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Navigating the Dual-Edged Sword of AI: Boosting Productivity While Preserving Critical Thinking
Generative AI is reshaping industries with unprecedented speed, driving productivity to new heights. However, as businesses leverage this technology to accelerate tasks and processes, there’s a looming question: Are we sacrificing our mental acuity in the process? The recent podcast episode from "Everyday AI" dives deep into this modern conundrum, offering insights crucial for business owners and decision-makers striving to find the balance between harnessing AI’s potential and maintaining cognitive sharpness.
The Productivity Boost: AI’s Role in Streamlining Tasks
Modern AI tools like OpenAI's voice models and advanced language models are transforming how businesses manage time-intensive tasks. By automating repetitive or complex procedures, businesses have reported significant time savings. For example, deploying AI in tasks such as coding, reporting, and data visualization can slash working hours into minutes, enhancing productivity by over 100%. However, as AI takes the helm in speeding up these processes, there's an emergent risk of over-reliance, potentially diminishing the skill set of professionals in these fields.
The Hidden Cost: Risk of Cognitive Decline
As the host of "Everyday AI" pointed out, while AI excels in boosting efficiency, it also poses the risk of making us "dumber" over time. The ease of completing tasks without engaging deeply with the material can lead to a decline in critical thinking and problem-solving skills. This effect was noted with aspiring coders who, relying heavily on AI-generated solutions, may overlook crucial learning experiences that come from grappling directly with these challenges.
Balancing Act: Strategies for Retaining Cognitive Edge
To prevent skills atrophy while utilizing AI, it’s vital for professionals to strategically engage with technology. The strategy involves using AI for its efficiency benefits in repetitive tasks while simultaneously setting clear boundaries on cognitive engagement. Decision-makers should encourage teams to use AI as an aid rather than a replacement. This involves actively participating in the initial stages of problem-solving and using AI as a tool for refinement and efficiency in later stages.
Practical Applications: AI as a Collaborative Partner
Leveraging AI in a way that complements rather than replaces human intelligence is crucial. By using AI tools in repetitive tasks, businesses can free up human capital for creative and strategic endeavors that require nuanced decision-making and expertise. This approach preserves critical professional skills and ensures that humans remain central to decision-making processes. AI should be seen as a collaborative partner that boosts capabilities while preserving the essential human element of business operations.
Future Outlook: Preparing for AI Integration
For business leaders, the key takeaway is clear: Successful integration of AI hinges on maintaining a balance between technological adoption and human diligence. Embracing AI requires foresight to implement training programs that increase AI literacy and ensure understanding of its limitations. By doing so, companies can build resilient teams capable of harnessing AI's full potential without diminishing the very skills that define their competitive edge.
As AI continues to evolve, businesses must navigate this dual-edged sword with caution and foresight, ensuring they leverage technology to enhance rather than hinder human capability.
Topics Covered in This Episode:
- Personal use of Generative AI and productivity vs. intelligence dichotomy
- Jordan Wilson's participation in the NVIDIA conference
- Introduction of Sameet Gupta as a guest
- Role and experience of Sameet Gupta at Notion
- The impact of AI on productivity and critical thinking
- Examples of AI tools used by Sameet Gupta
- Challenges of balancing AI use with retaining critical skills
- Potential risks and costs of over-reliance on AI
- White coding and its implications
- Recommendations and personal strategies to maintain skills alongside AI use
- The influence of AI on different age groups, particularly students
- Discussion on cost implications of using AI improperly
- Notion's capabilities in enhancing productivity and retention
- The future impact of AI on knowledge workers and the workforce
- Practical advice for business leaders on AI integration and maintaining productivity
Podcast Transcript
Jordan Wilson [00:00:17]:
I've been struggling with this one for years. There's so many instances when I want to personally use generative AI in large language models to maybe help me complete a certain task faster, maybe to go into more depth. But then I think, okay. Yes. This is gonna save me some time. It's gonna make me more productive. But am I just gonna get dumb over time? Right? The more I I blindly hand off knowledge work, to a large language model. Right? So it's it's something I'm excited to talk about today, kind of this dichotomy of, okay.
Jordan Wilson [00:00:54]:
How can we, you know, still use the best technology that I think any of us have ever seen maybe in our lifetime, yet still keep our brains sharp. Right? How can we find that balance of of being productive but not just getting dumber at the same time? This is gonna be a fun one. I can't wait. What's going on y'all? My name is Jordan Wilson, and welcome to Everyday AI. This is your daily livestream podcast and free daily newsletter, helping us all not just learn AI, but how we can leverage it to grow our companies and our careers. So it starts here with this very podcast. I'm excited for our, guest for today, but it continues in our newsletter. So if you haven't already, please make sure to go to youreverydayai.com.
Jordan Wilson [00:01:35]:
Sign up for the free daily newsletter. We're gonna be recapping, some of the most important points and takeaways from this very conversation, and laying it all out for you. Right? So you can actually take this info to grow your company and your career. Alright. So, before we get started, as a reminder, I just got back from the NVIDIA conference. We're gonna have a ton more out of GTC over the next, like, week or two. I had so many amazing interviews. You know, I can't wait to, you know, release these over the next few days.
Jordan Wilson [00:02:05]:
So just make sure to keep an eye out for those. Alright. Before we get started, I first wanna go over some of the AI news for March 21. So first, OpenAI has launched its advanced AI models, for voice. So OpenAI has introduced three new voice models, which are called GPT four o transcribed, GPT four o mini transcribe, and GPT four o mini TTS or text to speech. Yeah. Gotta love the naming. Alright.
Jordan Wilson [00:02:33]:
So these models are designed for transcription and text to speech applications and available through OpenAI's API for third party developers. So the models include some pretty nice groundbreaking features such as real time streaming, speech to text, and customizable voice presets. So users can modify accents, pitch, tone, and even emotional expressions through simple text prompts. So the new model significantly outperformed OpenAI's previous whisper model, which is one of the best models in the world, achieving a 2.4 word error rate in English compared to whisper's higher error rates. They also perform well in noisy environments across a hundred plus languages. Alright. OpenAI also launched a pretty cool, competition, which is kind of rare for them. So, we'll make sure to link to that in today's newsletter.
Jordan Wilson [00:03:25]:
Alright. Next, Gmail and Google have introduced, some actual AI powered, features for, Gmail now. So, Google has rolled out a new AI powered search feature in Gmail to display more relevant email results based on factors like recency, frequent contacts, and most clicked emails. Previously, Gmail search function only showed emails containing entered keywords in chronological order, often leading to, overwhelming and irrelevant results. So users can now toggle between most relevant and most recent search results when using this new AI feature. Yeah. I'm I'm excited to test this one out because, yeah, the old kind of Gemini for AI, it was just kind of a bad search. Right? So, hopefully, this one's better.
Jordan Wilson [00:04:11]:
You know, we'll find out. And, like, speaking of something getting better in about time, my gosh, about time, Amazon's quad finally has real time access to the web. I don't know. This is, like, to me, this is, like, you know, you've had an iPhone for ten years and it just started text messaging like today. And for it's super late on this, but, they did announce a major update to Claude enabling it to search and process information on the Internet in real time. So Claude's new web search feature is now available for paid users in The US, allowing the AI assistant to access and synthesize up to date information instead of relying solely on training data. So the feature includes direct source citations, a move designed to address concerns about misinformation and AI hallucinations while boosting user trust. So, yeah, I know I've been kind of hard on Anthropic for this very reason, but I think it, if I'm being honest, it was kind of getting almost like dangerous to to to use any large language model not connected to the Internet.
Jordan Wilson [00:05:11]:
Yes. You still have to do your due diligence to make sure these, AI, and large language models are just hallucinating information, but still. Alright. Yeah. We're gonna have a lot more on those stories and ton in our newsletter, so make sure you go to youreverydayAI.com. Alright. Let's get to it. Good to be back live.
Jordan Wilson [00:05:28]:
Good to see y'all, on the LinkedIn and and YouTube machines, big bogey face and Brian and Jay, Zach, Michelle, Jessica, everyone else. If you have any guests, questions for our guests, make sure to get them in. Michelle, Sandra, Cecilia, Jean, everyone else. What's up? Alright. I'm excited for today's guest. So, please help me welcome, to the show bringing him on. There we go. We have Sameet Gupta, who is the lead BI engineer at Notion.
Jordan Wilson [00:05:57]:
Sameet, thank you so much for joining the Everyday AI Show.
Sumit Gupta [00:06:01]:
Yeah. No. Thanks thanks a lot, Jordan, for the welcome and morning.
Jordan Wilson [00:06:04]:
Alright. I'm I'm excited for this one. Let's before we get into this topic, which I'm gonna try hard to shut up and let you talk a lot because I've got a lot of feelings on this one, Sumeet. But can you first tell us a little bit, about, you know, what you do in your role at Notion? I'm sure most people know Notion, but maybe just, you know, for those that don't as well, maybe if you could describe that as well.
Sumit Gupta [00:06:26]:
Yeah. Sounds good. So I I lead the BI engineering at Notion. I support sales and marketing team, here. If you've never heard of Notion, so Forbes like to call Notion as AI everything app. You can think of Notion as a blank canvas, and you can do pretty much everything. You can you can do notes. You can do database automation.
Sumit Gupta [00:06:46]:
You can, you know, create, your own Gantt chart and project management. Notion can pretty much do everything nowadays. Right? And I I come from a place in India. I was born in Bombay. I've been in US for ten years and, you know, and have been using AI, like, in professional life for, like, a couple of years now. And I'm pretty excited to talk about the topic. I'm I'm actually, like as much as I'm excited, I'm also, like it's it's a topic which is very close to me, and I think it's it's the same with you also. So, let's let's let's get going.
Jordan Wilson [00:07:18]:
Alright. Let's let's get to it. Is using AI making us dumb?
Sumit Gupta [00:07:27]:
Yes. And the short answer is yes, but, allow me couple of minutes to explain that part. Right? In my role, right, at Notion, I day in day out, my job is to write SQL query, SQL query. My job is to create dashboards and reports in Tableau. And, you know, before AI like, let's say, if I if I wanted to create a Tableau report, it would take me three to four weeks. Right? Generally, there's a lot of, two and four involved with stakeholders, and I would go and write a lot of calculated fields. I'll write I'll do a lot of drawings. I'll I'll I'll I'll iterate over charts.
Sumit Gupta [00:08:02]:
Right? But nowadays, whenever I get a request from my stakeholders, I'm like, okay. I strategize of how the dashboard might look like, what do I need, what calculate will I need, and then I I feed that data into AI. Right? I you wouldn't believe I have premium subscription of pretty much anything every AI that you can imagine. GPG, Publicity, Cloud, like, you know, all the AIs have their own, strengths. Right? So, in my case, I would go to, let's say, Cloud and be like, you know what? Create a calculated field for financial, financial year, right, and comparing financial year metrics. And Claude will split out a 200 old calculated field. Right? If I was to do that previously, right, if I was to do that, it would take me at least four to five hours to even, you know, get it get it right. With Cloud, I it does not even take four to five minutes.
Sumit Gupta [00:08:52]:
It probably takes, like, less than a minute. Right? So it makes me productive, %. Like, you know, instead of spending two two days writing calibrated field, I'm I'm finalizing my calculated fields and, you know, my metrics in, like, two hours. Right? But the counter side counter of that is, it's it it's it's made me lazy. Let's put it that way. Right? And when you're lazy, you're not you're not thinking really hard. And when you're when you're not thinking hard, you're dumber. Right?
Jordan Wilson [00:09:24]:
It's it's so true. Right? And, you you know, I'm curious, you know, Sameet, through, through your personal experience because I, you you know, I remember the early days, you know, back in, like, 2020 right before chat g p t came out. There's all these, you know, essentially writing tools. Right?
Sumit Gupta [00:09:39]:
And I
Jordan Wilson [00:09:40]:
was a journalist, and so I was using this technology early on and I'm like, okay. This is good. And then it started to get to a certain point for me even before chat GBT came out that I'm like, wait. I'm starting to turn off my brain in some instances. Right? And, you know, you have to start keeping that in check. You know, I'm curious. What was the point for you? Right? When when maybe the the the power of of certain LLMs started to, you know, really get really good and you're like, wait. Do I have to, like, sit back and and look at how I'm using these? Like like, did you have a certain point where you were like, woah.
Jordan Wilson [00:10:14]:
I, like, I have to make sure I'm still using my brain.
Sumit Gupta [00:10:17]:
Yeah. Yeah. I remember the time that you're talking about because I think before GPD came out, they were like, article rewrite the services. Right? Like, CopyAI and, those those kind of companies, WordAI, etcetera. And those were great. But GPT came along and then you're like, wait a minute. Is is this real? Right? And as soon as, like, specific instance of when I felt, this is, like, you know, life changing. Right? When I was at Snowflake, I was tasked to build, like, a Streamlit report.
Sumit Gupta [00:10:48]:
And then I'm not a Python wizard. Right? So I started using GPT to, like, debug my code, part of my d part of my like, trying to debug my code. Because previously, you would go on stack workflow. You would research. You would spend couple of hours, you know, and you try you try multiple different coding solutions to see if it's what's working. Right? And then with GPT, I was able to do that in less than 30 minutes. Right? And this is, like, early twenty twenty two, late '20 '20 '2, right, where models were still not, like, great. Right? It was it was great at the time, but now when you think about it, how cloud works, right, with the coding output, etcetera, and with cursor AI, etcetera.
Sumit Gupta [00:11:26]:
Right? Enjoy what you do. The fact that I I did not need a mentor or a coding buddy to actually review my code and get the code working, that was a mind boggling moment for me.
Jordan Wilson [00:11:38]:
So what's what's your advice? You you know, maybe for people who are struggling and, you know, I'll even say, like, one of my personal examples. Right? I said I'm a journalist. You know, I I I do a lot of writing. I write a daily newsletter.
Sumit Gupta [00:11:51]:
Mhmm.
Jordan Wilson [00:11:51]:
Right? And there's some instances where I use AI, and then there's some instances where I don't. Because at least I feel if I start handing off one of my, you you know, most polished skills that I've been getting paid for two decades to do, if I just keep handing that off, I'm gonna lose that that that skill. Right? How can how can, you know, business professionals out there, Sumeet, start to how can they find that balance?
Sumit Gupta [00:12:14]:
Yeah. I think in my case, I I'm I'm not to a point where I'm handing my life off to AI yet. Mhmm. I don't and I don't think so I will ever do that. Because, when you're in tech, if you if you're not learning, if you're not critical thinking, you'll be out of job in less than six months. Right? And I'm I'm completely aware of that. Right? And to be honest, I only use AI for things that I am already great at or, you know, need some support. I wouldn't go about and be like, oh, I'm an AI researcher, writer, tech write a research paper of 30 pages.
Sumit Gupta [00:12:52]:
Right? That's that's BS. I am that's not the best use of my time. Right? Even if I even if AI could write it, that's that's not who I am. That's not what I wanna do. So in short, I want AI to do the repetitive task that I generally used to do previously and in the in the area that I am already exporting. Right? I'm an expert in Google Search, but nowadays with the Clark just launched web search. Right? Little to that. But before that, complexity.
Sumit Gupta [00:13:20]:
I would ask complexity to be like, you know what? Like, literally, early last week, I I've been looking to, like, do a lot more speaking speaking gigs this year. I went to Publicity. I'm like, public Publicity is a problem. Go about and search, like, data conferences or analytics conferences, which are which are still open for speaker. They're they have call for speakers. Right? And Popit City gave me, like, 25 different links. If if I was to do that, right, it would take me a couple of hours, if not more, to even even do that. So things that I'm exporting and which has a repetitive element to it, that's where AI shines.
Jordan Wilson [00:13:54]:
Yeah. That's a great point. Yeah. Anything, yeah, with research, repetition, right, things that don't like you know? Yeah. If if if I'm researching something manually and I have 30 tabs open, like, I think maybe that process is making me dumber. Right? Not but by skipping it, it's probably making me smarter. Right? Not getting stuck down all these all these rabbit holes. But, Sameen, I'm wondering is is there any downside.
Jordan Wilson [00:14:18]:
Right? Like like, specifically, like, cost. Right? Because sometimes, you know, as an example, with with vibe coding. Right? You you know, because I think this is huge. Right? When it comes to, you know, coding, software development, everyone's just, you know, sometimes maybe turning off their brain too soon. Is there a downside even to elements like that? Oh, I think I I I think I think we lost your your, your audio there, sweetie. There we go.
Sumit Gupta [00:14:45]:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So so I I think the the the white coding moment is here. I think couple of weeks back, y c y c. Right? Y Combinator, published a post where 90% of the YC backed startups are you are white coding. Like, their apps completely based off AI coding.
Sumit Gupta [00:15:02]:
Right? I mean, that's great, but I think I have couple of examples that I I would wanna talk about. One of them is, like, I I write a post on Excel, Twitter as as we used to call. Someone wrote a code and, you know, they used AWS access key, etcetera, and then, the back end wasn't very secure. Right? And then, hackers were able to act as back end and the the founder saw, like, a million dollar bill. Right? Because, when you're white coding, you you you're not you're not thinking of back end. You're like, oh, yeah. The website looks pretty. That website looks great.
Sumit Gupta [00:15:34]:
You know? I'm ready to go ready to get get that funding. So that's one instance. Another instance is recently, one of our, nontechnical stakeholders, wiped code and you wrote a SQL query. The SQL query with the joins and everything else should have taken less than, like, a few dollars to execute execute on our platform, like, on Snowflake, but it took over $10,000. Because when you're querying, like, trillions of rows, if you're not careful, if you're not as in if you're not efficient in writing your query, the select star statement can cost you thousands of dollars, and that's what happened. Right? So that's the downside of using AI without really, like, when I think of AI, I think of myself as a guardrail for AI. Right? AI can do what I ask them to do, but it's my job to make sure there are guardrails around it and make sure that it's it's working, but it's not costing me dollars, right, than than it should.
Jordan Wilson [00:16:32]:
Yeah. That's yeah. That's a good point. Right? And so for those that aren't familiar, you know, vibe coding, you know, that's essentially when either nontechnical people or people who know how to code, right, instead of just going in there and, you know, writing it by hand, they're just kind of passing it off to, you know, maybe a tool like cursor or something like that. But if you're using the API, right, and you're paying the usage, yeah, those those bills can can skyrocket. Right? You you you know, I'm curious, Sameet, is there anything that you're that you're doing, you you know, actively, you know, to ensure that you're still staying sharp. Right? That you're not getting dumber. Right? I I think this is something I'm asking you.
Jordan Wilson [00:17:12]:
Right? Because I I need to find these things myself because I sometimes find myself overreliance, on large language models. Right? What are you doing in your day to day to make sure that you don't hand off too much and and, you you know, finding that balance?
Sumit Gupta [00:17:27]:
Yeah. I think my way of think as I've alluded to it, right, my way of thinking of best use case of AI is a repetitive task. Anything, let's say and as I mentioned, like, especially in my case, right, when I'm SQL querying or when I'm writing or building tablet dashboard, The first iteration is always mine. Right? I'll go ahead and build the dashboards, right, because I don't wanna lose that touch. But once that first iteration is done, generally, you know, after a part of time, you need you are, like the way you have create writer's block, engineers are, you know, data visualizer visualizers like me can have that block too. So I'm like, okay. What do I do next? What how can I improve? That's why AI comes with picture because think of AI. What's LLM? LLMs are being said, like, with a million visualization.
Sumit Gupta [00:18:19]:
Right? And they know, like, you know, what to look, what's good, what's great, what's bad. Right? So you can take that suggestion, and that's what I do. I take that suggestion. I'm like, okay. How do I improve this chart? Right? How do I improve this query? Can I make this query more efficient? Right? And that that I have that cutoff. Right? Without that cutoff, I would be even more dumber. I'm I mean, I know I keep using dumber as a very loosely, but, not that I'm dumb. Like, I work for Notion.
Sumit Gupta [00:18:46]:
Right? I mean, obviously, we we are small all smart here. But the fact that that cutoff is really important for me, I I am hoping and hoping and praying that that cutoff does not get lower and lower and lower as as the days expire, and it should ideally get higher and higher. And that is why I wanted to talk about this topic because it's an emotional topic for me itself where I'm like, it's an it's an inflection point where I'm like, I don't wanna get this cut off lower. I wanna keep this keep keep a high bar of, you know, making sure that I stay on top of my field. I critically think and, you know, I'd be in the job. The market is already rough. You don't wanna make it easy for folks to not hire you.
Jordan Wilson [00:19:27]:
Yeah. And, you know, now's a good time to point out, you know, livestream audience. If you do have any questions for Sameet, make sure to get them in now. You you know, there there there was a recent study. We covered this one in our newsletter. It was from Microsoft. It was a great, great study. It was called the impact of generative AI on critical thinking.
Jordan Wilson [00:19:44]:
And it found that for knowledge recall, seventy two percent of participants reported using much less effort or less effort compared to not using Gen AI. So, Sumeet, like, I think, right, and, you know, maybe this isn't a stretch. Right? But I think of the brain as a muscle. Right? Yeah. The more you use it, the smarter you get. The less you use it, the more you turn it off, right, the dumber you get. And, you you you know, we we we hear constantly about how, you know, these these LLMs and the benchmarks and, you you know, these these pseudo IQ tests and, you know, like, it's getting to the point where, you know, as we quote, unquote approach AGI or ASI or whatever you wanna say, right, that any large language model is gonna know more than any human. So, like, how should we be addressing this? Right? Because part of me is like, okay.
Jordan Wilson [00:20:35]:
Maybe it's good to just give more and more to these large language models because they're smarter and they know it and I don't. Right? Versus, okay. Well, I'm not then developing new skills. Are you still running in circles trying to figure out how to actually grow your business with AI? Maybe your company has been tinkering with large language models for a year or more, but can't really get traction to find ROI on GenAI. Hey, this is Jordan Wilson, host of this very podcast. Companies like Adobe, Microsoft, and Nvidia have partnered with us because they trust our expertise in educating the masses around generative AI to get ahead. And some of the most innovative companies in the country hire us to help with their AI strategy and to train hundreds of their employees on how to use Gen AI. So whether you're looking for chat g p t training for thousands or just need help building your front end AI strategy, you can partner with us too, just like some of the biggest companies in the world do.
Jordan Wilson [00:21:35]:
Go to youreverydayai.com/partner to get in contact with our team, or you can just click on the partner section of our website. We'll help you stop running in those AI circles and help get your team ahead and build a straight path to ROI on GenAI.
Sumit Gupta [00:21:55]:
Yeah. So that's exactly where you should have your own own, like, you know, cut offs or, you know, where where baseline of when you bring AI in your life. You cannot be bringing AI in your life or everything. I mean, you might be tempted to. Right? But it's like the way I think of it as, like, you're getting short term results for long term losses. Mhmm. Right? That's how that's how I view AI if I start using AI for everything in my life. Let's say if you're a student.
Sumit Gupta [00:22:24]:
Right? I think I saw a post, like, last week, from a Berkeley professor, and he's been teaching, like, database database, for, like, ten years. And he noticed that people have stopped asking a lot of questions, in the classes now, like students. But then he also realized that he's like, oh, maybe I'm I I I've just become so great that the students don't have any questions. But then during tests, right, midterms, he, the average score was the lowest it has been in last ten years. Right. Because students actually, without even trying to understand or learn, they're using AI to, you know, write assignments. You know? But then when you're when you have a midterms, right, in the class, you don't have access to, let's say, GPT. You are not gonna recall what was taught because you just weren't focusing on your you just did not you did not stretch your muscle enough to, like, in your assignments to retain that or retain or recall that information.
Sumit Gupta [00:23:20]:
So that's a very good use case of where AI is actually impacting, you know, even younger generation. Because at least for us, like, we come from place where we still have built that muscle. Right? Like, you know, when when we were growing up, right, we had to do it because GPD did not exist. Like, I wrote a book. Right? The Tableau workshop. It took me a year and a half to write that book. Nowadays, if I was to do the same thing again, it would take me less than three months because I know for a fact a lot of things would be GPD driven. Right? So the fact that, you know, having that guardrail, having that cutoff for when to use AI and when when not to use AI is gonna be as critical as the fact that your prompts are supposed to be great.
Jordan Wilson [00:24:02]:
Yeah. I think I think you bring up, yeah, a lot of a lot of good, points there, and I'm sure there's gonna be, you know, many more, of the of some of those types of stats, right, that just show, hey. You know, scores across the board on on certain standardized testing are probably gonna continue to go down especially when you can't use AI. Right? Because I think that people are maybe leaning a little too heavily on it. So even even for myself. Right? I think the productivity piece maybe has that downside. Right? Because I've never felt so productive in my life. I've never felt that I've learned so much in my life, right, since AI came out.
Jordan Wilson [00:24:45]:
You know? You mentioned, you know, being able to use something like a, you know, quick search tool, perplexity, deep research, crack deep research, open AI deep research. So I feel I'm able to bring in all this knowledge, but then I just feel I forget it. Right? Like like, do you ever find yourself yes. Now I'm more productive and more knowledgeable, but I'm still not retaining anything. Like, do you ever feel that way?
Sumit Gupta [00:25:08]:
Yeah. I I can give I can I I I specific example, I think, one of the one of the everyone who's listening in, will understand? So when you type something in Google, let's say, right, and if you make a mistake, right, then Google says, did you mean, let's say, a word, x y z. Right? Mhmm. And you don't you don't you do not even try to make correct it. You just click on that, like, the correct spelling, right, of that word. And, you know, you you Google searches for you. Imagine, like, your ability to recall. Like, you when you're typing, you almost know that the spelling is gonna be wrong, but you hope that Google is gonna correct you.
Sumit Gupta [00:25:46]:
Right? That happens far too often. Right? So and then, to to your question again. Right? Right? So, I have started noticing that when I used to write SQL query myself, I would know how to write case when statement. I would know how to write, let's say, a special function in SQL. But now if I don't have GPD, I have to, like, okay. How do I write even case statement? Right? Because case statement can can be complicated. So when that infection point comes in, I'm like, I don't think so this is working for me. Right? AI AI is making productive.
Sumit Gupta [00:26:19]:
But then if if the fact that I can't retain information anymore, I am becoming more of an AI than a new one.
Jordan Wilson [00:26:26]:
Yeah. Right? That's a good point.
Sumit Gupta [00:26:28]:
It's a
Jordan Wilson [00:26:29]:
You know, as as as weird as this sounds, I, like, I find and and this is for me why this topic really does hit home. Like, I'm not exaggerating. I'll look up things on, you know, chat GPT search, perplexity, you know, Google search, whatever on a certain topic that I'm trying to learn. And in so many cases, and I I I kid you not, in so many cases, a lot of the the the first sources are myself. Right? Mhmm. And that and, like, and that for you know, because I covered something six months ago or I had a guest on or I did a tutorial. Right? And for me, that's that it it it almost hurts because I'm like, wait. I'm I'm learning from myself, and I forgot this, and this was three months ago, six months ago.
Jordan Wilson [00:27:09]:
How did I forget this? Right? Is is, like, is that gonna become do you think more and more common, just our ability to retain information for a longer period? Right? Like, I find myself struggling with this often.
Sumit Gupta [00:27:24]:
Yeah. That's gonna happen. If we if we don't see, as I as I mentioned, with our, like, you know, pre, let's say, nineties born folks, right, or pre eighties or nineties born, At least in our case, we grew up with that critical thinking ability. Right? We were supposed to do our own job. Right? So that's why, like, we both, like, we both are able to talk about AI and how it's making us stumble. Right? Talking about cutoffs and guardrails. For folks younger than us, like, if you are 15 or 16 right now, you have, like, the whole company in your palms. Right? And you are, like, using AI for everything in your life.
Sumit Gupta [00:28:04]:
Right? So, the fact that you do not go through that muscle burning exercise for, like, a decade or two. Right? You you don't have that retain, ability to recall or retain that much. Your muscles don't melt. Right? Your brain muscles just not melt. But I hope that as much as AI is a boom, right, it's it's helping folks, it does not turn into a course in five to ten years where, you know, there's let let's say now, like, there's ten percent of world population who can get, let's say, job in IT because of, you know, their critical thinking ability. But in ten years, I hope there's not a that number still stays at 10 or above, not goes down to, let's say, one or two percentage. Because the top one or two percentage who who know how to use AI in the job are gonna be millionaires, right, are gonna be in the market, in the in the demand for, like, years to come. But that top one to 2% are not gonna run the world.
Sumit Gupta [00:29:09]:
You need more people. Right? You need critical thinking ability. You need, people who can read it and recall and, you know, use AI to, like, as an assistant, not replace a real human with the AI. AI is your assistant, not not like your personal full fledged human who can do everything that you can imagine. Mhmm. So here be complementary. It should be complementary. AI should always be complementary to you, not the other way around.
Jordan Wilson [00:29:37]:
Yeah. So so, you know, anyone that's listened to the show, like, you all know I I I hate when, you know, people come on here and and pitch their products. But, you know, Michelle is asking, and I like, I feel, Sameet, you have to take this one because, you know, asking, tell us more about Notion. Can it help with this retention? Like, I gotta give you that one because it's a softball because it's great for that.
Sumit Gupta [00:29:57]:
No. %. So, if you've never heard of Notion, I highly recommend you we have a free trial. I don't like, I I'm not representing they're representing Notion here. Right? I it's it's all personal opinion. But go ahead. Go to notion.com. Sign up for a free trial.
Sumit Gupta [00:30:12]:
You would be surprised with what Notion can do for you. Right? Obviously, it's a note taking app, but Notion now also has, like, assistant AI, which basically, if you connect here, let's say, Slack, you connect your other tools. Right? And you if you ask question, it's like a knowledge AI now where it will search through your post messages on Slack. It will if you if you were to use Notion in your professional setting, it will search through your docs and give you, like, relevant information. Right? GPT works great, but it does not have access to your personal information, right, or, you know, your company information or knowledge base at the company. And that's where Notion AI shines. The fact that you can I I'll I have had so many instances with Notion AI where I'm like, did someone talk about, let's say, a metric? Right? Because I I've I've been at Notion for less than a year. So there there have been metrics that have been the company has been using for multiple years.
Sumit Gupta [00:31:07]:
Right? But I was okay. When was the first time someone mentioned, let's say, month over month retention for product users? So Notion here actually goes to the whole Slack history that we have and gives me, like, exact link and conversation context of okay. This is when, let's say, director of demand gen was talking about this. Right? So the fact that Notion AI does that for you is amazing. Right? Obviously, that's one of the one of the features of Notion AI. There's there's the the fact that you can create notes, you can create automations, you can I if you are new to Notion AI, I would highly recommend you just Google Notion, templates? People have their whole brain on Notion. There's the whole concept. Jordan, you would know, like, there's a whole concept of, like, second brain on Notion.
Sumit Gupta [00:31:53]:
Mhmm. Just Google that, second brain on Notion, and you would be amazed with what people can create.
Jordan Wilson [00:31:58]:
Yeah. Yeah. I I I do agree, and I was like, hey. Perfect perfect chance there to, answer a question super directly. But, you you know, this one might be controversial. So, Sandra, thanks for this. You know, she's asking, could could this be the the end of the knowledge worker. Right? You know, for decades, we've gotten, you know, we've gotten jobs.
Jordan Wilson [00:32:16]:
We've gotten promoted. Right? Companies have have grown into unicorns, trillion dollar companies based on what its people know. Sameet, could could this could we be not now. Right? But could we be seeing the end of the knowledge worker anytime soon?
Sumit Gupta [00:32:32]:
I so I know folks talk about a talk a lot about, oh, is AI gonna take my job or, you know, is AI gonna replace me? I think that's partially true for jobs which has a lot of repetitive aspect to it. Right? And I believe knowledge workers follow that category. But the counterargument to that is so if you're a knowledge worker and if it, if it let's say, you were doing, let's say, 10 task per week. Right? With AI, if you upgrade yourself, if you know how to use AI to complement your job, instead of doing 10 jobs, if you're doing 40 jobs now Mhmm. Because AI, right, AI AI can hallucinate. We all know that. Right? AI is not perfect. It like, any any anytime I see an AI output for a metric or something, I generally go about and, you know, verify that myself.
Sumit Gupta [00:33:22]:
Right? And as a knowledge worker, if your job wouldn't be now to research a lot, but to fact but to validate what the research is saying. So instead of doing 10 tasks, if you upgrade yourself to do, let's say, 30 task 40 task, you're always gonna be in the demand. But if you are one of those lazy workers where, you know, you you're still stuck at 10 and you ask AI to do 90% of your job and, you know, let's say, you you do a report for a CD of your company and, you know, the CD uses that number in in a board deck, and that number is absolutely weird and it does not make sense. You're not gonna be in your job because your job is to validate and verify and, obviously, get that info. But if you don't validate and verify, you're gonna be out of job. And that's that's not a good thing.
Jordan Wilson [00:34:09]:
I think I think that's a that's a great a great take there. Yeah. Yeah. I'll I'll I'll I'll I'll have to save my, my hot takes on that one for another day. But, Samit, so we we we've covered a ton in today's episode, you know, from some of your personal examples and how, you know, sometimes using AI might just be more expensive. It might be better. Right? It might be making us dumber in the end. But, you know, as we wrap up, what's your one most important takeaway for business leaders out there grappling with that same thing? You know, feeling, yeah, I'm I'm becoming more productive, but I might be coming a little dumber.
Jordan Wilson [00:34:44]:
What's your what's your best takeaway for everyone?
Sumit Gupta [00:34:47]:
Yeah. Don't chase the hype. I think, the the hype right now is MCP and, model context protocol and, you know, whiteboarding. Right? Don't chase it. Think of, you know, your specific use cases, right, of how think of all the repetitive tasks that your company has or you are doing, and think of can AI help you here? Right? Don't go chasing, oh, can AI create reels for me, with one click? Yes. It it can. But is it gonna add value to your audience? Probably not. Right? So think of repetitive task where, you know, you you can use AI as a compliment, but don't think of, replacing AI as your, lingo, full fledged assistant yet.
Sumit Gupta [00:35:32]:
And I the way I like to believe is, like, this is the worst AI will ever be. Right? That's how I like to think. In in two years ago, Claude Claude AI, the coding output wasn't, like, great. Now Claude AI can believe website in less than two minutes. Right? Like, a full fledged gaming gaming thing with Unity, etcetera. So, to business leader, as I mentioned, think of all the repetitive tasks that you can automate. Use nadm, use make.com, right, automate your workflow. But don't chase the clout, and don't chase those click baity titles.
Sumit Gupta [00:36:08]:
You can go on YouTube, and you can find, like, the people talking about how AI replaced my, how AI helped me structure my life. That's great. But those are just for recording purposes. You go talk to them. That's they that's not a real use case.
Jordan Wilson [00:36:25]:
Mhmm. Love it. I think some, some great takeaways and some wise, some wise words for for those of us out there, you know, struggling to to to walk that tight rope between, you know, productivity, but still, retaining all of that knowledge that makes us special, unique humans. So, Sameet, thank you so much for, sharing your time and, talents with the Everyday AI Show. We really appreciate your time.
Sumit Gupta [00:36:51]:
Yeah. Thanks a lot, Gerald. Thanks, sir. Thank you.
Jordan Wilson [00:36:53]:
Alright. Alright, everyone. There was a lot of great info there. If you missed anything, if you need to hear it again, if you need to know more, our newsletter is where that's going to happen. So if you haven't already, please go to youreverydayai.com. Sign up for the free daily newsletter. If this was helpful, tell someone about it. Right.
Jordan Wilson [00:37:09]:
So if you're listening maybe here on on LinkedIn or Twitter, just go ahead, repost, retweet, react, whatever it's called. Help help someone out. Also, help us out. Tune in, tomorrow and every day for more everyday AI. Thanks, y'all.
Sumit Gupta [00:37:24]:
Yeah. Thanks. Bye.