[SPEAKER_00]: I'm Jamie Cochran.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm Life Babin.
[SPEAKER_00]: We'd win.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'd extreme ownership podcast.
[SPEAKER_00]: Back for another episode, and of course we have Jocca Willing with us once again, and today's topic is AI.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is taking over the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: What do we think about it as a relates to leadership?
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's going to be a great tool, and the emergence of AI and people's reaction to it is similar in my mind to some of the technology that I saw in Merge in my time in the SEAL teams.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I got, I joined the Navy in 1990, and for instance, the Global Positioning System GPS.
[SPEAKER_01]: when it first came out, a lot of people really pushed back against it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And there's a bunch of reasons for that.
[SPEAKER_01]: One of them is it's just the technology wasn't all there yet.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, it wasn't really as good as it was going to get.
[SPEAKER_01]: The very first GPS that I had was probably a 25 pound big box that I had to carry around.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it took four hours to find itself.
[SPEAKER_01]: So when you turned it on, you had to wait four hours before it figured out where it was.
[SPEAKER_01]: So all the old guys were saying this thing stupid, even me.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was a young guy, but I said, hey, wait, why do I need to carry this 25-pound box around?
[SPEAKER_01]: If I have a map in a compass, which lays nothing, I'll know exactly where I am in three minutes and it won't take me four hours.
[SPEAKER_01]: So what are we doing?
[SPEAKER_01]: This is stupid.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then you realize that there were applications where, for instance, when you're out in the middle of the ocean and there's nothing to shoot a resection off of with your map and compass.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it doesn't really help you out there.
[SPEAKER_01]: And a GPS once it found itself, it could tell you exactly where you were and then you could link up with.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's say a ship or a submarine out to sea, or if you're at a desert environment where there's no real good terrain features, so there were applications for it almost immediately, but you had to open your mind a little bit.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it gave us, it gave us more capabilities because now we could go further out to sea and still be able to link up with a with a different vessel because we had this GPS.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we could get dropped into the desert in far out locations because we had this instrument.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then, of course, over time, we all now have a GPS on our phone or on our watch in some cases.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's incredible.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it knows where it is all the time.
[SPEAKER_01]: But people rejected it out of the gate.
[SPEAKER_01]: Same thing with night vision goggles.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, night vision goggles.
[SPEAKER_01]: people were nervous about night vision goggles, especially the early models.
[SPEAKER_01]: We hadn't really learned how to use them that well.
[SPEAKER_01]: It takes some practice.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, when you walk around the desert for the first time with night vision goggles on, you're going to be clumsy, you're going to trip.
[SPEAKER_01]: it's you don't really have good peripheral vision.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're going to hit rocks.
[SPEAKER_01]: It just it can be difficult to use and then you think well what if the battery goes out and if someone shines a white light and now we blown out our night vision or natural night vision.
[SPEAKER_01]: So there's all these problems that people came up with to say maybe this isn't good technology.
[SPEAKER_01]: but ultimately, once you utilize it and you continue to explore the capabilities of it and then mitigate, because there are risks, mitigate some of those risks, you realize that you have a vast advantage with this technology.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think the same thing's gonna happen with AI.
[SPEAKER_01]: Is it perfect right now?
[SPEAKER_01]: No, of course not.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, somebody will say, this AI said to do this and it was totally wrong.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, cool, that stuff will sort itself out eventually.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think people's capabilities will increase
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it's what's been a while for me to observe is just how good it's getting.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, just in the last, in the last six months, right, we just seen, we've seen things that maybe it was kind of okay here, but now it's actually, I mean, it's a driver picked me up from the airport.
[SPEAKER_02]: This was a month ago in his Tesla, and he had just run the update, and he didn't touch controls from the time.
[SPEAKER_02]: He'd picked me up to drop me off about the 40 miles away from the airport, navigating through crazy traffic, and all bunch of construction where the lanes are going, the lanes are markers are all off, people crossing the road, construction workers in the road, things like that didn't touch any of it.
[SPEAKER_02]: And he was telling me that it would have been
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, even just a few weeks before he ran the sub that he would never trust that it to do that.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I think the speed at which it's getting better is pretty incredible.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I wonder what's not going to look like five years or ten years down the road.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I think with these technologies, you can either accept them and utilize them or you can try to deny them or kind of pretend that they're not coming and that's other people
[SPEAKER_02]: And so that's going to be a big disadvantage.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I think as a leader, you have to, there's certainly AI can replace jobs.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's no question that that's a concern that people have.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I think as a leader, what it should do is amplify people's jobs so that they can, maybe a human being is not needed for some of the, the, the, the,
[SPEAKER_02]: But the work that the AI can actually do, but now human being said focus on leading, it can focus on building relationships with people, it can focus on going out and talking to their customers and identifying problems and thinking about better ways to actually do that.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't think there's never going to be a replacement for the leader that can actually build relationships and get the team focused on where they need to go.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you know, we've been building with black box AI, we've been building an AI version of me.
[SPEAKER_01]: it is it is shockingly amazing quite frankly it's really incredible the way that it finds the nuance and leadership questions it of course it's it's relying on the entire catalog of my podcast and books and so it's got a lot of reference material and as you said it can scrub that data very very quickly but it is very
[SPEAKER_01]: It is very impressive the nuance that it finds in giving answers and this is something you know, we're likely going to release to the world and what what a great bonus, you know, I can only answer so many questions.
[SPEAKER_01]: We at echelon front can only answer so many questions.
[SPEAKER_01]: So to give people access to an AI platform that's been scrubbed and sort of.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know, I don't know, it's been honed by our feedback.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so we have ended up with a very solid leadership coach.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now to your point, it's not like you could just blindly listen to whatever the AI said, because you still have to put the human calculus in there.
[SPEAKER_01]: But it's definitely going to be very advantageous for people that have questions about leadership, or really questions about anything.
[SPEAKER_01]: The thing is very powerful.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think it's going to really be a huge help to people around the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: I call it the Jacoba and what was so fun is we put it out to the team and we said, hey, I want you guys to test this.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want you guys to put it through a really rigorous test to figure out where the gaps are because we're going to put this out for people and essentially they're going to be able to talk to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: It feels like you're talking to you, of voice sounds real kind of creepy, but what's great is we have asked at some of the hardest questions we as instructors have gotten before and the answers.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes, it might even be better than what I might get from the live.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jocco, they're so good.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they're pulling from so much information from all the books, all the content.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's anchored in, obviously, the principles of extreme ownership.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the idea is, or the fear could be, as instructors at Ashland Front, what does that do for us?
[SPEAKER_00]: If we've got now at Jocco, about people can go get their leadership answers from what's appointed having us at Ashland Front.
[SPEAKER_00]: And what does that mean for our business?
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think what's been interesting is looking at this with the invention of AI, I think what happens to a lot of people is they're going to be looking for with all the opportunities out there.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're going to be looking for the more authentic connections with people.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so our business in what we do, which is face to face leaders from training and development, isn't at risk because you're just going to be an additional tool we can offer to our clients.
[SPEAKER_00]: In addition to the authentic interaction they get at a workshop
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it offers speed and scalability.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think that's what's, and when just as Jocco said, it sounds like you've been replaced, Jocco, Jamie likes, like the Jocco body answers better than yours.
[SPEAKER_02]: It is, it's amazing even in it, just a few iterations of tweaking it and how much better it's gotten.
[SPEAKER_02]: It gives, it gives great answers.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that enables you to reach
[SPEAKER_02]: millions of people, you know, potentially across the world that could use that tool.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think that's, I was talking to leader recently, who is in the service industry.
[SPEAKER_02]: He, he, he, he, he had purchased a number of these service businesses.
[SPEAKER_02]: And AI is can take take on some of the work that they do and do it much faster and more efficient that a human can do it.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so what he was talking about was now what I need these these folks instead of focusing on this these particular tasks that they were doing that they I can now do they need to focus on reaching out to clients because instead of just handling a few dozen clients will now they can take on.
[SPEAKER_02]: five or ten times, you know, the number of clients as a result of AI handling many of the tasks, so they can reach out and build more clientele.
[SPEAKER_02]: They can work with more people.
[SPEAKER_02]: They can utilize their relationships, follow up with customers and find out, you know, if their problems are actually getting solved.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, I think it's certainly, it might be a replacement for some of that, but I think more than rather than a replacement for jobs, I think it's actually going to just allow for that scalability.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think that's something that I think leaders just have to embrace and think about, okay, my job is going to be different now instead of, you know, instead of crunching
[SPEAKER_02]: I have got AI that can do that, now I need to think about engaging with the customer understand what their problem is and applying that AI to getting that problem solved.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a really cool tool to help you to attach to.
[SPEAKER_00]: I teach us all the time to clients that I work with, that when you're struggling to take ownership, which is always your ego and emotions kind of wrapped up in that scenario, when you're trying to problem-solve, one of the ways to help you get out of that, when your own ego isn't allowing you to do that, is to use AI, throw and attach a BT.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's the problem I'm dealing with.
[SPEAKER_00]: How do I take ownership of this?
[SPEAKER_00]: And you'd be amazed at how that detached perspective from this, you know, robot essentially gives you an opportunity to step back from the situation and see where you could take ownership of a problem when your ego is blocking your ability to see that solution in front of you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it'll definitely help you out in that respect.
[SPEAKER_01]: I remember when I was a kid and I had a tough decision to make.
[SPEAKER_01]: I would flip a coin, heads or tails.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I wouldn't listen to what the coin told me.
[SPEAKER_01]: I would listen to how the land made me feel.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, oh, heads I'm gonna get pizza, tails I'm gonna get burgers.
[SPEAKER_01]: I flip it, heads, pizza, I don't really want pizza.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, so you really want burgers.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's like the same thing, your sort of saying, okay, give me the feedback.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not gonna be emotional about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now when you read it, you can do your assessment, your human assessment of what the AI is saying and you can probably come up with a really viable solution.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's a really powerful tool.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you take what you're thinking, the response that you want to have in a situation and you write that out and you ask AI to add the ownership element to it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And all of a sudden, you see a little piece in there where you go.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, yeah, you're right.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can take ownership of that piece, or you have it assessed an email that you're writing, or you're having a assess a solution that you're coming up with.
[SPEAKER_00]: In all those scenarios, it gives you that detached perspective, but I think the point that you're making is just like flipping a coin and then going with whatever you feel, you have to take the advice you're getting that detached perspective and go and do the action.
[SPEAKER_00]: AI isn't going to be able to go and do and solve that problem for you.
[SPEAKER_02]: flip a coin, heads, burpees, tails, burpees.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was talking with a friend not too long ago who was talking about how this stuff's going to take over the world and he was really concerned about about the robot wars.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we're talking, you know, terminator series, sky net, all this got to go to stuff.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was laughing about, look, I think there's, there definitely is, I think there's
[SPEAKER_02]: There's always unintended consequences right of technology that I think we should not take lightly.
[SPEAKER_02]: I did tell him that I was, I had been anticipating the robot wars since Terminator 2 Judgement Day came out when I was in about eighth grade or ninth grade and I've been waiting for it to go down with.
[SPEAKER_00]: I feel like as long as a front is a good company to be at if we actually get into a robot war.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've got some solid people around me to cover down on that up first.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think we can handle it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I would unplug it or throw water at it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Those things are never waterproof.
[SPEAKER_01]: The, the thing that I've found really striking about the, the Jaco AI is there's a lot of, a lot of AI when you ask it a question, it'll give you an answer.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then it'll give itself kind of a caveat at the end that sort of is like a,
[SPEAKER_01]: Just a caveat to say, well, you know, this doesn't really apply a hundred percent and you need to check with yourself and it'll kind of give itself a way out.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I've been surprised that the Joccaway I, it doesn't really, it doesn't really need those caveats.
[SPEAKER_01]: It frames them in such a way that it makes sense, but it's not kind of a catch-all, hey, by the way.
[SPEAKER_01]: What's that thing they do with medications, you know, the, when they list all the side effects that could have with a medication, it's sort of like that's what normal AI does it gives you like well and by the way, you shouldn't really use this in real life, but the jock away I it's framed in such a nuanced way that it doesn't really need to do these.
[SPEAKER_01]: these caveats to cover for itself.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's a pretty impressive model for sure that the black box guys threw together or they didn't throw it together.
[SPEAKER_01]: They even build it for a while.
[SPEAKER_01]: But really impressive.
[SPEAKER_00]: I used it the other day.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had some team members at my house and we were having a meeting and we were sitting in having lunch and we were having a little bit of a debate.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I was like, you know what?
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's ask the Jacobo bot.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I called, I pulled up an in this debate.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was kind of anchored in and kind of jokingly dug in on my perspective.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I asked the Jacoba this question and immediately the Jacoba is like, well, is your point in trying to be right because that's just your ego talking?
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, dammit, there's Jacob right there and it was the truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it caught on immediately to the point I was trying to make, kind of even in this joking setting.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it caught on immediately, and it tightened me up and put the ownership piece there of like, hey, this is your ego at play.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think in those ways, AI can be an incredible tool to simplify processes, to give us ideas on solutions, to create some speed deficiencies.
[SPEAKER_00]: But as leaders, we still have to make judgment calls and actually go and put the solutions into place.
[SPEAKER_00]: That doesn't take away our ownership as a leader to actually go and put those things in practice.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, that's not going to work.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think the main thing is that everyone has to do is have an open mind right now.
[SPEAKER_01]: This technology is coming.
[SPEAKER_01]: You've got to look at it.
[SPEAKER_01]: You've got to not resist it.
[SPEAKER_01]: The open mind did to it and see where you can utilize it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's going to continue to evolve and change and you've got to be able to evolve and change with it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was pretty skeptical for my viewer, we had a conversation a few years ago about self-driving cars.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is probably what 10, 10, 12 years ago now, and I was like, there's no way like the self-driving cars.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like it's not, it's not going to be possible, but I think I did not anticipate AI and how good it could get over time.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm pretty excited to see where it's going to be, you know, 5 or 10 years out the road, definitely.
[SPEAKER_00]: At the same time, I certainly as a mom, I am very aware of the risks.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we talked a little bit earlier about the risks of AI.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's risk there too that I think all of us need to be open-minded to how do we combat the potential risks of AI and what that does in our home lives, with our kids, in our businesses.
[SPEAKER_00]: And look at it as a tool, but not a solution to everything, which I think is where people are anchoring now on AI is a solution.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it should just be used as a tool.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yep, no doubt, things are gonna evolve, things are gonna change, and if you go to an extreme with any piece of technology, it's not good.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this goes, like I talked about GPSs, and we did become very reliant on GPSs.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, guess what, sometimes your GPS floods out.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes there's something wrong with the GPS cloud, and it's not working, so you have to understand how to do land navigation.
[SPEAKER_01]: Same thing with night vision, those white lights do come on.
[SPEAKER_01]: Batteries do run out, these things happen.
[SPEAKER_01]: We evolve from just night vision infrared to thermal and now we are in a different game.
[SPEAKER_01]: So you just got, again, it just goes back to a constant theme that we talk about all the time.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's having an open mind and it doesn't just apply to having an open mind to your ideas.
[SPEAKER_01]: It applies to having an open mind to new technology that comes around and can there be negatives?
[SPEAKER_01]: Of course, there can be negatives.
[SPEAKER_01]: but there's going to be some positives as well and you have to have an open mind to both those possibilities.
[SPEAKER_00]: The other side of it, too, is AI is here.
[SPEAKER_00]: So your choice is to either figure out how to use it to benefit how you lead and how you solve problems or to push it aside and let people around you run circles around you because it's here and it's a tool that everyone is going to be using.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the best thing we can do is leaders is to figure out how do we use this as a positive tool to allow us to lead more effectively?
[SPEAKER_00]: So it that brings us to our immediate action drill for this episode.
[SPEAKER_00]: Identify how you can use AI to simplify one repetitive task.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then reinvest that time in coaching and mentoring the people around you.
[SPEAKER_02]: and utilize the people on your team to come up with some plans about how they can utilize AI to make them more efficient or to create scalability, you probably have some, so if you're not as good with technology, and you've got some younger folks on your team that are better at that, utilize their skillset, lean on them, give them an opportunity to step up and lead about how to employ that technology.
[SPEAKER_02]: And if you do that, you will have a team that can utilize that new technology to help you reach new efficiency, new scalability, and you will lead