AI's Civic Potential: Natalie Monbiot

April 24th, 2025

“We are the creators of the AI.”

We discuss what’s happening in the AI space to augment human life in this moment, and what the potential intersections are with democracy.

Natalie Monbiot is a strategist and pioneer in AI and virtual human technologies. She is the Founder of Virtual Human Economy, the co-founder of Hour One, and writes the Augmented Human blog.

Your civic action toolkit recommendations from Natalie are:

1. Use AI and lean into it

2. Explore the ways AI can empower you

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Credits:

Host: Mila Atmos 

Guest: Natalie Monbiot

Executive Producer: Mila Atmos

Producer: Zack Travis

• Transcript

  Natalie Monbiot Transcript

  Mila Atmos: [00:00:00] Thanks to Shopify for supporting Future Hindsight. Shopify is a platform designed for anyone to sell anywhere, giving entrepreneurs like myself the resources once reserved for big business. Sign up for a $1 per month trial period at shopify.com/hopeful, all lowercase. And if you want to support Future Hindsight and all the work that we do as an indie pro-democracy podcast, you can join the Civics Club on Patreon now by going to Patreon.com/futurehindsight.

  Mila Atmos: [00:00:00] Welcome to Future Hindsight, a podcast on a mission to spark civic action. I'm your host, Mila Atmos. I'm a global citizen based in New York City, and I'm deeply curious about the way our society works. So each week, I bring you conversations to cut through the confusion around today's most important civic issues and share clear, actionable ways for us to build a brighter future together. After all, democracy is not a spectator sport. Tomorrow starts right now.

  Mila Atmos: [00:01:10] We know that AI is here to stay, and we often hear how it has already been destabilizing democracy, whether that's through deepfakes of politicians or targeted messaging on social media. But I think the role of AI in our lives, and therefore for democracy, is still being decided and shaped in real time as we speak right now. And to find out what's happening in the AI space to augment human life in this moment and what the potential intersections are with democracy, we're joined by Natalie Monbiot. Natalie is a strategist and pioneer in AI and virtual human technologies. She's the founder of Virtual Human Economy as well as the co-founder of Hour One. In her roles within the AI industry, she champions virtual human development that enhances human agency and augments human potential. She also writes the "Augmented Human" blog: Finding the Human in the era of AI and Exponential Technologies. And before we start, I want to add that Zack, the show's producer, and I sat in the front row of a live conversation between Natalie and Rana El Kaliouby of the Pioneers of AI podcast at OnAir Fest a few months ago, and we were just so blown away by what we learned that we thought, we have to speak to Natalie on Future Hindsight. We just never thought about AI in the way it was discussed, and we thought it would be so helpful to think out loud together and imagine our collective future, and we're just so thrilled for this opportunity. So welcome, Natalie. Thank you for joining us.

  Natalie Monbiot: [00:02:41] Thanks so much for having me.

  Mila Atmos: [00:02:43] So I mentioned in the intro that one of the things that AI does or should do is augment human life. And I know that you argue that AI is part of human cognitive evolution. What does that mean? Tell us more.

  Natalie Monbiot: [00:02:57] Do you mind if I dive into another part of your intro to begin with?

  Mila Atmos: [00:03:00] Sure.
  Natalie Monbiot: [00:03:00] Because you talked about deepfakes. Mila Atmos: [00:03:02] Yes.

  Natalie Monbiot: [00:03:02] And this takes me back to kind of the beginning of my journey, sort of diving into AI because as you also mentioned, I was the co-founder of an early stage avatar startup called Hour One starting in 2019. And at that point, avatars, which was basically the physical or visual representation of a real human that we were able to create in video and then create video endlessly using AI instead of using cameras. Right. So the purpose of this startup was to leverage this technology in order to be able to scale video production with human beings in inverted commas inside the content. Because, you know, we all know that video is very effective form of communication, and people like talking to other people, but it's really difficult to scale video because it's very expensive. It takes a really long time. But back then, the only examples of this type of avatar was in deep fakes, and in fact, it was more kind of a concern that was happening in labs. Right? So a lot of testing and research was happening in labs where you would be able to create these deep fakes, and people were very worried about it. And just for your audience, so what is a deep fake?

  Mila Atmos: [00:04:16] Yeah. Great. Please explain.

  Natalie Monbiot: [00:04:18] So a deep fake is the non-consensual use of your likeness, which can be how you look or your voice or how you sound, and with a deep fake. Basically, people are intending to deceive people without permission using this avatar or

  this AI generated voice of this real human being. So without their permission and with the intent to deceive.

  Mila Atmos: [00:04:43] Mhm.

  Natalie Monbiot: [00:04:44] So that was the only thing that existed back then, the only kind of example of this technology, which at the time, by the way, was we were calling synthetic media. It's now called generative AI and generative media. But back then it was kind of called synthetic media. And the terminology was very loose and very early.

  Mila Atmos: [00:05:01] But I feel like synthetic is a better description than generative because generative sounds benign, whereas synthetic sounds like it's fake. Right?

  Natalie Monbiot: [00:05:10] Yes.
  Mila Atmos: [00:05:10] And talks directly to what you're saying, that it's non-consensual

  and that its purpose is to deceive.

  Natalie Monbiot: [00:05:17] That said, you could just say that the word synthetic is neutral, right? Because if it's synthetic, it depends...

  Mila Atmos: [00:05:24] It could be plastic. Plastic can be neutral, right?

  Natalie Monbiot: [00:05:26] Yes, exactly. So basically it depends on the intent behind the use of that technology, as is the case with artificial intelligence in general. You know, people talk about like is AI evil? Is AI good? It's like, AI is none of those things. It's what humans choose to do with it, right? And it's a great amplifier of whatever your intent is. And that was the same with deepfakes way back when. Obviously it's still an ongoing conversation and problem and something that we need to deal with. But back then, synthetic media, synthetic avatars, these things were possible essentially. And the only thing people could imagine doing with this technology was deceiving people. Right.

  Mila Atmos: [00:06:08] Right. Yeah. There wasn't a concept that it could be positive, right? So how did you go from there to what you're doing today, or the way that you're conceiving of AI, something that is part of human cognitive evolution? Because to me

  that was like, wait, what? That's so different from the way that we think about AI. Because we think so much--or people like me who are basically laypeople, we're not in the industry--we think about AI simply as being something that is deceiving or, you know, it isn't good for us. We don't really see what the value is.

  Natalie Monbiot: [00:06:37] I think, first of all, we all bring our biases to technologies and to lots of things in the world, okay. And so for the last six or so years that I've been in this space, it's been very interesting talking to individuals like, do you want to create an avatar based on you? Or are you a business that wants to use avatars and you get this knee jerk reaction of people that instantly want to lean into it, or people that really recoil at it. So I think there's an innate bias towards how you feel about these technologies. So I think that's just something worth noting, because I've observed that over the last six years of talking to many individuals and many businesses about the potential use of this technology. But in order to get to your question about how can AI be this kind of cognitive extension, I'm going to continue to go back to my story at the beginning of Hour One, because basically what we did was, is that we sanitized and commercialized this technology for use in constructive ways, in ways that were trustworthy, in ways that were transparent. And we built a flourishing business out of it. And the cornerstone of that business was trust. Right. You're not going to get big brands or individuals consenting to having their avatar created of them unless there's something in it for them, unless it's empowering for them in some way or other, or interesting to them in some way or other, and to businesses, they're not going to, you know, use an early stage technology company if they don't trust the technology that they're putting out there. So what was really interesting at that time was setting the guardrails and also setting up the incentives for how this company could be useful to people, or how this company could deliver a useful version of this technology to all the people kind of involved. And the people involved were real people that we created avatars based on. Okay. And so we were very explicit to these real individuals saying, "well, would you like to have an avatar created of you and you will only appear in this type of commercial content. Your your avatar will only appear in certain types of content. Or more to the point, it won't appear in any illegal illicit sexual content or political content. You will appear in educational content or lots of training programs for companies that want to use avatars and AI video, because it means that they can scale their content and make it more interesting and engaging to people. And we're going to pay you." This is one of the most exciting things to me about this whole phase of

  building this company was the fact that all of these individual avatars had a real human behind them that was being compensated in a new form of passive income that didn't exist before.

  Mila Atmos: [00:09:13] Right. So who are the people who agreed to this?

  Natalie Monbiot: [00:09:16] So these were all kinds of people. So I actually did a Ted talk last year, and I told the story of Emma, who is one of the original avatars. So she was a student, an architecture student, and she's a an Indian dancer, and she's got a few different jobs. And then she got approached about becoming an avatar, and she was like, well, why not? You know, I have a number of different gigs. I'm trying to make it work. I'm interested in this idea about, you know, AI and scaling my identity. And I trust this company. So let me try that. And then she found herself speaking languages that she didn't know. And actually being part of this body of work for Berlitz, which is one of the original language...

  Mila Atmos: [00:09:57] Language schools...

  Natalie Monbiot: [00:09:58] Yeah. So they wanted to digitize their program, and they couldn't do it by filming people because they needed to make tens of thousands of videos. And then they basically discovered us. And the fact that we could use an AI workflow and use AI instructors to be able to scale to 20,000 videos we got to with them.

  Mila Atmos: [00:10:18] Wow.

  Natalie Monbiot: [00:10:18] And this girl Emma, was actually part of that program, and she saw herself teaching German. Right. A language that she does not speak in real life. So she saw her herself speaking German. And so what was really interesting about this to me, and how this relates to your original question about how AI can actually expand or contribute to the evolution of our cognition as humans is that now Emma can speak a language that she cannot speak in real life.

  Mila Atmos: [00:10:47] Right.

  Natalie Monbiot: [00:10:47] Okay. So Emma has more agency. So if Emma wants to, she can now be a German speaker. And she doesn't need to learn the language. And she also doesn't need to be there. So what does that mean? What are the opportunities there for Emma? So, yes, now Emma can speak other languages. Right. But actually now Emma can free herself to invest time in the things that she's really passionate about.

  Mila Atmos: [00:11:12] Okay.

  Natalie Monbiot: [00:11:13] So in this little parable about Emma, if you will, she has scaled herself. She's augmented her skills and most critically freed her time to focus on what she believes truly matters. And in her story, she is very passionate about architecture, and she's very passionate about Indian dancing, and she can now offload some work to her AI twin who can teach languages on a 1-to-1 basis to students across the world who wouldn't have access to that kind of learning opportunity in terms of location and in terms of price point. And so Emma is basically empowered through AI in this, in this particular case. And I think this is just a very early example of how we can collaborate with AI in an intentional way to be more focused on what it is that we want to achieve as human beings in this world.

  Mila Atmos: [00:12:12] Hmm. Well, I've been burning to ask this question about the future of jobs, right? Because when you're somebody like me, you really don't understand when people are saying "there will be no jobs in the future." When Sam Altman says, you know, "nobody will have jobs and you're going to have universal basic income. Et cetera, et cetera." And I know, of course, that for a lot of humans, myself included, working is a type of activity that's really rewarding beyond the money. You know, it nourishes my soul. It nourishes my intellect, and I enjoy it tremendously. And so if you're having this AI twin do this other work, maybe it's actually the future of work. More like we would all have ten jobs where our AIs are doing nine of them, and we're ourselves doing one. How do you think about the future of work?

  Natalie Monbiot: [00:13:02] Yeah. So I think that some of these narratives, like the one that you just mentioned from Sam Altman about in the future, no one's going to have jobs. You're all going to be on UBI. I mean, that's just not very helpful.

  Mila Atmos: [00:13:13] No, it really isn't. And it makes you feel so dejected.

  Natalie Monbiot: [00:13:16] Absolutely. And so and I also think that AGI, artificial general intelligence, these terms and these concepts are kind of borrowed from sci fi. And sci fi stories don't often end very well. Right.

  Mila Atmos: [00:13:31] Yes. They're so sad. Yeah. So dystopian, in general.

  Natalie Monbiot: [00:13:34] Yes. And the point that you just made about you love your work. Your work is very rewarding. Okay, so let's just parse out what work is and kind of what it constitutes and different types of work.

  Mila Atmos: [00:13:46] Right. So not everybody has the same kind of work.

  Natalie Monbiot: [00:13:48] Exactly. And so I think that what will be freed to do is spend more time doing the things that are rewarding. Like what kind of work that you do is very mission led, right? You're very passionate about it. I don't think any of that's going to go away. In fact, I think there will be more time for that because you're unencumbered by work that has to be done. I think a lot of this is a continuation of this idea of productivity, and that AI is very good at taking care of a lot of things that you would ordinarily have had to do yourself. And that is really freeing. I think, all critics and commentators around AI believe that AI is going to solve for productivity. And that is a great thing. Even Geoff Hinton, who has talked about the dystopian future of AI. He admits that productivity is great. It's going to be great for the entire world if there is less human labor required to produce the same output. So in that sense, a lot of the actual time spent doing work might diminish for a lot of people in a way that in most cases is really good.

  Mila Atmos: [00:15:07] Right, right, right.

  Natalie Monbiot: [00:15:08] I think part of it is that we will increase the amount of time that we can commit to leisure, less time grinding at work. And so I think that's a really good thing. I think the leap to no one's going to have a job and everyone's just going to be, you know, on, you know, universal basic income. That is a very far stretch. And I think it's a very unhelpful vision of the future. And I think the narratives that we tell

  ourselves and the narratives that these leaders communicate, I think are very important. And I prefer the narrative of Dario Amodei, who is the founder and CEO of Anthropic, which is Claude.

  Mila Atmos: [00:15:44] Yes, yes.
  Natalie Monbiot: [00:15:44] And they make Claude. Mila Atmos: [00:15:45] And we love Claude.

  Natalie Monbiot: [00:15:46] We love Claude; Claude just had this really nice personality and all of that. And you can kind of you just feel there's a sort of benevolence to Claude, and, you know, that kind of goes back to its, to its makers and the original philosophies and kind of what the vision is behind each of these large language model makers. But I prefer his terminology around powerful AI, which is more of a neutral term. Right. Again, so like "powerful AI." okay. So there's hope in there. There's potential there. Right. And also it implies the misuse of that would be quite dangerous. So I prefer that as a term because it's more neutral. But it does help to paint a vision of where we might be going and what we might be dealing with.

  Mila Atmos: [00:16:30] You know, we just mentioned I love Claude. We started using Claude, in part because I have heard from multiple people who use Claude at work, and their financiers. They work for finance companies. And one of them told me this long story about how it basically gets him ready for his annual meetings. It compiles all of the financial reporting, puts it into a nice presentation, can even put it into a podcast form so that if somebody is not attending the conference, the year end conference, you can just send this out and somebody can listen to it. And I thought to myself, wow, this is really amazing because it removes all of the grunt work of putting all the work together and then putting it in a coherent form that you can present, right? But having experimented with it a little bit and like I said, we love it. It still doesn't replace some things like reading a book. So if I say to Claude, oh, you know, I read this book, blah blah blah, what are some good questions? Sometimes I think, okay, those are not the questions, but some of them are good. You know, maybe there are 1 or 2 questions out of, let's say, 20 that I really like that I hadn't thought of. But one of the questions I had there was, well, if we're thinking about AI helping us, freeing us from sort of like the grunt work and making room

  for more human ingenuity, how do we foster this kind of habit? You know, because I think one of the things that people are still doing right now is just doing the bare minimum, in a way, with AI, so that they're not seeing where they have room to be, for lack of better expression, a higher version of themselves.

  Natalie Monbiot: [00:18:02] Yeah. So I would say that the example of the executive and how he's using AI to basically deliver more. Right. He's using it in a productivity sense. He's doing the thinking himself. He's doing the work. But then it's like, how do you prepare materials for these different audiences? How do you get that out there? I think that's a very common way and a very effective way that you can be using and collaborating with AI today. And I think the example that you just gave of, you know, Claude came up with some good questions, not all the questions. You still have to read the book because that's your point of view, right? So my instinct in this day and age is to basically double down on myself. Like what I think. Okay. And that's why I've started writing over the last six months consistently, because I think it's really important to feel and know what it is that you think about what's going on, because there's a couple of reasons for that. First of all, this is an existential moment in time, right? AI is so powerful or is becoming so powerful that where do human beings sit in this hierarchy with AI? And so I think it is a time to be really reflective of that. And then it's like, okay, so how can I help you be more productive? So I am able to write regularly because of AI. It can help me with my editing process. It helps me get something out of the door faster. And for me, through writing, I've actually connected with a number of people that have been quite life changing for me in terms of my own intellectual journey and my own sort of sense of what's important. So writing has helped me, you know, along my own journey, and I has helped me write more and be a little bit more prolific.

  Mila Atmos: [00:19:49] How does AI help you write more? Natalie Monbiot: [00:19:51] So I use it in my writing process. Mila Atmos: [00:19:54] Okay.

  Natalie Monbiot: [00:19:54] Like still figuring out the best way to do it, because it can be extremely frustrating because what AI won't do is come up with new ideas for you. Only you can come up with new ideas. Only you can come up with the insight. So what I

  do is, I sort of focus on, well, what do I really think from all the real life conversations I've had with people, the things that I have actually read, not the AI? What is something that is a burning insight that I feel? And then I will brainstorm that with Claude or ChatGPT, and I will try to kind of get to something, get to a draft. And actually often it is showing me things that I find very frustrating because it's missing the point, because it doesn't know that point yet. And actually that's a good sign because because it's not something that's just out there. It's not something that is just being repeated. It's not something that has already been learnt based on all the information that's on the internet, which is what ChatGPT and Claude are mirroring.

  Mila Atmos: [00:20:50] Right.
  Natalie Monbiot: [00:20:50] Okay. So it's a it's a bit of a frustrating process because it

  doesn't get what I'm saying, but it's a good sparring partner for getting there. Mila Atmos: [00:21:00] Right, right.

  Natalie Monbiot: [00:21:01] Okay. So you know how you might have a a trusted friend who you would have.

  Mila Atmos: [00:21:06] Read, read.

  Natalie Monbiot: [00:21:08] Read and edit your draft. Right. And then you're like.

  Mila Atmos: [00:21:10] Which is such an imposition.

  Natalie Monbiot: [00:21:11] I know. Such an imposition. It's like, you know, you've only got a few of those favors.

  Mila Atmos: [00:21:14] Can you do it by tomorrow?

  Natalie Monbiot: [00:21:16] Exactly. And so I would say that Claude or ChatGPT are maybe sort of 50% of what that friend could respond with. Right. But it's always on. It's always on. And it means you don't have to bother them. Or maybe you want them to look at the final draft, but you want to get it into a place that you're pretty happy with. So

  it's good that way. And I find that it helps to refine what I really mean. Right. Because often what it says is something that I don't mean, and it's like missing the point. And so okay, so I know I started off by saying that it helps me write more. I don't think it actually helps me produce things more quickly. Right. But it makes me produce things because it's a very active and collaborative process. So I'll still spend hours on it like an embarrassing amount of time writing something.

  Mila Atmos: [00:22:04] Writing takes a long time!

  Natalie Monbiot: [00:22:05] It takes a really long time. I think it's just the nature of how I'm spending that time is different, and I'm actually doing it more because it's a more active, collaborative, or maybe sometimes I'd say combative process. And that is more energizing than kind of sitting there in a lonely room with a piece of paper. So I'd say that that is how it has been helpful. And for that reason, I'm more productive.

  Mila Atmos: [00:22:27] Right, right. Well, thanks for explaining it in this way. I think that is really helpful.

  Mila Atmos: [00:22:37] We'll be right back with Natalie, so stick around. You'll love this episode's civic spark. One small step we can all take to be more empowered and ignite collective change. But first, if you've ever run a business, you probably know very well that you can't do it alone. And if you haven't run a business before, I'm sure that still comes as no surprise. So when you think about the most successful brands out there, the ones you see everywhere, the ones with sales through the roof like Rare Beauty or Thrive Cosmetics. Sure, I know you think about a great product and a cool brand with brilliant marketing, but you just can't overlook the businesses behind the business. The secret ingredient that makes selling--and for shoppers buying--simple. For millions of businesses, that business behind them is Shopify. Do you want to know why nobody does selling better than Shopify? Well, for one, Shopify is home to the number one checkout on the planet, and we can't forget about the not-so-secret secret, Shop Pay, that boosts conversions up to 50%, meaning way fewer carts going abandoned and way more sales going cha-Ching. So if you're into growing your business, then your commerce platform better be ready to sell wherever your customers are scrolling or strolling on the web, in your store, in their feed, and everywhere in between. And that's why businesses that sell more sell on Shopify. Let me say that again. Businesses that

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  Mila Atmos: [00:24:46] We also want to share about a podcast called What Could Go Right? If you're feeling overwhelmed by the news cycle, you're not alone. Which is exactly why I want to recommend What Could Go Right. It's a podcast that looks beyond the headlines to uncover the progress happening in the world, even in difficult times. It's hosted by Progress Network founder Zachary Karabell and executive director Emma Varvaloucas, and each week they sit down with experts to discuss today's biggest challenges without ignoring the hard stuff. They bring nuance, insight, and a forward-looking perspective to help make sense of the current moment. They discuss everything from climate change to democracy to the economy, and this season they're joined by voices like best selling author John Green and acclaimed journalist Noah Smith, and many more. Plus, every Friday, they share the Progress Report, an episode that delivers key news and insights from around the world. Fight the urge to doomscroll, tune in to What Could Go Right wherever you get your podcasts. And now let's return to my conversation with Natalie Monbiot.

  Mila Atmos: [00:25:59] So I have read a lot of your writing on your blog and also for other publications. And you actually explicitly tackled the question of how humans are different than AI, which I haven't seen before. I would argue that most people don't think about this question very deeply, if at all, and I would just say that what we talked about earlier, that most people think that AI is going to take over humans one day. So what makes humans different from AI? Because I think this is something that people need to hear.

  Natalie Monbiot: [00:26:28] Mhm. So a few months ago I was just really wrestling with this question myself because I was so perplexed by this narrative of AI is going to take over. No one's going to have jobs. You know, my interpretation of that is like, well, like lemmings, you know, we're running off the cliff and we are sort of doing it blindly and mindlessly. It's like, wait a minute, we're the creators of the AI, right? So first of all. And also, AI is intelligent in one sense, but what is human intelligence? How is human

  intelligence different? I think we say that AI is blowing past humans at a PhD level, and oh my goodness, if AI can be smarter than a human with a PhD, then where does that leave humans? Why get a PhD? And where does that leave humans? Right. And so that led me to reflect on what human beings actually are from a cognitive standpoint. And we are not just these computational intelligence which AI is. And that led me to some theories in cognitive science and the four Es of cognitive science. And the main one being that we are Embodied creatures, right. So we are Embodied creatures in the world. And we see, we feel ,we have intuition. And these are things that are distinctly human and are very different from AI. But how can we collaborate with AI? Where does AI sort of fit within human cognition? And that led me to some reading around which part of a human being? Which part of our cognition actually creates technology? Right. So human beings kind of evolved with technology, whether it was fire or spears or language. Language is a technology that human beings created and then language influenced the evolution of human beings. So before language existed, human beings didn't have the ability to self-reflect. So we were just more brutish. Until we were able to self-reflect and we were able to sort of establish morality. Right. And so that's an example of how a technology that humans create can then influence how a human evolves. And language also evolved. So we can trace this back to ancient Greece and the existence of vowels. Okay, so in ancient Greece, vowels were introduced to language, and vowels enabled language to spread far and wide, and the introduction of vowels into language can actually be traced to the birth of democracy.

  Mila Atmos: [00:29:25] Right!

  Natalie Monbiot: [00:29:26] Which is very pertinent to this podcast. So you can see how technologies that we create can influence our actual genetic makeup and how humans actually evolve into the next version of human beings, and how we can create new versions of civilization through the technologies that we create that influence us. And then we put back out into the world to create a new environment and a new way of living for ourselves.

  Mila Atmos: [00:29:52] Hmm. That's really interesting. So, well, I wonder, you know, one of the things I've done in my past is work for Sesame Workshop. And so at Sesame Workshop, everybody believes that every child has a full human potential. And how do we get there? And Sesame Workshop would say it's through early childhood education,

  through high quality education throughout their lives just to get your brain to its maximum capacity essentially, which is not to mention also, of course, having, you know, a moral makeup and how to behave in society. Et cetera. Et cetera. But one of the questions I have when I was reading your work was, maybe this is the opportunity in a way that we had never thought of before, to actually reach our full maximum capacity in our brains and achieve our full potential. And I wonder if that's the case, if it will make humans more wise, or have better judgment, or behave differently within a society and within a democracy. What are your thoughts there?

  Natalie Monbiot: [00:30:57] Yeah, I mean, one of my favorite areas right now is around AI and education and the role that AI should have in education. And I think we are at a very critical moment. Again, so AI is powerful, right? And so how do we wield that power? How do we point it in the right direction? And I think education is just such a great example of how it can go right and how it can go wrong. So I really want to dig into how it can go right. But first of all, how it can go wrong.

  Mila Atmos: [00:31:26] Perfect. Let's do that. Let's do what can go wrong first.

  Natalie Monbiot: [00:31:29] What can go wrong? So just briefly, there are studies out already that show that overreliance on AI, these large language models that we've talked about, like ChatGPT and Claude, can basically diminish our ability to think. It actually makes us dumber because we're outsourcing the entire kind of cognitive workload to the AI, which is extremely tempting, right? But if we do that too much, then we actually lose our ability to think and process well. And so of course, you know, when kids are at school, clearly we don't want that to be happening, right? Right. Like when there's supposed to be developing and fulfilling, you know, setting the foundations for fulfilling their potential. This would be the worst time to outsource the cognitive work to a large language model. And an issue here is just the schooling system itself, which is test based, oriented. And a lot of people call these large language models like answer engines, you know, as opposed to a search engine like Google. They actually give you the answer, right? So in a test based environment and a test based system. Well, it's very tempting to go to a large language model and get the answer and completely bypass the learning process. So I think that is a little worrisome. And the system itself, again, it's not the AI's fault. It's sort of our system that we have created that makes students vulnerable to AI. But where if we do it right, you know, how can AI be used in

  order to help every individual fulfill their potential, right? And there are some great examples already out there in the market. So there's a school called Alpha School that basically condenses the school day in terms of its curriculum into two hours spent with a personalized AI tutor, okay, that meets each student on their level. A study showed that they get everybody, I believe it is into the 97th percentile. Every child in the class gets to the 97th percentile because they're using AI in order to meet them where they are and help them progress at the right pace and in a way that is transparent, where the child can actually see how they're doing. So the child also takes some ownership over their learning journey and learning that would be extended over, let's say, six hours in a day is now compressed into two hours, and students perform between 2 and 5 times better in that compressed amount of time. Right. So talk about radical efficiency. But then the rest of the day is spent honing life skills.

  Mila Atmos: [00:34:07] I see.
  Natalie Monbiot: [00:34:07] And creative skills.
  Mila Atmos: [00:34:09] So then you're in community with the other students.

  Natalie Monbiot: [00:34:11] In community with the other students, in community with your teachers, teachers who are there to inspire you and guide you on your journey of self discovery, the things that you're passionate about, and then also building confidence towards the fact that you actually have human agency, that you can choose to create something and then actually do it. And so in a world where we don't really know what jobs will be like, let's put it that way, having human agency and teaching human agency and teaching self-confidence and the self-discipline to actually deliver on something on a project that is based on your passions. I think that's an incredibly important skill to learn. And they're often called like, soft skills, right?

  Mila Atmos: [00:34:57] Yes. But you're only going to learn them human to human in real life. Yes. In your embodied. In your embodied state.

  Natalie Monbiot: [00:35:04] Exactly. So, yeah. So how do we kind of get out of the way, the kind of cognitive stuff that we just need to learn, the academics, just make sure those are done and saw, as far as possible, use AI to its advantage in order to

  personalize, get you there, give you the self confidence, give you the self empowerment to know your progress and feel proud of that progress, and then spend the rest of your time honing your passions, your vision, your ambitions. And I do think that work is going to become more entrepreneurial, right? And so I don't think we're going to have these giant companies with thousands of employees. I think that there will be fewer employees and companies, and there will be more people doing their own thing, assisted by AI. So there will be a lot more solopreneurs. I would cast myself as a solopreneur. I work for myself. It's just me and I collaborate with all kinds of people and I collaborate with.

  Mila Atmos: [00:36:03] Do you have an avatar that works for you?
  Natalie Monbiot: [00:36:04] I have, actually. So yeah, I actually have a version of an

  avatar. I have an AI twin that works for me. Mila Atmos: [00:36:10] Okay.

  Natalie Monbiot: [00:36:10] So well, first of all, collaborating with AI and having an AI know you, right? Remember stuff that you've written. Remember your point of view, that in a way is already an AI twin.

  Mila Atmos: [00:36:23] Right.

  Natalie Monbiot: [00:36:24] Like you're creating these digital brains that reflect you, that can be very helpful to you, that can help you get prepared for something much more quickly that can help resurface information that you know. You know something. But it's been a while since you connected with that information. How do I surface that? I remind me of my thoughts on this, or remind me what I've written about this, and it can surface that stuff for you much more quickly. So I think many people, even listening, are probably doing some kind of version of that. But what we're seeing is companies, one of them is called Wisely. It's a startup that I advise, and they've actually built a product to help people because not everyone wants to kind of hack their own version of Claude or ChatGPT and store all their training data in a folder and then drag and drop that, you know? So anyway. That's sort of hacking your way through. And I'm leaning into AI. I've been working in it for a long time, so it's relatively easy for me, but for others, they want

  to take advantage of the supposed promise of AI, but they don't necessarily know how to do that and how it can be made useful to them. So I think what we're going to see is a number of companies emerging from a product perspective. They provide what that group of people actually needs to do their job better, or to be able to do something that would have required five people but can now just require you, plus your AI enabled self. So the startup's called Wisely and they serve consultants and experts. So people that have a lot of knowledge, who have a lot of data and who trade on that knowledge and expertise. So it provides the ability to upload all of your data. And on the front end, it's an AI twin that others can communicate with. And in this case, it's not a physical avatar. It's your voice. Right? There's many different versions of like ways that you can clone yourself, okay? You can clone how you look, you can clone how you sound, you can clone how you think. So those things are all possible. But how do you then generate value by doing that? And sometimes it's a case of the packaging. Right. So how do I actually make money out of my AI twin? So Wisely has built a platform where customers, people who want the expertise of this person, can actually access that expertise without having to book time and pay for time with that expert. They can introduce themselves to that expert first, maybe for a free conversation, and then they can also pay for that conversation, which would be cheaper than speaking to the real expert. Meanwhile, the expert has more lines of income through AI and people being able to engage with them through their AI twin. Right? So it's a way it's going back to Emma in a way, right?

  Mila Atmos: [00:39:14] Yes. Yes.

  Natalie Monbiot: [00:39:14] So Emma is able to scale herself. She's able to manage her portfolio. And by the way, this is where the human ingenuity comes in, right? Just because you can scale yourself doesn't mean that, you know you're going to make any more money or be any happier. You've got to think I have these tools at my disposal. What does that mean now for how I can spend my time? Or how do I use these tools in a really smart way? Or what does it now free me to do? What or what data do I now have at my fingertips? Because my AI twin is talking to 50 people at the same time. And I have a transcript of all those conversations. And I actually have intelligence on how valuable each of those conversations were.

  Mila Atmos: [00:39:53] Hmm.

  Natalie Monbiot: [00:39:54] Maybe I can create a new product based on these insights. What people really want is this. And you can go and make that or wait a minute, a book really needs to be written about this, right?

  Mila Atmos: [00:40:04] Right. Yeah.

  Natalie Monbiot: [00:40:05] There's a huge gap here. Or I need to go and collaborate with that professor to create something new, because I've got this insight that I wouldn't have had before. So I think the human ingenuity side of things is because AI exists not just to kind of take things off your plate, but it gives you feedback and you don't know what sorts of insights or connections, human connections it's going to make for you more human connections, potentially, than you're able to generate on your own. Like, we need to rest, right? And to foster our own human ingenuity, we need to just have free time. Yes. We need to let things percolate. And so what are some efficient ways or new ways that we can generate that insight that feeds into that self-reflection or into that reflection and to help you come up with new ideas.

  Mila Atmos: [00:40:59] Mhm. Well, you know, one of the things that I've discovered in eight years of doing this podcast is that it's not so much that people are not democracy- minded, it's that people are just so pressed for time and bandwidth in their brains, in their lives. So many people have multiple jobs, or if they don't have multiple jobs, they have... I mean, it's a multiple job to go to work and also have a family at home, right? To clean your house, to feed your children, to make sure they're doing their homework, etc., etc. all those things require so much of you. And one of the things from from what you were saying here, between the education, the way that we might have a different kind of school in the future, and in some places we already have at the Alpha school, and making our work more efficient and more productive for us, so that we don't have to do the grunt work for so many hours in the day. Let's say if you have that kind of job, I wonder if it actually frees our souls to be more interested in buying into community. And of course, we know that AI is neutral, and if we want it to, have an AI that really helps humans espouse human values, espouse values that help us evolve and not regress. You know, to your point earlier that we might actually become dumber and maybe less interested in each other. I wonder how you would do that. Can you program the AI? Can

  you input in a way--you know, people love to say garbage in, garbage out--but how can you input good things so that you also have good output?

  Natalie Monbiot: [00:42:34] Yeah, I want to also just go back to your point about bandwidth, because I think that goes back to this thing. You know, Sam Altman, no one's going to have jobs in the future. I think that's just the narrative that I don't think definitely doesn't work for me, and I think probably doesn't work for a lot of people that aren't into, you know, sci fi, basically. So just think about that from a bandwidth standpoint. You have more bandwidth, right?

  Mila Atmos: [00:42:54] Right. Yeah.

  Natalie Monbiot: [00:42:55] So who doesn't want that?

  Mila Atmos: [00:42:58] Yeah, everybody wants that.

  Natalie Monbiot: [00:42:59] Exactly. And who doesn't feel overstretched.

  Mila Atmos: [00:43:01] Everybody does.

  Natalie Monbiot: [00:43:02] Right. So I think, you know, between now and maybe there being no jobs, people are going to have more bandwidth.

  Mila Atmos: [00:43:07] We will have... We will always have jobs. First of all, I'm always going to need the person to cut my hair. AI is not going to do that, you know.

  Natalie Monbiot: [00:43:14] So yeah. And also to your point about, you know, if you have a family, you have a job that pays and then you have a family. That is two jobs.

  Mila Atmos: [00:43:21] Yes.

  Natalie Monbiot: [00:43:22] And I had a really interesting insight the other day at a conference because it's like, okay, so what are these new jobs? So a lot of economists are very negative or very down on the future of work, because you can only just see the jobs that are going to be replaced, or at least the tasks within jobs that are going to be

  replaced. It's very hard to imagine the new jobs that are going to exist, right? And how that's even going to play out. And I think that is just like a feature of our human brains, that it's just very difficult to predict that. So it would have been very difficult to predict ride sharing Uber and the like right before mobile. Yeah, but it's also a bit of a cop out to say, oh, there's two sides to that. We're overly negative sometimes when we think about this idea that there aren't going to be any jobs, because it's only possible to think about the ones that are going to disappear and not really know what the ones are going to exist.

  Natalie Monbiot: [00:44:11] It's equally a bit of a cop out to say, we just can't imagine it yet. So I think it is on us to imagine these things, and it's on us to study these things. I don't think there's ever been a very good answer. And people said, oh, prompt engineering, that's going to be a new job. And that was very sort of short lived because AI doesn't need prompt engineers. That's people who are professionals at asking AI the right questions, because AI got so good. Yes, AI got so good, you don't need to be a good prompt engineer. So that is again, you know, people be like, oh, we said that there would be new jobs and then that new job has already gone away. Okay. So there'll be some of that. Okay. But then someone said something that was really interesting. And I'm a mom of two toddlers and yeah, your day is like, it's work and then you've got your other job, which I love both my jobs, by the way, but nevertheless, it is taxing. And that other job doesn't pay.

  Mila Atmos: [00:45:04] Yes... Nobody talks about that. Why don't we get paid for being mothers, right? You know. Inquiring minds want to know!

  Natalie Monbiot: [00:45:11] Yes. But this insight that I had from this talk was there is a lot of unpaid work that goes on. Okay. So imagine AI enabling some sort of transportation. Okay. So of the millions of tasks that a parent has to do for their child, one of them might be taking them to school and that might be a joy. You might never want to give that up. Or maybe, maybe it would be quite helpful not to have to do that. So imagine a self-driving AI enabled vehicle, right? Assume it's very safe and all of these things have been tested. That could take your child to school and give you that time back. Okay. And how is that good for the economy? That's good for the economy, because that time and that task was not paid for by anybody. There were no economics around that other than a drain on the workforce, because that time could have been

  spent towards generating income or contributing to the economy. Right. So if there is this robotaxi or whatever form factor this thing is that could take your, zip your child to school. Your time is freed as a parent. And there is a business that created this service. So now that task has been monetized. Do you see what I mean?

  Mila Atmos: [00:46:25] Yeah.

  Natalie Monbiot: [00:46:25] It's like a whole new genre of company category that others can get involved in that kind of thing. So that for me was like, okay, so I can see how new inventions will be possible thanks to AI and other exponential technologies that can take care of things in society to create more bandwidth for ourselves, to reinvest that time more meaningfully in whatever way you count as meaningful, and creates sort of new businesses that generate money for individuals and for the economy.

  Mila Atmos: [00:46:58] Hmm. Well, you know, alternatively, what you could also do is walk your child to school and your AI is going to do the grunt work that you would otherwise spend doing. To your point earlier, of the 15% more productivity. So every week on Future Hindsight, I ask my guest to share a civic spark. One small step we can all take to be more empowered and ignite collective change. And this is normally a way for our listeners to take action after the episode. And in this case, maybe it's reading up on AI or the future of AI. And maybe if you've seen something interesting on AI and the intersection of democracy, the way that we can increase bandwidth so that we can be more political beings, because I think at the end of the day, if you're not involved in politics, politics is going to do you. No matter what. And I think it behooves all of us to be more engaged. So what do you recommend for people who want to be better informed?

  Natalie Monbiot: [00:47:53] So I think reading about AI is not as helpful as just playing with the tools yourself. 100%, because when you start reading about AI, you get taken down some sort of narrative, right? And you're like, oh my God, there's going to be no jobs. It's a fear of what's going to happen to me, how I'm going to be a victim of this thing. And I don't understand it. And you're basically just getting swept up in some narrative which might not even be relevant to you and just not helpful. And it's just sort of creating this kind of anxiety. So if you haven't already or if you have, but you haven't

  done a lot of it, I would just start using these tools for yourself. If you're walking around with your phone or if you're sitting in front of your computer, probably I can be helpful to you in some way. And so I would just ask yourself that question proactively. Could AI be helpful in this sort of way? I mean, I've got one of the latest iPhones, and if you do, you can program a magic button. I have ChatGPT on my magic button, and if I'm walking down the street instead of searching on Google or whatever it is, I'll just start talking. I'll ask a question to ChatGPT and it will be super helpful from anything from stuff that I've written about or calls that I've had. Because I record my calls, I use a tool called Otter.ai, and Otter transcribes your calls, and I basically have a database of my calls and conversations, and I also have podcast episode transcripts. I've basically house all of my data together, and then I'm able to interrogate my data and so I can have conversations sort of with myself in a way.

  Mila Atmos: [00:49:33] Yeah, that's good advice.

  Natalie Monbiot: [00:49:34] And it's just unbelievably helpful. So I think that if you're not doing AI, you should do it. And it's incredibly easy. And I think that if you're feeling pretty negative and down on it, I think that you'll feel empowered by it. And I think that's what AI has the potential to do is to empower us as individuals. And the only way that it's going to do that is if we lean into it. And so the narrative is very important, right? So if you believe AI will empower me, it will, because you're using it. And so I think that the only danger really right now is missing the boat, missing the opportunity to be empowered by AI. And again, I don't like these threatening kind of narratives. People say AI is not going to replace you, but somebody using AI might replace you. I don't really like that kind of tone, but that one is true, Right. So, like, if you're not.

  Mila Atmos: [00:50:26] Be the person who uses AI. Natalie Monbiot: [00:50:27] Just use it.
  Mila Atmos: [00:50:28] Yeah.

  Natalie Monbiot: [00:50:28] And not from that back foot standpoint. Just be on the front foot. Like, why not just lean into it, play with it. And I really strongly believe that you'll find value in it, and it will help you and you'll see what everybody else is talking about.

  And I would ignore, or take with a massive pinch of salt, some of these, you know, dystopian AGI narratives. The great thing about AI versus other exponential technologies is it's very tangible. You can use it and you can see for yourself. So I'd encourage everybody to do that.

  Mila Atmos: [00:51:01] Good advice. Last question. Looking into the future, what makes you hopeful?

  Natalie Monbiot: [00:51:07] What makes me hopeful is how AI can be used in a way that does help us each fulfill our individual potential. And I'm excited to be diving in more in how AI is used at schools with examples like Alpha School. So I work with a technical team that actually built the AI tutor, and I want to work on more examples like that, where we can actually see the measurable impact of the positive deployment of AI and set best practices for how I should be deployed. And that is in the case of schools, to have a more personalized learning experience that gets you into the top percentiles where you might not have been otherwise. So it helps you unlock that potential, but then also frees that time the rest of the day to focus on honing your own human ingenuity.

  Mila Atmos: [00:52:00] Hear. Hear. I hope all this happens for all of us and it really increases our bandwidth, makes us wiser, and AI will truly enhance our lives. Thank you so much for joining me on Future Hindsight. It was really a pleasure to have you on the show.

  Natalie Monbiot: [00:52:12] Thanks so much for having me.

  Mila Atmos: [00:52:14] Natalie Monbiot is a strategist and pioneer in AI and virtual human technologies, the founder of Virtual Human Economy and the co-founder of Hour One. She also writes the Augmented Human blog: Finding the Human in the era of AI and Exponential Technologies. Remember, civic action doesn't have to be complicated. It's about small steps that spark progress. Like sharing this episode with a friend. Let's recap this week's Civic Spark and fire up our collective power. Play around with AI. Try it out. Don't shy away. Don't close your eyes and poke it with a stick. Learn for yourself what AI can do, not just for you, but for our communities. Be a part of the decision making process for where AI will take us in our civic journeys.

  Mila Atmos: [00:53:06] Next week we're joined by Skye Perryman. She's the president and CEO of Democracy Forward, a nonpartisan national legal organization that promotes democracy and progress through litigation regulatory engagement, policy, education and research. That's next time on Future Hindsight. Now be sure to follow us on your podcast app so you'll never miss an episode! We're here to help you stay engaged, so follow Future Hindsight now and we'll come right to you every week. And if you want to support Future Hindsight and all the work we do as an independent pro- democracy podcast, join the Civics Club on Patreon. Go to Patreon.com/futurehindsight. Thanks for tuning in and until next time, see clearly, act boldly. And spark the change you want to see. This episode was produced by Zack Travis and me.

  Democracy Group: [00:54:13] This podcast is part of the democracy Group.