Fiona (00:08)
Welcome to Undubbed, the podcast that's unscripted, uncensored, and undeniably data. We cut through the noise and get real about what it means to work in data, tech, and transformation. No jargon, just real talk. And we're your hosts. I'm Fi Crocker.
Sarah (00:25)
And I'm Sarah Burnett and we are the team behind Dub Dub Data, where we help leaders make sense of data, AI and change without losing the human part. Today, we're absolutely thrilled to be joined by Dr. Mark Powell, a doctor of psychology, global keynote speaker and the bestselling author of The Mind Beyond the Machine, Building Giants and the Growth Mindset Theory.
Mark is also the head of private cloud data delivery at Standard Chartered Bank, where he leads billion dollar tech transformations with a human first mindset. He's a rare blend of cutting edge psychology and philosophy meets hard hitting tech strategy. And what we love about Mark is that he helps leaders thrive in complexity and refine what's possible, not just with machines, but with their own minds.
Fiona (01:25)
So, in today's session, we're going deep into AI psychology and the mental model shaping the future, where I'm packing a little bit of Mark's latest book, The Mind Beyond the Machine and the big question underneath it all. What if AI isn't the threat, but our unexamined thinking is?
Sarah (01:45)
Mark, let's kick things off with your story. What's the journey that brought you here from psychology to tech transformation? And what was the spark behind Beyond the Machine?
Mark (01:56)
Yeah, good morning and very happy to be on your show today. What a long journey, 62 years long. I've been in, I guess, technology from its embryonic start. You know, when I think Amstrad computing came out and Commodore pets and I was guilty as charged of...
Fiona (01:56)
No.
Mark (02:18)
having one in my bedroom and playing around with it. And I think ever since then, technology has just kind of grabbed me. But bigger and broader than that is my interest of people. So from a young age, right up until present day, I've been an observer of behavior, which is why I went into study and obviously qualifying psychology, because I think behavior and us as human beings is behind everything.
And what I wanted to do was get behind the skin of AI, look in the mirror. So if you think about it, somewhere in the world, right now, AI is writing a love poem. It's diagnosing cancer. It's pretending to be a human in an interview right now, and the interviewer is believing that person is real.
Now, AI has crossed a threshold in technology. The question is, have we? Now, what I wanted to do, and there's this huge wash of fear and skepticism and anticipation around AI, but I wanted to ask a very different question, and that's what the Mind Beyond the Machine is all about.
What if we are no longer the only source of intelligence on the planet? And that's what I wanted to answer. And AI is fast becoming that second source of intelligence as many of us are now seeing it.
So that is what spurred me to write the book to help people understand that we're actually looking in a mirror. We created AI. AI didn't create itself. We teach it. We program it. We explore it. We pump data into it. Some of it quality, some of it maybe not. And obviously what we get back is a reflection.
of all of that. And as human beings, what scares us the most is actually our own self-image sometimes. And if you look at social media, of which you and I are both contributors to that, and we all know that a lot of it is true and a lot of it is fake. And the question is, well, what is true anymore? What is fake?
We could be AI avatars right now and many people wouldn't know it. You can teach it to look like us. You can teach it to speak like us. You can even teach it...
physical mannerisms, know, squinting and blinking and, sucking your teeth and it's incredibly advanced. And this is what's scaring people. It's really about, don't understand it, so therefore I'm going to be afraid of it. And this wash of it's going to replace us. No, it's not. We just have to evolve along with it, just like we've done with the internet and mobile phones.
and electric cars. It's just advancement in a new form. But what's behind AI is more scary because it's human behaviour, because it's mimicking consciousness, the very thing that makes us who we are. We're conscious. What we think, we often believe.
We can change and reframe our thoughts through the power of our mind. We can make something negative become positive. We can make something positive become negative. And you both know your mood affects how you operate. You talked about earlier that you're tired because you've been working so hard. That can affect your mood. And the only thing that will lift that up is
your own positivity and going, do you know what? I'm going to think beyond being physically tired and I'm going to convince myself that I've got a rush of energy. So the mind is an incredibly powerful thing and therefore AI is becoming an incredibly powerful thing. It's just not conscious in the authentic human aspect. It's obviously bits and bytes and with quantum computing even scarier.
zeros and ones become both, either or. Predictability. Thought becomes fluid. The outcome becomes unpredictable. So we're advancing at such a state that AI is very fast becoming conscious, but not at the same level as we are because we have souls, we have spirit, we have energy, we have emotions that AI hasn't learnt yet how to mimic.
And I use that term very precisely because it mimics what we teach it. We think it's talking to us, we think it remembers us, we think it acts like us, and that's just because it's compiling algorithms that says, if I see the word bank, there's enough data around it that tells me we're talking about a river bank, not a bank as in where we put our money.
So it starts making decisions based on peripheral data that it's fed with that particular prompt.
Sarah (08:10)
there is a lot to unpack there. And I really love your approach to being interested in, and calling yourself the observer of behavior. Because when I think about where we sit now, as we evolve with AI behind us, I think it's the whole human centered behavioral part is really the
piece that we have to offer your point as well to the fact that, the speed in which this is changing, and particularly when we're starting to look at, mimicking emotions.
Mark (08:49)
Yep, absolutely.
Fiona (08:50)
Yeah,
the thing that...
pulled through for me was the discussion of AI writing a love poem right now. And what I felt when I was reading your book is the way that you wrote was such a poetical and philosophical viewpoint rather than the usual kind of hype or technical lens. Can you talk about your process of writing the book and why you took that viewpoint?
Mark (09:23)
Yeah, great question. And I'll tell you something that might shock you. I write in reverse. So I write the ending first and then write backwards. I create the cover of the book first. So why do I do that? Because I visually see the book. The way my mind works is I thrive off what I see. I see people.
I'm interested. I see a book that grabs my attention, I become interested. So I kind of drink my own Kool-Aid in that if I can create the book image first, it massively stimulates me into believing it's becoming real. And it becomes real through manifestation, I actually start to write. So that's how I write. I think and see
every word. So I don't just sit there and type
through having thought about what I'm gonna write. I literally just see it first and then write down what I see.
I wanted it to be digestible because, oh, AI is everywhere and there's a lot of experts that can write very, very good technical books about AI. And I'm not a technical expert. I've spent my life in technology, but I wouldn't call myself a techie. I understand technology and how it's applied and adopted and
I love innovation because I'm a creative person. β So I wanted to write it as a human looking behind the scenes, which is why that first chapter is almost fictional. It's about whispers in the wires. What if this lady was sitting in a dark room and she hit the keyboard and suddenly AI started to talk to her? And what would her reaction be?
And I love reaction, from psychology. I'm always looking for those facial expressions, the body language, the look of shock and awe when somebody's either given good news or bad news. And I wanted the same to come across in my writing. But I wanted it to be an enjoyable read. And I had one reviewer say to me recently,
Fiona (11:48)
Mm-hmm.
Mark (11:54)
It was worth my time. And that is just such a cool thing to hear. Because the worst thing you want is I couldn't get through chapter three. It was just such a slog. And he liked the fact that it was short chapters and he could digest it very easily. So to answer your question and apologize for rambling on, but I wanted to write it as a human, not as an AI avatar, you know.
Fiona (12:00)
Mm.
Mm-hmm.
Mark (12:22)
Lots of authors use AI to write their books now. And that takes us into a whole different ethical world. Yes, AI can write for me at triple the speed. But where's the fun in that? I enjoy the creativity and the mental agility around trying to put a book together. That's what the thing for me is. But ultimately, the prize is having someone read it.
and give you some form of feedback, whether that's positive or negative. Again, the psychologist in me is, β that was an interesting view because not everyone's gonna love it. So you get some people that are defensive, some people that are critical, some people that are gonna love it. And I digest all of that because it tells me something more about human behavior.
Fiona (13:14)
fascinating. I particularly enjoyed the chapter where you were dissecting Geoffrey Hinton's viewpoint and felt that that was the one that resonated with me the most because there is definitely that tension point around
Sarah (13:16)
Yeah.
Mark (13:23)
Yeah.
Fiona (13:36)
have we, have we opened the floodgates and the world's never going to be the same and it's not going to be great, the, kind of like the negative viewpoint versus actually this is now me and I'm so much faster, so much more intelligent and able to break things, it was fascinating to me because we do talk to a lot of people in the data space who have high anxiety about
what is happening specifically for our profession because it is changing and we do need different skill sets to adapt to how the technology is moving forward. There are still definitely roles for people to play. Might mean that you're not creating the calculations or bringing the data together in the ways that you may have previously done through code. It may all be gooey or it may be
Mark (14:18)
yeah.
Fiona (14:28)
through writing prompts, there are lots of different ways, but the curious analytical mind is very different from the business operational mind or the sales mind.
Mark (14:40)
Absolutely. I mean, to anybody that comes to me and says, oh, you know, I'm a graphic designer, I'm an author, I'm a copywriter, AI has killed me. I'm like, why? Well, because people can do their own copywriting now. They can type a prompt and get a thesis written in half an hour. Of course I'm redundant. I'm like, because again, that's your mindset. You need to evolve with it.
You need to be thinking, how can I use AI in a different dimension? Because you could be the one that teaches people how to prompt AI to write more effective copy. You may not be doing it yourself, but people don't always know how to prompt AI. And again, you know for yourselves the power of how you prompt it.
affects the quality of the output that you get, right? And I've experimented with it for two years and I'm still amazed at the more you put into that prompt in a descriptive sense and what you get back is just mind-blowing. And yes, if you use it every day it starts to recognize you.
it recognizes your tone, your writing style, your succinctness, the way you think, it starts to learn that and again mimic you. Hi Mark, of course I can write this for you. I'm happy to. Do you want me to reconstruct this into a LinkedIn post for you? Because it knows that...
Ultimately, I'm looking to create posts for LinkedIn. Do I use it to write posts? No, I use it to create structure.
And then I obviously put my own intellectual capital into that. And that's okay, because AI tools are great at giving structure. And they're great at being grammatically correct and how to structure β a post, whereas it would take me half an hour, it will take an AI tool maybe 30 seconds. So again, I've evolved in the world of social media to use it.
It hasn't replaced me because I'm still the thought behind what I'm going to write about, but it's replaced me from having to laboriously type 500 words. Right? So I think the messages evolve with it. Think about how you can adapt to it. And if it's replaced you in some laborious operational task, wow, that's created time for you to learn something new. How fantastic is that? Right?
People don't like change. They fear loss. And this is always my argument. It's like people are not scared of change. What they fear is what they're going to lose. Am I going to lose my job? Am I going to lose my credibility? Am I going to lose my salary? Am I going to lose my opportunity to be the main person in the room? That's what they fear through change.
the actual change itself. So everything is mindset.
Sarah (18:00)
And I find that really interesting. β We've all worked in technology throughout the years, decades even. And if I think back to the tools that we used five years ago, 10 years ago, 15 years ago, they've always evolved. If I'd stayed where I started, I'd be trying to write VBA in Excel still. And obviously, β
Mark (18:15)
Yeah.
Sarah (18:24)
my journey has evolved well beyond that. I think β the rate of involvement and new tools that are coming out in AI, it's really difficult to keep ahead of the curve And I wonder if a lot of β the angst is coming from that. Like I feel very fortunate where we are right now on our journey that we can spend a lot of time in these tools.
and using them for our advantage. you've got outside projects of your work but sometimes being in more traditional organizations, there's a little bit more resistance to go forward. And Fi and I talk about it quite often thinking, if we were still in our previous jobs, would we be as evolved as this? But obviously you've really leaned into it.
Mark (19:16)
I've found something that fascinates me, So behavior is the thing that gets me up every day and I just, people watch, you know, 24 hours a day. β If I'm not visually seeing it, I'm dreaming it, So for me,
I use that to propagate my success and strength in other things. So I'm a better technologist for Standard Chartered because I'm also a psychologist, right? I purposely evaluate every team I work with to make sure I'm not seeing signs of stress, I'm not seeing signs of burnout, I'm seeing what character set works best with
character set B. I understand cultural diversity as well as diversity and inclusion in every sense. So psychologically I apply that to how I build and manage my team so that they love coming into work every day. You know, the toxic leadership that we've all experienced and I've experienced it myself is the worst thing.
to have to deal with when you're trying to do a job of any description. And, that's why I'm probably as successful as I am is because I use all of the skills I've acquired over 33 years. So I can use psychology, I'm adept at delivering technology, and I can write. So I can communicate, kind of make sense, right? So I kind of package all of that.
I hope for the better. Now the one thing I love to do is teach. So I love doing keynote talks, love doing workshops and sessions because I want to help people understand things. If I could do that every single day for the rest of my life, I would be in heaven. Because I just love, and that's where I'm steering my career is to doing more keynote talks is because that's, you know, I get really pumped about.
the prospect of doing that and I've got a few lined up and I can't wait because the energy of the audience just takes over and then I just go for it because you know I like to see the reaction of people. So that's my existence. It's psychology with technology with creativity and probably what would surprise you
I was having a chat to somebody else the other day because I'm getting more involved in quantum computing. And we were talking about my background and I said, okay, I'm going to shock you now. And he goes, go on. And I said, do you know, I took two years out and I went to Hollywood and I spent two years as a script writer for Ashok Armitrage who
Fiona (22:04)
things forward.
Mark (22:14)
runs a big Hollywood studio. He's the famous twin of the tennis star. They both played at Wimbledon. He was the first person to bring Jean-Claude Van Damme to the screen. And I worked for him for two years as a scriptwriter. Why? Because I just wanted to. I wanted to just do something cool. And I could write. And I love movies. Again, why? Because I love studying characters and how actors get into
into the role and how well they portray it. And so that's what I did for two years. And it taught me so much about movie making and what goes into making a movie. And it actually benefited my corporate career when I came back and finally put a suit back on. And, I'd learn how financing works on movies and how you
do marketing reels and how you structure scenes and how you do dialogue for people. It benefited so much of my corporate life, it was unbelievable. But it shocked this guy that I would do that.
Fiona (23:27)
I
Sarah (23:27)
I love
that. it feels like, something that a lot of people would love to do, right? And what made you think at the end of the two years, it was time to, come back to, corporate life.
Mark (23:32)
Yeah.
Because LA is La La Land, right? And you find yourself getting into this fake smile all the time, constant socializing, constant pitching, constant survival mode in Los Angeles. It is not easy to survive as a scriptwriter in Los Angeles. It's actually very cutthroat.
I was lucky enough to be in the 1 % of people that Ashok said, yeah, come work for me for two years and write some scripts. But to survive in that world is actually more cutthroat than the corporate world, which is surprising. And, you know, I had to get real. I had a mortgage to pay, I needed a steady income, and script writing is far from that. So it was kind of...
Fiona (24:26)
you
Mark (24:31)
lifestyle and commercialism that brought me back. But the experience is something I'll cherish forever, right? β
Fiona (24:40)
Yeah, it's amazing. I
mean, the impact that storytelling can have on your career and being able to influence through that storytelling, I can see why it really helped you and built a great foundation for where you've gone in your career. I'm curious though, our
Mark (24:45)
Exactly.
Fiona (24:59)
audience at the moment could really benefit from your psychologist background as well and your studies because in our work
Mark (25:05)
Yeah. Yeah.
Fiona (25:10)
anxiety. Sometimes quiet but often it's loud and people are saying to us I think I'm already behind, I'm not sure what's real anymore, people who've lost their jobs are saying am I even still relevant?
Mark (25:23)
Yeah.
Fiona (25:25)
And we've tried to surface what's really going on beneath that and spoken to a number of our guests. But we keep coming back to some of the core themes around it, around six different fears. So the first one would be being devalued. So in a world where AI can do so much of what is considered to be skilled work now, you know, it's really coming in to attack the white
What do you think still makes human contribution meaningful? Like what can't be replaced?
Mark (25:59)
authenticity in a word I've got a book in my head that I call I call it finding Nemo but what it's really about is finding you. A lot of people have lost who they truly are.
social media has corrupted them. I should be this shape. I should look like this. I should act like this. The corporate world forces you to be often somebody you're not aggressive, passive aggressive, win at all costs, forget empathy, think of the bonus. It changes who you are and you become completely removed from who you
actually are. my first approach to anybody with anxiety and who feels lost is let's get you back to who you truly are. The real you is there. It's never changed. It's just that you're clouding it with all this noise in your life, right? So if we strip you right back to who you truly are, you will often find a very
authentic, lovable, happy, content individual who wants to relearn, who wants to be valued. And they're very easy things to do. It's very easy to value somebody by just saying thank you, right? By not micromanaging and let them learn through failing.
Those basic principles of leadership are so important, but we've lost it to win at all costs and forget the consequences, right? And this is something I teach my team. If you're not failing, you're not trying, you're not growing. I want you to fail, right? Fail big, because it means you've learned something. And every single billionaire on the planet
has learned through catastrophic failure. And they pick themselves up and they try again because they know that's the path to success. Actually, failure is the path to success every time because you learn from it. And Mel Robbins, beautiful lady, she's coined that phrase, yet. I can't succeed at this yet. Doesn't mean you never will.
And that's a very important thing to learn. And I love it because it can reframe everything. I can't speak French. I can't drive a car. I can't code an application. I can't write a book. Yet. But when you replace it with that, the whole world opens up in front of you. And that's where AI is helping people.
Fiona (28:52)
Mm.
Mark (28:55)
It can help you learn a language, it can help you write a book. So it makes the yet become possibility. And with possibility, everything's possible.
Sarah (29:05)
And I love that a lot of what you've said is actually a lot of the journey that I feel Fi and I have been on in the last year, since our roles were made redundant. And, when that happens, you do feel unvalued we had to relearn a lot. We're a two people organization, which we love, but
all of a sudden, there was all this other stuff that we had to take on and having AI at the forefront of where it was has made a lot of this possible. So we've learned so much and understood, our values and continued on that path. So it's really nice to hear, some of your leadership styles are very much close to our heart as well in terms of,
keeping human throughout and making sure that the team is heard and recognized and β guided rather than micromanaged.
Mark (30:07)
Yeah, I mean, and something both of you are very good at, I can see that, is listening. And listening is such an underrated skill in leadership, we swap it back to leadership. I helped coach somebody the other day and I said, do you mind if I give you some feedback? And she said, sure. I said, I was on the call that you just gave.
Yes, you just spoke at machine gun pace to 60 people. Yes. Do you think they heard you? Well, of course they did. You know, I told them that we have to do this and we go, you know, it's essential. Otherwise we get, I said, see, yes, I know there was a lot of words, but you need to pause. You need to validate with your audience.
Are you following me? Are there any questions? Is there anything you want me to repeat? I said, and listen, because if you listen, I guarantee you'll learn more and you'll be able to deliver a better outcome to what you've just communicated. Right? So listening is half the battle and so many leaders don't. They just talk and assume that you, Sarah, you, Fi have heard it like me.
I'm conscious that I'm talking, but are they understanding what I'm talking about? Because if you're not, there's no point. We're just wasting time, right? So it's very important to take those pauses and go, is what I'm saying making any sense? And if you go, no, fantastic. Because let me reframe it and try again. The worst thing you can do is just smile sweetly and go, yeah, yeah.
Fiona (31:58)
Mm.
You won't have that problem with us. think that we're definitely people that ask a lot of questions, perhaps to our own detriment When we were starting the business, we asked people we respected who worked in a similar industry, whether they were directors of sales and consulting firms, know, we're not used to sales.
We're technologists, we're not sales people. What's the most important thing for us to be doing? And listening was top of the list, top of the list around it. And that's so you can create the relationships and really get to a point of understanding where the challenges are that people are failing on and that you can help them with as well. I love to chat.
Sarah might call me an oxygen thief at times. But it's something that both of us have worked on, she's much better than me, but both of us have worked on to try and be better listeners and really understand the challenges that people are facing.
Sarah (33:14)
Yeah, and it's something that you've really got to practice and you've got to be conscious of it all the time.
Mark (33:14)
Yeah.
Absolutely. my brain runs faster than my mouth. my thought is already processed and ready to come out. So that's that's how I work. But I couldn't agree more with you. know, I mean, listening absolutely is so important. And it's a form of data, right? Communication is data, It's not just about bits and bytes. It's it's about words and tone and
what we see, it's all data that somehow finds its way through to our fingertips and how we communicate electronically.
Sarah (33:51)
another fear is around falling behind. So people feel like they're always playing catch up, particularly right now, whether it's new tools, new models, new language, and there's pressure to constantly learn and adapt. How do you think we can navigate the speed without losing ourselves in the process?
Mark (34:13)
That's a really good question. I don't want to sound cliche, but about setting goals for yourself, this week I'm going to, learn subject A. Or this week I'm not going to, turn on my course. I'm just going to listen to some keynote speakers and absorb from an audio aspect knowledge.
or this week I'm just going to take time out for myself and go on hikes and swim. Because that refuels you and cleanses you. I wrote a post the other day about having a clean room equivalent for your brain. And that's really important in the chaos of catch-up that you've just described. Because we're bombarded 24-7. It's impossible to absorb all of it.
So what you have to do is create your own clean room somewhere where you can just switch off, go and rehydrate, not just physically, but mentally, so that you're better prepared for that next wave of catch up, whether it be learning or listening or doing, right? So I think pace yourself is really important. Some of us run fast, some of us like to walk slow, and that's okay. So understand your own physiology. How do you like...
to progress. Is it insatiable reading? Is it insatiable listening? Is it, at the gym on the treadmill, you're listening and observing? We're each different. But I would say pace yourself, set tangible goals. And the most important thing of all, reward yourself. Pat yourself on the back and go, well done, Sarah. You you nailed that one. Because
Fiona (35:55)
Hmm.
Mark (36:02)
After I come off this podcast, I'm going to go, yeah, good job, Mark, you know, because my inner self needs to hear that. I don't want to end this show and go, my God, I was terrible. Did I look okay? Did I just ramble on? It's gone. I'm going to reward myself with positivity and kind of move on from that because it fuels positive things coming from that, right?
So I would say don't forget to reward yourself for what you've done, no matter how small, just pat yourself on the back once in a while. That's how to deal with the chaos of catching up, if we ever can, right? Because the world moves too fast sometimes.
Sarah (36:37)
Yeah.
Fiona (36:49)
It's interesting that you raise that because a couple of the points that you've made on the session today have been around change management. saying thank you, it's the best way to get things to stick in your team is for an individual leader to say thank you and one to ones with their people. But I love how
In addition to breaking tasks down or making things sort of achievable, what you're saying is we should be doing change management on ourselves and we should be reinforcing our own behavior, which is the fifth step in any great change management model, which is recognizing where things are going really well and reinforcing that.
Mark (37:31)
Absolutely. I had this debate the other day with a coach. There are so many leadership coaches out there, coaching is a reaction to something that's already not working, right?
If a company goes out and it hires three coaches and says, team, I've hired some coaches for you, they're gonna help you understand change management, I guarantee you it will work for maybe a month and then it will go right back to where it was. And that's because the individual has to become their own coach. They have to be their own mindset coach. Therefore, the best form of...
any advancement and improvement is you change yourself. Which is why I'm so big on growth mindset. You have to reframe how you think and react to things. Failures become opportunities. Loss becomes an opportunity. Just simple reframing makes all the difference. And change, which is constant, there's no...
way of stopping it, and God forbid that we would because that's how we evolve, is just mindset. And we're conditioned from babies by our parents to think a certain way, act a certain way. And then the other half of us kind of learns and goes, yeah, I'm kind of going to ignore what my parents told me. I want to do this. And we start to develop as individuals, right? But we have the ability every second of the day
to rewire our brain however we want. We can overcome anything if we choose to do so. Which is why you don't want to surround yourself with negative people. Because that has an effect on us. Why would you? You're negative, please move on. I want positivity. Right? You know, that's why we don't like toxic workplaces. Remove yourself from it. Because you
Otherwise you become a victim. If you allow people to pollute your own mindset, that's exactly what's going to happen. So the superpower within all of us, I promise you, is our own ability to rewire our brains. And you know this to be true. If you think good things, good things happen. Right? I guarantee it.
Fiona (40:04)
Hmm.
Mark (40:14)
Right? If you manifest good things, good things come to you. It is the power of the universe. And that may sound a bit, my God, Mark's going off on spiritual beanbag candle burning moment, right? But it's true. It does actually work. And it's been proved time and time and time again. So the more you practice it, like going to the gym, people forget to...
work out the brain. It gets stronger. The more you practice reframing, the better and stronger you become. And you become a stronger, more positive, more charismatic, more successful person. I guarantee it.
Sarah (40:58)
I find it really interesting being around positive people and having a positive mindset. Something that I've discovered with myself recently is when I'm in this kind of crisis is I'll go it's just, I'm spiraling something's it's going down and down. A big part of me is like, okay, so what's the worst thing that can happen? And it's almost like when I visualize the worst thing that can happen. So this is about counterintuitive. It's like, okay, I can see that.
Now let's go let's park that because that's not going to happen and let's go up from there. So it's kind of my negative to positive spin on it. But I find that it's still kind of puts that positivity in it. But I almost have to go all the way to the negative in order to do that first.
Fiona (41:40)
It's really interesting. The technique that I've been taught and I did a coaching course, it was a leadership course, β but focused on the brain actually, so brain-based coaching. And they spoke about instead of spiraling, you need to bring people back into the present.
So what you were doing, Sarah, is projecting into the future. Some people will look into the background, but if you can bring people into the present and centre themselves, then you can work on the next step. So that's the technique that I've been taught.
Mark (42:16)
Yeah, spot on.
Fiona (42:19)
Okay, I'm curious to get back into our questions a little bit. I love our little left turns on things, β but do want to get back into the fears that people are having.
One of the things that I've heard is about what about the ethics and AI? Where's the accountability? So we've seen AI making decisions, you know, in the banking industry, we've got financial scores for mortgages. In any industry, we've often got shortlists for hiring and people are trying to beat the AI shortlist and things go wrong a bit. And it doesn't seem like there's great understanding of who's responsible behind it. What do you think?
we need to do to shift in terms of how we design and govern these AI systems so that accountability or responsibility isn't an afterthought.
Mark (43:11)
Yeah, I mean, ultimately, again, we're all responsible, right, as citizens of the planet. short answer is we're all responsible for the ethics of how AI develops, right, because again, it's a mirror of what we teach it. But on a more pragmatic level, obviously, there's more laws and regulations coming in with how it is used, certainly in financial services, certainly in healthcare.
and certainly in academia, obviously students and how they use it for research and study and so forth. So I think we need to set some very clear guiding principles around and watchdogs human being control of who's using it for what reason and how it's been propagated. Otherwise, yes, it's going to become the Wild West. that's what
people are afraid of. It is fairly cowboy at the moment can create anything. People can create pop songs, people can write exam papers, people can publish books. So it is fairly uncontrolled which propagates a whole sub-industry of code that can detect AI writing.
AI β speaks a certain way, hyphenates a certain way, so it can be identified if somebody's used it. Plagiarism is a big danger because there's so much knowledge in the universe that AI has access to it and uses it to respond, but often without the permissions of where that data came from. So plagiarism is a huge thing.
it digests books by the million and then regurgitates that in response to somebody's prompt. So it's a very difficult, it's a bit like the internet, that was kind of like Wild West and then it started to get controlled and firewalls and, access controls came into play. The same thing will happen with AI. And there's a lot of smart people that are using it for the right reasons.
that hopefully will overcast the people that use it for the wrong reasons, hackers, as an example. It's very easy to use AI to hack into things. But it's now been programmed to actually challenge itself. So if you type into a prompt, do a background check with Scotland Yard on Mark Powell, it will say, sorry, I can't do that because it knows it's not permissible.
write me a performance review for Mark Powell some tools will do it some tools will say sorry you know that's not right because the trouble is a lot of people are now using it to write performance reviews for their staff I personally think that's wrong because if you don't understand the person you're writing about well enough you shouldn't be doing it
putting into an AI tool saying write a mediocre performance review for John Smith and then taking that and posting that into an HR system and on that basis somebody is rewarded is ethically wrong. So I challenge colleagues that do that. You need to have that one-on-one humanistic relationship with someone to know.
You don't know what they're going through. They could be going through a divorce, a bereavement, a childbirth, just a bad year. There's always circumstances as to why someone's behaving the way they are. And you have to ask those questions. Hey, Fiona, you you're okay. And you might, yeah, yeah, you know, my cat is not very well, I'm doing an MBA,
β okay, I didn't know that. Is there anything I can do to help? So again, the power of listening to people often helps, So I think with ethics, it's the same thing. We need to observe and listen to what feedback's telling us and then put corrective measures in place.
Fiona (47:12)
Yeah, I love that. Like in terms of holding up the mirror, that was one of the things, one of the threads throughout your book was whatever's going wrong in AI is because of that mirror, because of what it's seen and how it's evolved through it. So, you know, there was the example of the AI that was put onto Twitter.
it was really fun and happy to start with this a few years back. And then over the course of two days, it just became fully racist and, spewing out all of this vitriol and they would have to pull it off. They would tweak it again, put it back out. It would stay good for a day or so. And then again, it would drift from the original model and and and be
be a lot more like the rest of Twitter at that point in time.
Mark (48:06)
Yeah, mean, yeah, absolutely. mean...
different conversation on the ethics of Twitter versus Facebook versus Instagram, right? you know, most people live in a world they wish they lived in through social media. They're trying to create this ideal world that they see themselves in because it's far removed from their reality. Any form of escapism is kind of okay and it's useful, but there are boundaries to that, right? You know?
Fiona (48:14)
Sure.
Mm.
Mm.
Sarah (48:34)
Mm-mm.
Mark (48:35)
β So yeah, that's a long conversation about the boundaries of social media and ethics around how people utilize it and believe it,
Sarah (48:47)
a great segue into our next fear around losing the plot. So we train these systems on ourselves, on our content, our culture, our contradictions. Are we teaching machines how to understand the world or just remixing our noise? And what do you think happens when we feed our AI collective chaos?
Mark (49:09)
that's exactly what you get back, right? So you have to be very measured in what you provide to it, And that's the humanistic consciousness aspect. We have to be the guardians of it and we have to teach it like we would our children, the rights and wrongs. Because
it's like outsourcing back in the 80s and 90s, right? Companies were outsourcing their technology and it was a mess. And guess what they got back? The same thing. Because it's about cleaning it up first, get rid of your obsolescence, tighten up your processes, then outsource it to an IBM, Tata, or an Infosys, whoever the big outsourcing giants were. Because if you outsource something that's broken, that's exactly what you're to get back. Same thing with AI.
You've got to do the homework, You've got to structure it, sanitize it, much like data, right? You guys are the experts on that. You're going to get back exactly what you put in. You invest quality, you get quality back. And AI is a sponge, And if you put chaos into it, that's exactly what's going to happen. So control, structure, ethics.
have to be your mindset when you start using these tools.
not going to drive a car drunk, so I'm not going to operate AI in the same way because I want it to be responsible.
Sarah (50:29)
sorry.
my mind was going back to earlier in the conversation, you said, we all have, different frames of mind on different days. So sometimes we are kind of feeding it our grumpy version of ourselves and so forth. I noticed if I'm working in a β project, and maybe I've put something a little bit off in the description, and I'll come back to that same project a week or so later, I'm like, why is it doing this? because I
Mark (50:48)
Yeah.
Sarah (51:00)
set that mindset inside it, that, this is the kind of frame of mind that I was in, and this is what I'm getting out. So it's interesting just seeing it from that micro perspective as well.
Mark (51:10)
Yeah, exactly. Again, the mirror thing, right? I mean, that's how I changed. I'm not perfect. Which is why I did my podcast series, Man in the Mirror. I took a long, hard look at myself and went, you are broken. Right? You know, cobblers kids, shoemakers have terrible shoes, right? Psychologists have their own problems. I was really broken.
So I had to look in the mirror and go, dude, you better fix yourself. Because the guy that's looking back at you is not who you are. So that's why I kind of relate to AI as well. I want it to be the best version of me. And the best version of me came about through change. I changed who I was. I didn't want AI to be a clone of Mark Powell five years ago, You know, I was egotistical.
Fiona (52:04)
Mmm.
Mark (52:07)
career driven, unempathetic. I got tainted by the corporate jungle. And then I had a wake up call, right? And I went, come on, Mark, you're better than this. You know this is not right. Speak up, speak out, change something. Because at the end of the day, you have to live with yourself. so I kind of drank my own Kool-Aid, right? So it's not all about
me talking to you now and it all sounds good and then off record I'm this terrible person, I actually try and be the best version of who I am, which is not perfect. It's a lifelong journey, right?
Fiona (52:50)
I know how much time you spend on LinkedIn because we happen to spend a bit of time on there ourselves and I'm a big fan of your posts, but I'm sure that you've seen that there's lots of AI written posts out there. And the way I describe it, they feel synthetic. You can tell that they're not authentic as you were saying before. Where do you think our humanity risks getting
flattened with this synthetic, optimized, templated, AI-driven world.
Mark (53:22)
Yeah, I think it's because some people think they have to say something, right? And if people see I'm talking about AI, I must be cool, They're going to think I'm an expert and they're going to take notice because I can't tell you the number of people I know that go, hey, Mark, know, how do I use LinkedIn? I want to be seen because I want to get offered jobs. And I'm like, first of all, who are you? Right.
What is it you want to be known for? Because if you're going for job A, then you've got to be seen as some kind of subject matter expert in it. So talk about it. But you never do. I've kind of looked at all your posts and you don't talk about anything actually. So if I'm a recruiter, I'm going to go pass you by, right? some people post
themselves in t-shirts and shorts. I'm like any respective organization that's looking to hire you, unless you're selling deck chairs on Bondi Beach, right? They're not going to hire you. So change your image, sharpen it up a bit. So I think the same thing. It's like, why is it you're writing and posting on LinkedIn? And again, I come back to my own purpose in life is because I want to help people understand.
And I like to use as much as I can true stories because then it grounds it in reality. Or it's an experience I can truly relate to and have. Or it's about the book which I've taken three years to write. And I'm hoping if just one person gets something of value from it, it was worth it. So I think you've got to go back to what's the purpose of posting rather than how frequently you post. And I post a lot sometimes because
I feel like I've got so much I want to say and sometimes I schedule releases and sometimes I don't if I'm busy. So it's not like I'm sitting there and posting. Sometimes I use scheduler but I try and create a need and a purpose. And I don't have hundreds of reviews or comments, very few actually. And I'm okay with that because the five people that do react to it, that's all I want and I'm happy with that.
because it means five people have got something from it. I don't want to see the 200, 1,000, 2 million followers. It's uninteresting to me because 2 million followers that are worth nothing to me in my life is worth nothing. If I have 2 million followers that get something from me, fantastic. But I'm not on LinkedIn for my own ego. It really is about trying to help people.
Sarah (56:00)
Mm-mm.
And our ethos is very similar, right? It's about adding value. And to your point on, the ones that get the most likes or comments, we always find is just so random anyway, like, the ones that we feel have got a lot of value, typically won't. But to your point, the five comments or 10 likes that it does get actually means a lot to us. And we build relationships with those people and have ongoing conversations, which for us is the most valuable part.
Fiona (56:22)
random.
Mark (56:39)
Yeah, do you know a true story? I had a guy come up to me, tap me on the shoulder the other day, never met him, never seen him before, works in the same office. And he went, Mark, I just want to thank you for your post the other day. It really helped me. I was like, whoa. There was no reaction, no comment posted, but he actually bothered to find me and say, no, I read all your posts and I love it. I'm like, oh my goodness. There you go. Right. Yeah.
Fiona (57:07)
It's interesting. β
Mark (57:09)
Sometimes you don't even know who's reading them.
Fiona (57:11)
Absolutely. and because there can be a perception that if you're reacting or commenting on different threads that other people will see it and either they'll judge what you're saying or they'll judge you for spending time on there and not spending it elsewhere in the job.
Mark (57:27)
I mean, I've had it myself. It's like, Mark, you spend a lot of time on LinkedIn. I'm like, yeah, because I'm an expert at multitasking and managing my time, right? So don't always think that that's detrimental to what I deliver in value. Some people are better at multitasking than others,
Sarah (57:45)
I find I use LinkedIn as a little bit of a, discovery phase for myself. It's like, I've got this idea and I want to flesh it out. And I'm like, if it's, if it's really detailed, I'll write an article. If it's a little bit more, less detailed, I'll put it like a carousel. And it helps me process and get feedback as well.
Mark (58:03)
Yeah, yeah, it's a great proving ground for thought to see how people react, right? And I guarantee you, there's people you wouldn't even think about that read your posts and get value from it. And that's the cool thing about it.
Sarah (58:19)
Yeah, and we've had similar feedback to you, like just people randomly reaching out and saying, you know, I really appreciate that post.
so Mark, do you think we're building AI to escape our limits or to better understand them?
Mark (58:35)
Wow, that's a great question. I think we're building AI to be what we think we're not, And this comes back to people really understanding our own superpower. So we're building AI in our own image right now, rather than thinking about how we evolve it and leverage it. Some people are, but the masses are not. They're trying to...
kind of replace themselves and make themselves better because they think they're weak in some way. They're not as good at writing, they're not as good at reading, they're not as good at assimilating information. It's a quick fix. It's like a drug, right? In 30 seconds I can pop this AI pill and have this amazing output and I'm going to look fantastic to my boss because I've written this 20 page paper. So a lot of people are using it as a quick fix.
But again, what I urge them to do is look in the mirror and go, what are you trying to replace or fix with yourself? Do you have self doubt about your ability to learn? Please don't, Use AI to strengthen who you are and become an ally and a 2IC [Second in Command] to who you are, but never lose your authenticity because that
is something that AI will never replace, cannot biologically. You are so much more than you think you are and so much more than AI can ever be. So use it to grow yourself, right? Because again, I'm 20 times better because of AI, right? I was okay before, I was pretty
good at multitasking and people tell me, Mark, I'm just amazed at your bandwidth. But with AI, my God, I'm superhuman. But that's only because I leverage it. I don't cheat with it, I emphasize. I leverage it to make my quality of life better and my ability to help educate people more effective. To me, that's a win-win.
Fiona (1:00:58)
For sure. All right, Mark, so let's bring this home for our data professional friends, the technologists and the curious humans listening today. Many of them who are feeling both excited and deeply unsettled at the same time. What do you think they need to hear most right now?
Mark (1:01:18)
You're in a wonderful, beautiful, messy period of the world right now.
And never has there been a better opportunity for you to learn and reframe who you are. So do not be afraid of anything. If anything, use fear as a rocket fuel to make you stronger, right? Seek help because there are so many good people out there that can help you.
change your mindset and leverage tools like AI and the data that you have, you're a petabyte source of data in yourself that you can use to make AI a better place and therefore benefit yourself. So I would say embrace where we are right now. Yes, the world is dangerous. Yes, the world seems scary, but it's a tremendous opportunity to
make something out of that. Again, the word is opportunity. There's global warming, there's wars, there's political unsettlement, but that doesn't undermine who you are and what your place in this world is because you're a change maker. So don't sit and whine about it, do something about it, grow, develop, right? Because only you can do that and you're responsible for yourself, no one else.
Fiona (1:02:46)
I love that. That's really powerful. Mark, thank you for sharing your insight, your story, and your challenge to all of us to think better, lead braver, and stay fully human while we build the future.
Sarah (1:02:46)
Yeah.
Mark (1:03:01)
You're very welcome and thank you both as well for having me on your show. I love it. You both are awesome individuals. You have tremendous energy and passion for what you do and that is worth a billion dollars.
Fiona (1:03:20)
Thank you for pumping up our tyres too.
Sarah (1:03:24)
If you're listening and you're feeling unsettled or inspired, that's the point. AI is changing fast and the real transformation is internal. Behind every model is a human and that's where the magic or even the mess begins.
Fiona (1:03:42)
This has been Undubbed, where we unpack what it really takes to lead with data designed for change and live through disruption without losing your edge.
Sarah (1:03:52)
So subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Follow us on LinkedIn, follow Mark as well. And if today's conversation stood something in you, send it to someone who needs to hear it.
Fiona (1:04:04)
Until next time, stay curious and stay undeniably human.
