The Revenue Formula

Remote work and AI promised to make us more productive. The data says otherwise.

In this episode, we unpack new research showing remote workers put in about two and a half hours less each day than office teams, and studies suggesting AI tools can weaken critical thinking and slow skill growth. We explore what happens when these trends collide, how they impact career development, and why leaders need to address the issue now.

Sources:
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  • (00:00) - Introduction
  • (03:25) - Research: Remote work is not working
  • (09:31) - Parkinson's Law of Productivity
  • (16:50) - Distractions in work environments
  • (17:48) - Remote work and career development
  • (24:01) - AI's impact on developers
  • (28:41) - Study: AI making us dumber?
  • (32:34) - The Future of Cognitive Functions
  • (40:59) - Final thoughts
  • (41:58) - Next week: What have we been working on?

Creators and Guests

Host
Raul Porojan
Voice of Reason in Revenue / Former Director Sales & CS at Project A
Host
Toni Hohlbein
2x exited CRO | 1x Founder | Podcast Host

What is The Revenue Formula?

This podcast is about scaling tech startups.

Hosted by Toni Hohlbein & Raul Porojan, together they look at the full funnel.

With a combined 20 years of experience in B2B SaaS and 3 exits, they discuss growing pains, challenges and opportunities they’ve faced. Whether you're working in RevOps, sales, operations, finance or marketing - if you care about revenue, you'll care about this podcast.

If there’s one thing they hate, it’s talk. We know, it’s a bit of an oxymoron. But execution and focus is the key - that’s why each episode is designed to give 1-2 very concrete takeaways.

Trigger Warning: The Truth about AI and Remote Work
===

[00:00:00]

Introduction
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Toni: Today we're tackling a topic that is flying under the radar, probably because it's not exactly popular to discuss, and frankly, some will violently disagree. There is now research pointing to a growing productivity gap that's affecting almost all of us. One study looked at remote work and found a significant drop in productivity compared to in-office workers.

Another showed that using AI is actually making us dumber on their own. Each of them is worrying, but combines this will lead probably to a major issue for us. So it is time that we start talking about it openly and honestly. And now, enjoy remote workers per day work an average of two and a half hours less.

Raul: There's a large difference to me, not necessarily in working hours, but in what's happening in those hours. I would rather take a team of people working six hours a day, not checking their phones and not wasting their [00:01:00] time than people, uh, 10 hours a day in the office who are half the time asleep, uh, on their phone.

Toni: Do you? No. Probably very likely work less, you know, maybe learn less on the job. Plus, hey, this AI thing is kind of happening and it's making us a little bit dumber or maybe a lot dumber overall. If you combine those two things together, like that's a significant productivity hit. We're actually currently experiencing and taking.

Raul: Tony, you have been letting out the inner scientists lately. You've been, uh, reading some studies and you've been quite interested in the nature of work and how, uh, productive people are, which is fantastic 'cause that's something, uh, I'm also very interested in. And, um, you've actually, uh, devised quite a little bit of, um, of an idea about where we're actually heading and how to deal with it.

Um, so I think for today, what I think is really interesting is kind of your observation, but also what you've seen, uh, yeah. What studies have shown what's happening with remote work, what's happening with AI and where we're actually going. Yeah, absolutely. The thing is, [00:02:00] so both of

Toni: these topics. Right. So spoiler, I'm gonna talk about why remote work isn't good for you.

I'm gonna talk about why AI maybe isn't good for you. Both of those topics. A lot of people throw away the headphones right now, or their phone or whatever, and just walk away. It's like, you know, I don't, I don't even want to hear you talking about this, but, um, I think there is a, as I mentioned, not talked about massive productivity loss that.

Actually, it should just be addressed. It needs to be addressed because it's happening and just because it's maybe not woke enough to, you know, think the other way, um, shouldn't prevent us from talking about it. Right. And then, then happy for people to disagree. I think you and I, um, will, you know, partially play devil's advocates here in this, in this conversation, but also partially, you know, belief also obviously kind of is sometimes the opposite.

And we'll peel the on it and see kind of where we land in

Raul: the end. Right? I kind of have an idea of where we're going. Uh, and [00:03:00] I know that this will trigger some people, and some people will strongly disagree with that. I think that's good. So maybe that makes for an actually more productive topic. Uh, but I do know that, uh, some people will, will kind of, uh, try to, to, to turn on you with a pitchfork after.

And some people will be like, finally, someone's saying this. So go ahead, Tony. Yeah, I tell it.

Toni: I can see, I can see many people like see Steven. I knew this was right and then set this broadcast. Yeah.

Research: Remote work is not working
---

Toni: So the first thing is remote work is not

working. So, um, you know, obviously we came through COVID, um, and that that's where it was required before that remote work was kind of a, um, uh, it was kind of a rarity actually, right after COVID, it really got like locked into mainstream, um.

We're now, what, four years after COVID, or three years after COVID. I kind of don't, don't keep track anymore. Um, but those remote work habits are still around. Um, we see a big [00:04:00] movement now, um, RTO return to office, both as a war cry of CEOs and a war cry of people that basically, you know, are pushing against that.

Right. Um, and. Now we're kind of coming to the point where people in universities, uh, and, and, and, and labor departments and so forth are now finally kind of getting the funds and doing, you know, including this in the little research. Um, and we had some really interesting data coming out. Yeah. Uh, we'll, we'll link the piece here.

You can jump to. Article itself where it's kind of talked about or the, the source that sits behind that, um, you'll find, you know, Bart will insert the whole thing. So the, the main headline here is that report found that, you know, same for same. So full-time workers, uh, remote and in office, remote workers per day work an average of two and a half hours [00:05:00] less per day.

That's what the research found. Um. Uh, we'll dive into this a little bit more. Um, the other very interesting thing, which is why this is so pertinent, I think for everyone listening here, what the research found is that, uh, remote work is, um, you know, a little bit an age thing. It's not at all agenda thing, and actually found that, um, remote work for women leads to more chores for the women's, for women at home.

Kind of that, that was actually kind of one finding kind of that, that is kind of then being put. Back basically. But one finding that really, really stood out for me was like, people with a bachelor degree, uh, 40% of the surveyed population, uh, works remotely and for people with a higher degree. Uh, so a master's and so forth.

Actually 45% work remotely. So what does that mean? This is obviously, and also has been in COVID, uh, white color privilege, [00:06:00] uh, right. Kind that you could just. I didn't need to go to the store. I didn't need to go to, you know, be a nurse in Osbo. Um, you know, I'm so going to the store and working there. Uh, it was just not my job.

I could just stay at home, go online, open Zoom, and be productive. Right. Um, so this whole remote thing is really a white collar thing. Um, meaning basically. All your colleagues, you know, uh, if, if you're listening all your colleagues around me and yourself, basically that's what it is. Before, maybe before I go on, what's your reaction to the two and a half hours? Uh, less work today, uh, per day.

Raul: So first of all, this is staggering, right? As in, depending on how you take it, you're like, well, this is about a third of a working day. Uh, it's actually like 2.7 or so, which is basically exactly one working day. Um, so meaning your people work one third less. Some people will be like, well, this is not surprising at all.

I've been telling you all along, as you said before. And some people will be like, well, uh, I don't actually believe [00:07:00] that. Um, what are these hours and what does does that mean? So obviously, um, as I understand it, that study, uh, concludes that people work less. This does not necessarily mean that they produce less.

So one thinking about that or one objection could be, well, um. People just manage to do more in less time, and then they use the rest of the time to just take a nap or whatever. But at the end of the day, and, and you might think of that as you want, you're like, no, no. He should also work that those hours more.

That's a different point, but. If they do produce the same output, um, then uh, who cares actually, like nobody's harmed. And if you do call them back to the office, they're still not gonna produce more. So you're kind of in a catch 22 where either you let them be in the home office and uh, just spend less time but producing the same result, or you call them back to the office where they will still not be more productive.

Yeah. And that's one way of looking at it. And I'm not sure if that's the case.

Toni: Let's go through some of those things because they also went through my mind. Actually the first thing that went through my mind was [00:08:00] like. Bs. Like two and a half hours, come on. That's just not true. Like the data must be wrong, yada, yada.

So this is a legit source, like a seriously legit source. Um, and I think from the US Labor department actually, um, and you know, we have the sources here, you can kind of jump and look for yourself. So there is some truth to this thing. You know, let's just discount it a little bit. Maybe it's on two and a half hours, maybe it's like two hours, whatever.

It's still substantial period. Even one hour would be substantial in my vault period. Right. Kind of. I think this, this finding, this size is too big to just be like, ah, there's a running error. I, I don't think so. Right. Then the next thing, um, hey, you know, the people that are working in the office, they're just in the office for eight hours, but they're just really there and just kill it time.

Like, they're not necessarily more productive, they're just killing time. Um. If, you know, I'm pretending, but yeah, I think there's a massive thing in [00:09:00] Germany and then a couple of other states, less so, less so here in Denmark I would say. But there's this thing you shouldn't be leaving before your boss and you know, if you do leave before 6:00 PM it's being, you know, poorly looked at.

Um, and, um, and therefore really the, you know, your productive time won't change. You will just spend less time in the shitty office basically. Right. I think this in itself is like an issue. Like obviously this is an issue, right. Um. I'm not sure. Um, you know, this is a location dependent thing to actually work on.

Parkinson's Law of Productivity
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Toni: Um, I think there's also something to it, like, wow, which kind of goes into the other thing that I've kind of been thinking about and, and you and I have been kind of talking about is like, there's this notion called Parkinson's law, um, which basically, uh, dictates that whatever the task is and however, however much time you give someone to complete the task, this will be the time that they.

Used in order to complete task. Right? So if, and, and this was originally, I think it was from the sixties. This was originally [00:10:00] used to mark bureaucracy, um, and the government because they're like so inefficient. But by now it found itself into, uh, project management, like overly generous deadlines, produce.

Lower productivity, slower work. Right. Um, and the same actually also in personal productivity is not having tied deadlines leads to, you know, being less ambitious, being less focused around this stuff. Right. So I think there are other pieces playing into this whole thing in terms of productivity that, you know, the, the location from where you work can't change.

Um, but I think it's like. We shouldn't con confuse those two things, kind of, that's, that's really kind of my point actually about this, right? So if you have two more hours to work, my very strong belief is that in those two hours you will be able to do more work for the business, um, that that's, you know, in a productive manner.

And, and surely there's a, there's a flattening of the curve, right? I'm not saying everyone should be working 12 hours. I, I don't work [00:11:00] 12 hours. Um, and at some point you would just be less and less productive, obviously, but come on. Like from six to eight hours. Are you still there? Yeah. Like you totally will be productive in that time.

Right. Um, and so I think there's a gap. I think this is creating a gap. I, I'm not sure kind of how, how used to this, but I think there's a gap that that's kind of created.

Raul: No, I think in, in, in theory, I would agree in, in, in, as in. There's this Parkinson's law, there's the law that basically, and it's also been my experience by the way, so, uh, where, where however long people have, that's the time that they will use.

And, um, I absolutely. As someone who's been part of that, but also has been leading organizations. Uh, I absolutely despise FaceTime. Um, I think it's, it's, it's not just archaic and like, uh, boomer like, but it's, it's also just a terrible idea, like for the productivity of your team. It is a very German thing though.

So what I've seen is what this can do to organizations, [00:12:00] um, and to teams who. Just expand and create the workday in such a way that they will just naturally always be done at six. And if they know that they have to stay until six 30 or seven to leave after their boss, that is how long they will take for that thing.

And, um, most likely, even unconsciously. So. So, and, and that's what makes it so pervasive is that it's not like you can easily tell someone, Hey, just be more productive. They'll be like, no, but I'm already trying. Right? I'm already, uh, prioritizing. I'm already doing all that. Maybe they're not doing it the right way, but even people with good intentions kind of.

Make it so that their day always ends at seven and they're done with the thing that they were supposed to do. Yeah. Um, isn't that weird, by the way? So how, how we have this timeframe, which is basically like a standard timeframe for most workers, and for some magical reasons, most of their day actually ends then, um, and then they go home and they're like, I had a good day.

That doesn't make any sense actually. So I think

Toni: largely that doesn't make sense, but like from a, from a [00:13:00] psychological human perspective, it actually does make sense. So having a. Frame of restaurants of where you do work, um, that's a good thing for you and your productivity. You know, be, you know, switching to work mode when you go to the office.

That's super helpful. Why? There's even, there's even studies out there that if you have a working desk in your bedroom, that you will sleep, you know, sleep poorly, uh, because of the, you know, your, your mind is a little bit in work mode, basically in the same time, right? Because you're in the same location.

So there's something to, there's something to the. Um, just other people being around and the accountability that comes with it. Right. And the, the study didn't necessarily kind of says that, but um, uh, you know, a couple of other things have been, you know, suggested, um, that people, you know, whether are they're spending those two and a half hours that on, um, whether watching TV or doing some other leisurely kind of activities, right?

It's not that they're going to the gym or going to the dentist or something like that. It's like they just. You know, it was [00:14:00] going around for that time. Right. And, and then I think to a degree, and this is kind of probably going to be an issue if this whole AI acceleration of productivity really actually happens, but it just hasn't yet.

I'll just be clear. It hasn't yet, but every single time we execute a productivity increase for our workers for a team, um, basically, you know, it's gonna look like the following, where it basically takes some admin tasks away from you. Now that's actually, you know, or speeds some, some things up right now that in itself is actually not resulting in a productivity game.

Uh, to be kind of perfectly clear, this is resulting in you getting the same stuff done in less time. Um, the productivity and more cost. Yeah. More still have to pay the tool. That's true. You still have to pay the tool, the productivity gig comes from that. You then actually use that surplus time that the tool just gave you.

To do some other higher value task than you did before. That's the productivity game. Right? [00:15:00] And kind of to make it super simple, right? Kind of, uh, you know, when we, when, when society made the switch from me needing to go to the well to get water to bring it back, not that I had to actually, maybe I should have taken a different example here to, oh, now the water comes out of the tap.

That didn't mean that now I could, you know, chill two hours more. What that happened is like, oh, I kind of now did other things in those two hours. Right? That's how society and productivity grows is not by taking longer naps, it's by, you know, being able to do more and more valuable tasks, basically. Right.

So that goes a little bit into the phase of like, well, you know, um, I'm just sitting around to wait for those eight hours to go away. I think that is also just a managerial issue. That, and, and, and a cultural issue by the way, uh, that we just. Also need to overcome at the same time.

Raul: Although, to be fair, I do think though that some of it is not conscious.

So yes, it's not necessarily that people will say, I will [00:16:00] now sit around for two hours and hope no one catches me and do nothing. Or I will now take a one hour toilet break where nobody can actually catch me. Um, but they will just tend to. Do more walking around and chatting and, uh, check their phone more and, uh, check their Instagram a bit more and take longer lunch breaks, which maybe necessarily is not a terrible thing to some degree because there is also productive stuff happening at the water cooler and maybe during those lunch breaks.

But it will just be a little bit of a different behavior. Now, I don't know if that adds up to two and a half hours a day, but this, I've actually seen where there's a large difference to me, not necessarily in working hours, but in what's happening in those hours. I would rather take a team of people working six hours a day, not checking their phones and not wasting their time than people, uh, 10 hours a day in the office who are half the time asleep, uh, on their phone.

Distractions in work environments
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Toni: Sure. I totally agree. I think, and I can't rebut that necessarily, but I think the other side to that coin is, you know, being productive also, um, [00:17:00] has to do with. Uh, you know, the amount of distractions, right? Mm-hmm. And there's some research done around this, um, basically where do you have more distraction triggers happening, right?

And, and that could be a colleague sitting next to you tapping on the sho saying, Hey, roll. Quick question, right? Or, or, or what have you. Um. Those could also be you sitting at home and a thousand other things around you can happen and those can cause, you know, distractions too. Right? I agree. So I think neither, neither space is free of those.

Um, I think everyone can make up their own mind kind of where, where those distractions are fewer and or where they're, you know, less, less disturbing, if you will. Right. One other thing, you know, that we don't even touching on in the whole how much you work, because it's very much like a, a employer driven conversation.

You work more.

Remote work and career development
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Toni: Another thing is actually Wall Street Journal found that people that are working remotely basically have their career development negatively impacted, meaning, um, especially, uh, new [00:18:00] employees or junior employees, basically don't benefit from accidental, you know, um, educational moments or learning moments in the office and additionally.

So, um, it's cognitively, emotionally speaking. Uh, a lot easier to fire a remote worker than it is someone that's in the office. Um, yeah, for, for all kinds. I mean, we've all, I'm sorry we've all been there. Um, and that totally is a thing, right? And from a, from an employee's perspective, um, working remotely, like there's, there's a whole long tail of psychological isolation and blah, blah, blah.

And, you know, all of that stuff that I don't wanna go into, um, that actually also has an issue here, right? And. And I think fairly so, um, you know, a lot of people are putting this up against the commute time and, and I get it, like I get it right. I've been commuting in, in, in Manhattan for an hour, every, every lag basically.

So two hours a day. That wasn't fun at all. Like, don't get me [00:19:00] wrong, uh, but there's a balance here. So now, you know, when I was working in the office, it took me like 15 minutes bike ride. It was actually. Was beneficial for me to go to the, you know, to have a commute basically. Um, so there, I think there's a, there's a balancing here also in, in how to kind of look at this.

Raul: And you just mentioned something, which very often is just mentioned as an afterthought, but is, for me personally, my main reason for disliking remote work, um, and that is the. As you call it, accidental learning. I actually think it's not accidental. I think it, it will happen when you get people together, the right amount of people, right? Kind of people with the right culture. And maybe that's very much because that's the way I've always tried to have my culture and build my teams, but I. There is so much that happens when you get those people together in a room, not just the tapping on the shoulder and interrupting and wasting each other's time, but a lot of productive things, a lot of accidental knowledge, overhearing [00:20:00] things, understanding things more, uh, understanding context, understanding other departments, but also a lot of just social learning, as I would call it, like part of, and.

It might be that I was a late bloomer, although I, I would describe myself as such. Um, part of my professional development has been me also learning to get along better with people, sharing a space, uh, finding conclusions, uh, listening better hopefully, um, arguing, arguing better, just discussions all day long.

Um, and, and that has a physical aspect to that and, and more of that happens when you are in the office. Yeah. And these things are, in my understanding, a lot of times what makes people advance their career. Not necessarily just producing that document and making that sale and producing that tech, uh, piece of product, but like understanding how to deal with people and how to lead people, and seeing leadership examples and seeing bad examples and good examples and, and, and discussing with people afterwards and even gossiping, like all that stuff falls away.

And that, to me is the glue. When you look [00:21:00] at all the productivity and the people and all that, that's the glue that holds teams together, and that is also what propels people to advance in seniority. Yeah. Um, I, I would be like, if I had started remotely, I don't know if I would've had half of the learnings that I had that that made me the senior, the person that I became.

And, and anecdotally speaking,

Toni: um, super sim super simplified. Uh, I've seen now a lot of different sales teams a lot, and I've yet to see. Uh, thriving sales team that is in a yes. Fully remote setup. Yes. And I'm sorry, I just haven't, and I've heard there are those unicorn stories and I'm, I'm sure they exist.

Don't, don't get me wrong, right. I'm not, I'm not doubting that. I just have seen the vast majority. Not being like this. Right. And, and I think it goes down to the very human level of just, you know, the amount of energy you get from someone else being successful, someone else kind of having energy, kind of the, you know, there's this, you know, bouncing this [00:22:00] energy off another, um, and then kind of driving your motivation and kind of going forward and, and the, the whole accidental learnings that are basically, you are listening with half an ear to what someone else is saying on the phone right now.

Oh, this was good. I'm gonna include this in my pitch going forward, right? All of those things forget about on a remote setup. Right? And probably the list is even longer than that, but it's like, anecdotally speaking, those are other things where I'm like, you know, it's kind, you know,

Raul: that part is a little bit cute to me, by the way. If you're sitting at home listening to this right now and shaking your head, uh, so far at all these boomers talking out of their ass and, and, and arguing for the old world to come back, that's not the case. Maybe sit for a second and think about, uh, where does your disagreement come from? Is it maybe coming from the fact that you really, really, really wish that the opposite were true and that is why you're arguing differently, such as you are just.

You just love remote work for all kinds of different reasons, [00:23:00] which I get, um, even as an employer sometimes. Um, and therefore you go from there and you wish those things not to be true that we're talking about. And that's probably the wrong way to look at it. Like scientific way is look at the evidence, look at what's working, look at what you've seen, anecdotal as well as scientific evidence.

And um, there's just some glaring mistakes and some glaring holds in remote work. Despite what you would like to be true.

Toni: And I'm sure there's also

research done on some of the upsides. Yes. So for example, um, I think if you're a developer, for example, and have a very specific task you get through and the office is actually creating more distractions than home, then probably there will be time spent at home kind of that is more productive than any office.

But let's kind of, let's kind of jump to, in the interest time, let's jump to the next thing, uh, because this is the whole remote work thing. The other thing is, and this has been starting to bubble a little bit up, and I started to, you know, double click and double click and double click, and now I found two really interesting pieces I wanted to share.

And [00:24:00] they're both around.

AI's impact on developers
---

Toni: AI is making us duh. Right. Surprise, you know, let, let, let, let that sink in for a second. Right. It's really actually, artificial intelligence is reducing our intelligence. That's actually kind of to a degree. If you use it in a certain way, maybe in a wrong way, that's actually what's happening.

Two, two really cool things. Oh, cool. I don't know. Insightful. There's one. Um, you know, one of my co-founders sent this to me, uh, hilarious. Um. Basically this was a, a study, um, and again, Bart is gonna kind of slide this in here probably from the side, a study that was done with, um, experienced open source developers.

Right. So we're not talking entry level job or like junior and stuff. Open source. Why open source? I don't know. This is the, the group that could find a this with, I guess basically they asked, uh, the developers and some experts kind of, how much will your productivity increase? If you use AI in order to do your work, if you kind of [00:25:00] do the coding right, and those, um, you know, projections of how much this increases, they range between, uh, let's just say plus 20 to plus 40%, right?

Kind of. 20 to 40% less time necessary for a specific task. I kind of, that's basically how that translated. Um, and those were like, um, you know, machine learning experts, uh, that are forecasted, that economics experts that are forecasted that, uh, the developer staff themselves forecasted this. Um, and, and here comes the developers that were in question that did the work.

They forecasted a, uh, you know, 22% reduction in time necessary for a task before they did the experiment. And then they were asked afterwards as well, and they basically said, we saw a 20 20% reduction only from, instead of 22%, only a 20% in our reduction in time necessary. And now the thing comes, uh, the actual [00:26:00] objective assessment of.

You know, where they're faster, where they're better, where the quality, yada, yada, yada, actually concluded, um, better. It took them 20% more time to conclude the task, which is absolutely bonkers, right? I think that is, that's also the reason why the, you know, the co-founder shared with me because it's like, it's so weird, right?

Not only. Is everyone intuitively saying, of course, you know, if you can complete this stuff that otherwise we need to write myself, of course it's gonna be faster. But not only some random person that knows a little bit about the space that, that the developers themselves before and after the experiment and you know, even after where you would think like, oh no, you know, they lived through this.

They now know that actually in this experiment it didn't work out even after they thought it actually was better for them, which is. Absolutely ins insane. I think it's absolutely ins insane. What's your, what's your reaction at all?

Raul: So my first reaction is thinking [00:27:00] about the people who are seeing this and, uh, their reaction, because I can already tell you that this is the classic example of someone looking at this or listening to you and being like.

That might be, I mean, maybe they're disputing the, the study. Okay, cool. But let's say they agree with the study and they're like, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's true. Not the case. For me though, like when I say I'm more productive with ai, I'm actually more productive with ai. I know that for a fact. Well, just like these developers, experienced developers knew, knew that they're more productive with AI by 22 or 22%.

And um, by the way, I'm not saying that AI can, some can make someone more productive. I'm saying that the assessment. Uh, and typically the subjective assessment, um, is, is not really the measure to go by. Um, and is actually not, uh, maybe the future that we will land in because, um, I have both hearts in me where I'm, I'm, I'm actually scared to death of where I lead will lead us.

But I also can [00:28:00] see the benefits and I can definitely see the, uh, performance improvements. But I also think that we're lying to ourselves of where we're at right now, and, and, and there's a lot of optimism. And then there's a lot of make believe and a lot of, again, people really wanting to believe and wishing that this were true, but maybe it isn't yet.

And, and some of it is just evil employers trying to fire people and therefore arguing that AI is just, uh, uh, good enough. It isn't in, in most areas. Um, and then some of it is just in developers, maybe trying to be like, uh, future forward looking and, and, and, um, and trying to make it as it, as it's not. But what I do see definitely is that people are becoming less smart about it.

And that's where you're going with that.

Study: AI making us dumber?
---

Toni: Let me then

inject the next time. So those were 54 students, like students, I dunno, high school, university, something like that. They were split up into three different groups, um, I think over four months. Um, and basically each [00:29:00] of these groups, um, had, you know, one group had a sign that they could use ChatGPT LLMs in order to, uh, complete tasks like essay writing and these kind of things.

Um, the second group was only allowed to use a search engine, so Google, but without ai. And the third group, um, was the brain only group, right? Um, and they would kind of over time give them like tasks and so forth, blah, blah, blah. All cool plot twist in the final exam, so to speak. Um. They, uh, changed the tools that each group had access to randomly around, like each of the people.

Suddenly, you know, people that had open AI before suddenly ended up without any tool or only with Google, or maybe some of them kept open ai, right? Kind of their basic kind of, you know, uh, mix the whole thing up. So what did they find? They found overall in the, um, OpenAI group or chat, GBT group lower brain activity, they found, uh, [00:30:00] cognitive debt.

Which basically is another way of saying, because you are not exercising your brain muscle. Your muscle is going back. It's getting all weaker. Right? Um, that's basically what they're, what they're saying here, and they're calling it cognitive debt. I would call it like a, a, a shrinking brain muscle. Um, they saw consist, the, the group saw that they consistently lacked at neural linguistic and behavioral tasks.

Um, they found that, um, there was a loss of critical thinking. And writing skill utilization. Um, and they found that, um, executive functions like planning and Riesling were going away. And what really strike me, uh, was actually that these assays, because this is where, you know, on all this other stuff, how, how did they figure this out from this essay that they're writing.

But, you know, one thing here. [00:31:00] Which was just insane, is the group that used, uh, chat, GBT and then to create, you know, um, you know, assays, you know, without ChatGPT actually there were, uh, it was a homogenization of thought, sameness. So people were writing the same essays in the same way, in the same tone, about the same topics.

Basically, um, you know, this could be an outcome of the comment of that, uh, that's, that's happening or a bit more of a, Hey, that's how you need to think about these things. Right. Um, and then the last thing, um, which I can absolutely relate to, and maybe this is also something we need to discuss, um, diminished, uh, memory retention. Uh, so this is something that is to a degree called also digital, uh, amnesia. Um, and basically. What we have, you know, all collectively happily done is we don't remember facts anymore. Like brains are be shitty at that [00:32:00] anyway, and I just can Google it. If I know where it is, I can find it. All right. So I don't need to memorize all of those facts.

Well, the same thing's happening now with. Intellectual capabilities. It's like, if I don't need to, you know, uh, think through all of these things, if the machines are doing it for you, then I can just, you know, give a dare. And, you know, that then leads to, uh, not only getting weaker, but also having, uh, you know, slower, worse memory of what you've been doing.

So this was a whole slew of things that just threw at you. Um. Isn't this crazy,

Raul: especially the last one.

The Future of Cognitive Functions
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Raul: So everyone, I, I said I'm, I'm scared to death of AI and where it will lead us and I don't think it's gonna be a good place overall, unfortunately. But, um, part of the reason why. Maybe me, but most other people are, are fearmongering and really scared about this is AI will become smarter than us and there's, um, always the narrative of AI will become smarter than us because AI will become smarter and smarter and, and it eventually, it'll be so smart [00:33:00] that, uh, it goes exponential and then it makes itself smarter and iterates on itself, and then we're all screwed.

Well, maybe that's true. But what seems to be true is that we're just keep lowering the barrier. So, uh, maybe one way I will be smarter than us is not necessarily only that it itself becomes smarter, that, but that we just become willingly, dumber and happily so, and that is just scary to me, to be honest.

Like, and it's mostly scary. It's, it's funny, um, in a way I can find the humor in it. I can also find how it's interesting. It's just not the society I wanna live in. Yeah. And so like, how many of our cognitive functions are we willing to just piss away and, and give away to these machines? Um, and, and, and we're doing so happily running into this.

Toni: So let's, let's play the, um, oblivious individual and let's also play the super harsh money counting. Uh, you know, employer, so to speak. Yeah. So why should I personally care that my cognitive functions are, [00:34:00] um, like decreasing? Right. Um, and to a degree, you know, you could say that. Well, since we have electricity everywhere and since we have machines doing all kind of stuff for us.

Everyone is getting fatter. Uh, you know, everyone is having back problems because they're sitting all day. You know, even from that revolution, you know, we have some negative side effects. Uh, isn't this just another negative side effect of a new technical revolution? And it absolutely, totally is. Um, but to a degree, you know, I can still go to the gym.

I'm not. Sure if that analogy really translates well to your conduct of functions. I, I'm, I'm not so sure about that. Uh, and, and maybe you just need to play Sudoku a little bit more. If know something I, I'm not sure what it is. Um, but, you know, losing your cognitive abilities. I don't [00:35:00] think this is a, well, you know, I can live without it kind of acronym.

Yeah, maybe,

Raul: maybe that's just me though. Or think about it as, as I'm not, you are a parent. Think about your children's cognitive abilities. Just as you're thinking maybe about their, uh, physical health. Um, think about their development that they're taking. Think about their social, uh, language. Mathematical, just scientific development, but in general, like cognitive abilities.

And if you're not a parent, think about your own. So they have this saying where. Uh, I don't know if I subscribed to that, but there is a saying that's been very pervasive. Um, AI won't take your job, but someone with a job, uh, using AI will take your job. Right. Um, and maybe you've heard this, or maybe not. I actually, I think it's.

Possibly more if, if that's the, if that's true at all, um, some intelligent person using AI will take your tool. And so the idea here is, well, let's assume we're all going to succumb to the AI overlords and that's what, what we'll all have to deal with or we're gonna be jobless. Um, the [00:36:00] people who are then going to win are the ones who are going to be smart about using ai.

So either way, if you want to remain competitive, you, if you want your children to remain competitive, whatever the future holds, which nobody knows, um, it's probably a good idea to be, uh, cognitively functioning well.

Toni: So, and that is a good intro to why should I as an employer care, but not people are getting dumb and dumber.

I mean, like, do I care if the intelligence coming from a human being or a computer? I don't kind of care as long as I get the intelligence. So number one, um, I think. We're still pretty far away from that thing to be as smart as we are. Uh, I'm, I'm using AI a lot in different areas. Um, I have lots of experience where, uh, you know, I, you know, I tried to have a really intelligent conversation with it, and, and for some reason we ended up in like a, like a we blah kind of space.

Um, so just giving AI the instruction, Hey, fix this problem, or, Hey, make this website look good, or kind of build this app. [00:37:00] It doesn't actually work like that. You still need to have the cognitive function currently of a human being to help alongside of that. Right? So, and maybe this is coming in 10 years, I don't know, five years or something like that, but it's for sure not happening right now.

But those stats, this research, the, you know, those effects, they're happening right now, right? So at the very least, you should probably have a, you know how, however you kind of, um, believe in AI being kind of getting to this level. There certainly is a gap between, you know, what is happening right now and kind of at at what point something else can take over.

Right. Um, and then there's the other camp, I think where, um, well we don't know yet, but maybe humans will play a longer term role. Um, you know, in building organizations, building companies, maybe there isn't gonna be this whole AI thing, uh, happening, which kind of, I'm part of that camp, by the way, so long term.

Probably not a great idea, um, to have the [00:38:00] cognitive functions of your employees degrade over time. Right. And, and I think that's why, um, you know, if you take those two effects into account, um, remote work on the impact of that, and we talked about, you know, probably very likely work less, um, you, um, you know, maybe learn less on the job, uh, maybe you kind of have less, uh, motivation and energy from other people around you.

Plus, hey, this AI thing is kind of happening and it's making us a little bit dumber or maybe a lot dumber overall. If you combine those two things together, like that's a significant productivity hit. We're actually currently experiencing and taking like, and a thing about on a company lab. That's actually kind of massive and I think no one is talking about it like this and or connecting those two pieces together.

You know, we're all talking about the next AI app that's gonna shave 20% of admin work from, from everyone in your team. And all of that is cool, but there's this other background radiation thing that's happening at the same [00:39:00] time that is maybe impacting this whole thing overall on a much larger scale that we are kind of currently oblivious to.

Right. And, and I think that's why we want to. To also bring this up, everyone to kind of see that

Raul: it, it's quite scary stuff actually. And so maybe that's being too romantic and you might criticize me for that. But, um, let's say you are this, uh, successful capitalist, um, either as a founder and, uh, you win capitalism, you bring this company forward, you create it, and then you make a hundred million or 200 however much money you, you really wanna make.

Then what? Like you're, you're gonna have children. You, you're gonna want to live in this world somehow, somewhere. Um. What kind of society are you trying to build and what kind of like, uh, people do you want to have around you? And, um, this is not me making this grant scheme pitch for like, uh, corporate social responsibility, but just from an own egoistical perspective, if I have this big [00:40:00] leverage on the world.

Um, do I want to create a world where basically everyone around me is jobless and uh, and I have to live in the fortress, uh, aren't guarded by security guards and up high in the tower with my a hundred million and my kids walled off of the world. We can't even go to the zoo. We can't even go out and, and travel the world, or do I wanna live in the world that's as smart and as intelligent and cognitively functioning as possible?

So. Either, and, and again, take it as romanticism, but I do actually believe this very strongly that as someone who's an entrepreneur, building a company, what you have in addition to a company is also leverage on the world. And, um, by, just by that fact alone, you have responsibility and it's, it's your choice how you use that.

And I know for a fact. Some people will be, even if they don't admit it, they will be very happy with being a technocrat in the future and just sitting in an ivory tower, uh, growing up their children in the school, uh, separated from the rest of society and not having to deal with anyone. And, and that's okay.

But I, I don't think that everyone has that, and I definitely don't,

Final thoughts
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Toni: I don't [00:41:00] think we have the solutions here. On the show today. Um, I think there's certainly some takeaways around, Hey, there's something happening you need to be aware of, number one. Number two is, um, hey, take this AI adoption with a bit of a grain of salt.

Um, think about, um, how to actually use this. Um, think about how to use it in a way to preserve your, your Carlo function, so to speak. And I think the other thing is, um, yeah, you should be trying to get your folks back into the office. Like, like you, you, you certainly should. Uh, I think it has a productivity impact.

Um, and maybe we, maybe we end it here. Uh, roll. Let's do that. Thank you everyone for listening. It was a longer episode. I, I hope you stuck with us, uh, through this here and, uh, you know, see you soon on a more positive note probably. Cheers.

Raul: Thanks everyone.

Next week: What have we been working on?
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Toni: Next week Raul and I are [00:42:00] going to talk about some pretty deep work that we've been busy with for the last.

Four to six months, we are going to go into what that is, specifically, how that is very likely affecting you right now and what you can do about it to fix it. I'm being extremely cryptic here by design, but if you want the full story and you don't want to miss it, then hit subscribe and see you next week.