#120: "Just because AI can do something, doesn’t mean it should" - Lara Lewington, Writer and Broadcaster

24:40But as things evolve, we may become a little more ready as well as the science becoming more advanced and healthcare systems being more willing to listen like they are with wearables now. 15 years ago when I was first reviewing wearables, I thought it was absurd that any doctor would actually be interested in your data. But we know now that's not the case. Yeah, wearables. I mean, I want to come on to that because I'm a big wearables fan. I've got an aura ring. Oh, good. I wanted to get your thoughts in terms of do you envisage a future whereby clinicians will treat patients through the sort of lens of their DNA data?

25:14Do you see what I mean? So your DNA data is central to the treatment that they give you or the diagnosis that they give their patients? Yeah, and this is actually where things are changing in future, that genetic information will become incredibly important, not only in understanding disease risk, but also in being able to understand what medicines will work for who, what side effects people are likely to get. So this isn't just averting side effects, which obviously is huge anyway, and for that quality of life data is really important. But as one scientist said to me, right now, some people are having very serious reactions to certain drugs, so they never make it to market, whereas many other people could really benefit from them.

25:54And it means the drugs that were given up on, because they appeared not safe, you could find out were safe in certain people. So this actually creates a future of far more personalized and targeted medicine. So it will become very important for that. And also understanding recurrence of disease. We're already starting to learn some of these elements. I've done some stories on recurrence of breast cancer risk, and that's been through looking at scans, through genetic risks and more. And we are heading to a place where we're going to get so much more meaningful, useful, collected for purpose data to understand who's at risk of what, when.

26:31And that's absolutely crucial to potentially be able to prevent, but otherwise at least to be able to predict so you know what you're dealing with early. Yeah, no, absolutely. That's really interesting. This episode was brought to you by BDigital. BDigital support leadership teams to optimize cost and get more out of technology investments. BDigital and the team have unrivaled expertise with technology license management and data remediation and are therefore perfectly positioned to help prepare organizations for AI technology capability. And on the last point, BDigital have just developed a cutting-edge AI readiness assessment, which provides tech leaders with the platform they need to make well-informed decisions about AI adoption strategy in 2024 and beyond.

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27:32It's just so exciting, though. I think we will have so much data and so many tools at our disposal in terms of treating conditions and avoid. The key thing is avoiding conditions, isn't it? You know what I mean? And treating yourself based on your genotype and, crucially, your data. And that's a good segue into wearables. What do you think about the value of, let's say, fitness trackers and sleep trackers? Do you think that everyone should be wearing them? What do you think about the efficacy of these devices? I did an experiment about 10, 11 years ago where I wore four of the leading devices and there was huge discrepancy in the results.

28:10And in fact, the CEO of one of the companies at the time said to me, at least it's consistently inconsistent. You can keep comparing yourself to yourself. It was the best PR line I'd ever heard. That was, I think that was 2015. Right. That was a beginning of when they started getting really good. Yeah, that's right. But in the early 2020s, I did a similar experiment with four of the leading brands and the differences were negligible. They'd come a long way. The sensors and the algorithms had really improved. And we were at a point where the recording of data was really accurate. The sleep, not quite as accurate as the other recordings, especially the phasing of the sleep.

28:44But in terms of activity, it was a long way from what it was originally, where one has suggested I burnt 3000 more calories in a week than another. And it wasn't even the one that had thought I'd done 25 % more walking. So they've got a lot better. And I think that's the first point to make. Secondly, I think the long-term patterns that we see with them are way more important than how many steps you did yesterday, albeit they can motivate you to do steps. 10 ,000 steps is a pretty arbitrary number. The data is based on three, 4 ,000 steps. I can't remember the exact number being this sort of massive life-death difference, although obviously doing more is better.

29:19We know doing more exercise is better. But actually, when it comes to the difference between doing no exercise and doing some, we know the data is absolutely massive on the impact on your health, cardiovascular vascular health, risk of cancer, and so on. I think wearing these devices and understanding what your baseline is, so you can either see, I've not been moving as much as I have been, I should do more. Or more importantly, changes in your sleep pack or your heart rate, because these can represent there are problems. They're not medical devices that are diagnosing. But some of them, like the Apple Watch Series 7, do have medical grade parts.

29:51And they can see that something is amiss, which might mean that you would go to a doctor and investigate something further. It may mean nothing, but it could actually see something meaningful. And there's been lots of cases of people having diagnosis. Like heart rate abnormalities, for instance. Yeah. And I've just written a feature on this for a magazine, actually, because there have been a lot of cases where people have found life-threatening conditions as a result of seeing something wasn't right and then going to see a doctor. So there is this element, but longer term, we're going to be able to understand even more from these patterns and what is our normal and what changes.

30:24So I think they're incredibly useful. and I just think long-term data on ourselves, albeit some scientists refer to this as dirty data because it's not in a lab, it's not under scientific conditions, you might take your watch off for a bit, but I think there's enormous use. The only question comes for people who become very anxious when they know too much, where they become very worried about their sleep that might stop them from sleeping if they feel they're not getting enough. And I've had so many of these conversations with people because of what I do and the fact I'm often wearing a lot of trackers.

30:54I'm about to do an experiment with five of the leading smart rings and wear them all at the same time. What are you most impressed with then in terms of the wearables you've got then? Is it the sleep analysis? What has had the most impact on you personally? What I do actually think is very interesting is what you can learn from the data at population levels. So for me, I love wearing my ring because I track my sleep and I have this great pattern of what I've been doing without obsessively checking step numbers that I could do on the watch that I wear, which I still wear because I've had it for ages and I love it for payment.

31:26But personally, I would choose a ring. But I think the data at population level is teaching us a lot about sleep, about culture, about behavior around the world. And I think it's fascinating that in Asia, particularly Southeast Asia, people are getting the least amounts of sleep, having fewer, if any, lions at the weekend are just not even a thing, really. The most sleep in the world is being had in New Zealand. And Aura has collected data on Aura ring wearers all around the world. And it's amazing for being able to understand these sorts of patterns. What is so interesting here is seeing the impacts of culture.

32:02In Japan, for example, if people fall asleep at work, it's something which is applauded because it shows they've been working hard enough. If you fall asleep in the UK, you'd probably get your P45. And in Spain, say it's normal to have a siesta in the afternoon. So there are cultural differences in sleep. and just seeing these different patterns in different places, I think is really interesting. And never before have we been able to look at this as we can now. And my thought on this bigger picture data, actually, just to add is with sleep, it's based on what the ring is recording or what other wearables are recording.

32:35So it is actually making a note of exactly what's going on. But there are still some things that require your input. Like my aura ring is always asking me what exercise I've done. Did I run? Did I cycle? And I have to say, I don't bother scrolling through it. I just say yes to running or walking every time. So I'm skewing their data there a bit. I think some of them do improve as they get to know you better though, don't they? And some of the devices are better than others. The Whoop gives you incredible detail on your sporting activities, incredibly detailed graphs. Some of the wearables identify your activity better than others.

33:07The Aura is said to be particularly good on sleep. So there's just variation between your priorities. And I think for a lot of people, just the idea of only having to wear a ring, especially for women, rather than a chunky wrist-worn wearable, is something which is appealing, which is why I'm about to test lots of them, because the Aura does have fairly expensive subscription. And there are some out there without subscription and that are lower price anyway to start with. So I'm just going to see how they all match up. Yeah, no, absolutely. So I don't know what you think. So obviously, we've got all these amazing wearables.

33:38And I just get excited about where these are going to be in 10 years as opposed to where they are now. Do you know what I mean? If they're this good now, what are they going to be like in three years, four years, five years? But you couple that with AI innovation. And I honestly believe, Lara, and please tell me what you think, that we are not far away from having essentially an AI agent in our pocket who has access to our DNA data, to our wearables data, and is basically coaching us in terms of our longevity potential. We've got like Brian Johnson in our pocket, basically telling us you need to do exercise more next week.

34:09You need an hour more sleep. You need to eat less carbs. Maybe you could chuck a blood sugar monitor in with that as well for even more robust advice. Absolutely. You are spot on with where this is going. And there are lots of companies that are trying to create the platforms to be able to do all of that. And I've had a couple contact me already, things that do already exist, but that's totally where we're going. I think one of the game-changing elements here is things being seamless, frictionless. You're not noticing you're being trapped, but they are. I was at the Casual Electronics Show in Las Vegas this year, and I'm sure you've been before.

34:47Have you been to CES? No, I'd love to go. I've always wanted to go. I've never just had a chance to go. Oh, it's right up your street. I will one day. Yeah, I think you'd really enjoy it. But one of the things I saw there, one of the less glamorous things I saw there, was a monitor down a toilet that looked a bit like Like in the 1980s, where you would have, you're probably too young for this, but you'd have these sort of bleach things down the toilet. You floss a chain and it would make the water go blue. It looked like one of these things that would sit down the toilet, but it was actually monitoring urine.

35:14And so the idea was that when you got off in the morning, your urine was being monitored every day without needing to do anything. That's going one step. That's going the extra mile that is, isn't it? It is. But what's interesting about that and mirrors which can assess your blood pressure, your risk of depression, your risk of type 2 diabetes just by looking at you. And it's quite early days for a lot of this stuff. But the idea of any of these things being seamlessly just there in your life, that you're not conscious you're using them, you're not having to charge them or anything because they're just there functioning.

35:48The mirror's plugged in and maybe the thing down the toilet would need a battery change and goodness knows I didn't want to ask too many details. But the idea of more and more data being collected is to understand way more biomarkers than even our wearables are is probably where things are heading because that will help us identify a lot more problems when things go amiss. Yeah, no, absolutely. What wearables have you been most impressed with recently, Lara, that you've reviewed? Anything like that wouldn't be on the sort of radar of most people that you've been particularly shocked by or something that maybe hasn't been released yet?

36:21Yeah, I'm just thinking. I've done a few things for meditation and relaxation. Personally, I'm not a big fan of these things. I don't feel particularly stressed in the first place. Wallet space and those type of... Yeah, and there was one, it actually came in a wearable sports top, and I think it could come in all different forms, where it was assessing your heart rate and giving you a meditation alongside its readings. And so I've tested various things like this. And I think as a personal preference, They're just not things that I'm particularly interested in. So those haven't hugely excited me, whereas just standard wearables and how much better they're getting does.

36:58That's of way more interest to me. Something that I thought was really interesting was the device that you breathe into after you've eaten. And there's a couple of different versions of this, but the Omed, which is one which would be given by a doctor, is a small, unfortunately, I haven't got it here on my desk at the moment, but it looks like the size of a computer mouse. Don't breathe into your mouse. That's not a good idea. but you blow into it after each meal and it will measure the chemicals in your breath to assess the reaction to the food you've been eating so if you're having digestive issues and you know it's not fructose it's not lactose you've ruled out Crohn's disease celiac disease it's none of those things but you're just wanting to find how you could alter your life to be more comfortable and massive stats on how many people have IBS in the UK that could be really useful so whilst it's not a wearable, it is a sort of trackable.

37:44Yeah, no, absolutely. So do you know, in terms of all these data platforms that are data collection via wearables, we talked about this in your pocket AI agent coaching you for longevity purposes. How do you see this playing out? Google have acquired Fitbit. So they're obviously a giant in this space right now. You've got other companies like Orr and Garming, who has retained their sort of independent status. But this is going to be an absolute fight to the death to own this space? Because it's going to be massive, isn't it, in the longer term? Of course. How do you see this playing out, Lara?

38:18Imagine the variety of brands will continue and they will continue to battle against each other. From what I see with people that I talk to, just anecdotally, people I talk to every day, people who are quite serious runners or quite serious golfers may have a Garmin device, although they may also wear a Fitbit because I do actually see many who only put on their sporting watch for the sporting activity, even though it could be used as a tracker all the time. And I think the smart ring element is going to grow massively throughout a variety of brands. I don't think this is just Aura. I think that's something that's absolutely transforming the wearables market because with wrist-worn wearables, my personal frustration, and this was my thought on the whoop actually, was if I'm going to wear something on my wrist, I'd like it to tell the time as well.

39:07So the idea of a wearable, that you've got to have the thing on your wrist and it doesn't even give you the time is quite frustrating to me personally. So I'm sure other people feel that. I miss that. I miss the time and the ability to pay for things. Like, do you know what I mean? The smartwatch. And that's what I was going to say. Payment. Payment is the other thing. And I wore for a little while a payment ring. So I had on an Aura and a payment ring on this finger, but the company actually stopped and it got discontinued after a while. It obviously wasn't popular. It was quite funny because I'd go and pay and I'd be doing this to the credit card machine, holding my hand flat against it.

39:38And it kept on not working. You had some funny looks doing that. Yes, because it's obviously, I remember doing it in the early days of the watch and people thought it was odd. But obviously you look terribly strange because no one knows what you're doing with a ring. And when it doesn't work, you really look like what on earth are you doing? And then I was demonstrating this on TV one day on the rain and the company contacted me afterwards and said, oh, by the way, the reason that your ring isn't working when you're doing like that is you have to behave like you're punching it with a fist towards the ring.

40:02Yeah, yeah. Which then seemed even strange. Bit more fist bump in it. I know, it's like fist bump in the machine. And it did work better actually like that. But it just wasn't something that really took off. I suppose one of the questions with it may have been the security of how, and I can't remember, there may have been a limit as to how much you could spend, but the security of it working. Because with an Apple Watch, for example, you've got to put in that pin code after it's on your wrist before you can use the payment anyway. But with the ring, you wouldn't be able to put in the pin code on the ring.

40:27You'd have to have it on the app, which I guess would be possible. But yeah, it's, I mean, we want lots from our wearables. And this is the thing. what once seemed absolutely amazing and impossible to fathom would be happening, we now start to go, oh no, it could be better. It's a bit like large language models. Why is ChatGPT not doing this better? And our expectations have risen so high. Yeah, but they are coming along so quickly as well, though. So they are just getting better and better. I basically put the bot on last night because my daughter needed some ideas to do something for school.

40:57And I spoke ChatGPT and I put the bot on. I said, hi, Gareth, how are you doing? Do you want to have a chat about Be Digital, the company? And I was like, no, my daughter wants to ask you for some ideas on some school project. And she was in, ah, hi, how you doing? And started talking to my daughter. It was like, literally, like she thought she was on the phone to someone, one of my friends or something. It was so realistic. It's just, it's crazy. But yeah, totally. And it's really engaging. And it's the fact that it can sound so human that caused such an emotive response. But it's changing the way that we live, work, interact with each other.

41:28And it's only going to continue to do so. 100%. So that's a good segue, actually, Lara, because I want to ask you about your AI Agony Aunt gig that you're doing on ITV's Lorraine right now. Fantastic, by the way, very entertaining. But yeah, I just thought I'd ask you, what's the most common question you get asked? And what's the most weird question you've been asked? It's funny, because a friend said to me, a friend who's actually a TV producer, how does this work exactly? Do people ask you questions about their problem with AI? I said, actually, I'm calling Agony Aunt, which is a nice title that they've given me, but that's not actually what we do.

42:02We just cover different AI topics every week. And I guess Lorraine asked me the questions that are what people might want to know. And when you talk about AI in the mainstream, which I've been doing now for so long, I did Panorama, One Show, Good Morning Britain, so many of these programs when everybody was first talking about this. And of course, the first question that everybody wants to ask absolutely everywhere is, should we be scared? And for people like you and me who are so deeply embedded in this, it's quite a frustrating question because AI is so many different things. And the answer to that is very long and very nuanced.

42:36And I think still for a mainstream audience, fear and, oh, I don't like it, seems to lead the way. So a lot of the time, I think I'm almost bringing some AI optimism with balance because I think it needs to be conveyed with balance, but also a bit of an explainer as to why we built this thing, what the benefits are for education, for healthcare, for productivity, where it's actually taking us. And especially now where we've moved from a place where it was AI had knowledge to AI can actually do things. And so where we're going with it and why that matters to us and what the benefits are. So I feel like people are very quick and it's very much at the forefront of their minds to jump to fear and let's not have this change and let's not do things this way.

43:21But actually, let's also understand why and why this is good. In healthcare, say, it can be that third pair of eyes on a set of scans to identify tumors. It can be helping a doctor take notes so that they can have the more human experience. It can recognize signs of depression in the face in a way no human ever could. So the power of what AI can do through pattern recognition is so huge. And we must remember that and not just the large language models, which I think is what a lot of people jump to, especially in the early days where we were first talking about ChatGPT on air. It wasn't the early days of AI.

43:56It was the early days of this current conversation. And the worry was very much about, oh, what if it writes an essay? And obviously, we moved on from that with the conversation. And there were a lot of questions about jobs. There are questions about the creative industries. There's a lot of questions about what humans should do, what the AI should do. And the fact is, just because AI can do something doesn't mean it should. In healthcare, the thing that I've been writing about and talking about so much, I try to really keep the focus here on this is how it will augment doctors. Doctors will be critical.

44:26But we have a crisis right now. People can't get appointments. And you look at what's going on in the healthcare system in the US. Healthcare has massive challenges. Anything we can do to make it more efficient and give people better healthcare is great. And I think we just need to remember that this is an important part of that. So I suppose that's the message I'm always trying to get out. Yeah, I think AI is the answer. I think it's what's going to save the NHS, I think. Because as Britain grows, the NHS is struggling to keep up. But I think if we can roll some of this technology out, it will just take so much pressure off the NHS.

44:59Totally. That's my vision for it anyway. I wanted to ask you about the book. So firstly, how did that come about, Lara? And how did you find the process? For those of us who've never written a book, how did you find the process of writing a book? Many people had warned me beforehand that the editing is the hardest path. And I didn't understand what this meant till it actually came to it. My book is a mixture of the things I've learned and seen the people that I've met through Click. It's also 1500 citations from medical papers. So I've really delved into the science to make sure everything is absolutely accurate.

45:30And there's also been scores of people interviewed, the world leaders in each field. And it's not like it's full of quotes. It's a very easy to read story of where we're at now and what it means for you with characters in it. and real life experiences. But in putting all of that together, I managed to tell a story, but you get very in your own head about it. And you start to think, is this the right order? Does this make sense? And when I sent it off to my editor at Penguin, she came back to me and said, look, I think we need to move the activities tracker stuff to the beginning, because this is the bit people really understand.

46:07And I'm like, but I've got all this amazing stuff about genetics, about love-grown organs. And it's really exciting. And these stories of what happened when I went to Brian Johnson's house and all of this stuff that I felt was the better read, that I was just desperate to get the good stuff at the beginning for people to keep reading. And she said to me, look, people need to start on something they understand and they can relate to. And also, it's pretty actionable for people what I'm saying. So she helped me switch the order and you become I'm so attached to it like your baby, but it's quite hard to accept that.

46:39But she was absolutely right. And I mean, by the time the book was finished, and I remember the day I recorded the audio book, and I say the day, the four days I recorded the audio book, it was more talking than this. When I read it through, I just felt, yes, this was right, this worked. But what happens is the process for anyone who hasn't written a book, who might be interested in this, is you send your first draft, you then get it sent back with lots and lots of comments saying, can you add this stat, maybe move this to chapter three. He was around, oh, and I got into such a muddle trying to move it all around.

47:07Oh, I was going, I was driving myself around the bend. You did it all yourself and you didn't have a shadow, right? Like someone doing it. No, so it's all my writing. I did have a researcher who helped me find the right medical papers. Sure. And she would dig through the papers and make sure I had the right stats in there because trying to do it alongside an actual job, writing a book can be a job, was isn't easy because I did the first draft in six months. And then the edit, it was back and forth with that iterative process. But book editors are brilliant because they take something which is too long, probably a bit repetitive and not in the right order.

47:36and managed to reorder it. I would get in such a model if I was in charge of that. Yeah, no, absolutely. So it talks a lot about, and you did touch upon this earlier on, about lifespan versus healthspan and how the metric to focus on is not just how long you live, but it's how well you live, of course. Can you give us a little insight in terms of what you found on that side of things and what most people are doing wrong? Why are people in most part in poor health in their lives. Yeah, look, there's a huge socioeconomic connection between health and economic status. That is huge and that really exists.

48:12But I think also something through speaking to behavioural scientists and Professor Sir Nigel Shadbolt, who is leading voice in how humans and machines interact. And I think something that really became apparent was just because we know what the right thing to do is doesn't mean we're necessarily going to do the best thing for ourselves. So you may have a lot of people who are really interested in their health, really interested in longevity, who will try and follow the rules. Some people being pretty extreme, not quite Brian Johnson levels, but who are constantly reading things and wanting to look after themselves.

48:50You've also got a lot of people who have other priorities in their lives that don't allow them the luxury of being able to worry about this. They're more bothered about putting the food on the table in the evening than worrying about whether it's the most nutritious food they could possibly get or not. And eating the best healthy food isn't always the cheapest. And yes, there is a lot of argument against this from various experts who will say there's plenty of fruit and veg that isn't expensive, but it's also knowledge and its motivation. And one of the things, working nights, for example, is considered a carcinogen by the World Health Organization.

49:24Wow, I didn't know that. Yeah, which is a slightly terrifying fact for people who work nights and work shifts. And it seems in the research that you can actually undo quite a bit of the damage by doing everything else right if you're eating right and you're exercising. But the chances are you're not going to be because you're going to be feeling tired. You're going to want to fit in an actual life with your family and friends who are not working those same hours. And it's hard for the human body to sleep in daylight and be awake at night. There are lots of other challenges. So I think what I've tried to acknowledge is we live in an imperfect world.

49:58And people have a lot of challenges in their lives and a lot of other factors, young children, people that they care for, shift work. So there's only so much all of us can do. And what I've tried to do is paint a picture of separating what is real science from what is actually unproven right now. What can really make a difference and what small changes can we make? One little thing, for example, is the idea that lots of people in California were doing when I went out there to film with some longevity folk is setting their alarm clock to go to bed at night instead of to get up in the morning. And there's many of us that might just benefit from making sure we have enough time.

50:33The kids have gone to bed, you want some time with your partner in the evening, but then remembering. Because your body likes consistency, doesn't it? It likes to go to bed at the same time, wake up at the same time every day. Yeah. And it doesn't want to be disrupted. No, that's right. So I think it's about the small takeaways for everybody. And we are only human. We don't behave perfectly. People still smoke despite us knowing the dangers. And yes, figures have massively reduced of smokers, but they still do it. There are still people smoking. So yeah, we can be our own worst enemy and it's not always our fault.

51:05No, of course. What about the impact of stress? Did you do much coverage on that in terms of how just constant stress is terrible for our well-being? Yeah, absolutely. And that chronic stress can be really damaging. Acute stress that you might get from exercise, say, can actually be a good thing. There are different types of stress that exist, but that chronic stress that can lead to the onset of serious disease is, as we know, a bad thing. And I was looking at quite a bit of the tech that aims to monitor this, and it does it in different ways. There was one Fitbit that was testing for dampness on the skin.

51:38There's some that look at heart rate variability. How accurate do you think that is, the stress function on the Fitbits and things? Yeah, it's actually very hard for me to do one of my non-scientific experiments on this. Because I have my various methods of testing things, but they're all doing it in different ways, which made it quite hard. But something that was interesting was a Canadian company called Eli Health does it with saliva tests. And what you would do in an ideal world more often, but even once or twice in a month, you would throughout a day do four saliva tests with these cheap small little tester kits and then your phone would scan it and it would build a graph of your cortisol levels throughout the day.

52:18So you should see this curve of where it goes up and down. So you can assess how your stress is doing. Now, obviously, if you did that every day, you'd have a lot more data to look at. But I guess their model caters for the fact that you want to do something that people would find acceptable and doing the tests a couple of times a month is maybe more. And then, of course, you can, in the longer term, if something like that was connecting with your activity data and your diary, you can start to recognize what the stresses in your life actually are, if you don't already know. We've also got to acknowledge that we do know quite a bit about ourselves.

52:49The devices don't have to tell us everything. Years ago, I did something that told you when to change a nappy and when to feed a baby. There is still a lot of human instinct and understanding that exists here. But I think it's interesting. People are very interested in stress and what they can do about it and assessing it. And actually being able to quantify things is quite powerful rather than just when you're ticking a smiley face or a sad face type icons. So we're definitely heading to a place where all of this will become more interesting and more useful. And we're definitely in a world of very stressed people.

53:22Oh, yeah, absolutely. Did you know the blue zones that you covered? Was there any pattern that we maybe haven't discussed yet in terms of their lifestyle choices, diet or just anything in terms of their lifestyle, that was consistent across all the different blue zones. Do you see what I mean? Yeah, I think Okinawa really, I would say, has lost its blue zone status anyway, because it now has no life experience. I thought that was like number one. I thought that was the main one. No, so people, it had been in the past, I think there'd been a post-war lack of food, which had various impacts but right now people born today there I believe have lower life expectancy than many other parts of Japan there's more processed food available there now and there's been cultural change over the years and I think for the blue zones this is something which I talk about this in the book about actually where it's going and it really shows actually how important diet is because the Sardinian blue zone are very much about Mediterranean diet being touted the thing which is a benefit there.

54:23And in Loma Linda, I think it was the combination of everything. The fact everyone was going to the gym. I loved it that the 99 year old had to finish her gym session before I got there. And there were actually lectures going on because there were quite a few communal centers there. There was where the gym was, it was a sort of community center as well. And there was the assisted living facility where I'd gone to film and there was a singing class happening there. And there was a lecture going on in the community center. and it was interesting because I wasn't filming it. I just happened to have appeared when it was happening and it was all about the importance of lifestyle and looking after yourself.

54:59So this concept is deeply embedded in their community and I have never seen so many medical facilities leading hospitals in such a small space. And I actually thought this was a bit odd initially because if this is one of the healthiest populations on earth, why on earth do they need so many hospitals? And then, of course, by cameraman I was with... Maybe that's the key then. Yeah, he said maybe that's it. They're all going for diagnosis and treatment as soon as they see any problem. Maybe this is actually preventative medicine happening. Yeah, yeah, absolutely it could be. And obviously just being conscious of their health and their well-being regularly as well by having regular meetings with the doctor and stuff like that.

55:39But yeah, so look, all the research that you've done for the book and your career over the last couple of years in the technology space, and specifically related to AI, actually, I just, there's so much AI innovation. LLMs are just becoming ridiculously sophisticated. It seems like on a daily basis that there's a new sort of function and a new use case popping up somewhere. So in terms of AI, what are you most, and generative AI and agentic AI especially, what are you most excited about as a use case? And also the flip side of that, what are you most fearful of as well in terms of the proliferation of AI technology over the next sort of five years?

56:19I think disinformation is a huge problem. We already have an issue and it's only going to be accelerated. Knowing what to trust and knowing what's real or not, and not actually losing trust and belief in what is the truth, because we've seen what's happened with conspiracy theories. And there is a lot of potential damage that can be done by the wrong information getting out. So I think that's probably in terms of concern, I would say disinformation. Do you have any view on how we can regulate AI for that type of thing then, in terms of regulation and governance? I remember talking to Stuart Russell about this, and we had a really interesting conversation about the idea that it should be illegal to actually try and replicate another specific human being, about AI output being watermarked.

57:09But of course, bad actors aren't going to want to watermark that it is AI. How we actually decipher between what's AI generated and what's human when it's becoming even better. Gone are the days of look at a photograph and, oh, it's only got three fingers. I don't think that's real. We've come a long way since then. Even video content can be really convincing. A few seconds of voice, and you can have whatever said that you would want in someone's voice. So we need to make sure AI is used as a power for good. And there are huge challenges with this. There are huge challenges as to how we make this play out safely and fairly for everybody.

57:44So I think in terms of damage, there's a lot we can worry about, but I'm going to go with just that. And what am I most excited about? For me, I've lived and breathed this whole area of healthcare and the idea that we will be able to better predict people's risk, especially within cancer, but also heart disease, type 2 diabetes, so many other conditions. that ability to be able to pull in data on lifestyle, on genetics, on disease risk, on air quality, on so many different factors from wearables, and really understand who is at risk of what, when, so we screen better and we can treat earlier and more kindly, I think is going to be one of the most important and game-changing uses of AI.

58:27Albeit it's not a large language model things so much, but AI in general. Yeah, 100%. Yeah, I think it'll save millions of lives. I honestly do just by spotting problems earlier, like in real time. Do you know what I mean? So yeah, I think that's a fantastic answer. Looking back now, I know you've got a long way to go, but looking back on your amazing career, since that young lady who was the runner on Channel 5 all years ago, looking back at that moment right now in your armchair, okay, what advice would you give to that person, knowing what you know now? What advice would you give to your 23-year-old self?

59:02It'll all be worth it. I've been very lucky because I've had a lot of good breaks along the way. I've also been absolutely relentless. I have drawers full of rejection letters from back in the days where people would send letters. And I was always at every no is one closer to a yes, and it was just keeping on going. And whether it's television, whatever line of work it is, just keep on going, keep on fighting. Yeah. You seem quite relentlessly driven. Where does that come from, Lara? Is that something that sort of runs in the family? I think I genuinely love what I do. I genuinely believe in the importance of what I'm talking about.

59:38You just wanted to do that. You knew that was the right line of work for you. Yeah, I love telling stories. I love the impact that the world around us has on us. And being able to tell stories of incredible things that are happening in people's lives. A couple of weeks ago, I filmed with a lady who had volunteered for an Alzheimer's study and through a test that was just done for that process, she found out she had three aneurysms and had to have the aneurysm treated. And I met this lady because they were using this visualization technique in VR to be able to show her exactly what was happening with her brain surgery and understand this surgery she was now choosing to have, not being aware that she even had anything wrong with her beforehand.

1:00:20And the recovery process she'd go through and it also allowed the surgeons to be able to rehearse virtually on her actual brain the day before. That, for example, such an incredible story where technology is absolutely changing the game in our understanding, our visualisation, and the fact that the surgeons could rehearse in that way. I just think these are important stories that need to be told and I'm really driven to tell them. And people are constantly coming to me with the most incredible things and I want to keep telling the stories because I think they matter. I really think they matter to all of us.

1:00:53And on top of that, it's also really fun to make telly. I don't want to take that out of the equation. Sometimes I'm playing around with smart glasses as to which ones are the best. And it's just fun and silly making telly with it. I can't believe it's a job that I've got to walk around the street looking at dogs or trying to translate a book from Spanish just to see how well the smart glasses work. So I've been very lucky to have a very fun job, but it also has an important purpose as well. Yeah, absolutely. As much as I'm busting to ask you about smart glasses, because I think that's another big one.

1:01:21But yeah, we'll have to call it a day there. I think, Lara, I love chatting to you. I'm so interested in this stuff. I could talk to you all day. It's been a fantastic conversation. Thank you so much for coming on the Tech. Pleasure. Thank you so much for having me. I always feel at the end of podcasts like I've talked too much. No, not at all. That's what the whole point is, Lara. You're just engaging. You're captivating. It feels like you've done this before. Thank you so much. Where can people find out what you're doing? Obviously, where can people find the book? And where can people reach out to you and all the cool to you over the next couple of months.

1:01:50Hacking Humanity is available in all good bookstores, that they say, which of course includes Amazon in all formats, available on Kindle, audiobook or in hardback, however you prefer to read or listen. The audible version is out now, is it? Yes, that's out now as well. Yeah. And yes, I'm always appearing on various different telly things, doing techie things. That's all across my social media. Absolutely. I noticed you're very active on LinkedIn as well recently. I think we're connected on LinkedIn. but yeah there are some really good posts yeah look again thank you so much Lara and good luck with the book and thank you for coming on the Tech Leaders podcast thank you so much and thank you for having me god that was amazing Lara is just so easy to talk to and is just like I said a ball of enthusiasm it was brilliant I really enjoyed that conversation I suppose there's so many things I could place emphasis on.

1:02:44I think the takeaway for me, the thing that I'd like to point towards is the power or this idea of the confluence of AI and wearables, the power of AI and wearables working together. So we're sort of moving beyond fitness tracking into something far more profound now, sort of truly personalized healthcare. So imagine real-time insights tailored towards your biology, your DNA data and anything else, predicting problems before they happen, essentially, okay? and helping you take control of your well-being. This is really exciting stuff. And I think this is really going to become a reality over the next couple of years.

1:03:20As Lara highlighted, this is the potential to transform health span and lifespan, giving us not just more years, but better years. And I think that's critical for everyone. And that's where technology can really make the most meaningful difference, I believe, is in this space. Thanks again to Lara. And thank you so much for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, review, and share the podcast. It really, really helps us bring you more amazing guests like Lara. Thank you so much for listening. I'll see you on the next one.

1:03:58This episode was brought to you by Be Digital. Be Digital support leadership teams to optimize cost and get more out of technology investments. BDigital and the team have unrivaled expertise with technology license management and data remediation and are therefore perfectly positioned to help prepare organizations for AI technology capability. And on the last point, BDigital have developed a cutting-edge AI readiness assessment, which provides tech leaders with a platform they need to make well-informed decisions about AI adoption strategy in 2024 and beyond. Go to Be Digital UK to find out more and get in touch.