AI is a Good for Humanity! w/USATODAY Best Selling Author! 🎯 Jeff Burningham | Ep. 410

0:00Welcome to Do This Not That, the podcast from marketers. We share quick tips, things you can do right now, and then we add a little bit of chaos at the end of every episode. We also keep it short, like this intro. Let's check it out. We are back for Do This, Not That, and I am so excited about the episode. We are going to be talking about AI, humanity, all of it. I have an incredible guest. All right, so who's here? We have a real deal major author, but even before he was an author, Jeff Burningham. this dude is a big deal so he was at byu okay he's undergrad he starts this company and he crushes it he sells it to a nasdaq listed company and now he's on his way and he's out there in utah and he's getting all involved in the venture capital community he starts peak capital partners this thing becomes a real estate investment firm that it has assets over five billion dollars that's a b the b word okay and then he started peak ventures one of the literally in Utah.

1:01If you say Jeff's name, people chase him down the street because they are the premier early stage venture capital firm. He's had his hands in so many successful companies. He ran for governor of Utah. He's a former bishop. I don't know what he hasn't done, but what I know he has done is written probably one of the most important books to come out in a long time, which is The Last Call. This is the name of it. The last book written by, wait a bit, The last book written by a human because AI is taking over the planet. That's what we're digging into. I'm so excited to have Jeff here. Jeff, welcome to the show.

1:35Jay, can I hire you as my pump up man, bro? I need you with me in my pocket. Thank you, man. It's so good to be with you. Yeah. This is so exciting. All right, before we get into, and honestly, the thing I'm excited about you, to be real, is you're one of the few people on earth that's optimistic about AI. everybody else is doomsday. So we're going to dig into that because I think we all need a little bit of your optimism. But before we get to that, how did Jeff become Jeff? What is the deal? Isn't that the question for all of us, Jay? That's what my book is about. It's about all the big existential questions.

2:14But I'm a serial entrepreneur. So I started a tech company in undergrad, like you said, founded a large real estate private equity firm. It's been one of the fastest growing in the country for the last decade or so, and then spun into venture capital. There's a very high growth technology sector here in Utah. It's called the Silicon Slopes. And I've been an early investor in most of the fastest growing startups here in the state. In 2017 or 18, and this is actually where the book starts, I was sitting at the Ganges River in Varanasi, India. And I felt myself, my subconscious was pulling me into something deeper, deeper waters.

2:57And I lost my mind, like you said, ran for governor in the state of Utah in 2019 and then 2020. The most critical months of that campaign were March, April, May, and June of 2020. Lost during the pandemic, I ran against two very well-known politicians, one of which ran for president, John Huntsman Jr. Great guys lost. And for the first time in my adult life, things happen on fast forward in my culture, my Mormon culture, and here in Utah, for the first time in my adult life in the summer of 2020, I had space and time. And I like to tell, I've been an adjunct professor at BYU teaching entrepreneurship to thousands of students.

3:42And I often tell them With space and time, anything can be created. And this crazy book, the last book written by a human is the first kind of outward manifestation of what I've been working on the last five years since I lost that governor's race. The piece of this that I think we all need to hear, which is anytime AI comes up, AI is going to take my job. AI is going to know too much about me. We better be nice to the robots because the Terminator is going to take over the world. Almost everything you hear about AI is negative. All the horrible things are going to happen. But you have this positive view of how AI can turn us into improved humanity.

4:27What is that? What is the positive side of AI existing? Yeah, I'll say two things again. Number one, what is the upside of being negative? number? What is the upside of putting our heads in the sand, pretending like this isn't happening? What is the upside of like running away from it? Like that's just not how human transformation and evolution works. If you look at the history of humanity, it is one of never ending quote unquote progress via transformation and evolution. To think that we could stop AI at this point is just not an option. So let me just say I'm an optimist by default because I'm not sure that the opposite takes us anywhere good in the end.

5:18Number two. Okay. So I lose the governor's race summer of 2020. First time that I've had like a second to breathe since in my adult life. I dive back into the venture work that I had left behind for 18 months to run a statewide campaign for governor. And a lot of interesting technologies are popping, but the one that sticks out far and away is AI. I've made, you know, a dozen or two investments in AI companies. I'm a believer in the technology and I want to empower good AI to get into the world. But what becomes so apparent to me very early is the spiritual, ethical, existential implications of what AI is for humanity.

6:04See, I think AI is a cosmic mirror. And so Jay, that's a mirror, a reflection can be a scary thing to look at, but it also gives us an opportunity to reflect and choose to transform. So why is humanity scared to death of AI yet oddly viscerally attracted to it? It's because as is often the case, the obstacle becomes the way here, Jay. I talk about in the book how AI is a crucible for humanity to pass through together in order to transform and evolve. Now, pardon, that's scary shit. No ifs and or buts about it. Looking at your own personal reflection can be scary. Realizing that you have to go inside and that we as a collective humanity need to go inside and transform ourselves from the inside.

7:10That is hard work. That is scary. I get why there's a lot of fear around AI. However, I think if we do this with our best foot forward, I think if we bring an idea around love and human flourishing around this technology, It could be, it can be one of the greatest things that has ever happened to us. This reflection can cause us to take massive transformational and evolutionary leaps forward. And that's the bold case for AI. I understand. I'm not stupid. But that's where we could go. And that's where this book is trying to point us. So on a very 10-foot level, practical level, okay, I know that there is, you know, the five years from now when we all have these optimist robots in our home and whatever.

8:03Okay, that's a little down the road. But today, someone listening to this and saying, all right, I'm going to try to change my view on AI. And they open up ChatGPT or Claude or whatever. And they do what to be more optimistic? How do you flip the switch in your mind and say, all right, I bought into this guy, Jeff. I'm going to be an optimist now with AI. How do I bring that into my life today? Yeah, let me flip that on its head a little bit, Jay, because I'm not sure it's about what you do with AI. Again, AI is a mirror to each of us individually and collectively. All it does is take all of human data for recorded history.

8:46It ingests it. And then it learns how Jay and Jeff and everyone else interacts with it. And then it reflects ourselves back to us. So the work that I call for, I talk about how I create, I created this little, I climbed the mountain of success, my little mountain of success. I've built billion dollar companies. I've checked all the boxes. And I talk about in the book, climbing this mountain and getting to the top and realizing that there's nothing up there. In fact, I say all there is is a cold howling wind. Void. The answers we are looking for are not outside of ourselves. So the answers we are looking for aren't necessarily in AI.

9:34They are inside of ourselves. So I talk about being at the top. Where do you go from the top? You can only go down, collecting the pieces of a little bit of a tattered life, not because of anything you did wrong, but because of the pace that you were keeping and realizing that there was nowhere to look outside, but just in. See, I think that what each of us is looking for is already inside of us. This is cliche. However, one of the things that I strongly believe the most powerful ideas are often the most simple and therefore the most neglected. And this is one of those. So as we go inside of ourselves, as we do our own work, as we look to heal ourselves, that reflection can become more beautiful.

10:26So I think what someone does is they sit, they disconnect from AI, they disconnect from technology for a time, they do some of the internal work. And then when they return to AI, which we all will, and we all do, I think they're going to be a massive companion in terms of, I'll say, quote unquote, awakening or understanding the underlying patterns of human existence that have always existed. So the way that I use AI is in terms of astrology, in terms of education around awakening and spiritual matters. And so anyways, again, I think the mirror will reflect something different once we do the work.

11:08Now that work is being done on the fly. I understand the pace is hard to keep up with, but that's actually what I would encourage your listeners to do. I I think that's the work that we'll be called to do here in the age of highly intelligent machines. You know, it's funny. What I'm really taking from what you're saying, and it makes a lot of sense, is this intentionality of connecting with humans, other people, is going to become something that needs to be more front and center. Where it's not, what are we going to do with AI? it's because of AI connecting with people, going to in-person events, having dinners, making sure you're touching base with your friends, calling them an intentionality about your human existence is going to be a much bigger, a much bigger calling for that because of AI.

12:01It's not like what you're doing with AI. Is that, do I got it? Yeah, yeah, you got it. I mean, and this is going to be something we have to fight for, Jay. As our kids spend more and more time with a digital device, with the almighty algorithm, quote unquote, of social media, we're going to have to fight to stay in the real human relationship because real human relationship is messy. You know, like chat GPT is a notorious glazer. Jeff, your hair looks beautiful. I'm bald. My hair doesn't look beautiful this morning. You're the smartest guy on earth, Jay. Hey, you know, you're one of them, but I don't know.

12:41You know, like it always takes your side. It always pours it on thick. That feels nice sometimes, but that's not real. What's real is human intimate connection. I make the argument in the book that I'm saying in quotes that that technology of real human intimate connection is the most powerful technology we know and have. So the thesis of the book is that very simply stated is as our machines become more and more intelligent, we as humans must become more wise. And so the book becomes a playbook about how we become more wise. It follows the cycle of technological disruption via AI, which interestingly, I think mirrors our own spiritual journey in existence or the heroic journey, you could say, that we're all called upon.

13:39That always starts with disruption. It's painful. It's a call to adventure. Change is the only constant. Then there's a time for reflection. You usually refuse the call at that time. Then you lean into it. You enter the unknown. The third section is via transformation. It's like our collective heroic journey in the age of AI. And then the fourth section, this is what I wanted to say. It's about evolution. It's a return with wisdom. And I talk about all the big things. I talk about reforming religion, education in the age of AI, relationship, human relationship in the age of AI, conscious capitalism.

14:21And then lastly, Jay, because I ran for governor, because I have felt firsthand the terrible political division that is gripping our country and has for a decade or more, I talk about a political movement that I call the human political movement that I think is something, some of these ideas need to be infused into our culture. This book is meant to be a conversation starter around boardrooms and religious meetings and definitely around dinner tables that then transforms into a movement that can ensure that AI is focused squarely on human flourishing and not human division or destruction. Look, it's a message of optimism and positivity and I'm down with that.

15:16And I think it's so valuable. So I wanna flip the script here though for a second. Now I wanna ask Jeff, not the author. I wanna ask Jeff, the person who's invested and all these startups, VC, Jeff, all this stuff, if that's all right, about AI. What I mean by that, for a lot of the listeners of the show, maybe they're a marketing manager or starting their marketing career or they have a small business or they're a big executive, whatever they are. What are the careers that you think are, like, should people be worried about their jobs, about their careers? I mean, you look at this from an angle of investing in companies and the future of companies and people and all this stuff.

16:00What is your take on all of that? The short answer is yes, absolutely. And that's just the truth. I think that the way that AI can be, the only way that AI can take over is if we are disconnected from our bodies and from our humanity. In that way, though, it looks like a lot of disinformation where we're living in a digital world of information that we have no idea what is true and what is not. That's kind of a first step and we can feel that happening. The second step is job loss. I don't know if you know this. This is a scary thing, but the greatest predictor of civil unrest is unemployment in males ages 18 to 40 years old.

16:54in any country. So there will be a lot of jobs taken by AI, in my opinion. And then of course, there's the terrible things that could be done via warfare. So there's the negative, like kind of high level steps to all down. Yes, you should be concerned about your job. However, my invitation in the book, see, I tell a story in the book about sitting in an MBA class. I was running a multi-billion dollar private equity firm. I was investing$100 million in venture capital. I was a father of four, a young bishop in my church, sitting on like 20 boards, for-profit, non-profit. it. And this, and I decided to get add MBA to my resume.

17:45Like what in the hell was I thinking, Jay? I had to do that on nights and weekends. I did not have time. I did that because I thought you could always do more. And if you did more, you would be more. That's just not true. Doing does not equate to being. And so I had ingest, this was in the air that we breathe in America Yeah. So here's the point. As AI becomes better at doing more and more of what we're used to doing, where does that leave us? It leaves us time and space for our being. As long as we're embodied here on earth, we're going to always have plenty to do. We all have so many roles and so much to get done.

18:32But what I hope is that we are able to bring our being to so much more of our doing. That will be essential in the age of AI. And two ways that will occur. One, we need to partner with AI and workers of every type should be looking at how they can leverage AI to improve their output, to improve their work product, quote unquote. That isn't always happening. Obviously, the work product is going down. We need to work with AI to improve that work product. So to help us become more productive so that we have time and space to be. The second beautiful thing here, and I think you're going to see this playing out over the next decade or two.

19:15So many people have a book in them. See, I viewed this book as my little piece of art, my offering to the divine. And everyone has art inside of them. Life is the most beautiful art. And right now, most people don't feel like they have an opportunity to explore that art. I think that AI will give us opportunity to explore art and that there will be new industries, new joy, new money, quote unquote, to be made via so much additional, radical, beautiful art being put into the world by humans like you and I. I got to tell you, that's why everybody needs to go out there and get this book because it takes a positive view on the future and we need positivity.

20:05So everyone, listen, we're going to put it all in the show notes, but you want to go and check out this book. It's available actually now on Amazon, everywhere else. The last book written by a human, okay, by Jeff Birmingham. him. We're going to put it all in the show notes and follow Jeff everywhere. Jeff, where can they find you? Is it LinkedIn? Like what's your social media of choice? Yeah. Um, probably the best place is just my website, jeffburningham.com. But I have very mixed feelings about social media, but I'm also there everywhere. Just open the sub stack. And I think a tick tock a couple of weeks ago.

20:38So I'm trying to meet the people wherever they are at. And every handle is just at Jeff burning him amazing all right we're gonna put on the show notes jeff this has been enlightening it's been optimistic i'm i'm very into all of it i appreciate you thanks for joining the show jay it's so good to be with you today thank you you did it you made it to the end but wait the party is not over listen i want to keep hanging out subscribe to this podcast and if it wasn't the worst podcast you've ever listened to give it a five-star review why not but you know what I want to do even more with you go to gurumedia hub.com and we can partner there you could find out about all of our free events all of our stuff and if you're epically bored go to jschwedelson.com and we could stay connected you could find my newsletter and everything else I got going on thanks for being here and hope you subscribe