Kris Ostergaard On The Ian Khan Show

And Chris, how are you? I'm very good. Thank you. How are you? I'm doing well. How are things are working out in Copenhagen? I'm asking everybody about COVID-19. What are the repercussions? Tell me how you guys doing there? First of all, yeah, I feel always I have to emphasize how lucky I am to live in a country like Denmark. And that is actually also correct this time around. So relatively speaking, we are safe here in Denmark, I think the government reacted relatively quickly as well. So we've been in more or less of total lockdown about the Prime Minister just announced today that they're opening up slightly. Now we've had, again, relatively speaking few deaths, and the curve has flattened and it looks to be moving in the right direction. So I feel that we're in a in a fortunate place compared to a lot of other countries around the world. You know, a few weeks ago, maybe a couple of months, I should say now that we were all moving at a certain pace in our lives with business with life, and we were paying attention to many things. We were not paying attention to many things. But it's so amazing how that perspective changes how our focus changes, because of what's happening in the world outside. How do you think the world will come out of COVID-19? What do you see happening in the next couple of years? Let's start there. So what I think will happen is that what we're already seeing is there are a lot of, you know, jokes and cartoons floating around on the internet on who sort of sped up the digital transformation processes in the world and in organizations. Was it the CIO? Was it the CEO? Or was it the Coronavirus, right. And so for organizations who have been forced to move even more radically into digital transformation as our society as a whole, obviously, we're all working from home now, or at least most of us to probably what that means is that cause those trends existed already the move towards digital or probably what it means is that it is sped up the pace at which law will transition into this with five, seven years, let's say right, so while we of course, there's another there's light at the end of the tunnel in regards to us being able to meet physically, again, hopefully very, very soon traveling and going to restaurants, tourism, all of that stuff. I'm convinced that this has really accelerated the whole move into digital for all of us, both professionally and personally, to a much higher degree than would have otherwise been the case. Absolutely. And I can't agree more that you know, we're we're going towards a different world, of course, majority of everything being seen, but at least I think people have given it a test drive and people who haven't been technology savvy, they're using technology, and hopefully it creates some efficiency in our world. It reduces our carbon footprint, it does all of those good things that it's supposed to do. I really believe that it's some kind of maybe a wake up call or maybe a great leveler, greater reset, greater refresh. It's one of those things where we're getting an opportunity to think a little bit more because we were just so busy in the world that we live in. So I really suggest everybody to utilize this time in reading more in doing an online course in studying and doing a bunch of these things that you've been constantly being let go. So good time to do that. Let's talk about technology. So we're here because we both are contributors to this amazing book called aftershock. And aftershock was put together by a friend john Schroeder. He needs to pay me every time I say his name seriously. I've said his name so many times. But john shorter put this book together called aftershock. 50 years after the famous futurist Alvin Toffler wrote his book, Future Shock and Future Shock was a revolution 50 years ago, he talked about this future with technology and how people will behave and so on and so forth. And so this book has 50 different futurists who talk about the future. Alvin Toffler. Tell me about your experiences and your exposure to Alvin Toffler. Yeah, so well, it was really amazing to get the chance to contribute to this book, because obviously, I have, you know, been in the space of innovation for I guess, almost two decades now in various shapes and forms. And so the book Future Shock has always, you know, stood out almost as a Bible in regards to looking into where we will we're heading as a society and the impact that technology will have as well. I think his predictions and his scenarios for the future, there are so many remarkable insights on his account that it's just mind boggling to see now 50 years after I read the book and in preparing for contributing to to aftershock, and it was just mind boggling to me to really see how he nailed it in terms of some of these very big influence inchoate trends that we're seeing, including, as we were just speaking about speed, the whole notion of, you know, the adhocracy, the network, HR organizations, and how we would all be operating at a pace and impact so far, far bigger than what was the case in 1970. And he certainly got that right. And that was sort of what inspired me to take that as a starting point to look into then. So what does that then mean for you know, the next 50 years or thereabouts? And so you also you work with Singularity University, isn't that right? Yeah. I'm a co founder of Singularity University, we system Nordic entity of Singularity University. So we have our headquarters in Copenhagen and no service all of the Nordic countries on the faculty of Singularity University, where I'm specialized in regards to innovation and primarily innovation in large established organizations. I recently wrote a book called transforming legacy organizations that deals with this. And I'm also the host of the corporate innovation podcast, which is a Singularity University podcast as well. And Singularity is incredible. With the number of programs you guys have the number of experts you've got, I've definitely interviewed a few people from Singularity University on my podcast series as part of Aftershock. And hopefully I'm also looking forward to perhaps interviewing a couple of more people that I've missed. But Peter, Peter Diamandis is amazing, incredible to see all the work you guys do. XPrize is amazing. It's great for innovation and to push the boundaries. Let's talk about artificial intelligence is one of these things that we all are continuously pushing and pushing ahead. And you have a really nice model of human AI roles in the future workplace, you know, what does the future look like when it's the the mesh between artificial intelligence helped me understand this model that you have here? And I'm going to put this up here? I've been reading it. Yeah. talk. Talk to me a little bit about that. Yeah. So what I was investigating and have been thinking a lot about and wrote about in aftershock was the whole notion of so whatever topless spoke about these network HR organizations, and you know, the radical increase in pace and impact that we will be seeing from organizations and with all the technological development, then we have been seeing, and we'll be seeing what does that then mean for the types of organizations that we will have in the future. And to me those, there's really two key issues here, which is about human and artificial intelligence, I'm pretty sure I don't know how far down the line, but at one point, we will be talking about artificial intelligence and longer, right, that sort of terminology, simply because I guess it is still so new to us. But then I guess that's the point and making that, you know, increasingly artificial intelligence, and what that enables, becomes, you know, natural to us, or, as a default, that is just absolutely, basically necessary for running a company. And I guess we're almost already there. And certainly, pretty soon, if you're not AI powered as an organization, well, you know, then you have issues. And thus it is it is about AI or human execution and AI or human authority in regards to your organization who does the work and who calls the shots. And let me to develop this model here, that's, you know, the basic two by two that sort of highlights four core organizational models that we already see, one of them is still relatively theoretical theology we already see and we will see them in an even more emphasized version. And so the most relatable probably is what I call the hyper lean organization. So that is your big tech companies of today the most of the the Silicon Valley and increasingly from other places as well hardcore tech companies that how are by almost entirely digital, they're empowered by technology, they know working very hard to become AI, first all of them, so they have to a larger and larger extent AI execution, right, but they have human authority. And so what I'm contemplating here is that you know, increasingly, we will be able to have AI execution on more and more tasks. And the question then becomes, at a certain point, we might be able to give the job to the AI or have the AI executed, and when will we choose not to give the authority to the AI? When will we choose to remain in the driver's seat as human beings? Yeah, that's the human versus AI authority. And you know, and I guess that that becomes an ethical, philosophical discussion. At one point, we will be able to have the AI call the shots, but we will choose based on some ethical guiding principles that no we want to call the shots at least at a certain level, but increasingly that will mean that organizations the hyperlink organizations, they will be, you know, have management levels of people but won't be needing human beings for execution. As you know, core staff are will to a much larger, larger extents rely on freelancers, which is another sort of core forms of organization that we will see we already seeing it, of course, but that will be by far the dominant way of working. Yeah, that is where of course you have human execution here. But increasingly AI authority, I got you. Now we're in now, you mentioned the Silicon Valley that there's some kind of, you know, the early adopters of AI are in Silicon Valley. What other pockets in the world do you see adapting more towards this AI driven world? I see a lot being done done in Europe to in to some extent, you know, the Netherlands is doing something. The UAE United Arab Emirates, Dubai is doing something with an entire artificial intelligence ministry, Saudi Arabia is doing something with a newly formed ai thority that's working on AI in any particular experiences or insights, China, so probably no one at least geographically is doubling down harder on AI than China is. And and I don't think you can find any country in the world wouldn't say that, you know, AI is absolutely core to the future, you will be hard pressed to find companies not saying that. And of course, they have very different levels of maturity, where the Silicon Valley and quotation mark types of organizations are sort of leading the game here, but that doesn't matter. They're found in Silicon Valley or in Shenzhen or in Tel Aviv, or where they're coming from. And that's, that's really on how they are designed from the get go on their understanding of technology. Well, legacy organizations, you know, it's a longer journey for them, right, because there are still, again, different maturities. But they're still you know, moving from analog to digital. And But increasingly, of course, that also means that they're thinking AI from the minute they start to think about digital. Now, what about some of these really extremely large corporations that are funding AI researching AI, they've got billions of people who use their products and solutions, and we know who we're talking about, which is great, we love their product solutions, and everything's great. It makes our life so much more easy. But where do we start looking at AI as something that could fall into the wrong hands and the information people have out there could be used in a wrong way? like where's the ethical boundary? Where's the regulation boundary? How's regulation, ethics, user rights, privacy all coming together? When we talk about AI? That's the billion dollar question. Right. But maybe it's the trillion dollar question. So a lot of people are asking those questions right now, both on a societal level and enterprise level and individual level. I think there are many ethical dilemmas in here and which is also actually a reason that we are right now in the process of putting together a book, which is like aftershock also an anthology called ethics at work, which is exactly about this stuff, how do we move into the future and ensure that as enterprises as organizations, we do that in an ethical manner, knowing that due to the exponential developments of technology that you know, our powers and the impact we can have with these technologies is increasing dramatically. So ethics becomes ever more important? And there's so many questions that need answering here. And I think what kind of answers we are giving will mean, you're dependent on a lot of different things we see geographically, if you look to us versus China versus the EU, it's a very, very different philosophical foundation for how we think about ethics and how we act out our ethics so well. So that's like one starting point. And then of course, you have individual organizational philosophies as well, that also impact the center. The bottom line is, as we're speaking right now, this is very early days when it comes to ethics is that most people and that also goes for top leaders in organizations and politicians, they don't really have awareness about the importance of ethics, they don't have a language or ethics, they don't have principles, they don't have frameworks. So it's really about kickstarting these conversations to move that into figuring out what are the kinds of actions we need to take, and how do we operationalize ethics. That's really what's going to be absolutely at the core of it. And what's challenging is that, you know, we've had technology in the mainstream for I would say, for over 20 years now, at least 30 plus years, we've used technology on an everyday basis. And it's taken us so long to come to the point where we are right now. Now, undoubtedly, AI and related technologies will accelerate the pace of change, and AI will teach itself and machine and robotics and Internet of Things will all come together. I really don't see that happening for the next five to seven years, or even 10 years. All right, the scenarios that are posted in the movies and media, I think they're pretty far away based on oil in some pockets. Maybe yes, you might see a lot of automation. But when we look at generally AI dominating in running different things across the world, where do you see it kind of becoming the mainstream? What timeframe would you give it? So it's interesting when we've been a couple of studies done qualitative studies with relatively large bundles of experts in a variety of domains with this question on whether we Hitting what type of AI development or dominance etc. And I think what everybody agrees upon is you know how wildly they agree upon the timelines for when something will happen, but everybody agrees that you know, it will happen at some point, I think, you know, what is what is automation is one part we will the Coronavirus was will also accelerate this because organizations need to double down on innovation. That's sort of the hard part because during crisis, typically innovation suffers. But they also of course, need to double down on efficiency and effectiveness. And that means automation. And that means leveraging AI then even faster pace and then what they were already doing, but then it's consumer, right. So it's you know, it's Amazon, its Alexa, that's where it's coming from, right. It's about you know, evermore convenience for the consumer ever more customer centricity for the consumer AI, plays and can play a huge role in this generally speaking, as consumers, we, you know, we're suckers for convenience, right? If we can get it more convenient, we want it if we can get it more customized wants and needs, we want that and that does whoever can provide that. And, you know, Amazon's is way ahead in this game right now. And they want Alexa to be your digital assistant that you know, sits on your I don't know if it's the left or right shoulder 24 seven, and you know, whisper to you, you know, how you should act and move and purchase right so that they're pushing this massive plan. And you know, we can talk about levels here. But there's already what 100 million Alexis out there in the world. So I don't see that stopping at all, I only see that accelerating for sure. And I think one of the core reasons for how fast this adoption will accelerate and to what extent the AI assistant digital assistants, whether we want to call them what role they're able to play in our lives will, to a very large extent depend on legislation, and what our governments will allow? Absolutely. I want to read something from the books. It's from your chapter. And it says these human workers will in effect, have an AI boss telling them what to do evaluating their work, and ultimately deciding whether they deserve a raise a bonus, a warning or termination. I think in some industries, where there's high level of automation, I don't know if they, you know, what kind of workers will still be working in a factory where there's so much automation, that technology is your boss, what industries Do you see where the role of technology will be much higher, let's say, you know, 98% of your employees are AI robot robots machines, and maybe one or two or 5% are humans. So I guess ultimately, it's gonna come down to cost. And so in some cases, you are able to automate something, but you don't do it, because it's actually still cheaper to have a human being doing it, at least for now. And then, you know, at a certain point, maybe technology will be able to take over if there's an incentive to develop a cost effective enough technology. And maybe there isn't, depending on, you know, the cost of the human labor hand. So, but it points to the notion of the freelancer right, which is, you know, there's one study that suggests that it by 27 50% of the American workforce will be freelancers working in the gig economy, right. Again, Coronavirus here that's accelerating this for sure. With these incredible terrible numbers we see upon employment, right and the you know, notion of a cakewalk, and being a freelancer is great if you have real unique skill sets, and you can choose your jobs, and you can have a really great paycheck come out of it as well. But for the majority of people being a freelancer and being part of the gig economy that is need that is not want, and that will accelerate. And that will increase dramatically. And to the extent we already see what the Googles of the world, they have more contractors than they have full time employees, right, because they don't need to provide the same salaries and the same benefits to them. So it's much more cost effective for them to do that. So unless our legislators do something about this, there's no doubt this will be to like the 90 plus percent degree be the predominant way that human beings will be working, they know down the line here and whether they will be able to do that in a guess even more in a better way than what is currently the case for the majority I think will depend on whether they will be able to unionize. And I think guess for unions, this is their chance to really come back and claim a spot in history that they used to have as well, but they have sort of lost over the last two years. I completely am blown away with some of the possibilities that are possible in the world of tomorrow. And hopefully, we'll have better mechanisms of predicting disease and coming up with treatments and cures and things that are unsolvable right now. Like right now. I think we're literally at the mercy of many different elements around us and we're unable to do anything but hopefully hope is something hope an action that people take is something that keeps us going forward. Chris, I know we're limited on time and tell us more about Singularity University and where people can check your work out, Singularity University out and some of the ways they can start learning and engaging with the university. It's a great time to learn Yeah, absolutely. So we're an educational institution and our education programs focus on how to leverage technology to solve the really big problems in the world, what we call the global grand challenges and you can check singularity Nordic out issue nordic.org, which is based in the Nordic countries here out of Copenhagen, there's an su.org as well, which is global, if you like. What we do is similar around the world, we have education programs to help people understand technologies better and more importantly, understand how they can leverage the technologies both on a societal organizational and individual level to make a positive impact in the world. There's also the podcast I recently started in collaboration with Singularity University called the corporate innovation podcast you can find it on your streaming services of choice where every week I'm talking to a world leading innovator with a lot of innovation dirt under their nails to really understand how to think innovation in order to create 10 x impact so I couldn't wait definitely recommend them to check that out as well. Amazing. a quiz thank you so much for your time and helping us understand where we're headed. Again, everybody grab a copy of Aftershock is available on Amazon. And it's really a great read if you want to understand what forces shape the future and what you should do and how things are evolving. Chris cannot thank you enough for taking the time for us. Thank you so much, and you have an amazing time and hopefully we'll catch up in the future. Wonderful. Thank you so much for having me. My pleasure. Thank you. Hey, friend, this is Ian Khan. 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