In Conversation With Ux Magazine

Despite the complexity and sensitivity innate to financial institutions, Morgan Stanley was able to partner with Open AI to create AI @ Morgan Stanley Assistant. Chief Analytics and Data Officer Jeff McMillan describes it as the most advanced personal assistant in the financial sector and he joins Robb and Josh to talk about the design process, which involved working closely with Sam Altman and the team at OpenAI. Jeff's experiences creating a sophisticated automated solution in a heavily regulated industry offer strategy and inspiration to other organizations hoping to make similar transformations.

Massive amounts of system change are necessary to put AI to work in ways that elevate humanity, and Robb and Josh welcome author and experience designer Sheryl Cababa for a deep discussion of the road ahead. Author of the Rosenfeld Media book, Closing the Loop: Systems Thinking for Designers, Sheryl has worked as an experienced designer at Phillips, Adaptive Path, and Frog and is currently the Chief Strategy Officer at Substantial. Her insights into the important convergence between systems thinking and experience design come at a critical moment when the rapid advancement of technology calls for sober consideration of how we can improve the many systems that make of the world we live in.

In a moment when unprecedented amounts of money are flowing toward projects involving AI, Robb and Josh welcome Jake Saper for a lively exploration of the VC mindset. Since 2003, Emergence Capital has invested in companies collectively worth $450B+, including Salesforce, Box, Yammer, and Zoom. As a General Partner, Jake has embraced the transformative power of generative AI. This conversation explores many different ways these technologies are impacting investor thinking as software becomes cheaper and easier to create.

Robb and Josh welcome Brad Stulberg for a deep conversation about how humans can best respond to the massive changes AI is thrusting upon us. As the bestselling author of Master of Change, Stulberg has explored the cycle of order, disorder, and reorder, and he shares the principles for developing a rugged flexibility mindset—which applies to both personal well-being and AI integration. A former McKinsey consultant and regular contributor to the New York Times, Brad is a professor at the University of Michigan and a sought-after speaker.

Robb and Josh welcome Cammy Crolic for an enlivening discussion of hedonic escalation and anthropomorphization. As a professor at Oxford's Saïd Business School, Cammy's research into how human-like bots affect consumer behavior has been featured in the Wall Street Journal. She is currently exploring human perception around AI-generated content.

Robb and Josh welcome Ben Goertzel for a deep exploration of the narrow AIs we are quickly growing accustomed to and our fraught transition to artificial general intelligence, or singularity. As the founder and CEO of SingularityNET, Ben has been working to democratize access to artificial intelligence through decentralization. He's also a leader of both the OpenCog Foundation and the AGI Society, having helped to popularize the term 'artificial general intelligence'. Topics in this episode include balancing design near-term design concerns—like anthropomorphization—against more consequential issues, such as who will control these systems and how they will interact with humanity.

Robb and Josh welcome David Bingham for an exploration of design and conversational AI, from our homes, to our workplaces, to industrial settings. David is a senior experience design executive who’s held positions at GE and Workday and is currently Director of User Experience at Schneider Electric (named one of Fortune’s Most Desirable Companies four years running and deemed the world’s most sustainable company in 2021). The trio discusses the uncanny valley in conversational AI, the true shape and purpose of digital twins, and updating CRUD (adding "seek" to create, read, update, and delete).

Robb and Josh welcome industry veteran Yoav Shoham for a thoughtful examination of the inner-workings of AI. As the co-founder of AI21 labs and a former professor in the Computer Science Department of Stanford University, Yoav has a rich history of working with these technologies and thinking through some of their more profound applications. This thoughtful discussion examines just how much the ways we live and work might begin to change as we become further intertwined with AI.

Robb and Josh welcome Shep Hyken for a conversation about the evolution of customer experience and the role AI will take in moving it forward. As a sought-after keynote speaker and the bestselling author of numerous books, including "Be Amazing or Go Home," Shep has a deep understanding of what companies are up against when it comes to creating truly dynamic experiences. This lively discussion explores those constraints as well as the massive possibilities new technologies have unlocked.

Robb and Josh welcome food futurist Mike Lee for a sprawling and fascinating exploration of the surprisingly similar worlds of food safety and technology regulation. As the founder of The Future Market, a consultancy in food innovation and strategy, Mike's investigations into the food industry led to hands-on work with generative AI. This conversation provides forward thinking in how we might regulate the unpredictable and now ubiquitous generative tools flooding into all industries and aspects of life.

Robb and Josh welcome Cassie Kozyrkov, Google's First Chief Decision Scientist, for a conversation about the limitations of data and the need to put a face on technology. Cassie is now CEO of Data Scientific and helped shape the technology all around us, and this far-ranging discussion of conversational AI examines the composition of the technologies that go into artificial intelligence, the ways we can use technology to help people make better quality decisions, and why we should look for opportunities to automate "thunking" moments.

Robb and Josh welcome renowned publisher and information architect Lou Rosenfeld for a conversation that gets into the roots of experience design, while exploring the full bloom of generative AI. Running Rosenfeld Media for nearly two decades has given Lou incredible insights into the publishing world as well as UX, which most Rosenfeld titles explore in specific ways. This great conversation brings lessons from the past to the fore as we race ahead with technology.

Robb and Josh welcome Jenna Fizel (Senior Director, Emerging Technology) and Danny DeRuntz (Executive Design Director) of IDEO for a practical exploration of building conversational experiences focusing on their creation, Lotbot. The conversation branches out into the many facets of digital twins, the languages machines might use to communicate with each other, and the blurring edges between bots and brands.

Robb and guest-host Michael Salamon have a conversation with Don Scheibenreif, Vice President, Distinguished Analyst with Gartner's Customer Experience research group. As the co-author of When Machines Become Customers, Don provides insights into the logistical and trust issues that arise as machines begin buying things on behalf of humans.

Robb and Josh jump into a philosophical but ultimately pragmatic discussion of conversational AI with Tim Wood, Principal Designer for AI and AI Platforms at Amazon Web Services. A veteran designer well-steeped in the waves of technology that have shaped our modern world, Tim shares ideas surrounding anthropology, anthropomorphism, systemic change, real-world implementation, and unwelcome outcomes.

Robb and Josh welcome digital transformation expert and bestselling author Charlene Li for a conversation about the trajectory technology has taken over the last 20 years and how decision-makers need to reframe their expectations and goals as generative AI continues to transform the marketplace. The explosive power of LLMs to enhance the experience of writing and providing thought leadership also comes to the fore as well in this far-reaching discussion of AI.

Robb and Josh enjoy a vigorous conversation with Emmy-winning investigative travel journalist Peter Greenberg. His reporting on the broken experiences and deceitful practices heaping ruin on the travel and hospitality industry reveal opportunities for the technologies associated with AI to make sweeping and meaningful improvements. The catch: these changes will require systemic change, which will be an uphill battle to say the least.

Robb and Josh have a philosophical conversation about art, creativity, and perception with Laura Herman of the University of Oxford. As a tool for creating, generative AI is changing the way we think about art what constitutes artistry. The artistic process will always require human hands and human input, as a piece of art isn't really finished until someone experiences it. Covering synesthesia, UX research, and possible outcomes for the heightened levels of technology intertwined in our daily lives, this discussion provides ample food for thought.

Robb and Josh go deep on a conversation with Dr. Jim Webber, Chief Scientist at Neo4j, about the convergence of large language models (LLMs) and graphDB. Popularized by Neo4j, graphDB creates a relational database that connects individual data points (or nodes) accross a network of information. LLMs are capable of doing real work and providing more reliable responses when they are given context. GraphDBs can leverave all types of data across and organization to provide that context and elevate operations to new heights. This is an exciting discussion about the future of data that will captivate scientists and designers alike. 203508

Robb and Josh take a deep dive into technology and healthcare with Leroy Hood, MD, PhD (Co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer of ISB) and Nathan Price, PhD (Chief Scientific Officer of Thorne HealthTech), auhtors of The Age of Scientific Wellness. Hood played a pivotal role in the Human Genome Project and he and Price have uncovered the ways that science and technology can move us toward 4P medicine that is predictive, personalized, preventive, and participatory. Together, hosts and guests unlock new opportunities for conversational AI to move us closer to much more effective and personal healthcare.