Meet Dr. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic and the Challenge of AI
Melina Palmer: Welcome to episode 602 of the Brainy Business Understanding the Psychology of why People Buy in today’s episode, I’m excited to introduce you to Dr. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, author of I, Human. Ready? Let’s get started.
Announcer: You are listening to the Brainy Business Podcast where we dig into the psychology of why people buy and help you incorporate behavioral economics into your business, making it more brain friendly. Now, here’s your host, Melina Palmer.
Melina Palmer: Hello hello everyone. My name is Melina Palmer and I want to welcome you to the Brainy Business Podcast. How do you tell the difference between someone who sounds like they know what they’re talking about and someone who actually does? Humans have always been pretty bad at it, and it’s getting harder. More and more of the information we take in is fluent, polished and delivered with total confidence. Whether it’s right or not is a different story. Teams are using AI to write reports, analyze data and make recommendations. Leaders are trying to get through as many projects as quickly as possible. If you’re like most people, you may have noticed that you’re checking things less than you used to. For some reason, it feels more accurate when the draft came from a computer instead of from a person, but often that tool knows even less than the humans on your team. There are a lot of things to understand about human nature and how we’re reacting to information. In this new age, people are curious to know more about how we think, what makes us valuable, and what it means to be human at work. My guest today has spent much of his career studying these questions and we will of course be discussing them during the conversation. Dr. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic is an international authority in psychological profiling, talent management, leadership development and people analytics. His work focuses on creating science based tools that improve organizations ability to predict performance and people’s ability to understand themselves. He is the Chief Science Officer at Russell Reynolds Associates, where he leads research and innovation. He’s also a professor of Business psychology at University College London and Columbia University. He’s written more than a dozen books and over 250 scientific papers on the psychology of talent, leadership, innovation and AI, making him one of the most prolific social scientists of his generation.
From Clinical Psychology to Human Intelligence
Melina Palmer: His work has received awards from the American Psychological Association, International Society of the Study of Individual Differences, and the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, of which he is a fellow. Over the past two decades, he’s consulted for organizations including JPMorgan, Google, BBC, Spotify, Unilever, LVMH, the British Army, the United Nations, and the World Bank. Plus, he’s made over 100 TV appearances, including on BBC, CNN and TED, and writes regularly for Harvard Business Review, Fast Company, and Forbes. In today’s episode, which originally aired in early 2023, we are discussing insights from his book I, Human, which feels even more relevant now than when we first recorded it. As always, there are links in the show notes including my top related past episodes, books, ways to connect and more. It’s all within the app you’re listening to and at. Ah, thebrainybusiness.com/602 now let’s jump right in. Dr. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, welcome to the Brainy Business podcast.
Dr. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic: Thank you for having me. It’s a, it’s a great pleasure.
Melina Palmer: Yeah. Well, for everyone who doesn’t yet know you, can you share a bit about your experience and your work and you know, how you’ve found yourself doing the work you do now?
Dr. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic: Yeah, so, well, my background is in psychology. I basically did that all my life. So I overstudied the subject. Started in the clinical field, then moved to organizations and then spent actually a lot of time studying human intelligence and how people make decisions and trying to understand why some people are smarter than others. And that actually led me to paying attention to artificial intelligence, starting with the prospect of, you know, whether, much like everybody else, trying to understand whether machines could surpass or at least emulate human intelligence. And actually then I digress and focus on what artificial intelligence is actually doing to human intelligence and what the impact is of the AI age on how we think and make decisions. So that’s basically it a nutshell.
Melina Palmer: Oh, okay.
What Really Drives Success Beyond Intelligence
Melina Palmer: So we’re going to dig in on some of that a little bit, if you’re okay with that.
Dr. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic: Yes, would love to.
Melina Palmer: Oh, good. Okay. I, I love the, the history of how we got to where we are, you know, and so you’re talking about the, you know, transitioning from psychology to human intelligence. do you remember some of the questions that were particularly vexing for you that kind of got you into that space? How did you make that transition?
Dr. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic: Yes, it started with, really being a little bit fed up with, the dark side of abnormality. Having studied clinical disorders and psychopathology for a long time and actually having spent several years, as a therapist working with people who were kind of in the 1 or 2% of the population when it came to dysfunctional behaviors, I ask what does it mean to be, at the other end of the spectrum and to be in the 1 or 2% for being exceptional but in a good way Right. Or being very bright, being very smart. And really, I always try to see things from a practical lens. And the main question that I was very interested in addressing was whether people who do well in life actually deserve it for being smart, or whether things like effort, luck, serendipity, privilege, nepotism, politics, or, you know, random facts account for the success. And you know, what I found was pretty unremarkable in the sense that much like everybody who thinks about this will probably guess, it is generally more useful to be smarter than not. But there are many other things than intelligence that contributes to people’s success in any area of life. And that then led me to try to understand, you know, the irrational side of decision making and personality and biases, et cetera. And that’s really most of what I’ve been researching in the last 15 years.
Melina Palmer: M. And so, I think that, you know, knowing, like you were saying, it’s the top, you know, 1 or 2% of exceptionally intelligent people, I think it’s probably good to know that there’s, you know, hope for the rest of us. I guess that it’s not just like, well, you’re smart or not as exceptional in intelligence and so, you know, you’re kind of doomed to not be as successful. So I guess that’s positive.
Dr. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic: Yes.
Why Strengths Can Become Weaknesses
Dr. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic: And you know, and I think, well, it’s interesting because I think people have a general tendency, you will know this since you cover reasoning biases and you know, there, there is, there is always a label or a name for sort of predictably irrational, simplification or categorization of sorts. And I do think that there is sort of like a natural impetus or tendency for people to believe that things are either good or bad. And if you don’t have A, you have to have B as opposed to, you know, what’s the right combination of things. So, you know, the way to think about intelligence, especially in the human realm, is, is that it’s one of the ingredients that you need to create, you know, the dish of success or happiness or health or well being. And it’s not about using salt or pepper, using intelligence or personality or using, you know, social skills or cognitive skills. But it’s the combination and really the abundance of ingredients that make people better or at least increase their chances of doing well. Now you can be in the 1 or 2% of cognitive ability or human intelligence. And with that, actually a lot of problems are created. You know, you, you can become very, intense, you can become very disinterested in the minutia or trivia that interests most people, including you and I. And you know, you can be labeled a freak and you can be seen as abnormal and you know, you can suffer. And you know, sometimes it also makes you more arrogant, less humble because if you’re generally good at finding answers, you’re less willing to compromise and more likely to belittle others, et cetera. So I’m a fan of seeing things in a nuanced way and understanding that even, very sought after strengths can come with limitations and can turn into weaknesses if overused. And by the way, that’s a rule that I have applied not just to explaining human intelligence, but also artificial intelligence.
Melina Palmer: M. Yeah, I’m excited to dig in on that in a minute. But while you were talking, it made me think of so very close proximity to this episode coming out. we’ll have just had the episode with Wendy Smith about her book Both/And Thinking, which not. sure. Oh, sounds like you’re not familiar with it. Highly, highly, highly recommend.
Dr. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic: No, but great. Great title. Love the title.
Melina Palmer: Yes. Yeah. And so she talks about it’s. And it’s actually, it’s a co authored with Marianne Lewis and they talk about. We tend to see things. Our brains kind of look binary for sorting things in this either or thinking and how both/and thinking can allow us to be so much more successful and to be embracing the everyday paradoxes of our lives.
Dr. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic: Yeah, that’s wonderful.
Why Extreme Opinions Capture Our Attention
Dr. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic: Yeah, I think, you know, so on the one hand, everything is good in moderation, except perhaps moderation. And you know, if you spend enough time thinking about stuff, you’ll realize that reality and facts are more nuanced and balanced than we like to think and that we certainly, that we see on social media. On the other hand, the propensity to be nuanced and balanced and moderate actually makes you pretty boring and makes people lose attention. It’s a lot of people to. It’s a lot easier, sorry to captivate people if you’re being sort of like cognitive extremist and throwing, you know, intellectual grenades and being radical and overly simplistic and brutally exaggerated in the things you say and do. And you know, I’m still an academic at heart, so I think I suffer from very much the opposite. I, can talk about things in detail, but then people fall asleep.
Melina Palmer: Right. Well, and that’s one of those. I mean like, you know, you talked a little bit about politics and whatever else that’s. I hate watching the news. I do everything I can to Not. And especially because, you know, you get some stuff stations where it’s, you know, is your. The cup you’re using to drink from killing. You secretly find out at 8. And then it’s like, nope, it’s not right, but it’s ridiculous, right? Like, but if you. Those extreme things, you know, the. There’s a reason that clickbait works. can you shine a bit of a light on, what’s going on in our brains that makes it so that that extreme stuff is more likely to be interesting to us?
Tribalism, Cognitive Dissonance, and Algorithmic Echo Chambers
Dr. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic: Oh, yes. And, you know, there’s so many factors, but to pick the first two that come to mind, I think one is that, you know, humans are naturally tribal and you know, we, we want to construct very coherent, identities. And with that comes, you know, the, at least the subjective experience that we belong to certain groups and by definition don’t belong to others. So we need to feel very strong and passionate about our, in groups and vice versa, you know, so that, even that can explain why, if, I don’t know, you spend five minutes watching CNN, ah, it’s very clear that Trump is to blame for everything that’s wrong in the world. And if you spend five seconds watching Fox, it’s all Biden’s fault and maybe Hunter Biden’s as well. If only reality were so simple. So I think that tribalism is one, and the second one is that we also strive to feel very rational and consistent. So, you know, it’s a lot simpler and generally more pleasant and, you know, less likely to generate sort of cognitive dissonance, to hold attitudes, beliefs and values that are compatible with each other. And so therefore, you know, if you tell me a list of things that are associated with liking Trump, you don’t need to know whether I like Trump to, you know, predict whether any of the other things I will sympathize with or not, and vice versa. And I’m only picking on, Trump and Biden because they’re, you know, the current example of polarization actually in the history of politics or, you know, social sciences or political sciences, tribalistic views or attitudes were defined by people who are actually a lot more different from each other than, Biden or Trump. But the fact that this comment could offend people shows that they’re so immersed in this rhetoric and so passionate about not being the other that, you know, anyway, a fish doesn’t know what water is. And same for people who are there. You know, by the same token, I always find it very funny that most people see themselves as open minded. I have yet to meet a single person who tells me they are not open minded. And yet those people also hang out with other people who are exactly like them. That’s how open minded they are. I think so much of this world could be, if not improved, at least changed or modified a little bit. If we convince people to spend time with others who think the opposite of them and who don’t think like them. In fact, when we think about one of the consequences, or effects that algorithms and AI have, they are sort of turning us into a more exaggerated version of ourselves. You know, they learn very quickly what we like and then they amplify that. So. And people already have a natural tendency to become an exaggerated version of themselves as they grow older by definition or of osmosis. So algorithms are fueling, gasoline to the fire, but by making this faster and even more exacerbated.
Melina Palmer: Yeah, that’s fascinating and feels like a good transition point to be, you know, moving into your newest book, along that journey, I know you said that this is your 12th book, so, you know, just all sorts of amazing stuff out there. Are any of your other books general population facing that it makes sense to talk through some of the journey on them?
Confidence Versus Competence in Leadership
Melina Palmer: I’m guessing some are a lot more academic.
Dr. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic: Oh yeah, I like. It’s a very, it’s a very diplomatic and euphemistic way of asking, have any of your other books being read? Which is how I interpret the question. But you know, as a matter of fact, it is the right question, or it would be the right question because the first nine or ten were extremely obscure, academic, and probably read by two people, including, well, I would say my parents. But they probably haven’t read it. They’re very proud to show it on their bookshelf, but, you know, they don’t really care that much. But no, the last one, I would say yes, generated and still generates quite a bit of discussion. Maybe it’s because of the title, which is Why Do So Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders? (And How to Fix It). And so, you know, given that, well, I think it’s a question that seems very relevant to many people and yet the question is not being asked very often, or answered very often. It has generated a lot of curiosity and that actually speaks about the gap between the leaders we need and the leaders we have and how our tendency to make decisions and pick leaders based on their confidence rather than competence generates a lot of the problems we have in the world. A couple of books before that one, I wrote a book about the dark side of confidence and how, you know, Western civilization and modern society and particularly the US well, and especially the west coast, although a little bit further south than where you are, I would say more LA than Seattle. have ended up glorifying self belief at the expense of valuing self knowledge. And you know, if you think about it, an excess or surplus of confidence really dilutes self awareness, you know, the better you think you are at something. And of course listeners, might be familiar with the Dunning-Kruger bias, the worse you probably are at that thing. So again, this has been a general pattern in some of my work that a lot of the problems we have are for optimizing, views, opinions and culture, for style rather than substance and focusing too much on how people see themselves and how good they think they are as opposed to how others see them and how good they actually are.
Melina Palmer: Yeah, I, as you were talking, of course I was thinking of the Dunning-Kruger effect and the episode I did on that was actually the second most downloaded episode of the podcast in 2022. And so hope it seems like a lot of the audience will be familiar with it, but I know it was something I got a lot of comments on when it came out and something that’s always good to be sharing, about our confidence and competence and the their own kind of paradoxical relationship.
Dr. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic: Yes, absolutely. Yeah.
Why Incompetent Men Become Leaders
Melina Palmer: okay, so I feel like people will be interested. I’ll definitely link in the show notes. Well, course, the episode on the Dunning-Kruger effect and where I’ve already talked about both and thinking and your books, we’ll have a couple of them in there including Why Do So Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders? (And How to Fix It). is there a little peek behind the curtain of that before we jump into the new book?
Dr. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic: Yeah, sure. I mean, well, it’s a very short book. and you know, maybe rather than spoiling the potential interests or pleasure that people might have in finding out the answer to that, I’ll give you a little kind of anecdotal footnote to the book which started life as a blog on hbr, which was a response to Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In when it came out. My editor at HBR back then, Sarah Green Carmichael, knew my work and you know, wondered what a scientific kind of, scrutiny or evaluation of the so called lean in argument would derive on or would Argue. You know, my point was very simple, that instead of blaming women for not behaving like, overconfident and often incompetent men who put themselves forward and lean in when they don’t have the talents to back it up, we should actually stop falling for men who actually do that and, you know, not point the finger at women and trying to fix them, but point the finger at ourselves for being fooled, in essence, by people who are not as good as they think. And so, you know, the article was published in 2013, it did very well. It became, you know, one of the most widely read and, you know, sort of Praise articles on HBR and was part of the top 100 kind of curation, or compilation that appeared last year. And here comes the interesting kind of a bit of trivia. For about six or seven years, I suggested to HBR that we turn that article into a book and, you know, publish all the evidence that I had on the sort of, disparity between the fact that on the one hand, if leadership selection was gender blind, you would end up with 60% or 65% of women in charge because things like emotional intelligence, hard skills, qualifications, absence of dark side traits like psychopathy, narcissism, Machiavellian, and you know, and even things like self awareness, integrity, humility are far more common in women than in men. And yet, if you look at the actual frequency of women and men in leadership, it’s not even reversed, but more like 80, 20 in favor of men. So, you know, I suggested that and the publisher’s response, and by the way, they’re also the publisher of my current book, so I can spend some time on this and not feel bad or guilty, and I’m sure they’ll be happy. Said, look, we’d love to do this book, but 80% of our readers, are male. So, you know, we can’t, we can’t insult them basically or upset them. They’re not just male, but male executives and actually largely white male executives. And I kept on telling them, don’t worry, because one of the most central characteristics of incompetence is lack of awareness. So if some of these people do represent the archetype and the, and the profile of the incompetent but successful man that I’m describing in the book, they won’t realize that it’s about themselves. And as a matter of fact, when the book came out, I’ve had a lot of comments, probably many from those men saying, this is fantastic. I know a lot of people who are like this inept but successful figure that you describe in politics or businesses, et cetera, without for a second being remotely likely to think that it might actually be themselves as well. So anyway, you know, so that’s the, that’s the backstory to that. on a more serious note, I do think that gender diversity and inclusion interventions have become more data driven in the last five years. And I do think that in the future we will look back to things like Lean In and understand that they are in essence benevolent sexism because they’re again, we end up pointing the finger at, women for not behaving like men, ironically, for not copying some of the least helpful and beneficial qualities that men are more likely to display than women, such as arrogance, narcissism and overconfidence.
What Don’t Look Up Reveals About Polarization
Dr. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic: So if our solution to a world run by overconfident fools is to try to make the other half of the world overconfident, I don’t think we’re going to end up with a much better wealth.
Melina Palmer: Right. yeah, definitely has me. so you know what, last year was that the movie Don’t Look Up. Right.
Dr. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic: The all these Stars, which is
Melina Palmer: the most terrifying movie to watch, because of seeing all the similarities to a world that we live in and a direction that we could very much find ourselves in. in a way that’s kind of scary.
Dr. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic: Yes. And you know, and again, I mean, I think, you look at that movie and it’s interesting how polarizing it has been based on people’s own political affiliation. Right. So if you’re more. And we’re just talking about for example the US the further you are to the right or if we’re just looking at the two categories, those on the right would label it part of the woke industrial complex and deny that climate change is happening and say it stupidifies them or the other side. And many people who see themselves as being on the left or who are on the left actually use it to bully people on the other side. So the movie was interesting, but the effects or the level of discussion and the quality of discussion, I think, was even better than or more interesting or a more kind of rich, material than the actual movie.
Melina Palmer: Right, yeah, no, definitely, I see that and I think I made it clear which side I’m on, I guess in the way that I talked about it.
Dr. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic: There you go.
ChatGPT and the Future of Human Expertise
Melina Palmer: Thank you for taking some of these additional, paths as we’ve been sharing your story leading up to the new book. And I feel like I don’t know if this is the best place to start. It feels, whether serendipitous or opportune, that the entire world, it feels like, is talking about ChatGPT as your book is coming out, feels like that’s good for you as far as people wanting to read and learn about the book and, and see that conversation. do you have any thoughts on that? And then just sort of leading into what I, Human is about.
Dr. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic: Yeah, I think you’re right, you know, and, of course, I don’t for a second think that, I could have predicted this. I mean, I did see that interest in AI was increasing, but I very much tried to focus on what had happened so far and what we were seeing in the present. So, you know, I tried to stay away from predictions. And although ChatGPT is mentioned in a few pages, the fact that I even talked about, a version that is two years older, shows how much it has improved right now. But anyway, I think, you know, this has been sort of a milestone in the evolution of AI, and in a way, yes, I am hoping that, people, you know, pay more attention to AI and what it means for us and our way of acting and thinking. And so with that, you know, I just published a piece on Forbes on what I think is the most interesting question vis a vis the impact of the intersection between ChatGPT and human behavior, which is what it actually does to our expertise and our intelligence. I mean, what does it mean to be knowledgeable or even an expert, let alone an expert in an age where we clearly cannot compete with the knowledge and expertise that machines have? not so long ago, our sort of defense mechanism or our comfort was to say that AI may know about very narrow domains of knowledge or expertise, but we had this breadth. but now, you know, it is clear that we have lost the battle for breadth as well. And so, you know, so I think the question that we should be asking is how can we ensure that human expertise and human knowledge does not become totally obsolete with the rise of technologies like ChatGPT, which even though they’re impressive now, they will continue to advance, even if not exponentially, to a point where no question will be able to be asked to a human with you expecting an answer better than you can if you go to open-source AI, et cetera.
Three Ways to Stay Intellectually Relevant
Dr. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic: And so, and I highlight three avenues to perhaps protect and preserve our expertise. One is actually to focus more on asking questions rather than trying to answer questions. I think historically, you know, we saw people who are knowledgeable or experts as somebody who has the answer to questions. And in fact, in an age where all of the knowledge is, outsource, crowdsource and readily available, what really matters and differentiates between smarter and less smart humans is whether they ask critical questions and whether they have a hungry mind or learn ability to actually be curious. And especially to go beyond surface level of inquiry to more in depth level of exploration and fall in love with problems and leverage this tremendous resource and tool to dig deeper and enhance their, experience. The second one is to really pick one or two areas of expertise where you invest in so that it allows you to spend half an hour on these tools on, you know, an AI kind of platform like ChatGPT and detect the errors. Right. And I think in a way that’s not different from what we’ve seen in the past decade with Wikipedia or Google Search, if you have no knowledge on say, medieval history and you spend 10 minutes there, you’ll go from zero to quite a bit of knowledge. But if you spend 10 years studying medieval history, what you’re going to tell me is how poorly written the page is and all the errors and inaccuracies. So I think machines and technologies have always pushed us to upgrade ourselves and this really is the opportunity to upgrade ourselves intellectually. And the third one is to actually go from insights to action. You know, even if all, if you’re asking the right questions and you can vet the information. To go from theory to practice requires action and requires far more than being either curious or theoretically interested in something. And you know, that requires energy, productivity, determination, et cetera. So I think just because there is a lot of information out there doesn’t mean people will become smarter. But we need to be proactive so that it actually doesn’t make us dumber. You know, as I think even the first year of Google search have shown. You know, when, when you know that the answer to any question is out there, you just stop wondering and stop asking questions or stop memorizing stuff. Just like you stop memorizing your friends phone numbers when they’re saved in your smartphone.
Melina Palmer: Right?
The Power of Asking Better Questions
Melina Palmer: Yeah. The hope we never have to try and remember someone’s number. Right. I’m lucky that my, you know, my parents have the same phone number that they’ve had since I was a kid, because otherwise I would have no idea how to get a hold of anybody. If you ever needed to. well, that is really fascinating and I am constantly, I think the thing I talk about more than anything is the value of asking really good questions. And, knowing the problem that you’re solving and not jumping into solutions and spending more time on that. So I think the entire audience here is really going to resonate with what you’re talking about. For sure.
Dr. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic: I hope so.
What It Means to Be Human in the AI Age
Dr. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic: And I hope, you know, they, they read this book with a critical mind and it generates questions. I mean, it’s not designed to provide answers, but to sort of incentivize people to keep asking questions. And I think even if you look at the design of these platforms and these technologies, they’re not asking questions, they’re answering questions. So what’s there left for us to do? And that’s, you know, to inquire and be inquisitive and be curious.
Melina Palmer: Well, we’re definitely gonna. I’m gonna link to the Forbes article that you were talking about as well as that original HBR article from the first. The first book you were talking about. well, so when you look at, I guess some more detail on then I. Human itself, you said it’s intended to help people, to ask questions and to think about some things. What do you want people to be asking questions about? What should people in business be thinking about and learning from this?
Dr. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic: Oh, that’s a great question. And I don’t know, to be honest. I think it’s a book that doesn’t have a single angle or a sort of elevator, pitch or a silver bullet. I think what I try to do is to answer the question of what it actually means to be human in this day and age, in an age where all the focus is on artificial intelligence and machines are clearly evolving and advancing irrespective of whether they acquire human like features. And with that, I tried to write a book that could perhaps be interpreted as a mirror that we put in front of humanity at this given point in time, maybe the last decade. I mean, I wrote it in the midst of, the COVID kind of pandemic, I would say in the bulk of it in the first six or nine months. So it was obviously a very bleak point in time, but it was also a time where we were all mostly, socially isolated or physically isolated for others. So in a way, I was immersed in the AI age there because, you know, my interactions with others were mediated by technology.
How Technology Is Changing Our Attention and Identity
Dr. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic: everything I was doing, was datified and created a record. And all of that data helped, ah, you know, all these algorithms understand, me better and predict me better. So I tried to kind of. My, my reaction to that, if you like, was to write a book about what was happening to us humans. And I guess the simplest way to describe the book is that it has two parts. The first part, highlights some of the worst behaviors that we have already seen humans display as a consequence of being so dependent on AI and related technologies. Things like, you know, our inattention crisis or distractibility levels, the fact that we cannot focus on anything. Things that, you know, like the fact that we’re becoming more impatient, our digital narcissism, which is off the charts or off the roof. You know, the fact that we’ll do people do, we’ll do anything to get other people’s attention. And you know, the decoupling of our identity with feedback from others in the real world and our dependence in sort of what people manifest to us when we are in these social media platform and other environments. And you know what I think is the most worrying aspect of all this, which is that in its attempt to predict us better, because prediction is a pre requirement or prerequisite for understanding, these technologies, especially AI, if you think about the main one, have made us more predictable. Most of us are very different from each other, but in a way we’re all spending the bulk of our time doing the same thing, which is coding things, classifying things, clicking on different things so that algorithms understand us better without giving us back any understanding, but predicting us better mostly because we have diluted ourselves to more predictable species. So, you know, the main conclusion there is that, we have spent a lot of time worrying, about, and wondering about how smart machines could get. And in the process we turned ourselves into machines. You know, we’ve became automata.
Reclaiming Empathy, Humility, and Creativity
Dr. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic: while we were worried about whether technology could automate one thing or the other. And then the second part, which is shorter, perhaps my bias, my pessimistic bias makes me spend a lot more time on the problem than on the solution was the same on the previous book. So Why Do So Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders has a longer explanation than and how to Fix it, which is very short. But the second part and the last part of the book is really, a request for us to rediscover and reclaim the qualities that make us special and make us unique and that actually make us different from machines. You know, our ability to act not just in human, but also in humane ways. So it talks about the importance of lost human virtues such as empathy, compassion, kindness, humility, self awareness, creativity, and, and how focusing more on those will help us maintain our relevance and distinctiveness from machines. I think it’s quite interesting that for the most part in our narcissistic ways we try to justify the claim that we are special by showing that we’re different from other species in the animal kingdom. And now we’re really somewhat paranoid because machines, synthetic kind of you know, entities are achieving most of the things that we thought are found in us but not in other animals. So that’s basically, that’s basically what the book tries to cover and deal with.
Melina Palmer: Well, I’m sure everyone is just if they haven’t already gone and ordered their copy, I bet they’re going to be doing it very shortly using links and the show notes and things.
Education, Ethics, and Reskilling for AI
Melina Palmer: I’m curious as we kind of expand on that and would love to hear your thoughts. To me there’s the question of you know, what should businesses be doing if we’re thinking about what we need to be hiring for, how we need to be training employees and things and even, I mean I find myself thinking further back too of what does school look like as ah, we’re looking for educating, not just at university level, but you know, we’ve got kids with iPads and all these sorts of things as we’re looking at technology. you can take that in any direction that feels compelling to you. but that’s just sort of what’s on my mind as you were talking.
Dr. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic: Yeah, I mean it’s a really good question and I think the second part seems somewhat more you know, more obvious to me when I look for answers. And I think whether it’s schools or higher education, university colleges, I mean the shift really needs to be much more prominent from teaching content and information and stuff that students can then, you know, vomit in their essays or in their exams to actually teaching skills, values and really the aptitudes and behaviors that, that can protect us as workers, as humans, as citizens and as valuable members of society. Including by the way, the ethics of technology and you know, how to use it and how to deploy it. I mean it’s interesting if you think that in the last 10, 15 years elite schools have spent so much time trying to teach things like software development and you know, cybersecurity and IT skills, hard skills, without really focusing on the ethical, philosophical, moral and wider social, implications of actually going down that path. And for organizations, on a simple level and obvious level, it’s clear that as it happened with other previous industrial or technological revolutions, AI and current technologies eliminate jobs. But create many other jobs. but it is also clear that the people who lose their jobs cannot automatically be fit or apt or, you know, a good match for the new jobs that are created. So, you know, for example, if, brick and mortar shops disappear and, you know, brick and mortar sales assistant lose their jobs, they cannot automatically become cyber security analysts or, work in digital marketing. So organizations, not just for profit corporations, but also nonprofit organizations and institutions and governments and societies need to sort out the issue of reskilling and upskilling so that they ensure that people, you know, are not automated and made useless or redundant. And again, I think every. Just like most companies are now technology firms because they rely on technology and most of them are data firms because data is part of their assets and what they have and their IP and their product and services solutions, most of them will be in the AI space. And with that comes the issue of not just having the technical skills to, design, deploy, and leverage AI, but also a good understanding on the psychological implications, the ethical and philosophical and moral implications. So it’s quite, I think, a big leap from the world of work we had even just 10 years ago when we thought, oh, technology might come and make things more efficient. Well, I mean, now we’re seeing the other side of the opportunity, which are these risks.
Melina Palmer: Yeah, it’s just so interesting. There’s so much there and the thoughtfulness and helping, like you said, I mean, for kids to be able to learn the importance of asking good questions, you need to understand how things work, to have a foundational knowledge of, you know, what’s to come and how things work already so you can ask better questions.
How to Humanize Work in the Age of Machines
Melina Palmer: But that not just being about rote memorization is such a, such a big difference. For sure.
Dr. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic: Yeah. And I mean, fundamentally, I think the opportunity is here and it’s clear we are still in the driving seat. And with that comes the ability to choose whether we use AI or other technologies or not, and what we use it for and how we use it, but also to ensure that we benefit from it. And when I say we, I mean humanity. Right. So with that, I think you asked about what businesses should focus on. I think really finding ways to humanize work in the age of machines and AI, is really important because if you’re just so focused on optimizing for efficiency and cost reduction and profits, etcetera, you’re not creating environments where people actually want to be or belong to and where people actually feel that they can thrive.
Melina Palmer: Yeah, well, the book is fantastic.
Practical Ways to Become a Better Questioner
Melina Palmer: Everyone should definitely pick up their copy. There’s an entire chapter on taming bias, which we didn’t really talk about much today, but the, you know, the audience has some background on the biases and will find that really interesting. I think we talked about some of it, of course, but we didn’t like dig in on, on that aspect. one last question about questions before you can share where people can find you is do you have a approach that you suggest for people as they are looking to be better questioners? For someone who is kind of stuck in, in answer ah mode. You know, what’s your method for that? Do you have any tips for people?
Dr. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic: Oh, I don’t, I don’t know that I have a, you know, a formula, a counterintuitive science based formula. But I think first, you know, find the time to do it. M. Don’t take, you know, facts at, face value. usually things are presented in a much simpler and lazier way than they deserve to be. And then really do focus on the things that you find interesting, useful and that you’re passionate by. You don’t have to apply this to everything. I mean, you know, you wouldn’t be able to live your life if you had to question everything that happens around you. But try to apply this to areas that, you know, you’re curious about. And you know, we all have things that intrigue us. So finding what those things are much like, you know, sometimes you have to invest a lot of time to discover a podcast or a movie or you know, new artists, et cetera. Time, I think, solves half of the problem and then you practice it. We all get better with practice and you know, with that comes getting feedback from other people and finding some role models and mimicking or emulating them. so find the time and practice would be the short answer.
Using AI to Make Time for What Matters
Melina Palmer: I love it. Well, and the good thing is if we use our technology appropriately, it can help free up some of that time that we need to be doing, bigger, more important stuff.
Dr. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic: Exactly. And I think that’s a fundamental, point because what’s the point of having things like ChatGPT if all the time we spend not having to find the answer to those questions is only reinvest, I don’t know, trying to find out what our neighbor’s cat had for breakfast? I mean, that’s not a very useful use of our intellect and existence, I think.
Melina Palmer: Yeah, agreed. For sure. so Tomas, for everyone who wants to learn more about you and to connect, you know, what’s their best course of action at this point?
Dr. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic: Yeah. So the best is especially given that I had a. I have a complicated name, as you noted.
Where to Find Dr. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic
Dr. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic: I think just go to my website, which is Dr. Tomas with no H dot com. So drtomas.com and all of the stuff will. Most of the stuff about me and my work will be there.
Melina Palmer: Wonderful. We will of course link to that in the show notes, make it really easy for people, as well as some of the articles you mentioned and past episodes I was talking about in your books and all sorts of great stuff. So thank you so much again for. For the conversation. I really enjoyed it. I’m sure everyone else did as well.
Dr. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic: Same here.
The Risks of AI Hallucinations and Sycophancy
Dr. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic: Thank you so much for inviting me.
Melina Palmer: Thank you again to Dr. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic for joining me on the show today. What got your brain buzzing in today’s conversation? For me, it was interesting to look back and realize just how much of this has played out since we first recorded it a couple years ago. In the original outro, I talked about ChatGPT, GPT, citing research papers that didn’t exist. And my concern about people sharing the information as fact. That has continued to be a problem and unfortunately it’s just getting worse. Courts have seen so many filings with fabricated cases that the Florida Supreme Court now requires lawyers to certify that the cases they cite actually exist. Our, lazy brains default to trusting information that feels like it has some authority to it, and AI is perfectly fitting into that space, even when it’s just fabricating everything. I’ve also been thinking a lot about overconfidence and how that seems to be running rampant these days. It’s hard to know who knows stuff when they think it’s real, because AI made it feel like it was real or true. I don’t know about you, but the sycophantic responses from AI drive me nuts. I constantly have to tell IT to stop agreeing with me and telling me I’m right and praising me for having the courage to ask. Ask a question or whatever. It’s infuriating. Personally, it makes it hard for me to use it. A lot of the time. While I find it annoying, is it actually good or bad that AI does this, or is it just a silly quirk? A, study published in Science this year tested 11 leading AI models and found that they affirmed people’s actions about 49% more often than crowdsourced human responses. There were more than 2,400 participants, and when they interacted with the sycophantic AI, they were more convinced that they were right, less likely to take personal responsibility, and less likely to apologize or try to repair relationships. Not a great result. So why would they promote this behavior? Perhaps it’s because those participants rated the sycophantic AI models as higher quality, more trustworthy, and that they had more desire to use them again. So of course, developers are now incentivized to keep flattering people, even when it’s having this negative result for humans and their relationships. From a behavioral economics perspective, it’s not surprising we like being right, and confirmation bias means we tend to seek out and favor information that supports what we already believe.
Think Critically and Question AI’s Confidence
Melina Palmer: When a tool consistently gives us that feeling, we’re more likely to keep using it and less likely to question it. It also connects to what Tomas said about algorithms turning us into more exaggerated versions of ourselves. The difference now is that the agreement comes in a conversation that feels neutral and personal, which makes it harder to notice. So the challenge of telling confidence apart from competence now applies to people we interact with and the tools we use. It may feel difficult to do so, but it is important to reflect on how confident those tools make us feel about ourselves and take a pause every so often. Don’t blindly take recommendations without checking when it says you have a great idea. No, it might not be the only one or the best one. When others on your team are overly confident, give a little grace, knowing this is how our brains are wired and also help them to thoughtfully question as well. So we don’t just take AI’s word for everything. You know, I’m always talking about the importance of asking better questions and that was reinforced by Tomas today. The best questioners will continue to thrive as time goes on and you have an opportunity to be that person. And hey, if you want some help with your teams learning how to ask better questions, I do training on question storming and would love to work with you. Please go to thebrainybusiness.com/contact and you can fill out the form there. You can also just email me melina@thebrainybusiness.com to start a conversation, about questions and anything else you might want to talk about. So what about you?
Continue the Conversation and Explore More Resources
Melina Palmer: What stuck with you the most from this conversation? Good or bad? Whatever it is, come share it with me on social media. You’re going to find me as the brainy biz pretty much everywhere and as Melina Palmer on LinkedIn. There are links in the show notes to make it easy as well as links for my top related past episodes and books, including I, Human, Ways to Get in Touch and more. It’s all waiting for you in the app you’re listening to and@thebrainybusiness.com/602 and thank you again to Dr. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic for joining me on the show today. It was a delight to chat with and learn from you. Join me next time for another Brainy episode of the Brainy Business Podcast. It’s going to be a lot of fun. You don’t want to miss it.
A Final Reminder to Be Thoughtful
Melina Palmer: Until then, thanks again for listening and learning with me, and remember to be thoughtful.
More From The Brainy Business
Announcer: Thank you for listening to the Brainy Business Podcast. Melina offers virtual strategy sessions, workshops, and other services to help businesses be more brain friendly. For more free resources, visit thebrainybusiness.com.
