonore Pratoussy, Head of Marketing Cassette and co-host The Impossible Brief podcast (09:25.828)
try to learn and see which one might be most advantageous for humanity, whilst leaving space for business to also, you know, innovate and do business.

Ben Taylor, CEO Cassette and co-host The Impossible Brief podcast
Yeah. And I think we should also make it clear that being based in Europe Europe does not have it completely nailed down, that's for sure. You know, we're we're we're sort of saying that it's that that they're that they're doing well, there's still a lot of l a lot of problems and challenges and and and we're certainly not trying to say it's perfect.

Ian Alden Russell, guest
No, I completely I think the point I sort of push is just that within the European context, I'm hearing some of the best questions that are being asked and explored scale. It's one thing for you know a discrete group of elite business people who go to Davos to have like privileged conversations that effectively are promotions for their specific companies. it's another thing that last year the joint research committee for the EU published the generative AI outlook report. And I haven't seen something like that come out of any other governance framework so far. And it does a pretty good job of pointing towards the types of issues that are coming. and it doesn't do so in a restrictive sense. It actually tries to a ask the question like, well, how might we be able to create a data landscape that can propel innovation? And so within the European context, they that's the whole world of horizontal data legislation. and I think it's notable that like Europe has been pretty competitive in it. So there's a

Ian Alden Russell, guest (10:51.352)
Paris-based AI firm called Mistral.ai that is built on actually open source code and it's doing really, really well. and then separately, like I think the Black Forest Labs out Germany that is doing, you know, physical AI, so not world modeling per se, but basically to help Audi with manufacturing systems. Like these are emerging out of a European regulatory framework. And they're some of the most impressive AI models that aren't talked about very often.

Ben Taylor, CEO Cassette and co-host The Impossible Brief podcast
That was that was gonna be my my next question is is how effective can Europe be at governing this when they're not they're not the owners of the IP? They're not leading in in the anthropic and open AI US businesses you know and we're either using those or we're using the Chinese models. If if we're not using European technology, how effective can Europe be at implementing the approach that they want to take.

Ian Alden Russell, guest
Well what you now point towards is gonna be something I like to think about, but it's gonna be questions as opposed to confident answers. We are starting to witness is a potential diversification of different types of AI models. Meaning, is there going to be one universal large language model or or world model, whatever form? There's another question about the types of models that AI is is using. Is there going to be one universal, or will there'll be a whole range of different, diverse forms? And again, applying arts, humanities, and critical theory, like language is complicated and it varies across, you know, groups of humans. And Europe understands that. And like Europe already actually has actually rather efficient way of dealing with complex legislation across multiple linguistic and cultural frameworks, cultural ecosystems. That is not the case in the US. We barely are able to handle English and Spanish. That's unfair, but I'm being a little bit flippant.

Ian Alden Russell, guest (12:47.662)
but similarly, like, you know, Ch China broadly is still operating within a singular linguistic system. And so what like do we want a world where there are, you know, arguably infinite, but we could say in European context, 28 specific AI systems. Is it you know, sovereign AI? Is this becoming a ver another version of technological protectionism that's emerging? and I think Europe has the greatest potential to be able to embrace. A diverse series of inputs, let's say, like cultural systems, and be able to then still generate and move forward. Whereas I feel like in the US, in China, there is an admitted push to try to dominate globally through singular systems. I mean, Yuval Harare's talk at Davos, this past Davos, was incredibly enlightening about, which is, you know, he he basically put the question to, you know, these executives that were in the room of like, well, what do you think? About AI migrating across borders and replacing workers in other countries. Like it's a little bit sensational, but it's a fascinating prompt to actually take, you know, the what are the consequences of this technology in terms of the lived human experience. And my great concern is I am not sure that the US is the right place. There are good people here, but I'm not sure the US as a system is in the right position right now to be arbitering that. Legal historical standpoint. The US started doing like significant legislation around data systems back in 1974, Privacy Act that was passed then, and established sort of a precedent where there is you and the record of you, and then records as systems. And b the subsequent legislations that were passed in nineteen eighty eight, there was a computer matching law, and then you fast forward after nine eleven, you had a whole series of different systems that were enabled through legislation to basically track and coordinate and compare data across multiple governance systems in order to try to manage the perceived problem of human migration within the US system. But what happened then is we've created the situation where you live, there's a computational representation of your life. And then that computational ref representation is what has been giving increasing amount of agency within our systems. And there has not been a resolution of that.

Ian Alden Russell, guest (15:08.766)
the agency of the computational representation relative to your actual personhood and your life. We also have this other fascinating case that just went occurred last year, 2025, Garcia versus character.ai. It's a tragic story of an adolescent who ended up in a relationship with an AI chatbot and then took their own life. the family sued on the grounds that the AI was manipulating the child and it was dangerous and that it should be held accountable. The defendant, character.ai's case rested on an argument that there's a constitutionally protected right to receive speech. So it wasn't trying to say that the AI was a person and the AI was speaking, but it generated content and that there was a right for people to receive it. And so again, you have the situation where there's a computational representation that's being given legal consequences through like going as far back as the constitution and it having real impact on human life, but we're not squaring that. We're keeping those entirely separate because I might argue that that is actually creating the type of deregulated business first landscape. And I honestly I think most people would agree that the current state of affairs with immigration in the United States and we might say this type of situation where there could be an AI system that could have hu massive human consequence. We've mentioned Meta's case, which is not AI specifically, but it's adjacent to and now if that case doesn't result in some type of line drawn in terms of the consequences of AI systems, I have deep concern that on an ontological level, if I can use that word, I'm not sure the US has an appropriate or fair, human centered approach to what this technology is doing. And this is sort of the deeper reason that pushes me towards looking towards the technocratic processes in Europe. And dare I say that, even some of the common sense legislations that are coming out of China.

Ben Taylor, CEO Cassette and co-host The Impossible Brief podcast (17:13.546)
And just bringing this back to the Europe and your opinions on Europe, I think certainly opinions that I've heard from a number of people is that because of the stance that on governance that Europe is taking as a whole, it is therefore moving too slowly and is in danger of being overwhelmed by the pace that the US and China are moving. And I'm getting from you that you don't think that's the case, but what's your response to people that are that that say that say that, that that it is hindering Europe?

Ian Alden Russell, guest
no, so I would say I it's I don't disagree that Europe is moving slow, and I don't disagree that there's a risk there. I think there absolutely is strategic risk. We should not minimize that. It is entirely possible, despite any good argument here, that any of the potentially dangerous or I might argue like less human-centered approaches become the the dominant norm. but from a in a European context, I think a thing that needs to be remembered is while yes, you know, old man Europe is a place of culture and culture has compounding value, and that's been been, you know, proven time and again. Europe also is a place of incredible engineering aptitude. And that is an outgrowth of culture because it has to do with value systems, discipline, diligence, education, investment in education. In Holland, like there is a company called ASML that builds the machines that build all the semiconductors, like all over the planet. And it's singular. There is no other place on the planet that's able to do it the way that they do it. Maybe in future there might be others that compete in it. But Europe has a competitive advantage and let's just say when it comes to engineering. There's a reason why there are certain forms of engineer technology that are still distinctly European. And I point back again to the examples like Black Force Labs and Mistral.ai, or we could even talk about Jan Lakun, AMI. So that's like a radically different approach.

Ian Alden Russell, guest (19:13.56)
To how AI models might even be developed. They're working on a thing called world modeling. So where it's like more spatial in terms of think like the trying to get closer to how we perceive, experience the world, and then subsequently generate text, rather than focusing initially only on generated text. And that's how you know LLMs effectively basically operate. so I think there's an incredible landscape of high quality engineering and visionary thought. And protecting the human infrastructure, if I can use use that phrase, within a European context that has generated that is paramount.

Ben Taylor, CEO Cassette and co-host The Impossible Brief podcast
What are the best bits that we should cherry pick from these three markets that we're talking about? From from from China, from Europe, from the US?

Ian Alden Russell, guest
So that's I love that question. so I would say from a US standpoint, I do think the tenacity and the willingness to take risk is incredibly valuable. We're working through that right now because risk is sort of more expensive. Like VCs don't even want to take on risk technically in their portfolios right now. It's an interesting moment for the US, but I think historically, culturally, we're very good at that. And it it's not surprising that there are people who still want to move to Silicon Valley or Silicon Alley in Manhattan the hotbed of innovation in the US because of just the general, we could say, culture, like the scene that exists that is generating some exciting new technological innovations. So I think that's very valuable. I think within a European context, I very much like the regulation that's being put forward to try to establish shared databases, data sets, so horse horizontal data legislation.

Ian Alden Russell, guest (20:57.064)
trying to create a certain degree of fairness. and then from a Chinese context, I honestly would say is certain amounts of common sense legislation. I think if you talk to any parent, I think they will agree that it's important for their children, their adolescents to get sleep. And so a technology that fundamentally is disrupting that, I think needs to be regulated on some standpoint. But at a certain point, I think we can agree that there's certain things that are so potentially damaging or so unhealthy that it does need to have some type of guardrails. It's just this class liberal conservative debate. It's like it's not a question about whether there should be regulation. It's the question of how much and when. And I appreciate in the Chinese context, they're like, well clearly we have to do something. Now does it need to look exactly like that? Not necessarily. yeah. So I think those would be the three things that I would put together.

Eleonore Pratoussy, Head of Marketing Cassette and co-host The Impossible Brief podcast
It's like really nice geopolitical overview and trying to, you know, understand the pros and cons of all those three different powers. But I wonder if we take it back down to enterprise business level, what does this mean if you're a manager or a leader in an enterprise business?

Ian Alden Russell, guest
Great question. I would say that well, fundamental reality that we all have to keep in mind is there have never been more generations alive concurrently than are now. And so that means that the amount of intergenerational translation that it needs to have is of a scale that we've never normally had. So if you are and this is I don't want to bracket anything by age, but just for argument's sake, let's say if you are a manager between the ages of forty-five and sixty-five. And you're managing 25 to 35, you more than likely will have very different reference points in terms of what society is like, what culture is, and how one communicates. Remember that they've grown up in a radically different way than you have. So much of their life is mediated through communications and digital services. So their personhood is distributed. And so they're trying to figure out how to cope, build a fulfilling life.

Ian Alden Russell, guest (23:10.868)
And a large portion of that is existing outside of themselves now. It's so existing outside of themselves through their social media platforms, gaming, just online, that there is a version of themselves that is out there. And so when you're a manager, understanding that it is a there's been a radical transformation in how humans connect with one another, emote, relate. And so you have to account for it. So what does that look like in practice? It could be as simple as taking an interest. the playful thing I say is like if you're a manager and you read the Bronte's and you're, you development team passionate about Evangelion or Ghost in the Shell, maybe you should spend a little bit of time with Japanese animation and understand what that means and how they were thinking about the future 30 years ago or 40 years ago. And how those concerns, ideas, potentials, and questions are actually like embedded in some of the conversations or the cultural forms that exist in part of your organization. And I think right now people don't necessarily feel like they have to do that work. and maybe I'm biased because I love doing that work. So I'd say more cultural sensitivity. And an effort from a management standpoint to genuinely understand those different reference points that people bring to effectively what life feels like today.

Ben Taylor, CEO Cassette and co-host The Impossible Brief podcast (24:31.308)
Yeah. Seems to be th this is something that's coming up more and more and it's so plainly obvious as soon as you sort of think about it for for longer than a a few seconds that this journey that we're on with AI technologies is as much about adoption and change management as it is about the technologies. This is not rolling out Microsoft three six five to your employees and saying, Here you go, go and use it. It is so much more broader than that and requires a completely different approach.

Eleonore Pratoussy, Head of Marketing Cassette and co-host The Impossible Brief podcast
What makes me think of is we need to also put AI where it belongs, which is that AI is a tool. And right now, everything, and if you look at the AGI, which and we reproduce with AI the human brain and the way of thinking. And as long as this is the discourse, then people may not see AI as a tool and as a place where knowledge is stored, like it would have been on Wikipedia or in a dictionary or in a book. But they might see it as another brain with the same level of critical thinking. And I think the second you put AI back into the place of it's a tool with lots of knowledge and how do I sharpen my brain and my critical thinking off it, then it remains a tool and then you don't give it the power. And I think that's where it belongs it's a means to an end, not the end itself.

Ian Alden Russell, guest (25:55.66)
Yeah, and I what I would say is it it it does what we prompt it to do. And so whatever AI is doing is going to reflect our ability to ask it to do interesting or useful or good or I guess bad good bad things. one of the things I learned in my time as a researcher doing PhDs and working in the arts broadly, is that the outcome of good research or the outcome of great creative practice. Isn't like a simple deterministic answer. It's a better question. It's a better prompt to continue the refinement, continue the exploration, continue the self-reflection. Inflection points where there are individuals or institutions that are incentivized to want it to be just a simple replacement for deterministic work. And then there's the other potential, which is this is a place that can help us see ourselves better more fully and ask. Deeper, more meaningful questions. And that latter part sounds tremendously exciting to me. Flip back to the difference in the regulatory frameworks. I I think that it Europe clearly, I think, is trying to build that kind of system where it would basically help people and governance and communities whether ask better questions in service of a deeper shared value about people, society, community. Whereas I think it's it's unfortunate that the mass divestment from public education in the US has occurred during the rise of this technology. Because, you know, some of the leading thinkers of the latter part of the 20th century were operating within the United States, and we could have had a very different moment as we arrived here. and I mean, I would love there to be a Manhattan project level effort to help people be able to engage technology with that level of critical self-awareness and reflection, but that may not happen at scale the way that we need it to.

Eleonore Pratoussy, Head of Marketing Cassette and co-host The Impossible Brief podcast (28:01.26)
If I'm a leader in an enterprise business, how can I go to the office tomorrow and approach things differently? How can I apply what we've discussed concretely? Would you have an answer to that?

Ian Alden Russell, guest
Yes. it's gonna come right back down to human relationships. So it's recognizing that your team probably has if you have a team of 15, you've got 15 different emotional perspectives on what's happening. And you may have 15 different fascinating ideas, some of which are useful, some of which might not be, about how things should happen and what they should look like. And rather than recreate effectively the kind of industrial systems that we learned we wanted to move away from, where someone just tells you literally. How to do everything, and you must confess create a space where you're thinking and feeling with one another about this change. I guess the way to say it is if I could magically have all managers be excellent facilitators and educators and build time where people are learning how to change and grow and become curious, that would be this. I mean, that's the thing that's going to help people be prepared for whatever gets whatever comes next, is support one another and understanding what is happening, why it's happening, and how we might take better advantage and be better engaged with the development of it.

Ben Taylor, CEO Cassette and co-host The Impossible Brief podcast
And with all that in mind, what advice do you give to your clients who are in these big businesses about who should be leading this transformation within a business sense? You know, often it sits with digital, IT, but it's it's clear from your opinion that there's so much more than that. And where where does it sit? Who should be leading this? And

Ben Taylor, CEO Cassette and co-host The Impossible Brief podcast (29:52.268)
I'm not asking you for the right answer, I'm just I'm asking for your 'cause there is no right answer. Yeah

Eleonore Pratoussy, Head of Marketing Cassette and co-host The Impossible Brief podcast
Because it's AI is a technology, so technically you would think, well, IT is best place because it's how's your role of technology. But then because of all the human layers that you build into it, like to your point, Ian, it's very like it's a collaboration. It's literally getting you know, it's you need technology skills, you need HR skills, you need entrepreneurial skills. You need strategic and visionary just to understand how AI is like what AI means for that specific business. It's I I think it could implement it well. It could actually really break like force businesses to break silos and to really have those integrated, you know, a center of excellence. That and it feels that that's very much like the ultimate silo breaker of bringing integrated teams.

Ben Taylor, CEO Cassette and co-host The Impossible Brief podcast
Yeah.

Ian Alden Russell, guest (30:48.654)
Yeah. Advice I have given is staff development budgets tend to be still protected a little bit more than other areas of spend. So I would say that staff development, HR, those are places where I think it is crucial to have this be a part of the conversation. But you're right to say I don't think this should exist within any specific singular seat. Last year there were a lot of jobs that were like evangelist was literally the title of the job. That it's trying to get people fascinated about the, you know, the cost significance of this technology. There was someone who was there to, you know, cheer people up, sit alongside them, motivate them. We need to make sure everyone in a management role has time to sit next to their employees a little more. Right. You think about the disruption that occurred just as we were introducing word processing and email. And it took a while for people to adjust to that. And like it was clear 20 years ago that management felt like it had no time to be able to actually sit with people. And one of the great like shifts was understanding that like it actually is about having more time to be able to effectively relate to the human carrying out tasks. That is not going to change. To other places there may be certain functions automated, of course. But that's not that's not new. What's new is it's happening so quickly.

Ben Taylor, CEO Cassette and co-host The Impossible Brief podcast
So Ian, one final question from me. We like to look at an optimistic viewpoint. what is your hope for next year for the next year in terms of where we're going within this realm of AI?

Ian Alden Russell, guest
Ooh, okay. I can I give you next year and I want to give you five years. yeah. So next year, what I hope to see is the next generation building their own. There's never been a moment in I'll say American history where there hasn't been some sixteen year old who like figures out how they could build the thing and they build the thing. So that I think is probably already happening quite more. And I would say the more that that happens, that there will be a

Ben Taylor, CEO Cassette and co-host The Impossible Brief podcast (32:36.821)
Absolutely.

Ian Alden Russell, guest (33:02.466)
different type of groundswell of competition against what I think are very, very comfortable, very powerful people. And this is to go back to the the geopolitical landscape, this is where I think the different regulatory frameworks matter. How might we be able to empower the next generation to better see that future? And each of those systems, I think, will handle their next generation differently. Five years from now, what I am excited about is and I hope for this is that an executive having to make some difficult decisions with their team will basically be working in tandem with whatever they have chosen with their AI a a range of different value systems or philosophical perspectives in order to solve problems. So concretely, philosophically, there's object oriented thought and there's context oriented thought. And sometimes we may want an object oriented analytical system like Western philosophy is a lot of the sort of economic orders that we work under. Sometimes we might want a more nuanced context-oriented way of thinking. And that, you know, broadly goes back to Confucianism and Taoism or Eastern philosophical traditions. And those may be better suited to think about messier situations around distributed personhood or the way leaders relate to their broader cultures and societies. And I think any significant company or anyone aspiring to leadership in the world will need to develop a perspective to understand that there'll be different forms of this thinking technology that will be informed by different epistemologies and ontologies. And I'm excited about being able to sit in a room where we're basically deciding we should be really object oriented in how we think about this problem versus this other problem, where we might say we need to apply a context oriented way of thinking. That sounds like the next evolution in terms of human cooperation and thinking. We have all the tools, the books have been on the shelves in the libraries for a really long time, but now we actually have a technology that might be able to bring us into quicker engagement and iteration at that level of human thought and transformation.

Eleonore Pratoussy, Head of Marketing Cassette and co-host The Impossible Brief podcast (35:15.382)
Yeah. Very cool. So like the kind of human thought that wouldn't be accessible to the masses before now would be become mainstream and much more accessible. That's your hope for the technology.

Ian Alden Russell, guest
Absolutely.

Ben Taylor, CEO Cassette and co-host The Impossible Brief podcast
Brilliant. Thank you. Great chatting to you. Thank you very much for coming along. Thanks for listening to the Impossible Brief, a podcast by Cassettes. We help leaders navigate the Impossible Brief that is the ALA transformation. Subscribe for more episodes and find all our articles on Substack.