So I didn't have the sort of a typical middle class kid, like my kids grow up, they have this vision for themselves. this stage, I'm going to do this. I'm going to have this trajectory. I just wanted to survive. No, I didn't have expectations. So anything happened every stage. I'm grateful. And it just bonus because I would, I start here. I'm grateful for my engineering job. That's why I started. And then after a few years, I gained some confidence and people say, you can be a manager. I said, can I have expectations.

And then I look around and say, okay, if that guy could do it, I mean, I'm better than that guy. So I would just, that's how I get literally every single step. Right. But that's one thing is I will, I will look at it and say, well, if that guy can do it, I should be able to do it.

Brian Heater (00:46)

Hi everyone, it's Brian Heater, managing editor at A3. We are back with another episode of Automated. This week we're speaking with AWS generative AI executive and A3 board member, Diane Eldridge. Diane appeared on an AI panel that I moderated at Automate back in May, and then immediately made her way onto my short list of Automated interview asks.

She's always a compelling conversation, and this episode with all of its twists and turns is certainly not an exception. If you're enjoying the show, don't forget to like and subscribe and you can also subscribe to the automated newsletter over at automated.fm. All right, please enjoy this conversation with Diane Eldridge. So a really understated part of my job is that I end up reading a lot of abstracts. I read a lot of ? research abstracts. academic abstracts. I was reading a very ? unique abstract earlier today, and I'm going to read the first couple of sentences to it. And I think this will bring back some memories for you. What has been the worst toilet that you've ever had to use? Imagine being given two bricks and then shown an open field where you had to make that into a toilet. Diane Eldridge compares different stages of her life to some of the worst.

and most high technology toilets she has encountered throughout the process. Why toilets?

Dianne Eldridge (02:21)

I was asked to do a talk for a society of, it was a keynote for society of women engineers. And then what they want me to talk about is the, your, your background, the trajectory, because this is a mixture of women engineers. A lot of them are immigrants. So, and then I draw that background and then it clicked to me that what's unique about it is this everyday thing that show up in your life. And then they, so it's almost just

perfect representative of three sort of a period of my life and just show where I come from. So the worst toilet and the saddest toilet and the most ridiculous advanced toilet. And it just showcased our life. I'm a second-generation women engineer in my family. We have three generations. That's my legacy, Brian. And I was grew up, born and raised in China. And then I came to the West and build out a life for myself and then eventually raised a family. And then I successfully just raised a third generation of women engineer and she started working at Siemens two years ago. So that was kind of, it just all clicked together and used toilet seems like it's attention grabbing, also memorable. So people remember it. And then years later, people still talking to me about it.

Brian Heater (03:39)

Yeah. So she's kind of three and a half, right? Because if you've you did the engineering thing for half your career, when you when you have two engineering generations ahead of you, did you feel like you were being pushed in that direction?

Dianne Eldridge (03:54)

No, I think if you're, this is a typical, ? Asian family. It's not about engineering. think it mostly that the spirit of it's about fiercely independent. And so, and then how you can do that and as a growing up as an Asian parent, and then most Asian people will, ? parents would just instilled in their kids. And the only way to do it is education. And why? Because education will get you a good job. And what is a good job while it's engineering is. and lawyers and that's kind of ? on the surface of it. But the heart of it actually, it's the, you know, it doesn't, it's the, my mother's sort of instilled in me and then I still have my daughter, this fiercely independence. And then you have to rely, depend on yourself.

And then only you or so, know how the airplane, when you're on airplane, they say when something happened, when you need to put your own mask on and then you can take care of your children and other people. So you have to be strong. So I think that's a center. And then STEM and then engineering, and if you have the aptitude, I think it's a means, right? And then in our family, it just so happened we all have it in us and we all love it. So that's how it ended up to be this way.

Brian Heater (05:11)

Yeah, but I mean, it also, I am guessing it can't be understated, you know, what it took for somebody of her generation or her mother's generation to seek that and have success in that career.

Dianne Eldridge (05:23)

You can see the trajectory of our legacy is getting easier and easier. My mother grew up, she was Chinese, but she was born and raised on a small island in Indonesia. There was no high school for girls. Usually boys go to high school and go to the city, girls just finish middle school and just done. She fought and go on hunger strike or something, to be allowed to go with the boys to go to the city, to go to the high school. And after high school, she jumped on the plane because she wanted to go to college. And there was no college in Indonesia for girls at that time. She just jumped on the ship and went to China. then because there's college there, and then she ended up to be a chemical engineer. So because she just had that in her. And then you can see almost a mirror of my mother's life. And then I was born and raised in China.

And then, and at the end of cultural revolution and it was, and then I, so I, and then I went to school and I jumped on a plane instead of a ship and then I crossed, I got a scholarship in Canada. So I went there by myself with no money and then just with his scholarship and try to see, like I told my mother, I'm just going to try to make a, see if we can search a better life for our, for our family. And then I am the eldest daughter and then I'm going to do it. So I went there and then, so that's kind of, and then so now, yeah, it's almost.

25 years later, so I'm here we are. And then so a race, another, another kid, another girl that's going through that. then what our life is just progressively easier, but you can see the theme. It's basically looking for independence, looking for better life for yourself and for your family and just go out. Most, immigrants ? go through the stages. I summarize, go through a few stages, right? Survival, stabilize. And then integrate and then you thrive, right? lot of people go through multi-generations from survival to thrive. ? So I feel, I am proud of myself that I'm the first generation. I landed here when I was 20 and then I was able to cross all those stage from survival ? to thriving. So there's a lot to say about your personal grit and perseverance and hard work, but also a lot to say about the country that we're in, right? And then so it's this country and there's a people here as the system here, allow me the space to do this. It's the combination of it.

Brian Heater (07:58)

Yeah, I mean, you you alluded to the Cultural Revolution. So given it was ending at the time, but even despite that fact, you felt like this opportunity still wasn't open for you in China.

Dianne Eldridge (08:13)

Well, at that time, it's difficult, right? And then China, when I left, it was early 90s and I grew up in the 80s. It was not the same as today. So China went leaps and bounds, right? the amazing sort of progress that in my lifetime to win, it's stunning to watch, a history making, right? Because you had to think about

I grew up in central Beijing. I could jump on a bicycle and rode to Tiananmen Square, like half an hour. That's how central I grew up in. Central Beijing and that's capital city in China. But when I was little, there was literally so horse buggies in front of me. I'm not exaggerating, right? So because horse will come in and then with vegetables and come in and then we will see that on our streets. And we went from that to today. Like it just go on TikTok and see what's China today.

But when I left, China was still the way it was. And so it was just the beginning of the reform.

Brian Heater (09:22)

And there's fiercely independent. And then there's a story that you told me about your mom, which I think probably goes like a step beyond fiercely independent. And to such a degree that you're not in any position to make excuses for why you can't do something when your mom has taken those kind of risks to get to where she was.

Dianne Eldridge (09:41)

No, no, because I think that's the, I think that that's the sort of a sort of spirit and DNA instilled ? in me. Right. And then, so you, if you see how hard she worked and, and I talked about growing up and I was so grateful actually for that pieces of a childhood memory because my sister was four years younger than me. She didn't remember any of it. Cause when she had the memory, our life already got better, but I remembered it because we, lived in a ... We grew up in, that's the end of Cultural Revolution and we were, we live in a three bedroom apartment shared with two other families and each family had two kids. So this is three bedroom apartment. So the three mothers will share a very small kitchen. Each one have a little burner and then they share one sink and we share one toilet. The all three families, each one, each family have four people. So we grew up in that kind of an environment, right? And we have one room, the four of us. And everything was rationed at that time. It was, if you think about the earliest stage of Soviet or North Korea today, that was kind of like that, right? So everything was rationed into sugar, soy sauce, everything. So my mom would give me a little book, say, go get this month's ration of our soy sauce. I would go to the corner store. It was barely empty. And I'd get it and then take it back. That was my memory. I since I had no memories of it, but I remember. So once you remember that and then you went to...

You know countryside to see the worst toilet that I experienced on the field trip you you you know You you put things in perspective once you've seen the real misery and you everything is perspective, right? So ? so I am that mother and teach my kids like I would be threatening said if you don't email I'm gonna send you back to ?

Brian Heater (11:30)

Yeah, yeah. And you know, you mentioned the I think it was the three stages of that kind of early immigration process. And I'm guessing that the struggle being the first stage, like you're you're pretty well set up to deal with the struggle, it sounds like.

Dianne Eldridge (11:44)

I think in spirit wise, right? And because I know so because the first stage is survival. When you're actually in survival mode. Yeah. When you use survival mode, you, you, you take, you know, you don't take anything for granted any opportunity and you, you hustle, right? And then you just, you want it, you want to do it. So any opportunity you got, you, you, you take it and you're grateful and then you work hard and try to make the best out of it. So one of the key differences when I first, the whole

I had this 20 some years career and then from factory floor engineer all the way to executive in a very sort of a male dominant industry, I would say, because it's triple threats. It's engineering, manufacturing, and oil and gas and then now tech, right? So and for Chinese girl, like when I first started, it was so I didn't have the sort of a

Typical middle class like my kids grow up, they have this vision for themselves. By this stage, I'm going to do this, I'm going to They have this trajectory. just want to... No, I didn't have expectations. So anything happened, every stage, I'm grateful and it's just bonus. Because I start here, I'm grateful for my engineering job, that's why I started. And then after a few years, I gained some confidence and people say, you can be a manager. I said, can I...?

Brian Heater (12:51)

...have expectations.

Dianne Eldridge (13:09)

Okay. And then I look around and say, okay, if that guy could do it, I mean, I'm better than that guy. So I would just, that's how I get literally every single step. Right. But that's one thing is I will, I will look at it and say, well, if that guy can do it, I should be able to do it. So that's kind of, and then I, and then I don't look up, right. I didn't look up and then so then, but, but, but ask the progress, right. The other, but the other aspect of it, you have to look, you have to hustle and you have to ask. because every single position I get from manager from engineer to manager to overseas assignment to a different job to eventually running to be a, you know, executive to running a business. I ask nobody say, hand it to me, say, what about you? What, Diane, do you want to do this? No, no. I asked for every single one of it. I want to go to Asia to, to, be part of leadership. I want to come back to us to be in the headquarter to do something else. I want to change jobs. So I think you.

So that's a combination of it. Once you see it, you need to build up the confidence to go ask for it. So everything, every position I changed, I pursued it and I asked and then sometime even fought for it.

Brian Heater (14:21)

Why is asking so hard for people? Because I struggle with that too. I struggle with ? trying to obviously not take things for granted, but ? I guess not overshoot and not overvalue myself.

Dianne Eldridge (14:38)

That's surprising because I always have this ? idea that men always, ? men seem to have more audacity, would say. You can say confidence in women to ask because that's kind of my experience. so men typically have some confidence from negotiating salary, asking for more, or demanding the next promotion. ? But for asking questions, why is asking very hard?

I think it's the field of rejection that's universal, right? And how to adjust when you face rejection, because sometimes once you have the rejection and people tend to go inwards and they say, must be me and something is not, something wrong about me and it's not good enough. And if you let that fester in you.

And then it could, it could be kind of a toxic for yourself. could, it could set you back. So it's safer to just not ask. Right. It's safer to say that then you don't face rejection. I think that's universal. I have passed on opportunities. I can count. are few key moments of my life when I asked, I actually got it, but there are few key moments of my life because of fear of failure. didn't ask. I.

To this day, I still wonder, what if I did that? What if I asked, what if I went? And then so I could have gone, my life could be like different or I could have gone that way. I could have got that opportunity, it would be amazing. But I made the decision at the time, I was so unsure. And then I didn't want to live with the consequences of if I failed, I was worried that I would crush my spirit and confidence.

So I made the decision not to do it. But I wonder to this day.

Brian Heater (16:36)

Yeah, I was thinking about this too, because we've all seen people and we've all worked with people. And I'm sure some of us have been the person who is in the job that they're not qualified for. Like that happens sometimes, right? Sometimes people get promoted that position, you know, and maybe to a certain extent, like it is good to be cautious about the roles that you take and to be very you know, cognizant of what your skill sets are and what you think that you can do. Obviously, you you want to step out of your comfort zone. But, you know, you probably at a certain point in your career have a pretty good idea of like, for the most part, what you can and can't do.

Dianne Eldridge (17:16)

this is where the sponsorship, mentorship, ? and also ? your networking kind of a ? skill come in. Because at this kind of juncture, and I try to be that person. Once I raised up and become leader, I try to be that person for other people.

I'm giving back because I know one sentence or one opportunity or one exposure at a crucial meeting can change this person's confidence and trajectory in life or just one referral for work. Right. And then, so I don't really say no when people ask him what, you know, not, not spam, but when people ask me for LinkedIn connections, I don't say no. And when they ask for, ? can I have a call?

Even as a stranger, if I look at the profile as legit, I give 20 minutes, half an hour phone call. And at least the first one, because I think it means the world to this person. then, and then, and then that change, can change that person's whole perspective. And at work, I had that experience running to really, really, you know, great leaders and give you that opportunity. then, so once you have that backup. of a sponsor, it means huge difference, ? But I also run into toxic bosses, right? And so I see that those kinds of bosses sort of ? crush other people's career or set other people back. And then I try to skirt around it and not to let that happen to me and then to try to avoid. So I pick my bosses so carefully. because people quit jobs, they don't quit bosses. And then I follow bosses too, because I think for that exact reason, because that could make you have accelerated or can set you back for years and not just career, it can set you back mentally for years, right? And people don't realize that. So if you're a leader, if you listen to this, be very, very careful about the words that you say, especially to the people that's junior, just starting. because you say one word that could, know, 10 years later, if you told that person, I bet he or she still remember that word that you said to them. And that might define them for a long time before they can get out of it.

Brian Heater (19:47)

Yeah, I I think about this in my own life and just sort of getting older that ? it does feel like, you know, whether in work or school or anything else, that those earlier years in your life feel so much longer and more consequential because everything takes on a much deeper meaning because everything is so much more formative at that period.

Dianne Eldridge (20:10)

Yeah, I remember the first time the first time a person say there's a there's a the spot is my my my manager at the time and he's moving on and he said I'm going to do it. I said who's going to be our boss who's going to be manager? He said why not you I was so shocked I was sitting there for a few seconds. What do mean? think I can do it? He said, of course you could do it I was so I remember that moment and then I and then I was sitting there and on the way back I said --you know, if he thinks I could do it, of course I could do it. But until that moment, I never really entered my thoughts that one day I could do it. Like, it's crazy. Right? And then that, that's...

Brian Heater (20:52)

So that brings up an interesting question though, obviously like the people who need to be reached out to the most are the people probably who have the most difficulty asking for help, who are the quietest people. What do you do to or how do you reach out to the people who can't ask for help?

Dianne Eldridge (21:10)

...to help people that, especially your leader, for when you actually have people from like with different sort of tendencies, attributes, right? Especially the introverted people. And this is very, very common for STEM majors, for engineers, for tech workers. A lot of them are introverted people. And in our society, especially in the West, we bias towards the out. the outgoing people like me, extroverted people like me. I'm extremely conscious of it because I raised, you my son is introvert, my husband is introvert, and they're all very, very smart. So ? that's why to be a empathetic leader and to recognize, so to be a leader, lot of people think that, ? you know, the leader is being, ? you have the capability to do more things than other people. That's not the key of being a leader is to be - to recognize everybody on your team's strength and how do you give them the space and confidence and in their terms ideally for them to thrive, right? So what I always trying to do is I recognize, people don't realize if you do that well, it's actually benefit you as a manager tremendously because if a person is extremely well organized, you give that person a job and that kind of organized job will run project manage. And if a person is extremely smart and always ideas and you put them in R &D, right? And they have the innovative design just come up like 10 times speed than other people. And then based on that, it could set your year for a really good run for a new product, next version and design and everything.

And it's all centered on this person's idea and brilliance of the design and the speed of it. so you need to be recognized that. And then if the person is introverted as a leader, you need to constantly elevate their name in meetings, in front of leaders, put their name up and say, here is that person's design. look at what a job that this person did, and look at this, we were able to achieve this schedule. It's because of this person's fantastic project management job. You put their name on it, you have to constantly do that. And people don't realize that's free. They're not asking for raises, right? Especially for knowledge workers. We just, want respect and, you know, meaning of the job. you know, the...this kind of recognition, it go miles and miles. That's what's important. And a lot of the introverted people is again, if they're not very good in the group setting, but they're very good on one-on-ones. I also set up them with people that one-on-ones. they actually have a, they have still have the relationship in the small setting. So, and I have them to speak in that setting so they can speak up. So you can actually catch their ideas.

So there's a lot of ways to do it, but you have to be mindful and thoughtful and then be systematic and then intentional to draw it out to people. I think that's really a key to be a good leader and to build a really, really high functional team.

Brian Heater (24:39)

Yeah, I think one of the kind of most potentially harmful traits that maybe we don't talk about much is this notion. And I think it's probably like a subconscious notion that success is kind of a zero sum game on a team where in this is why lot of managers get defensive. If somebody on your team does well, does that that detract from your success? Are you worried about them getting promoted and them getting the the lods over you?

Dianne Eldridge (25:07)

so right because when that person to in my in my mind, right? ? Like I know we're right now there's a corporate kind of a ? trend ? that sort of we don't maybe we've tried to eliminate the middle managers and then then try to remove the layers and they say to be more lean, a lot of organizations, especially industrial organization, those middle managers are the backbones of it. So without looking at the system, without looking at how people are getting support. And then you just do a shortcut and then say, because once you eliminate that, you have instant quarterly report. And then you showed it on your bottom line, because that's really expensive. And then once you move them and you can show some financial reward instantly, I worry that without proper intention to make sure people have the right support, it's going to collapse because middle manager sometimes is the backbone because they...

They manage up, they manage down, and they're working managers because they work themselves. They have their own day job. They have to do the work and they manage people and support people and they don't get paid that much. So once you remove them, and that's also a good stepping stone for people want to climb the ladder, So if you remove that layer, how are you going to deal with those dynamics? ?

That's one thing and that's when they're good. But the other side of it is what when when the senior management, there's a there's understanding gap because when they put the manager in the middle, they don't think about it that much. And that's such an error because ? because they just pull up, they they they catch it as a middle manager. So why would we care about? But those are the people that you want to put the right people there because once that they could be the feed.

If you put the right person there, that could be the feed for your future senior leader. And then if they function well, like, you know, it's a positive flywheel and then your ground level will function well, but they don't think about it that much. They just go to each group and maybe casually put the last sort of maybe quote unquote top performance. And then not only they pull their top performance from their top sales guys, top engineer design things.

They don't ask if they want to be manager. They're good at it. They're empathetic. They like people even, right? Not everybody like people. That's not, there's nothing, there's no right or wrong. Not everybody can be. So, but they, they just put a person there with no, not that much thoughts and say, you're the leader now cause you seem good. And then without that, and they don't give them enough support, it's not going to work. I think they need, we need to re think about as we go through this, our future of work or redesign our our workflow because of AI and then how do we look at where to put people and everything. think this need to be rethink because at the end of the day, people do business with people. We're not going to say robot do business with robot. I don't believe that. We sell things to people that make those decisions and to make it work. I think in the foreseeable future, you still need to be key human in the loop.

to make sure everything works, especially in the industrial area, because we don't want things to explode and we don't want people die. So you have to make sure everything needs to be, know, the key area that people, human in the loop. And then where there's human, you have human dynamics and people need leaders. People need examples, people need models, right? So that's why you actually need to be extra careful to think about who you put in a position of power at work. I think that will have some...huge impact on your bottom line.

Brian Heater (28:54)

Yeah, this is interesting. And I don't know if this works as an analogy. You can tell me, ? but something that I've been thinking about a lot for obvious reasons ? in my job, but certainly as I moved over to A3 is ? is upskilling, right? ? Like Amazon is a perfect example of this. You you put a bunch of robots on on the floor. ? Maybe they are displacing some jobs, but they're creating new jobs. And the question is, how do we?

How do we train for those jobs? I mean, how do we give these people a new skill set? And that to me, it's similar in a sense. mean, whether it's what we would call a white collar or a blue collar job, ultimately it's about seeing something in that person where we feel like they have some kind of skill set that's applicable to another way of thinking or another way of doing business.

Dianne Eldridge (29:51)

Because I've worked in the trenches in AI for the past five years with AWS. I think if you ask me what I worried about, that's what I worried about is the future. What's going to happen to the workers, right? When the, when the robot comes and then there's not enough because right now everybody's so focused on technology and then try to do that race. ? I think this is where, you know, this, the sociology, the philosophers and you know, the, the -- the regulators and that I think that they all need to start thinking about that before it's too late. just like the, you know, we're still living through the facts are art, you know, our kids, a generation that generations living the fallout or impact of social media, because there was no, and we just let them grow up with it and we don't know, right? We don't know what, what, what's going to happen. I didn't grow up with social media, but my kids did. So, ? we're waiting to see what the impact is. And as this AI going through and in an exponential speed, ? I don't feel there's enough thoughts as the society as a whole to think about what are we going to do with people? Not everybody ? can be retrained. ? there's two aspects, like people that can be retrained and or people that don't want to be retrained or...

Brian Heater (31:20)

There are people who have been doing the same thing, you know, their entire life and now they're in their, you know, 60s and it's, and it's going to be difficult at a certain point in your life to learn a completely new skill set.

Dianne Eldridge (31:31)

If AI can do good, then let's make sure that AI can. So I always joke about, what do you want AI to do? I want AI to cure cancer. I want AI to solve climate change. And AI come with a solution for society as a whole. We don't have to go - you know, like the, ? the, the machineries and then we remove people from those break back work in the farm. so, you know, and in, in 30 factories and dangerous mines, and then maybe the robots could do that. So how do we help people to find new meaning of, of work maybe? So I, I don't have the answer. I just wish more people will, would, would discuss it and talk about it. We're here to talk about it in a podcast and as a three, we're talking about automations, but I think as this body and we also want to talk about our in this industry as we automate and then it's from the spirit of make people safe, remove the the mutants and the borings and everything right and in the meantime how are we going to help our members all these workers and how are we going to get them can we offer work together to find new way of living or new meanings, right? So how do we deal with that as we advance the automation, right? Because we're robots and we're about automations and everything. So what else we can do to collectively in the industry can do? I think that will be a very interesting thing that we start to talk about in parallel instead of just talking about, know, robots and automation in isolation.

Brian Heater (33:17)

I don't think I've really thought about in these terms before, but it makes a lot of sense. think a lot of the hesitancy around it is, especially when it comes to new technologies like this, that we're all just waiting to see how things shake out, right? We're waiting to see like what it looks like 10 years from now, but obviously 10 years from now, we'll be waiting another 10 years from now and a lot will have happened to a lot of people will have been impacted in the meantime.

Dianne Eldridge (33:43)

Yeah, yeah, I agree. I think that's the that's one of that's the issue that the whole industries as we build more robots, as we advance more, we want to think about it. think my my my original country, China, it's very interesting. So I'm watching it quite closely. Right. They just had a it's just in the news. think our A3's Jeff, the president just went there. So they had a Robot Olympics. I had a video of them running. They run tracks and everything. So and they're quite advanced. But China also have this massive problem, right? So they have massive population. ? What are they going to do as they have robots replace, you know, replace all these workers? What what are they doing with it? ? So it'd be interesting to see.

Brian Heater (34:13)

Humanoid Games,

Dianne Eldridge (34:39)

...that model because that's, I would call them state capitalism because it's capitalist, that's a control by state. So, and they have some policy ? sort of a control. ? They can make something happen overnight because of the system. So it will be interesting to see how they are dealing with that because they have, ? it will be, we can have a pay, I mean, just like pay a close watch. to see what China would do because they already have light-off factories like Xiaomi, they're phones. Yeah, they already have that. They're already there. Their robot is a little bit more advanced and then they're in people's lives. they're social, they're influencers and then live with robots. And then you see that person with a robot dog and a robot, human robot, and in her daily life and what they're doing every day. it's, you know, she's an influencer. So it'll be interesting to see as what's going on. it would be good to see what that society is doing.

Brian Heater (35:39)

My understanding is that, you know, I mean, there's an issue, there's an issue in the US with ? an aging, aging society. It's been a big issue in Japan for a while, but it seems like China is really facing that problem of aging population and what to do. And that's kind of what they're up against, right? That's, that's what, what a lot of this automation ostensibly is working to solve.

Dianne Eldridge (36:02)

Exactly. I think they're saying, well, we don't have enough workers. So what are we going to do? It's everybody's aging. So let's build robots. But then, ? so yeah, so that was interesting. But now with AI, they're replacing white collar jobs. So what are we going to do with these young people that can get a job? So that's another thing. And then so there's also discussion about when ? AI is the potential that ? the consulting model like business models collapsing because if you don't have people to feed into the consulting businesses, ? you know, or were junior bankers or like junior position, white collar, if they're not here today, who's going to feed the how are we going to feed the feed the senior positions without experiences, you know, so how's that going to work, you can see them in the news, right, people have the young graduates just you know, and I think the headline was young graduates from Dartmouth or something had to work at Chipotle because you couldn't find jobs. So because they the traditional, the social contract of you graduate from a good college and you will have a career and then start building out your career and family. And it seems like it's showing cracks, right? So what's our answer with them?

Brian Heater (37:29)

Yeah, something that, and I think that this is inevitable is when we start talking about stuff like this, we have to frame everything in terms of abstraction, right? Because there's like huge numbers of people that we're talking about here, entire generations, especially in China, just absolutely massive population. So let's narrow the focus a little bit. And obviously this is something that you've been thinking about yourself. mean, pragmatically, as you look at what's happening right now to white collar work with AI, what can you do in your job to help prepare your employees for the way their jobs are going to evolve?

Dianne Eldridge (38:12)

That's a number one top questions. ? everybody, every AI practitioners is talking about it. I've been listening to a lot of podcasts and reading and I listened to people. I don't know if anyone actually have a good answer because everything just changed. And then there there's a, I was on the AI panel. There's like, there's there there in general, there's two school of thoughts. There are people that's extremely optimism. very optimistic and they think that it's going to change and it's going to be better. And there's also people that think that extremely dark that could, know, something could happen that could, you know, some people use AI to do something horrible and then a bio weapon or something, it could wipe out 50 % of the humanity, right? And then, there was a one panel with all the AI thought leaders on the stage. What's concerning is a half of the panel is on the doom side to believe that could be a possibility. That would be a possibility. So that's very, very concerning, right? ? so as a person that practice in AI, I'll give you my two of my presence. One is that the conversation like this. And I try to... raise the voice and concerns and whenever you see somebody that's leaders, company leaders, and you want to put this thought in their mind, so please think about it. Think about this is people's livelihood and then there's for the society, humanity, this kind of a high level.

Brian Heater (39:43)

And that's something sorry. Yeah, just to interject, but that's something that I always say because you know, this has been very important to me. This is why I'm always posting like job lists is again getting back to the idea of abstractions, especially as somebody who has covered big tech companies. So often ? jobs become abstractions when you're talking about companies laying off tens of thousands of people and it's and it's easy to forget that each one of those people is a person.

Dianne Eldridge (40:14)

On the ground level, what I tell my friends, my colleagues, and my customers, what I do is, know, like as I sell AI, that's what I do, like that's my job. I will go to customers and then enterprise customers, big or small, and say, here, let's figure out, like as a strategist, let's figure out how AI can help you to transform your business, right? And then so if you talk to the senior level, they're all very excited because this could be, you know, give them your revenue model, could cut their cost and everything, but the elephant in the room says the cut cost, the number one cost casting is to, don't need that many workforce. So I would try to focus on, look, you can actually, based on your existing workforce, how you can produce more. Hopefully you don't go there. You can say, based on my existing workforce, how do I make more? How do I come up with more revenue? How do I make my sales guys, my sales more or produce more? So that will be the thing to focus on instead of going, well, how many people I can cut.

So I'm trying to balance in my own head so I can convince myself I'm not doing something evil. that's one thing because I worry. I worry about it. Trust me. think about this all the time. Yeah, in the AI trenches. Like I said, I don't know if I'm doing something evil. I don't want to be, right? So I try to come up with return on investment, always focus on the upside. How do we do that to help you to make your machine produce more?

Make your people produce more, make them sell more. so let's use this to figure out what's the new revenue that you can find, right? So that will be the one that I will focus on growth, right? Rather than cut cost. So that's kind of what I wanted to focus on, on leaders. On the ground level, people are extremely like, you know, there's a joke about the number one people, the number one rule when you sell AI is not to sell people that you're going to, that their job is going to be ? replaced by AI, right? That's the joke that say if you sell AI, don't do that. Now, what I want to try to tell people like, look, you cannot stop the trend, right? AI is coming and as an individual, so work with me, let's work together and we'll figure out. you know what? Coming out of this project as a person, you can do is you can put a solid AI deployment project on your resume, say AI.

I, my team, I myself have worked with Amazon and then deployed an AI project. So you actually can improve your own resume. And then so you can put it to your own boss to get promotion, or if you go out to get jobs or whatever, and this will be a valuable experience that you can put it on. So use this as a learning opportunity, right? So instead of just being like being a blocker and then so...You know, and then because you can't really as an individual, it's going to be kind of, it's not going to be productive for anybody. So why not just work together and engage what's in there for you for this person there, right? So I'm trying to get to be very pragmatic and honest and look at me in the eye and say, this is why you and I work together and then see we can do something. you can, we can put your name on this. We can promote it, on your - on LinkedIn. So we work together on something like so you have you can claim that experience right and then so everybody's trying to get AI experience. Why not use me use me as a reference right? So that's kind of what I what I what I was telling my what I would tell my customer on the ground level.

Brian Heater (43:54)

I think I figured it all out. I think I cracked it.

Dianne Eldridge (43:58)

Okay.

Brian Heater (43:59)

Okay. And this is why you have to like listen 45 minutes into the into the podcast episode because that's when the billion dollar idea comes. We create an AI. It doesn't replace blue collar workers, doesn't replace white collar workers, it replaces CEOs. All of a sudden they're the ones who are worried about having their jobs taken over.

Dianne Eldridge (44:22)

I know, I know. No, there are people joking about it always. There are people joking about it. So I think, so I just, but what's important is we need to keep having this conversation, Brian, because otherwise it would just be a whole bunch of, so nothing like no offense to tech bros. It will just be always about tech bros and then they go sick of fan, like they just talk about, ? look at what this can do. It can do this now. It can do that now. And then sometimes if you're not thinking about this, right? And I feel like I'm watching a person that being sold by their masters, by the county money, and they have no idea they're being sold. Like, don't, let's not be that person, right?

Brian Heater (45:07)

It's in anybody's, it's not in anybody's best interest, including the shareholders to be a cheerleader to a fault for a technology. You have to be very pragmatic and you have to be very realistic. And again, this is something that I'm sure that you're dealing with a lot with these conversations around how we're going to implement generative AI, you know, in industry that I'm talking to a lot of people right now about, you know, what humanoids like Canon can't do and distinguishing these really cool videos that we're seeing from like scaling in the actual world. that's one of the things that we really need to get better at as society is like figuring out ways to really give a realistic view of what technology actually can do for people right now.

Dianne Eldridge (45:49)

Yeah, I so agree because I that's why I almost you know how in in the medicine in the medical field, there's a ? huge discipline about morality and an ethical. So we I think for the for the for the for I think going forward, we need that institution, federation of so of that equivalent for human for for for for robots for AI, I do think that because who's going, we need that kind of a tribunal almost kind of like standard and then have the people that have enough ? care about the larger goods of society and from humanity point of view, from society, history and all this, right? All these kind of, instead of just tech people - to think about because they're brilliant. They're very brilliant at code to make a whole lot of to make a whole lot of money to be a billionaire to be able to come up with some brilliant tech does not mean that you get to make a decision for the humanity. That's not their that's not not necessary their expertise. A lot of them know nothing about history. They don't they don't read those kind of books. They don't really read philosophy books. They don't so they

So they're in no position to make that kind of decision for all of us. But I think we need to demand that. We need to demand that kind of ? ethical, responsible, ? the standard, ? just like medical. What is considered ethical, what is considered not? I think we need to do that.

Brian Heater (47:41)

Well, at the end of those, you're watching a medication ad and it looks beautiful. Somebody's sailing on a surfboard through a sea of wheat and it's wonderful. And then the end, somebody really quickly reads off all of the horrible things that can happen to you when you take it. That's what we need. We need that person quickly saying all of the downsides to technologies at the end of the ad.

Dianne Eldridge (48:07)

Yeah, yeah, it's you know, that's why in certain, know, certain country, and then you need a medical ethical board to make decision right when where is the research going to, you know, stop? Where is it going to start to to at what point you decide this is going too far, and not, you know, ethically, we cannot doing this kind of experiment to go down, go down route to, to find out, right? So so so there's a there's you know, the huge long history of a standard for certain experiment in a lot of countries are not legal, right? So that's why we need to, I think for technology, you need certain, the same set of practice. And then especially for robots, right? I think that we don't have to create something from scratch because I'm a firm believer that I'm a trained engineer. So,

We have centuries, you know, starting from Romans, right? And then because, you know, their structures, they build still standing today. The Romans are amazing builders, Chinese amazing builders that they built because they have sound engineering practice, right? As engineer, you need to, you know, it's built on foundation of the science. And the other thing is what? It's failures after failures, collapse after collapse, right?

If you look at engineering standard today, it could be oil and gas or civil engineering, people build bridges and people build machineries and everything. And they all have to have certifications. They all have to have rules. They have to follow certain standards, right? To build a ship, whatever it is, right? If you look at every single of those rules, almost every single behind every single rules, something bad happened. People died, something explodes, something collapsed. And they said, let's...

Let's make rules. So let's make sure this never happened again. So for centuries, the century engineering practice built out and standard in all disciplines, chemical engineering, civil engineering, chemical engineering, we all have electrical engineering, we all have these engineers. So keep people safe, keep machine running, and then nothing explode to harm people. So I think for AI right now, there is no, because it's not in physical AI yet. It's not in the physical.

But as soon as the software, so software code, if it's a call center, the chatbot give you a wrong answer. No biggie, you just ask again. The human beings ask again and give you the right answer. So that's okay. But as soon as a cross physical into vehicles, into machineries, and then, so it's entirely different bar. You have no fault tolerance because life is a state.

Right? So once you get that, you need to adopt all these sound engineering practice built up for centuries. I think we don't have to start from scratch. You can leverage those to make sure once the AI crossed the boundaries of into physical, ? we can leverage those to make sure it's safe.

Brian Heater (51:20)

Well, we're just about out of time. We're going to have to have you back on in the not too distant future. Diane, thank you so much for joining us.

Dianne Eldridge (51:28)

Yeah,  thank you.

Brian Heater (51:33)

There you go. Thanks again to Diane for taking the time to chat with us. She's got the kind of ? transparency that you don't often get with executives at big companies, which obviously makes for a much more compelling podcast. If you've made it this far, which you clearly have, please like and subscribe. Tell a friend and don't forget to subscribe to the automated newsletter over at automated FM. Thanks again for joining us and we will catch you just about this time next week for another episode of Automated.