In AI We Trust, But Should We?

That's the title of the TEDx talk which I gave earlier this year. It is live on YouTube. I hope you will like it. As a frequent reader of my newsletter, you will find many of the ideas shared there familiar. The only difference is that you can see and hear me. Maybe next time you read my posts, you will hear me between the lines.

What you won't see on that video is the process which led to the 10 minute talk.

It all started in early summer 2024, when my good friend Isabelle reached out to me and asked me if I had anything to say. She's one of the curators for TEDx Surrey, and after reading my posts for years, she thought it was time to share it with more people. It was an intense process.

First, there was an orientation session to welcome TEDx-talk-hopefuls to the project. After that, we had to submit our first draft of the talk. The organizers received over 120 submissions. From there, 25 received an invitation to an on-camera audition to read part of the script and answer questions. At the beginning of October, 12 of us learned that we made the cut and that's when the hard work started.

Each speaker was assigned a coach with whom we had a session once a week to go over the talk. Each talk, for it to be interesting, had to follow a certain format, had to have flow and its ups and downs. As you can imagine, talking about AI doesn't lend itself to many emotional sections where the audience weep with the hero of the story. Despite that, I was able to sneak in a few jokes. One was deemed too edgy. So if you are ever interested, I have an X-rated version of my talk. Or as they call it, the ‘directors cut’.

October and November was dedicated to perfecting our script and outside our weekly coaching, we had bi-weekly online sessions with the rest of the speakers and all the coaches. What did I learn during that time? Don't get emotionally attached to your script and there is always one more word you can delete. I think that by the time I finalized my script, it was half of the original write up.

Then, at the beginning of December, the script was locked down and memorization practice began. Endless hours of repeating the same content over and over. What originally felt like an interesting talk, quickly became a stream of words. As mentioned, there are few lighter moments in my talk. Try to say the same joke 100 times. No longer funny. You know that you are getting immersed in the talk when you practice the talk in your dreams.

Suddenly the distant day for talking in front of 1,000 people in the audience became more like a freight train coming with ever increasing speed.

While learning the text, we also had to focus on the delivery, and the practice sessions started moving from online to small venues. Then there was a bigger venue. Finally we had a dress rehearsal in the actual theater. That's when it dawned on me how real it was and how there was no room for errors.

Our group did one rehearsal in a senior home. I suddenly got really nervous. I was not sure how much my talk about AI would resonate with people whose interest in technology might be waning. That’s especially true when I am trying to create a framework in their minds for how long I have been working with technology. My talk starts with 'I bought my first computer 42 years ago.' I was expecting heckling like 'yes, that was the year I retired, young boy'. To my delight, even the audience from that demographic enjoyed the talk and we engaged in great conversation after.

The day of the event arrived, I went on stage, I delivered. In the end, it was that simple.

The reason why it was suddenly that simple was because of the TEDx Surrey team. There were 20 people supporting us, the speakers. I haven't seen that level of professionalism in a long time. The attention to every minute detail was amazing. Just to illustrate. Before I went on stage, I got set up with a mic, my appearance was checked several times and even my wrist watch was adjusted to sit perfectly to deliver a picture perfect talk.

Now, without further ado, here is my talk. I hope you will enjoy it. And if at the end your response is 'I haven't thought about AI this way before', my mission is accomplished.

That's my recurrent pattern.