Dale Leszczynski 00:00:00
Good morning everyone and a big, big welcome. Thank you so much for joining us today.
Dale Leszczynski 00:00:05
And today's debate, part of RMIT Online's Future Skills Fest. This morning's session, AI at work, driving productivity, and is it diluting critical thinking? My name is Dale Zinski, Head of AI Education at RMIT University. I head up the General AI Lab for Education, or GAIL. Before we begin today, I would like to acknowledge the people of the Woi Wurrung and Boi Wurrung language groups of the Eastern Kulin Nation. whose unseated lands today, we're here to learn, to play, to work, and to listen. RMIT respectfully acknowledges its ancestors, elders, past and present, and the traditional custodians of lands and waterways across Australia where we operate. And to those online, a special note for the lands in which you join us today.
Dale Leszczynski 00:00:50
A few housekeeping things to be aware of before we get started today. Please make sure your phones are on silence. We will have audience questions towards the end. There is a Slido for those who are online at the moment and can access that. For those in the room, the audience questions will be roaming mics for later on. If you are enjoying the online, please submit your questions via the chat throughout the debate. And importantly, you, the audience, both in the room and online, thank you for joining us. We'll be deciding the winning side today.
Dale Leszczynski 00:01:18
Listen carefully.
Dale Leszczynski 00:01:20
AI is changing how we work. That much, I hope, is uncontroversial. Drafting, analysis, routine tasks, the things that used to fill your Friday now happen before your morning coffee. RMIT Online's latest research puts the average time saved at roughly nine hours a week. It's a pretty useful number. It tells us something is happening. We're all aware of that. What it doesn't tell us is what we're doing with those nine hours. If I reflect personally. I do not have a miraculous nine hours back in my calendar. In fact, I've never had such a long to-do list, and every now and then I start to think about what would happen if someone took away all of my AI friends. Those muscles that I used to do all those tasks, are they going to be there still? So we have the productivity argument when it comes to AI. The Great Unlock. It is meant to offer how much of us—how much of our use— is leading to complete outsourcing of our thinking? versus amplification or enhancement of our output. Today's debate will tackle this very conversation.
Dale Leszczynski 00:02:25
One side will argue AI is a productivity engine. That offloading the routine.
Dale Leszczynski 00:02:30
It frees up the work for what actually requires the human touch. Better judgment at scale, more time for thinking that actually matters. Who wouldn't want that? The other will argue that offloading itself That's the problem. Every shortcut we take is a rep that we don't do. That critical thinking, creativity, independent reasoning are skills skills that atrophy when you stop using them. And who- would want that?
Dale Leszczynski 00:02:57
Both sides have a case. Both sides, I hope, have evidence.
Dale Leszczynski 00:03:03
Thoughts?
Dale Leszczynski 00:03:05
Both are describing something real that's happening right now in offices, in classrooms, and perhaps in places like this.
Dale Leszczynski 00:03:13
This is not a session today to convince. This is a session designed to give you guys, give our audience, more arguments than just, well, I heard that AI is evil. Or for those out there with unhealthy relationship with something like Claude, perhaps to bring in some healthy boundaries.
Dale Leszczynski 00:03:29
At the end of the session, you will decide which case is stronger.
Dale Leszczynski 00:03:33
Now one special note. I want to be, make everyone in this room aware of. Before we meet, before we start to debate today, our debaters aren't debating the entire field of AI. They're arguing from a position from where they sit. And I'll talk to you from where they sit in a second. So conversations and arguments regarding responsible, ethical and sustainable use sit alongside every case made today. They're not always going to be inside it. It's not saying that we're ignoring it, but keep those threads with you.
Dale Leszczynski 00:04:03
With that in mind, let us meet our debaters. As I call them out, they will be standing up in front for those in the room. Those online, you'll have to see them very soon as they stand in front of this lectern. We have Lani Cush, a leadership and strategy from Thinking Branded. 20 years at the intersection of insight, creativity and culture. And through her platform, Thinking Branded, examining how AI is reshaping creativity, output, and trust. We also have Alex Wood, founder at Code Black Consulting.
Dale Leszczynski 00:04:32
Two decades steering digital strategy across retail and government, applying that talent to the sporting industry's most complex and digital builds with a side practice of designing the products and communities that we want to see exist. And finally, Team B, they will be defending that AI enhances these skills. Mark Byrne. founder at Headspring, helping teams turn generative AI adoption into measurable impact and lecturing on AI strategy at RMIT along the way. And finally, but at least, last but not least, Courtney Blackman, Head of Partnerships, Director of Law Tech Club and AI Clinics, Landon Rogers. Thank you. 20 years in media, now leading AI innovation inside a law firm, running Australia's accelerator for legal AI startups and AI clinics with universities across three states. Four very, very impressive voices here to tackle a very curly problem. Now. For some rules, and to quote Monica Geller from Friends, rules are good, rules help control the fun. Three rounds, three questions.
Dale Leszczynski 00:05:33
Our debaters have the questions and they're allowed to use any means necessary to convince the audience. The only rule there is no slides. One speaker from each will present their argument in five minutes. The opposing sides will rebut and present their catch argument. The audience will vote. We will move on. It is the best of three. With all rights to change the rules to make it more entertaining to myself going to me. The biggest thing we'll hold on to is time here. Speaker. You will get, speakers, you will get a warning when you have one minute left. It will sound like this.
Dale Leszczynski 00:06:06
It will sound like this when you get to the full five minutes. I get loud and obnoxious until you guys are coming off stage. Time is all we have here. Now, I was going to ask for a coin to flip, but I think we're going to do something else. We're going to do... Paper, scissors, rock. I'm going to pick two audience members completely at random. or in my eye line. It'll be you two here.
Dale Leszczynski 00:06:26
Papers, scissors, rock. Team A on the left, Team B on the right. It'll be the first. And go. Paper, scissors, rock. We have two papers, paper, scissors, rock.
Dale Leszczynski 00:06:37
Team A will be going first.
Dale Leszczynski 00:06:40
They will be arguing. four. Team A. It's time. come. To the lectern.
Dale Leszczynski 00:06:57
Thanks, everybody.
Dale Leszczynski 00:06:59
Good morning.
Alex Wood 00:07:01
Good morning. Um, Wonderful to be up here. My name's Alex. I'm working with Lani today. We are here to convince you of three things. One, that AI isn't just eroding our critical thinking, but it's actually making you dumber, and we're going to show you some science behind this. Lonnie's going to take you through a little bit of a story around our excitement to use these tools to be productive. And we are going to show you that whilst that's great, it is no replacement for critical thinking. And finally, we're going to show you a little experiment we're going to do on the stage to show you a world that you might soon be entering just to get a little bit of a reaction. Our arguments are based on FACTS facts. And you will walk away thinking and knowing that you need to be cautious around this technology and believing that it is actually helping you and giving you skills that you have, you've learned. Because you haven't. I'll start with my first argument. And that is that AI is creating a generation of prompt managers. I can see everybody in the audience. If you have put a prompt into an AI engine, raise your hand now.
Alex Wood 00:08:04
Everybody's hand is up. Now, let me convince you for a second that you have not. Learn that stuff. That should be pretty obvious to you.
Alex Wood 00:08:12
But it does feel fun, doesn't it? How does this work? Blend those two images together. Maybe you write my assignment for, no, no, no, you wouldn't do that. You wouldn't do that. But according to the skills gap assessment that was done in Australia of the 12. 7 million people out there of our country, nearly two thirds.
Alex Wood 00:08:30
Right now that are using ChatGPT, Copilot, AI Engines. All that they are doing is being prompt managers.
Alex Wood 00:08:40
7% of that audience of that 12. 7 million are using it for anything more than just prompting.
Alex Wood 00:08:47
You cannot call this critical thinking.
Alex Wood 00:08:52
A recent study from Cornwell showed that students who are starting to use AI I'm writing papers. But when they look at the brain activity of these students when they're using these tools, it's not lighting up the way it would normally when you have to think about things. It makes a little bit of sense though, right?
Alex Wood 00:09:11
If you actually prompt something and then you get the response, even if you read through it. You're not really doing the mental gymnastics to make that critical thought. But it is exciting. Call this, open this, text this, show me this, write this. These kind of prompts are the things that make us feel like we know the information.
Alex Wood 00:09:29
But we don't.
Alex Wood 00:09:32
Next part of my argument. And I want you just to think about the science behind this. In the early nineties, when the internet was really.
Alex Wood 00:09:39
Formulating it, percolating its real use. A guy named Robert Bjork came along and he wanted to stress test this. He was really interesting, really interested in looking at what determined long-term retention. Critical thought.
Alex Wood 00:09:54
He ran this experiment and a study and what he discovered was it is the wrestling with information.
Alex Wood 00:10:01
Sitting with it.
Alex Wood 00:10:03
That actually forms ideas that are the scaffolding for the next ideas. Now, in your brains, when you have to think about something critically, when you sit with it, not just ask someone the answer or ask something the answer. A very special film. Wraps around your synapses, those neurons that fire across your head.
Alex Wood 00:10:24
That film is called My Lane.
Alex Wood 00:10:27
Now, when you don't wrestle with information and think about it for a long time, that myelin never forms.
Alex Wood 00:10:35
So, Prompt Managers.
Alex Wood 00:10:39
is what we're becoming when we're using these tools. 7% of that 57% of the country.
Alex Wood 00:10:45
He's using it for a little bit more. I'm not going to disargue that. But most people are just prompting and never learning.
Alex Wood 00:10:53
The argument here would be to say that, if you were to say that prompting turns you into critical thinking, it would be akin to saying that 3D printing a house, which is actually possible, is akin to you being a builder.
Alex Wood 00:11:06
Now, it's simply not the case.
Alex Wood 00:11:09
Lonnie's going to take you through some interesting arguments here that delve deep into why deep thinking is preferred.
Alex Wood 00:11:17
Way more than just prompting. And whilst we might get seduced by the productivity that AI does create for us in some capacity.
Alex Wood 00:11:25
There is nothing like sitting with thoughts. There is nothing like sitting with struggle. There is nothing like building that memory, that muscle. Around your synapses to create the scaffolding for new ideas.
Alex Wood 00:11:38
The opposition team, they're going to try and convince you about some edge cases, and they're good people. They will share with you some ideas that will feel sexy and exciting.
Alex Wood 00:11:47
But I'd like you to ask yourself, is that really going to help you understand the world? Come up with ideas and create new thinking.
Dale Leszczynski 00:11:54
Thank you.
Dale Leszczynski 00:12:02
Very good. Team B, as you come up for your rebuttal in your one minute, I must say, AI may be roting my brain, but Team A's points have not yet. So it is wrapping around my myelin. Very well done. Team B. Come up for your rebuttal.
Dale Leszczynski 00:12:18
That is well within your rights, within the rules.
Courtney Blackman 00:12:32
All right. Thank you, Dale. Hi, everyone. I'm Courtney. It's wonderful to be here. And I'm going to be countering Alex with why our team does not think that AI is creating a generation of prompt managers instead of critical thinkers. And I'll be touching on how prompting still requires critical thinking, how AI can free up time for more strategic work, and how evaluating and refining AI outputs reinforces... judgment and expertise. And before we get going, I'm going to do a poll as well. How many of you have written a basic, not very good prompt into a prompt window and received a perfectly accurate response that required zero editing?
Courtney Blackman 00:13:11
Okay, interesting. All right, okay. Um, So that's about half and half. So maybe half of you.
Courtney Blackman 00:13:19
Realize that it does require thinking and it does not replace it at all. So kicking off with the first point, being a capable prompter actually requires more critical thinking, not less. A weak thinker gets a weak output. If you type, 'Tell me about AI into an LLM,' you're going to get a weird Wikipedia remix. But a strong prompt, that requires breaking down a problem, defining context and restraints, and thinking clearly about what good actually looks like. You have to be very deliberate and strategic if you want to get a good answer. And you have to be able to critically analyze the output to know if there's something missing or there's something wrong. Research from Google, Oxford, McKinsey, and the Harvard Business Review backs this up. Prompting is increasingly recognized as a 21st-century skill that involves problem articulation, context setting, and critical reasoning. In other words, good prompts are critical thinking, and bad prompts are not. If the question isn't good, then neither is the answer. Number two, it's not just critical thinking. AI doesn't replace thinking in general.
Courtney Blackman 00:14:22
It recalibrates where we spend it. If we're honest, not all thinking is equal.
Courtney Blackman 00:14:27
Sometimes what I'm thinking about, and maybe what you're thinking about as well, is repetitive, low value, and in other words, soul-crushing admin. AI helps remove that layer. Studies show AI can reduce cognitive load and effort on boring tasks, freeing us to focus on better, more strategic stuff. For example, especially in a law firm, instead of spending weeks creating a chronology, and that's right, everyone, it can take weeks, and it doesn't take any special skill, and it's prone to errors, a legal AI platform such as Harvey or Legal Readies Matter Intelligence or Meri Technology can process thousands of pages and extract key events in minutes. And that's not a downgrade in thinking. That's a promotion.
Courtney Blackman 00:15:07
Number three. The real work is in the evaluation, the judgment, and the editing. The output that you get from AI is not the answer. Anyone who has used AI seriously knows this. You read the response and you think, 'Hey, that sounds okay.' But is it? Then the real thinking begins. Before I worked in the legal industry in Melbourne, I was the editor-in-chief of a lifestyle magazine in London, and my team of writers could manually produce articles fairly quickly depending on the topic. But there's no way I would have trusted their final output. Ultimately, I was responsible for ensuring all content was fact-checked. Legally sound, aligned with standards, and that we secured proper image rights and copyright clearances. Before sending the files to the printers or publishing online. It was my reputation on the line at the end of the day. And that's what we all have to become as AI users. We have to all become editors armed with critical thinking to check the accuracy and potential breaches in privacy, spot any bias, refine assumptions, and adjust the tone. Now at the law firm, one of the tools we use is Copilot, which is embedded into our Microsoft 365 environment.
Courtney Blackman 00:16:09
And Microsoft itself says working with AI involves verifying outputs, refining prompts, and applying expertise to maintaining quality. Or put simply, using AI makes critical thinking unavoidable. Because if you don't critically think, you'll get confidently wrong answers. And that's not a good scenario. Globally, regulators have flagged hundreds of instances where lawyers have submitted made-up or hallucinated AI citations to court. And that's just embarrassing. And the fines are costly. And it could have been avoided if critical thinking had been employed. And going back to the original question, should we even be using the term prompt manager? If we break down what effective prompting actually looks like, it's a little more scientific method. It's formatting a hypothesis, testing it, evaluating the results, iterating and refining. That's not management. It's more like a science experiment, a textbook model of analytical reasoning. Now, to be fair to Alex and Lonnie, there is a risk. If people use AI passively, then yes, thinking can decline. Outcomes depend heavily on how we use AI.
Courtney Blackman 00:17:10
It either enhances or erodes critical thinking depending on engagement. But that's not a new concept. We didn't stop teaching maths because we have access to calculators. We didn't stop reading because we have Google. And we shouldn't avoid AI because some people use it badly. In closing, AI actually creates a generation that must think more clearly. Ask better questions, and take greater responsibility for judgment. Because the uncomfortable truth is this. AI can certainly generate answers, but it cannot decide if those answers are good. That part is still entirely human. Thank you.
Dale Leszczynski 00:17:50
So far our debaters have kept to time and I haven't been able to use my bell too obnoxiously.
Dale Leszczynski 00:17:57
While they do get that, I will ask people to consider the slider who are online. The code there for those who are able to access it is 3737198. I do believe it's being chucked in the chat. There's also a poll up there. For people to start to vote on this first part of the debate. But before you vote, before you vote. And we'll be voting in the audience as well. Team A.
Dale Leszczynski 00:18:18
I will leave it open for you for a one-minute rebuttal.
Dale Leszczynski 00:18:27
Courtney, Courtney, Courtney, Courtney, Courtney. Thank you.
Alex Wood 00:18:31
I've never had an argument that is so well supported my own argument on stage. I thought you were for the opposing team. No, what I will say is the people that you have on stage here are people that are considered. The people that are respectful and value, and they don't just believe everything they see, read and hear. And that is precisely Courtney's point, which I actually agree with. There's a large majority of people out there that probably would. They would fact check. They would make sure of it. You know. The real world.
Alex Wood 00:19:01
People aren't all, not all people are doing that. And my initial point was that 7% of the 50% of. 57% of people that are using the tools are using it for critical thinking. And I would say that you would be one of them. But the vast majority of people are not. And that is the problem that we have to deal with. I did have something passed me from my colleague and she reminded me that EY released a report recently with over 60 hallucinations. This is Ernest and Young, everybody. EY.
Alex Wood 00:19:27
60 hallucinations for reports that were handed to clients that went out publicly that were not fact-checked. 60.
Alex Wood 00:19:36
This is AY.
Alex Wood 00:19:38
Not everybody is going to be using this for critical thinking. And the vast majority of people—the vast majority of Australians— are simply doing this as prompting engineers, prompting managers.
Dale Leszczynski 00:19:51
Thank you.
Dale Leszczynski 00:20:00
Very good. A good opening round. Audience, we are going to do the cheer-o-meter within the room as our online voters roll in. I can see votes slowly starting to roll in. Ooh, it's very tight.
Dale Leszczynski 00:20:14
So it'll be about who's loudest. First. Team A. Who believed they had the strongest argument? Would you like to wave to the audience to say everyone gets a red team, eh?
Audience Question 00:20:29
Interesting, interesting.
Dale Leszczynski 00:20:31
The results online are fascinating.
Dale Leszczynski 00:20:35
Same bait.
Audience Question 00:20:37
We believe Courtney had the best argument there.
Dale Leszczynski 00:20:41
Thank you for watching.
Dale Leszczynski 00:20:45
All right, I'm going to call it to a close on the online voting in about seven seconds as they. Quickly come in here.
Dale Leszczynski 00:20:53
At the moment. Team A. You've taken the win, and I believe in the room as well. So with 18 votes online, I do believe we have about 200 people who are joining us online, so plenty of room for that to move as it goes through. At the moment, Team A, you have the first point for the first round. With that in mind, we are going to get on to... the second round with a new prompt.
Dale Leszczynski 00:21:13
Here's the pressure. To move faster.
Dale Leszczynski 00:21:16
My bad. Yeah, that's rock bumps. I know where I am. I didn't hallucinate.
Dale Leszczynski 00:21:21
Is the pressure to move faster in an AI-driven workplace starting to outweigh the value of deep thinking?
Dale Leszczynski 00:21:29
Team B, you will be going first. They will be arguing against.
Mark Byrne 00:21:38
Thank you. Thanks, Courtney. Thanks, Tev. Okay, good. I just want to start off by acknowledging something really important, which is.
Mark Byrne 00:21:47
I largely kind of agree with. What Alex said.
Mark Byrne 00:21:52
And in that last question, and I will also agree with a lot of what Lani is going to. I'm going to say as well. And that is to say that there is absolutely no doubt in my mind. that AI can and is accelerating work.
Mark Byrne 00:22:07
And if it's left unchecked. If it's seen as an efficiency tool, if the language around this is about productivity, there's a very real risk that speed does start to push out deep thinking, leaving businesses faster in the short term, but more fragile over time.
Mark Byrne 00:22:27
But here is where I fundamentally disagree with both Alex and most likely Lani. This is not a failure of AI.
Mark Byrne 00:22:37
Rather, it is a failure of how leaders are choosing to use AI in their businesses. And that distinction really matters.
Mark Byrne 00:22:49
Because this question is not, 'can AI make workplaces faster?'
Mark Byrne 00:22:54
Of course it bloody can. The question is rather, 'is the pressure to move faster starting to outweigh the value of deep thinking?' And my answer to that question is: 'Only when leaders make speed. There's strategy.
Mark Byrne 00:23:10
Only when leaders look at AI and see one thing. A way to squeeze more output from the same people. Or the same output from fewer people.
Mark Byrne 00:23:21
That's not an AI problem.
Mark Byrne 00:23:23
That's a leadership choice.
Mark Byrne 00:23:26
Why is this happening?
Mark Byrne 00:23:30
Because too many business leaders are still trapped in one story, the story that Alex and Lani are pushing. It's the acceleration story.
Mark Byrne 00:23:39
It's a story of productivity. It's a story of agents, of automation.
Mark Byrne 00:23:43
And most tellingly, it's a story of efficiency and speed.
Mark Byrne 00:23:48
These leaders ask, 'How do we do the same things, just faster?'
Mark Byrne 00:23:53
In this story, friction is the enemy. Time saved is the prize. And the value of AI is to minimise efforts and to maximise speed.
Mark Byrne 00:24:04
And when that becomes the whole story. Team A wins. They're right.
Mark Byrne 00:24:09
It pushes out deep thinking.
Mark Byrne 00:24:14
The time saved does not become space for judgment. It becomes more tasks, more output. or fewer people.
Mark Byrne 00:24:22
This is the trap, and far too many people, far too many business leaders, seem to be getting drawn into it.
Mark Byrne 00:24:29
But there is a second story.
Mark Byrne 00:24:32
The augmentation story.
Mark Byrne 00:24:34
Here we stop treating AI as an efficiency tool and start using it as a way to sharpen our judgment.
Mark Byrne 00:24:41
Not just something that gives us answers.
Mark Byrne 00:24:44
But more importantly, something that helps ask better questions.
Mark Byrne 00:24:49
This is not the end of deep thinking. It is just a new way to practice it.
Mark Byrne 00:24:54
But let me be clear. Even in this augmentation story, AI does not automatically create deeper thinking. It creates the possibility of deeper thinking.
Mark Byrne 00:25:06
And that possibility does not convert by itself.
Mark Byrne 00:25:10
It has to be designed.
Mark Byrne 00:25:14
There's two parts to that design process that I want to call out. The first is leadership clarity. Leaders. Leading.
Mark Byrne 00:25:23
acknowledging the uncertainty that everyone is facing. and being really clear. about why they're looking to embed this technology into business, what success looks like across different teams, how are they going to measure progress.
Mark Byrne 00:25:38
The second part of this design process is called workflow redesign, and this has completely gone missing in most businesses today.
Mark Byrne 00:25:47
This is where the real start works or the real work starts. Not more prompting libraries, not more policies, not more lunch and learns.
Mark Byrne 00:25:56
The real work is actually reimagining and redesigning how the day-to-day work gets done.
Mark Byrne 00:26:01
Indeed, mapping out how work flows through a team so you can identify where to accelerate the low-value tasks and where to reinvest that time saved into the high-value tasks that drive the employee and the customer experience forward and solve some big business challenges.
Mark Byrne 00:26:20
So back to the question. Is the pressure to move faster starting to outweigh the value of deep thinking? Yes. In some organizations, absolutely it is. It would be incredibly naive and a little bit disingenuous for me to say otherwise. But when that happens, it is a failure of imagination, not an inevitability of this technology. It means leaders have not been clear enough on why they want people to use this technology. They've not defined what better work looks like and they've not redesigned the work. Around where speed helps. And we're dead. Matters. So deep thinking is not being outweighed by AI, rather it is being outweighed by leaders who mistake speed for strategy.
Dale Leszczynski 00:27:01
Thank you.
Dale Leszczynski 00:27:13
As I'm up here to buy time so that. The next team can design the rebuttal, if I'm to sum up Mark's argument, and to paraphrase Taylor Swift, 'It's you.' You, you're the problem. That's you and O to poor leadership.
Dale Leszczynski 00:27:28
See you, mate.
Dale Leszczynski 00:27:30
Lonnie. for your rebuttal. end your argument.
Dale Leszczynski 00:27:40
Thanks.
Lani Cush 00:27:40
Thanks, Sal.
Lani Cush 00:27:42
Thanks, Mark. I feel like you just argued for me.
Lani Cush 00:27:46
So is the pressure to move faster. in AI-driven workplaces outweighing the value of deep thinking. Well. If we think about deep thinking, what is it? It's deliberate, unhurried.
Lani Cush 00:27:59
cognitive process that produces judgment, not just output. AI doesn't replace that, but actually the pressure to move faster is quietly making it impossible and organisers haven't yet noticed.
Lani Cush 00:28:13
Some may have, but again, I think Mark talked a lot about leaders. And blames leaders for this. Now, I don't know if we can necessarily expect all leaders will think and act this way.
Lani Cush 00:28:26
Research from RMIT, as Dale already told us earlier, tells us, sorry, RMIT online, tells us that AI gives workers back nine hours a week. Nine whole hours. That feels like a gift. Who gets that gift? Workers or employers?
Lani Cush 00:28:43
Exactly.
Lani Cush 00:28:45
Organizations aren't going to give us back nine hours in our week. They're going to happily bank that time. And they're going to up the expectation.
Lani Cush 00:28:53
They're going to essentially raise the bar. When your colleague produces a presentation in 20 minutes, that took you three days. That's going to be seen as sloppy. That's essentially going to look as like slow performance.
Lani Cush 00:29:09
So we didn't just save nine hours, we've actually just added nine more hours of work to our day.
Lani Cush 00:29:15
If I think about how this is beginning to impact my industry, advertising, it used to take six weeks for us to come up with a campaign, two weeks of strategy, and four weeks for the creative team to crack the idea. Now I can do that with my creative partners as a strategist in three days. Even less if we really try hard. Imagine how many people are going to be impacted by that.
Lani Cush 00:29:36
When speed becomes the norm, organisations restructure around that speed. Making slow thinking structurally impossible. Not just culturally discouraged. So Mark talked about leaders. Yes, they're going to be a big part of this, but actually I don't think we can rely on leaders to necessarily make that change.
Lani Cush 00:29:57
Speed is nothing without value. This matters because we're not optimising machines, we're people.
Lani Cush 00:30:04
AI burnout is a real thing. In fact, a recent hub— Harvard Business Review research— notes cited that 88% of heavy AI users reported increased feelings of burnout. It's a form of cognitive exhaustion caused by the mental strain of managing, prompting, and evaluating AI tools at work. Instead of reducing workloads, I often accelerate them, leading to decision fatigue, mental fog, and creative numbness.
Lani Cush 00:30:31
Bouncing rapidly between code writing, chat windows, and other productivity applications forces your brain into constant partial attention.
Lani Cush 00:30:42
This severely drains your working memory. Leading to skills erosion, as Alex mentioned, making us dumber. Um, and. Can even lead to a lack of passion or connection in your job and your work. Which is a real issue.
Lani Cush 00:30:57
Because AI speeds up the process, we're falling into a more is better track. So employers and individuals often expand project scopes. Taking on multiple tasks at once. I've seen this a lot in the workplace recently. We're offering more to clients for less time, less money.
Lani Cush 00:31:15
But when you really think about it, people don't just want things that are merely fast. They want things worth having. Think about the last time you ordered food delivery. You didn't just want it fast. You wanted it hot. You wanted it delicious. You wanted it fresh. Right. Nobody left a concert thinking that was great. I wish it went faster.
Lani Cush 00:31:32
This is true for friendships, of advice, of the work that actually changes minds and moves organisations forward.
Lani Cush 00:31:42
No one looks back on a relationship and says the best thing about it was how efficient that was.
Lani Cush 00:31:51
If we define human value purely by output of speed, we have already lost the argument for keeping humans in the room.
Lani Cush 00:31:57
I will win that race. Always.
Lani Cush 00:32:01
But if we define value through judgment, ethics, and what I call brain capital—the ability to ask the right question. Not just about answering it faster—then AI becomes the builder and we become the architects. How often are we told? That when trying to make a decision to sleep on it, extra time allows us to step away from the immediate pressure and approach the problem with a more objective perspective.
Lani Cush 00:32:25
Plus, data shows that 72% of us experience their most creative ideas in the shower.
Lani Cush 00:32:31
I know I do. But I don't know about you guys. I don't think I'll be taking Claude in the shower with me anytime soon.
Lani Cush 00:32:38
What we're trading away is not just time for thinking. We're trading away the thinking that builds value and builds trust.
Lani Cush 00:32:46
The pause that stops the bad decision.
Lani Cush 00:32:49
The curiosity that finds the thing. In the brief that it didn't even ask for. I know I do that a lot with my clients in a communications perspective. Marketers brief me on something and quite often we're solving the wrong problem. So we have to go back and solve a different problem.
Lani Cush 00:33:08
Say yes. The pressure to move faster.
Lani Cush 00:33:11
In AI driven workplaces is outweighing the value of deep thinking.
Lani Cush 00:33:17
That's not inevitable. That's a choice. as Mark has already mentioned.
Lani Cush 00:33:23
And the organisations that treat deep thinking.
Lani Cush 00:33:26
as infrastructure, not as inefficiency, are the ones that will still be worth working for in 10 years.
Lani Cush 00:33:34
Thank you.
Audience Question 00:33:46
I now feel judged for taking Claude into the shower.
Dale Leszczynski 00:33:50
That's my own issue to work through. While the next team considers their rebuttal, let's come up and talk about their rebuttal. I just want to have a show of hands based on the question that's in the chat. What percentage of the speeches are AI supported? Using the research or the speech writing? Bit of a show of hands. Where are we at? There's some general hand waving going on there. So some, I think, is a fair response. Mark, you have one minute to rebut.
Mark Byrne 00:34:24
God, coming up with a rebuttal is actually quite tricky to come up with on the fly, given that I spent all of yesterday preparing five minutes. But I do want to say one thing, which is.
Mark Byrne 00:34:32
I think the way that we think about this, and I think the way the question is set up, it's like this kind of false dichotomy. It's this false binary. It's a false narrative. It's one or the other. It's speed or depth. And you can only have one. And I've spent the last 24 months working in this field. Amen.
Mark Byrne 00:34:53
Embedding Co-pilot Chachapie, Claude Gemini into RMIT University, RMIT Online, Dan Murphy's, Dentsu, Dabble, World Vision, Air New Zealand, big, big, big businesses.
Mark Byrne 00:35:03
And what I've come to the realization is that these two things actually work together.
Mark Byrne 00:35:09
We kind of romanticize this idea of deep thinking. As if we cleared two days a week, we would just kind of walk the streets and think more deeply about business challenges. That's just not true.
Mark Byrne 00:35:21
There's something called Parkinson's law, which is an observation that work expands to fill the time provided. And it means that. Work, low value work, inevitably expands to fill that time. Don't think of it as a binary choice. You first need to use AI to speed up the low value work and then. reinvest that time into the important areas that you want to go deeper on. It's not an either or, it's both together.
Audience Question 00:35:46
Thanks.
Audience Question 00:35:53
Always a wise move. Attack the question.
Dale Leszczynski 00:35:55
not the other team.
Dale Leszczynski 00:35:58
Now within the room here, we have team A and team B. So the question. Is the pressure to move faster in AI-driven workplaces signs outweigh the value of deep thinking.
Dale Leszczynski 00:36:09
I want everyone to consider and start to vote online if you would like. There is a voting option there that should just be open within the slider. A reminder of that code, if you can't see it, it's 3737198. But within the room here, let's do a bit of a crowd participation. Who thought that Team B... Ma. His argument was the strongest.
Dale Leszczynski 00:36:33
Very good. And Team A, who thought Team A's argument was the strongest?
Dale Leszczynski 00:36:40
Interesting.
Dale Leszczynski 00:36:43
I realise I'll have to vote first. I birded for both of you just in case to remove the bias. Oh, it's neck and neck. We have 29 voters.
Audience Question 00:36:54
I think I might have to give it.
Audience Question 00:36:58
Team.
Dale Leszczynski 00:37:02
This is really exciting for me and probably less so for the audience.
Dale Leszczynski 00:37:08
I have to take, whoa! Team B has it by a hair!
Dale Leszczynski 00:37:13
That's good, this means we've got one point each, and it makes the third round even more exciting.
Dale Leszczynski 00:37:19
Third round is slightly different. It is only three minutes. Teams have chosen to do this in every weird way that they may want to, so there may be one up here, two up here, there may be props, who knows? There will be no rebuttal. But for this particular question, we have. If there was an AI version of you tomorrow, would you trust it to do your job? or worry it might get you fired. Bye. Lunchtime.
Dale Leszczynski 00:37:43
Teammate.
Audience Question 00:37:44
You are first in the alphabet, so you'll be coming up to pitch first.
Alex Wood 00:37:59
Just want a quick pause, like not everyone will be able to see this online and stuff, but you know, Lani's here and she's got her kids here today, brought a room with us. And I'm just like, 'I'm just in awe that these kids are behaving so well beneath me— is absolute corporate life and what it is, but credit to you, mate. It's absolutely special. Well done. Um, That is amazing.
Audience Question 00:38:22
Yeah.
Alex Wood 00:38:26
Okay.
Alex Wood 00:38:28
If we're going to do this, let's do it properly. I'm going to give you a scenario that I'd like you to imagine.
Alex Wood 00:38:34
Lonnie is going to be my prop.
Alex Wood 00:38:36
And I'm going to step through what's actually occurring in order to answer the question. If there were an AI version of you tomorrow, would you trust it to do your job, or would you worry, or might you worry about getting fired by lunchtime?
Alex Wood 00:38:51
This is Lonnie.
Alex Wood 00:38:53
She's worked here at Zenith Hill for the last 16 years. She isn't. Excellent employee. Who began here in the first rounds of hiring. Employee number 42, if I'm not mistaken. In a company that now exceeds 42,000 globally across six continents.
Alex Wood 00:39:11
Now, Lonnie has friends here at Zenitel. She made her partner here.
Alex Wood 00:39:16
They work and they live together.
Alex Wood 00:39:19
Two years ago, Lani put her hand up to be part of a pilot program to adopt a thought partner. A digital twin. To help Lani with her growing responsibilities.
Alex Wood 00:39:29
The concept was simple.
Alex Wood 00:39:31
Design an artificial version of the employee the company loves. With the ability to act like Lani when Lani is out of the office.
Alex Wood 00:39:39
Bing Lonnie.
Alex Wood 00:39:42
It got good.
Alex Wood 00:39:43
And for a while, Our Lani learnt to trust a synthetic twin. More.
Alex Wood 00:39:49
Productivity increase. She explored new things. When Adam and I run... Pretty soon that pilot expanded and there were a whole bunch of Lani's.
Alex Wood 00:40:00
And Lonnie doesn't know it yet.
Alex Wood 00:40:03
That's why Ilani's here.
Alex Wood 00:40:05
Because zenithal felt like it might be better for shareholders if digital Lani could work 24 hours a day. Without breaks, without health care.
Audience Question 00:40:16
Without all the other stuff that Lani needs.
Audience Question 00:40:24
So in the moment, Digital Lani.
Alex Wood 00:40:27
It's going to appear on that screen.
Alex Wood 00:40:30
And it explained to this learning that the automation threshold has been reached.
Alex Wood 00:40:36
And she's been part of Zenitel's optimized future.
Alex Wood 00:40:41
Which is code for termination.
Alex Wood 00:40:44
She'll try to speak to her manager. Who was also replaced.
Alex Wood 00:40:48
The access is gone. And all that remains of this Lani is a shadow. or a digital version. of itself. Subtitles by the Amara .
Alex Wood 00:41:00
So yeah. I'm worried. And I'm not worried because this is some distant future.
Alex Wood 00:41:06
Two weeks to go, Jack Dorsey. One of the most prolific CEOs in the tech industry. came out and said that this was his vision.
Alex Wood 00:41:13
that he wanted to have. middle management layers removed.
Alex Wood 00:41:18
Thousands of people. off the back of just firing thousands of people. He wanted 10 people. in control of 100 robots each. That's the future that you'll walk into.
Alex Wood 00:41:29
15 is the number, the percent, of people in the US right now that said they would be happy. to have an AI manager.
Alex Wood 00:41:39
This isn't something I fear. This is something you all need to prepare for.
Audience Question 00:41:44
Thank you.
Dale Leszczynski 00:41:55
Very good credit to Lani. She sat in that stage and I'm sure you saw just the horror in her eyes. as we went through the scenario. chills down the spine.
Audience Question 00:42:09
Coming up next time. Far out. Lanny, you are wasted in marketing.
Mark Byrne 00:42:21
You should be in Hollywood. That was... Huh. That was intense. I don't know how it felt for the rest of the room, but at the top there I was like... okay um we're maybe gonna have a little bit more fun with us.
Mark Byrne 00:42:37
Okay, um... Morning. So, we are taking the position that we completely... trust AI to do our job. So let's see how Courtney goes.
Mark Byrne 00:42:49
So at 9 a. m. one morning, Someone in Courtney's law firm asks a very reasonable question. Could AI do Courtney's job? On paper, it's a lot. It's global partnerships, community building, thought leadership, innovation. AI in a variety of guises. and market positioning. In practice, it's about 30% strategy, 30% narrative, and 30% stakeholder management. So they're testers.
Mark Byrne 00:43:14
An AI, Courtney, is deployed.
Mark Byrne 00:43:19
Yeah, we've got props.
Mark Byrne 00:43:21
It's got to be worth extra votes. At 9:15, AI Courtney has mapped every partnership opportunity across three different continents. She has ranked 42 legal-focused AI startups using something called the Multi-Variable Impact and Viability Engine. And she has written a very compelling business case on a strategic build versus buy opportunity.
Mark Byrne 00:43:42
By lunchtime, it's quite scary.
Mark Byrne 00:43:46
Um. By lunchtime. AI Courtney launches a redesigned AI lab and a national firm-wide AI capability program. She has written and distributed a media press release.
Mark Byrne 00:43:58
To both mainstream and legal specific industry news on the firm's AI strategy. Shortly thereafter.
Mark Byrne 00:44:06
I'm going to have to look that way. Shortly thereafter, news is circulating and LinkedIn is full of posts saying, 'My God, the firm is leading the market in AI.'
Mark Byrne 00:44:15
While the firm is basking in the external praise, AI Courtney is busy quantifying everything. Revenue influence, capability uplift, market positioning, impact. And things human Courtney would have been saying four more years appear on a dashboard with snazzy graphs. By the afternoon, Hugh McCourtney is starting to feel a little bit nervous.
Mark Byrne 00:44:35
But there's a plot twist. AI Courtney requests a meeting. Which, if we're being honest, feels like a bit of a power move. She presents one slide and it says the original role has been operating significantly above its perceived level of seniority. Core activities classified as innovation are in fact driving strategic positioning, capability development and future revenue pathways. AI Courtney makes a recommendation. The human resource should be reassigned to higher order strategic leadership, where ambiguity, ambiguity, influence, and unstructured problem solving remain critical. In other words. Promote human Courtney.
Mark Byrne 00:45:13
The executive team is on board, saying things like, 'There's no doubt Courtney's impact is undeniable.' We really do need her working at a more strategic level. And just like that, after nearly five years of building, shaping, translating, and explaining, human Courtney gets promoted.
Mark Byrne 00:45:33
Because an AI version of her independently reinforced exactly the same things that she's been saying. And it turns out that she's been ahead of the curve the whole time. Everyone worries AI will replace their job, but AI might just prove that your job is meant to evolve in the first place.
Audience Question 00:46:04
Very, very good.
Dale Leszczynski 00:46:06
Both sides. They've given us something to ponder here. We've heard about hyper productivity, more from fewer people for less money. Those miraculous 60 hallucinations in the EOI report that no one questions until I imagine some bloke who actually read it. Creative Numbers. Partial attention, workflows being entirely reimagined for the AI world, whether we're ready or not. And a digital twin that ends it up on the table, running a strategy day while you're away, straight out of a horror film. Possibly a product roadmap. Good thinking needs friction. AI may remove it. What happens in that gap is the question that we're taking home today. But enough from me. We want to hear from our audience. Who do we think won?
Dale Leszczynski 00:46:49
As I load up the slider.
Dale Leszczynski 00:46:51
Stand by. Question in the room. Based on that segment just then, who believed?
Dale Leszczynski 00:46:58
That the first was the strongest argument. Team A, let's hear some cheers.
Audience Question 00:47:02
Team A, do you want to stand up?
Audience Question 00:47:09
Team B.
Audience Question 00:47:11
Who believed that they were the strongest argument from the room?
Dale Leszczynski 00:47:15
It's split in the room and it's almost split online.
Dale Leszczynski 00:47:19
The numbers are doing that thing where it goes very close. Got 27 votes.
Dale Leszczynski 00:47:25
WUH-BUDDY!
Dale Leszczynski 00:47:28
Again, fascinating viewing for me.
Dale Leszczynski 00:47:31
With 30 eight-votes by what I would call an absolute hair OOF! Team A has taken it!
Audience Question 00:47:41
Right at the end.
Dale Leszczynski 00:47:46
Please come up onto the stage. We'll get to the most curly part of the day, which is questions to answer. Thank you, everyone at home. We do have questions coming in.
Dale Leszczynski 00:47:57
And if there are questions in the room, I will happily get one of our roving mics, which is down here.
Dale Leszczynski 00:48:04
Can I have someone from the MIT online crew come to run around with the rover mics?
Dale Leszczynski 00:48:08
All right, first question, and I'm going to open it to anyone who wants to take it.
Dale Leszczynski 00:48:14
How do upcoming generations develop critical thinking skills in a world where AI outputs require editing, fact-checking, and having not actually existed in a pre-AI world? Who wants to take that question?
Dale Leszczynski 00:48:27
Where do you do the runs?
Dale Leszczynski 00:48:31
Challenging one.
Dale Leszczynski 00:48:34
Come to the state, come to the lectern.
Mark Byrne 00:48:35
As the head of education for RMIT University, I'd probably pass that one to Dale, funnily enough. Dale, if you want to lead, given that that's, I think, your job.
Dale Leszczynski 00:48:50
That's completely unfair.
Lani Cush 00:48:52
That's what I actually think. Sorry. I actually do wonder whether we're going to create courses on how to critically think. and how to think. Deeply. Because we are going to lose that and we are going to.
Lani Cush 00:49:07
forget how to learn in some ways. So I think there will be people that will be intentionally trying to do this. As well as critically thinking about, you know, right now we deal with fake news all the time, but we're not necessarily questioning things. Same as AI. We're trusting it really quickly with a lot of information. We're trusting it to give us the right answer, even though at the bottom of Claude, it says Claude gives you false answers. Check it. No one does. Not many people do. So I think we're going to need to remind ourselves to do that. And I think young people in particular, coming up into the ranks, are going to need to learn that. And unfortunately, social media probably hasn't helped them. So I think courses in critical thinking are going to be imperative. That's just my opinion.
Mark Byrne 00:49:51
Can I jump on that and give a proper answer? I do think there's a kind of a narrative out there that we're going to become jack of all trades and a master of none. And that we don't need to do four or five year degrees.
Mark Byrne 00:50:02
Postgraduate and I think that's entirely wrong.
Mark Byrne 00:50:05
Like critical thinking comes from deep. Lived expertise studying and lived experience, and for you to be able to have a point of view, a hypothesis, and approach for you to test, stretch, and evaluate, and make or how good that approach is with this technology, you've got to have deep expertise. So my gut feeling is that there's going to be a lot more room for kind of future skills. course is six to eight week sprints that are actually accelerating people's understanding of specific areas. I think we're going to have to double down on education and teach people, probably in shorter sprints, about the jobs that we're asking them to do.
Dale Leszczynski 00:50:43
Very nice response. My personal view, because you put me on the spot.
Dale Leszczynski 00:50:48
Yeah, thank you. Um, is regarding uh discipline still has a role? So I think I agree. There will be courses very much focused on critical thinking, on ethical reasoning. But no one wants to sit in the class purely on the trolley car scenario. We really want to hang on things we're passionate about. So, things like our filmmaking, legal professions, engineering, etc. etc. So, Discipline, that knowledge that exists underneath, there's still a subject matter expertise that will still matter. But how do we learn that through the context of things like critical thinking and more? So, yes, as always, the answer lies somewhere within the middle. Is there any questions from the room?
Audience Question 00:51:23
I really felt that the three different sessions were slightly different topics because, certainly, the last one wasn't. I didn't feel it was critical thinking in a sense. But with the critical thinking, what I wanted to mention is like the fact that they put in 'do not consume,' you know, a bleach or whatever. Again, that's nothing to do with AI, but ultimately it is about removing some critical thinking. Should I be drinking this or not?
Audience Question 00:51:50
And with research as well, again, we talked about AI only. Find 7% are using 7% of the 57 are using the critical thinking. What we're using critical thinking even beforehand. Meaning, yes, you mentioned 60 false hallucinations were put out by Ernst & Young. What would it have been before? In my experience, there's always been workers who are there doing their stuff, but the output is less than adequate. And unfortunately, even leadership beforehand didn't necessarily pick up on that before. And this is where going forward, leadership does have to take some ownership with that. So it's not a question— this is more just a feedback on what I'm seeing— and in relation to the the last one, uh, that you did. I honestly feel that if AI can do certain tasks, management are not going to be moving.
Audience Question 00:52:45
People up the ladder because of that, so even though I think that often they should, but anyway, that's just my general experience. So not the question, but more just feedback.
Dale Leszczynski 00:52:56
Thank you very much. I have a question.
Dale Leszczynski 00:52:59
You can at the lectern, though, playing at home. Yes, yes. Thank you.
Alex Wood 00:53:03
Just on your first point.
Alex Wood 00:53:08
There is a real tragedy when, whenever a situation is happening in social sciences, when there's a whole group of people around something and there's an incident, everybody else thinks someone else will take care of it. And that's a big problem right now. Because in companies that I'm dealing with, that these guys are dealing with every day, it's just assumed. that we're sort of moving in the right direction. And until there's accountability and someone's actually nominated as the person that needs to take control of that. It.
Alex Wood 00:53:34
The ownership of the company doesn't happen. So Mark's point around leadership before is actually a really valid one. There is a crisis of leadership in this space that is happening inside organizations, but it's happened around social sciences forever. Unless someone. Actually, is there and sees it and they're sort of by themselves. That's when the true nature and that their responsibility kicks in at the moment. It still feels like everyone's around it and they're sort of hoping that it works. And people at the top as well. So the big risk is if the people that you work with—those you see that you're in a a classroom with, that you're in a business with— can't look at someone and go, 'there's someone taking responsibility for that.' That's where I find there's risk. So it's the first question I asked when I walk in anywhere. I said, 'who's taking ownership over this?'
Alex Wood 00:54:16
Big name companies at the moment that aren't. They're going, 'we're working that out.' I was like, 'well, tell me when you've worked it out.' Yeah.
Dale Leszczynski 00:54:25
It's a challenge and we're asking our leaders to be experts on something or take ownership of something that they don't yet understand that's only been around with us for three years and changes every week. The challenge. There's a few questions in the chat regarding... human labour and what happens to some of those entry-level jobs, particularly the law example that starts to come around. Is there any thoughts on how we get some of those more, those junior employers, what that looks like when the junior employment market starts to get a bit wavering because AI can just come in and do some of those roles that people are used to? Courtney, I imagine you have a view.
Courtney Blackman 00:54:56
Yeah, hi. So I actually work with universities and do AI clinics where we work with final year and penultimate law students. And we're trying to teach them how AI is actually being used in practice. And we spend— They're accredited programs—. We spend the first six weeks with them. really trying to build the foundational skills. And we touch on accountability. We touch on the soft skills of managing people and and kind of everything that you need that's not technical um and it is we're really trying to drill in that AI can remove certain layers that are mundane. Um, and maybe don't. Require a lot of skill, but it's trying to keep them upskilled in the things that actually really require their brains. And in a law firm, for example, the way junior lawyers learn is coming into the law firm and is learning from the people that are above them. So there's not a big push to kind of eliminate that role because that's how they will become better lawyers is learning from. You know, the next level up and the next level up, and that's how they progress.
Courtney Blackman 00:55:59
But it is understanding that there are now these powerful tools that can take away, like, for example, in the first question, I was talking about creating chronologies. Those take weeks to create and they're not a skill-based thing. It's just cross-referencing and extracting data. And there's no reason for someone to spend that much time doing something that is so low value. But they could be spending time with clients, and that is very high value. And that's where those skills come into play, that they really need to have those soft skills ironed out, but also understand where AI can supplement that.
Lani Cush 00:56:36
I'm.
Lani Cush 00:56:37
I was actually listening to a podcast about this this morning and I think Interestingly, We're going to see a huge fragmentation of the workforce and we're already seeing it. So I think, I don't know what the Australian studies, but the podcast I was listening to talked about, I think 35% of the American market is freelancers and they predict that it'll be close to 50%.
Lani Cush 00:56:58
Freelancing or at least, you know, having a side hustle. On top of your current job is kind of just the done thing in two years' time. So I do think that whilst the skills for young people entering, you know, business and so on is... is imperative, you know, you need to learn AI. If you're not learning AI, you're going to be left behind. So I'd say get on the tools now and learn as quickly as possible. But on top of that. Go and do your own thing as well. Don't be afraid of it. Solve local issues that big business can't solve. Solve issues that you see and that you're passionate about. Because I do think that we're going to see more and more of that. I've even seen it in my industry. I went out on my own four weeks ago. And it has been exponentially.
Lani Cush 00:57:43
Crazy to me at how many people have reached out to me going, 'I've just done the same thing.' It is huge and I think really just for young people not to think that they have to work at a big company. In order to be successful. I think that's an outdated view on the workforce. So yeah, sort of taking matters into their own hands as well. But obviously getting educated along the way is gonna be really important. And so, you know, unis are still going to have a huge role. But also making sure that you're using the AI tools. That's part of it.
SPEAKER_9 00:58:14
We have one more question for the audience.
SPEAKER_0 00:58:18
Good morning, everyone, and I'm really glad to be here and to be listening, because what we're saying is. Already too late for us to hear it. We need to have known this 10 years ago and get the jump on AI. Apart from that, I have a question I don't think has been addressed by anyone. RMIT is an educational institution and I think my question is appropriate.
SPEAKER_0 00:58:42
AI and the arts. Now, I'm a fine artist, also an academic researcher. I have been trying for 30 years to get visual art accepted as a legitimate form of research. And with varying degrees, I have a PhD, but, you know, I'm looking for another one to reinforce the idea that.
SPEAKER_0 00:59:07
Visual art is a way to communicate. And we've got many things being done by art— what's your opinion? Uh, about the arts and a and an example I'm using is um, van gogh and this fantastic exhibition space projection of things that have The average person can go in there and go, well, I didn't really care for van gogh, but now I love it because they've been touched on so many senses. That was an AI produced production, right? Now it's currently Vivaldi. Vivaldi, you either love it and you don't need all the stimulation of the lights and the movement, or you don't. And myself, I kind of... chomp against that idea that we can dumb down the arts to a level that everybody will like it by using AI. Just a question: what do you think?
Dale Leszczynski 01:00:03
AI and the arts. Let's take that crunchy one.
Lani Cush 01:00:07
Thank you. Working in advertising, I know a lot of creative people who are thinking just about this. I have a lot of artists in my family.
Lani Cush 01:00:17
I hugely agree with you, but I do think what we're going to see is a bit of a... convergence of the two. I don't think that we're going to just necessarily go with AI. Created work which you know even in advertising that's already happening. Some of my clients, though, are saying, 'No, we're not using AI. We'll use it for music, but we won't use it for visuals.' There's, you know, big companies sort of making rules around what they will and won't use it for because they don't think it's good enough yet or whatever. But I do think that there's going to be a bit of convergence. I do worry that we're going to lose some of our I guess. skills, like personal skill sets around, you know, drawing and writing and things like that on pen and paper. I do think that will be lost eventually. Unfortunately, that's my view. I really hope not. But I do think that we're going to find convergence, hopefully with people that want the.
Lani Cush 01:01:11
want to have art as art's sake, but there's also going to be a huge culture of AI art happening out there, which you've already... mentioned. So I do think that there'll be a bit of convergence. I just hope that we don't lose the skill sets to individuals. And I think there'll be communities created around that for sure. Yeah.
Dale Leszczynski 01:01:33
Very good. I will wrap the questions there because we are coming up on time. Imagine our panelists are staying around for a little bit. So, if you do have any questions for them directly, feel free to approach them after the fact.
Dale Leszczynski 01:01:43
But first, a huge thank you to all of our speakers for such insightful, thoughtful, entertaining discussion. Thank you for the questions to the audience, both in the room and at home. Thank you, everyone, for joining and being part of this conversation. If today sparked your interest in AI capability, future skills, or workforce transformation, we encourage you to explore RMIT Online's course offerings at RMIT Edu Online. But before I do that, a round of applause once more for our guests.
Dale Leszczynski 01:02:11
A special note that we are giving away five free future skills short courses to attendees who share their key takeaways from today's sessions across social media. I'm assuming that's your LinkedIn, your Facebook, etc. Lovely. Make sure to tag RMIT online so we can see your post. There is a jam-packed week of sessions ahead, so be sure to check out the rest of the Future Skills Fest agenda. And again, thank you absolutely everyone for your morning. We hope to see you throughout the week. Thank you again.
