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At the edge of collapse—and creation—two unlikely co-conspirators invite you into a radically honest conversation about the future. This isn’t just another tech or self-help podcast. It’s a story-driven exploration of who we are, what we value, and how we might reimagine the world when the systems around us stop serving us. We blend personal storytelling, cultural critique, and deep inquiry into what it means to be human in an age of AI, uncertainty, and transformation. We’re asking better questions—together.
Because the world is changing fast, but maybe that’s precisely what we need.
Hosted by Beth Rudden and Katie Smith, two builders of systems and challengers of the status quo. Beth is CEO of Bast.AI and a globally recognized expert in trustworthy AI, with decades of experience leading data and ethics at IBM. Katie is the founder of Humma.AI, a strategist who drove innovation and revenue growth at major global brands before turning to human rights and technology for social good. Together, they make complex issues, such as AI and its impacts on everyday people, clear, personal, and impossible to ignore.
Beth Rudden is the CEO and Founder of Bast AI, a pioneering company building explainable, personalized AI for good. With over two decades of experience as a global executive and Distinguished Engineer at IBM, Beth blends anthropology, data science, and AI governance to create tools that amplify human dignity and intelligence—not replace it.
Her work spans healthcare, education, and workforce transformation, using ontological natural language understanding (NLU) to make AI transparent, accountable, and accessible. Through Bast AI, Beth is reimagining how organizations deploy AI that’s not only accurate but aligned with ethical values, cultural context, and cognitive well-being.
Beth is also the author of AI for the Rest of Us and a passionate advocate for AI literacy, epistemic diversity, and the right to understand the systems shaping our lives. She speaks globally on the future of AI, power, and social contracts—and believes we’re all stewards of the next intelligence.
Katie Smith is the CEO and Founder of Humma.AI, a privacy-first platform building community-powered, culturally competent AI. With over two decades of experience leading digital strategy and social innovation, Katie blends systems thinking, Responsible AI, and storytelling to create tools that serve dignity, not domination. Their work spans mental health, civic tech, and digital rights, using participatory AI to make systems safer, fairer, and more accountable. Through Humma.AI, Katie is reimagining how people and businesses engage AI that’s accurate, inclusive, and governed by consent and care. Katie is also the author of Zoe Bios: The Epigenetics of Terrorism, a provocative exploration of identity, trauma, and transformation. They speak globally on the future of technology, power, and justice—and believe human empathy is the intelligence that will define our time.
Subscribe to our Substack for bonus content: https://substack.com/@andwefeelfine
Beth Rudden (00:13)
Welcome to, we feel fine, the podcast where we explore what it means to be human in the age of AI, uncertainty and transformation. I'm Beth Redden and I'm here with my cohost, Katie Smith. Together, each episode we'll dive deep into the questions that matter most as we navigate this unprecedented moment in history. Katie, how do you feel today? Do you feel fine?
Katie Smith (00:37)
feel fine today, but you fine as we've established before can mean so many different things. But it's Memorial Day. So I just wanted to say thank you. And I appreciate, know, both of us, you know, showing up today. A lot of people are out there eating a lot of hot dogs and waving flags and having a good time, which I think is in great honor of the folks that we have lost. And, you know, so, you know, on a day like this, I do reflect. ⁓
I don't know, I think we both come from military families and so both of us, you know, have some stories there. But for me, the big story in my family in the military is like, fought all the way back to the Revolutionary War. And there's a direct line of survivors actually. And even my grandpa on my dad's side was a prisoner of war, got shot down in World War II and survived the Nazis.
for like way too long, a lot of people didn't. so when I think about survived, you know, yeah, I think about it. I think about the people who we've lost, they gave us this ability to have this celebration, have this beautiful day. And then of course I think about like, you know, every life that lived up to mine and like every single war we fought up to Vietnam.
Beth Rudden (01:57)
⁓ Mine is very close and very personal. My husband as well as my son have both served. I think that there is something very real about, there's actually a statement that I make quite a bit. And I'm like, never invite the government into your life. that comes with lots of, lots of things. Right, well, absolutely. it's sort of like, you don't,
Katie Smith (02:22)
if you can help it.
Beth Rudden (02:28)
Don't you know create legal battles don't you know be litigious? know that those kind of things too is like don't spend the state's money like you know to sue somebody like I just I have some I guess I have some really interesting views about that sort of service mentality and You know when my husband was deployed I would have people that I worked with asking me if he could just come home on the weekends like any consultant would
And I've always felt very like part of a privileged group that I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. So it's not privilege ⁓ as like a good thing, it's privilege as in knowing things that you can't unlearn. And one of the things that I guess I'm so proud of, especially on Memorial Day,
is that my husband and my son have chosen lives of service and lives of wanting to help other people and to be able to make sure that we all have freedom and freedom of choice. And that is so powerful in that it's hard, like I said, it's really personal. And that's the, like, you the fact that you can trace your family all through the Revolutionary War.
I believe very strongly, and I know you and I have talked about it, that that sets how our brains kind of matter too. And I know that I'm definitely changing future generations with my husband and I. And then ⁓ my mother didn't even know her father for the first two years of life because he was in World War II and in Pearl Harbor. And he was a submarine captain. And prior to my husband,
meeting my husband and then my husband serving, you know, the stories that I had were of like burnt toast and peanut butter and ⁓ making sure lots of ketchup on eggs. like, and my grandfather was like, six, seven. So I was like, how did you survive in like, you know, in a in a submarine in Pearl Harbor? And it's just so you know, but but those are very different than like the the the
Katie Smith (04:30)
Yeah.
my gosh.
Beth Rudden (04:47)
the very personal connection that I have right now. I want more people. I really, know this is like, I want everybody to have a understanding of what it's like to serve and be a part of something bigger. And I do believe that everybody should go into a conscripted service and not necessarily military, but definitely community-based or, or civil service or, know, just something, you know, even
Katie Smith (05:10)
Yeah, Peace Corps or anything.
Beth Rudden (05:16)
⁓ being a part of our legislator, you know, like in our legislative branch. Right? Wouldn't that be amazing? I mean, I just, think we need more involvement.
Katie Smith (05:27)
to try to do it,
but it felt like, yeah, lead us in some ways to even that particular program that I'm thinking of.
Beth Rudden (05:36)
I detest
that we have so many people serving our country who have never served our country. I'm a little on the biased side, and I will be explicit about my subjectivity here. I don't think you should be president of the United States if you've never served our country.
Katie Smith (05:57)
I mean, if you're a commander in chief, right? So yeah, I think, you know, having a commander in chief that hasn't had that experience, think does matter, sadly. Yeah. You know, I think about, when I think about World War II, I think about the industrial revolution and that's sort of similar to what we have going on right now too. And, you know, there is war happening right now. You know, it's just, war looks different than it used to.
Beth Rudden (06:25)
It is not a nice game we play. And the thing that I've always loved is like the diplomacy and the people who can make all of these things happen in such random acts of kindness that create entirely different situations where we avoided war.
for many, many, many decades. And I remember listening to, was Thinking Fast and Slow by Kahneman. And he says in it, he goes, and this was prior to the Ukrainian war and prior, it was written right on the brink. And he said, he really believed in humanity and what we are going to be able to achieve because
We have had such a great stalemate in nuclear weapons, making sure that one country didn't go above another country and everything. to see that disintegrate in our lifetime is very sad to me. I wanted to be like the USS Enterprise and go out and explore all of these different ⁓ universes and all these different places. I want to go to Mars. I know that's some...
people's dream, like, think that, you know, instead of, instead of setting, you know, I, I almost, what if we had a common enemy, you know, or a common way to come together, maybe with climate change. So we don't, I don't know. I'm, I'm not gonna go too far with this because I don't think that I can be optimistic, but I, I do think that, I listened to something.
recently where a lot of the people who do understand what's going on with climate change, it's become a like a power bid where they want to own the power when things really start to disintegrate. And that's not in humanity's best interest. Definitely not unless you are above a certain income level. And even then, I think that you're so disconnected from what it means to be human and live a dignified life that
That's something that is not good because you're not going to be able to really replicate what it is to be part of something larger and live a dignified life and pass that on to your children.
Katie Smith (09:02)
Yeah. Yeah, the acts of service, know, everyone thinks a little bit differently about acts of service. So it's interesting. I'm with you though. remember I used to admire my father's like uniform and you know, he was he was a screaming angel, ⁓ screaming eagle. Sorry. So like he would go out of planes, but because he was the youngest brother of my
Beth Rudden (09:17)
Mm-hmm.
Mmm.
Katie Smith (09:27)
my grandma was able to convince the government to not send him to war. And actually it messed with him a little bit that his two brothers went to Vietnam and he never got to go. Anyways, I bring this up because I think there is something about that membership, you know, and being able to, you know, I think that's what sort of, ⁓ you know, I don't want to speak for my father, but like, I think there was something about not being a part of that group that went.
Beth Rudden (09:37)
Mm-hmm.
Katie Smith (09:56)
that he didn't feel like the same type of membership. Anyways, it's interesting because we all think about these things differently. ⁓ But this idea that we brought up in the last podcast around community and spaces, I don't know if you're picking this up, but it feels like a lot of people are starting to talk about this. Like there's like this collective like, ⁓ we just need to do it differently. Like we just, we cannot keep going the way that it is going. Like we need to be with each other.
Beth Rudden (10:23)
and
Katie Smith (10:26)
And Trevor Noah was talking about it, which Jonathan hate actually. So it's funny, Jonathan's making the rounds because of the work that he's been doing. Um, but I really liked what Trevor, uh, Trevor Noah was saying because he was just like, you know, can't we just go to like, um, parks like kids get to play on the park. Like, why can't we just go to these parks? Or he was coming up with the ideas around like, how do we just show up and being community? Oh, I liked his idea. remember what it was. So I'm, I just want to like underscore his idea.
Beth Rudden (10:29)
Mm-hmm.
Katie Smith (10:55)
Kids used to, and we did this too, would just block off your neighborhood, right? If you were going to play a game of soccer, like in the street, you would block off the end of one street and then the other end and people would be like, car! And then you would move, right? But you would have like these collective kids like knew how to play in the block, right?
And then communities do it too. block, we, do block parties and he's like, we should do more block parties. He's like, he's like, I don't see as many block parties in, in, you know, Brooklyn or whatever anymore. And I was like, that's right. Like we used to have block parties all the time and it was amazing. So maybe we don't, we don't always have to just co-op the church, although I still really like that idea. Um, the Catholic church just go into those spaces, just enjoy the space all around the world. But this idea where we just like come in community and have a block party.
Beth Rudden (11:39)
Bye!
I love block parties. We have them in our neighborhood. And we have ⁓ even like one neighborhood over, you can hear like the band plays and, know, ⁓ most of the, you know, most of the littler children have had their birthday party in the pocket park down the street with the balloon castles or not balloon castles, but the jumpy castles and, you know, all of those things. yeah, I have,
Katie Smith (11:57)
That's great.
Beth Rudden (12:16)
I, we supplied a lot of that for our children. And one of our neighbors ⁓ actually became ⁓ quite famous and he invented Ooty's sourdough bread. And then he invented like ⁓ a gluten-free ⁓ and he would always, they would always have sandwiches and like donate everything. And it was just, it was fantastic. Like, and you know, he wasn't, they, you know, he and Fern, ⁓
Katie Smith (12:37)
Yeah, great press. Love it.
Beth Rudden (12:45)
who's moved on, had come from Israel and ⁓ really, and he was part of the Israeli army and he would always talk to my husband about serving. It was very interesting because I think that, ⁓ my gosh, my husband put our house on the flight path because they would do maneuvers with Blackhawks and Chinooks and everything else.
And so, you know, and at Buckley where they would like fly from Buckley over to our house, it was so hilarious because the next door, I don't know if you get, if you know about next door, it's like a, ⁓ it's not a good social media thing in my, in my opinion. It's sort of like a gossip fest, but we, we would have all kinds of people going, why are blackhawks in our neighborhood always like going over and da da da da da da da da.
Katie Smith (13:24)
Yeah.
Now.
totally.
I'm
This is how conspiracy
theories are started, Beth. You have no idea. Your husband's kindness probably spawned like 15 conspiracy theories.
Beth Rudden (13:50)
Oh, absolutely. But like we've lived here longer than almost anyone because we were one of very first houses built. like we, I think one of our friends or maybe even my husband like went in to next door and the minute that they knew that it was like military training, then everybody like sort of adopted it. But we had such a...
So they're called static displays where they can go to the different elementary schools, et cetera, et cetera. And they can ⁓ use it to get people used to the military and used to like many, many high schools and even middle schools have ROTC or ⁓ the one that my son was part of is
the part of the Air Force and learning to ethically hack. so, you know, there's so many different programs, so many programs, especially for young people. But we had kind of ⁓ a mixed reaction where there were definitely some parents who were like, I don't want you to recruit my child to the military. And we think guns are bad. So no, you can't have a static display and my child like crawl through an aircraft.
even though it was a medevac aircraft. So there was no guns on the aircraft. But that was such an interesting, like for me, I was like so bummed that people just didn't get it. Like, Kitty, how do you not get that? Like, how do you, how do you, ugh.
Katie Smith (15:26)
have
such empathy for them because I was so that person because like, you know, you get to a certain age, right? And you realize, ⁓ war is just like killing innocent people and our government is doing this and to what information? Like, why? Why is this happening? Why? What could possibly inspire us to bomb these people or do these things?
And so you just say, well, I'm against war. I am against guns. I do not like it. Right. then, you know, if you're depending on, you know, what generation you're raised in to, like we were taught to be afraid of guns. You know, there was a lot of violence, you know, for Gen Xers when we were kid, like you were going to get abducted or you're going to get shot. Like something was going to happen terrible. Although we were free to go figure that out ourselves. Like, you know, it was, it was a scary world. And so I understand it.
And then as I've gotten older and man, when I was younger and older people said what I'm about to say, boy, was this really irritating. But you get to a certain age where the more you know, the less you know, but you do know a little bit more. And what I have learned is there are just bad actors in the world. And it's really, really sad. I think we've contributed to creating some of these bad actors. I'm going to be, you know, in terms of our governmental activities.
Beth Rudden (16:42)
Yeah.
Katie Smith (16:47)
And sometimes there's just bad actors that are bad actors for whatever reason. Like a lot of people use whatever book they're reading to justify their behaviors and God knows what else. So that's just like in your, in your neighborhood, in your community, if you're having a block party and somebody attacks a home, the whole block is going to protect that home, right? That's just, or even a fire, right? Like just, that's how goes. And so the sad reality is, is that we do need a military.
And there is peace through strength and peace through diplomacy. And so to get back to that in a second, this is so related to AI in my opinion, because first of all, we've decimated our diplomats. Our state department has been decimated. There's like less people working there than I think maybe ever in history. Like it's just been decimated. So our ability to talk human to human to people has just been like removed. And now you just have.
Beth Rudden (17:34)
you
Katie Smith (17:46)
What we have? Like what diplomacy do we really have right now? It's only military. I think that's wrong, right? So to your point that like having going on some, you know, government funded mentorship or apprenticeship or
Beth Rudden (18:06)
Mm hmm. Even even even happy. So we did static displays for both of our children in both of their schools and, you know, several times and having all the children crawl through the aircraft, click on all of the buttons like, you know, try to break the aircraft. And I mean, these things are held together with duct tape if they need to. They're not that bad. But like they're just like, you know, it's like everybody understands how to fix everything.
Katie Smith (18:07)
whatever tour, you know?
Beth Rudden (18:35)
It gives people and also living in the same neighborhood for 20 something years gives people an understanding that they're like, we know a neighbor who is in war and we know somebody who is part of our community. And when we had the first active shooters at the high school, we had people at our house saying, could you please send your husband and his helicopter to go get my child? And so there's ⁓ a, I think that
That's why I said I'm bummed that people I get it like I was I was an archaeologist hippie. I hated guns. did my entire thesis on the Ludlow tent colony massacre, which was the National Guard. then my husband and my my husband joined the National Guard. Like, I mean, I have all of these like both things can be true in my life all the time. Like, and I think that, yes, there are bad actors, but
when you have a community, you are less likely to have that bad actor be ostracized. ⁓ And that's something, or if that bad actor is ostracized, people are kind of aware of it. And I think that the community is absolutely needed. And I do think that it relates to AI because I think that we're at the... ⁓
We're at the brink where a lot of people are starting to recognize that artificial intelligence is just amplifying what some people are saying. It is not the community at all. And there are some things that can be done in order to create better community with AI. ⁓ The one that I point to a lot is the Maori where they created a language model to be able to pass their language through.
and make that relevant. And I've always thought that the librarians should be the stewards and curate the information for that locality. I use the Bronx all the time. was like, don't you want to communicate in the language of the Bronx with the Bronx library using that language model? Like that to me, that's, I almost, I know that it's really.
scary and like the military industrial complex has made a lot of a lot of very scary people very wealthy. But frankly, like the currency that humanity trades on is the day to day community. And, you know, just like in my community, we have people who show up on the doorstep when shit goes really wrong. And that's something that
It's a tough one because I do want people to have access and that's why I believe in some sort of and doing that, maybe that service is making people aware of the local language, something to that extent.
Katie Smith (21:35)
Mm-hmm.
Well, bringing people together, you know, because when I think about the Industrial Revolution,
Beth Rudden (21:48)
Yep.
Katie Smith (21:52)
industry was driven by military spending and war. And we are now in a moment where the biggest spending in the world is being put into AI in the context because we have to protect ourselves in the arms race, the new arms race, race, is AI.
Beth Rudden (21:56)
Yeah.
Katie Smith (22:13)
So it's like, we're back in this paradigm and look, so like, none of us like war, nobody wants war to happen and whatever we think about wars in the past, some put us into really safe diplomacy, right? Which is what we've enjoyed for the past 20, 30 years. We, without the diplomacy that we need with AI, there could be the opposite of that, right? So like, there is this moment of like,
people who are trying to have these very specific conversations like the Maori are doing, right? Like they showed up and through their own diplomacy got what they needed for their community. And so there's an analogy there. I'm not like cluing into it perfectly right now, but we are in a new military investment and it's like, who's going to benefit from this? And...
We're doing it for war that hasn't either happened or is happening so behind the scenes that the average person doesn't know, which means we're in a new season of war. What do you think about this?
Beth Rudden (23:22)
Mm-hmm.
So I remember learning about the Vietnam War changing the way that people behaved in war. so you would have like military, I'm going to get all the terms wrong, phalanxes, and they would like kind of like walk in a block. But because of Vietnam, like it was a totally different type of war, because they had to use completely different, you know,
Charlie was everywhere or something like that. And I remember vaguely learning about that going, my God, you used to send the infantry and then the cavalry and it's like, you would just, the human fodder and the human loss. I never understood it, but I also understood the sacrifice and the...
people who wanted to serve and that was part of who they are and who they were. So, but I didn't understand and I still don't understand the, there's no need for it. And that's like, there's not like kind of a necessity in that sense. There's not a biomimetic kind of relationship. I don't really see.
I guess, guess, you know, in some bio, like biomimicry can teach us something about war to a certain extent, but I don't know. I mean, I just feel so like that this is a very, this feels like a very human thing. And, and I don't think that I don't know how to get over it, but I do probably think it's, it's part of. ⁓
Katie Smith (25:07)
Yeah.
Beth Rudden (25:19)
It's part of a sickness. don't feel like it's a healthy thing that humans, you know, keep not being able to use their words, resort to violence. mean, is that that that God that sounds so Pollyanna, but I just I don't understand why can't we distribute like, you know, why are we putting people into jail who are stealing food because they're starving?
Katie Smith (25:48)
Yeah, money. So if China wants to dominate us in AI, why does that matter to them? Money, power and money, right? Why would the United States want to beat China at AI? Power and money. But so are they AI race? It's not really an AI race. It's it's but they're reframing it as that.
Beth Rudden (26:09)
But, but see...
Katie Smith (26:17)
But it's really just capitalism and China's playing along.
Beth Rudden (26:21)
What I understand from the people who I know who are in China or are Chinese or who I have had ⁓ first person kind of interactions with is that also what I see on the news and what I saw China do like during COVID where they would just be able to put up these massive hospitals and like, you the
the ability to build something so fast. It was just breathtaking to me. And then I remember going to an AI conference and it was like a AI and medicine conference. And I was there ⁓ with somebody who was part of the military actually. And we were doing some stuff with them as far as like medic co-pilot work where we were looking at.
how to build small models on devices that can operate without internet connectivity, mainly to show that this is possible. And I remember meeting a professor and he said it, I guess he said it in that way that had so much meaning, but you really had to understand what he was saying. And he said something like,
If you want to learn about China in the past, go to Shanghai. If you want to learn about the present, go to Beijing. If you want to learn about the future, go to Shenzhen. And he was talking about the amazing ⁓ technology that is happening in Shenzhen. when people were being introduced, and remember cities in China are larger in population than entire countries.
And so we, you know, I could probably say that Shenzhen is like, you know, its own, definitely its own local ecosystem with like, you know, local understanding and local kind of aspects to that. And he was talking about the medical students who, when they went in to start to study, they would get a generative AI assistant. And this is in like 23.
Like, so this is 2023, about two years ago and, you know, June, so like six, seven months after chat GPT was released. And I was like, well, aren't you worried about them getting bad information from the generative AI? And he was like, he goes, no, it's the information that is sanctioned. And I just thought that was so interesting because like, think, I think, you know, many people are going to have the same problems no matter what they do.
And it's just, you know, ⁓ like, it's just, I guess I have always, my husband used to say this a lot too, is that being a part of the National Guard, they would often build out infrastructure. And ⁓ part of the infrastructure that they were trying to build out is,
Katie Smith (29:04)
Yeah.
Beth Rudden (29:29)
that they would try to do the water or they would try to do like, you know, build like a school, you know, something like that. And then they would have ⁓ different people just come and blow it up because there was so much desire to make sure that the people in Iraq couldn't, you know, couldn't recuperate and couldn't build infrastructure. And when the Americans would build the infrastructure,
know, somebody else, the Iranians would come over and just blow it up. And, you know, I, I never ever saw anything like that on the news ever. And that's where I think what I know is we don't know.
Katie Smith (30:14)
Okay, I think that's fair. You know, one of the things that I do is I follow the money all day long. I watch Bloomberg TV and I look at, you know, finance news. I think it's really interesting just to follow how the money flows. And you've made the point where like, well, the banks are the most powerful to follow the banks. who's, what are the banks doing? And we see like SoftBank investing, like, you know, some of the biggest investments in the world and open AI. ⁓
Then with China, the way that they've been reinvigorating their economy and their economy is not growing like it used to is they've adopted capitalism to a very large degree. And so it's going to come down to who owns the technology, right? Not just the technology that is used in theater of war, but the technology that is used in the theater of user engagement.
Right. And user engagement could be used for propaganda, could be used to make money. And so it's sort of like the, this tool that we're developing right now, AI is like a propaganda machine and it can make a ton of money for people. Right. Like if you're a nation state, you're thinking about it in these sort of terms.
Beth Rudden (31:29)
Okay, but here's where I, again, is just, it always made me laugh. Like think of like a 55 year old Chinese man trying to interpret an American 13 year old girl's texts.
Katie Smith (31:43)
Why would he even be doing that?
Beth Rudden (31:48)
if you want to know how to create mass manipulation, if you want to know how to like subvert an entire civilization, if you want to truly be catast... Yes, something, yes, yes, yes. So I mean that, and that was sort of what I was alluding to as well.
Katie Smith (31:58)
You mean like thoughtfulness? There's just like somebody I see, I see. ⁓
We're gonna go from platforms
to like AI agents.
Beth Rudden (32:10)
Yeah, mean, ⁓ really great book called Ream Dee. ⁓ It's a sort of a read me Ream Dee is ⁓ all about it. And ⁓ God, it just such a wonderful book. But this was way before any of the you know, any of the things that we know today. But he he was talking about how
You know, there were all these bot farms that were literally like, you know, mining all of the gold in these games. And it was like, you know, all of the things that were happening with the internet and the gaming and like that entire like thread. There's so much there. And I, gosh, Katie, I'm like, what is the difference between war games and, you know, some of these like
large multiplayer video games. There's some disconnects with maybe how that is happening. My son loves Hearts of Iron IV because you can go back and forth in history. So you can like set up.
like, you know, a scenario, like an AI scenario. And then the next morning you're like, my gosh, Poland won World War Two. So you can like recreate, re simulate history based on, you know, different things that are going on. But it's still, it's very realistic. And I think, you know, I think about like after sort of the Cold War, a lot of people talked about like Levi's and Coca-Cola.
and how that completely changed the way that Russia looked at us, not to mention Gorbachev wanting to be one of the very first Russian leaders who really wanted to work with Reagan. so it's like, we are, I so appreciate people like you who watch Bloomberg and who watch the news. What I would ask is like, you know, pick up something
you know, from a totally different time or like a science fiction. ⁓ Harry Turtledove writes all about these sort of like historical fictions that are like a little bit, you know, kind of I would love to know what you think of that, because that's almost what it feels like to me is that there is so much propaganda. There is so much. And honestly, my Chinese friends, this is what they tell me.
They're like, everything is propaganda. You just have to know how to survive with like, what are you gonna eat tonight? You know, what are you gonna do tonight? Are you gonna go to your neighbor's house? You know, there's not.
Katie Smith (34:58)
You can choose to engage or not. I do think that the more we're open about this, it's sort of that analogy we talked about with the grandpa saying to the teenage fish, how's the water today? And they're like, what water, right? It's like, we don't have, the more we know that we're swimming in water, we're breathing water, or we're breathing extraction or whatever the thing is. It's like, we don't have to, there's a different way. And I think about Levi's and Coca-Cola, we're thinking about culture. And you know, I've said for years, like,
narrative is culture and the majority wins. it's sort of like, people love America because of our culture. Our culture is our biggest export, right? And it's sort of like, what's it going to be now? Like AI culture? Like we want like, I actually feel like the best thing we can do as a country is to let culture live.
Beth Rudden (35:52)
⁓ It's
well, what is it culture eats strategy for breakfast and and you know, but I think that, you know, the the new mini cultures of like my daughter, just the way that she speaks would flummox anybody over 50, much less somebody who doesn't, you know, have English as their first language. So it's like we have so many ways to participate in community and build out these
Katie Smith (35:57)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Beth Rudden (36:22)
you know, everyday rituals of eating together and making food and spending time outside and playing together, even if it's video games. mean, the shocking thing that I've learned with my kids is they have friends all over the world. And that is like, it's when...
you know, the stories about when the internet was created and all of those professors who went against their governments because they knew that their culture should be a part of the internet, should be a part of this thing that they were building, this IPv4, and like, you know, have the internet addresses. So I don't know. I guess I really kind of feel like the warmongering and like, you know, all of this technology.
maybe we're going to need it, but maybe we're going to need it to explore Mars. Or maybe we're going to need it to get ourselves to different parts of the universe or to find out something that we know to be true is likely not. And that is the exploration factor of artificial intelligence and the ability to generate copy.
It's just getting better and better and better. So I can spend more time reading about, I listened to one, ⁓ think ⁓ Ian, who is part of your world, put it out there. And it was something about like philosophy ⁓ eats AI or something like to that extent. And I was just like, my gosh, this is so interesting. And I listened to it and I'm gonna write a blog about it. And I would never,
have taken the time before and definitely never taken the time to write a blog about it. And it's like, just keeps keeps me coming back to I use AI to create higher quality outputs faster than humanly possible. I do this every day. I use it so that I can spend time outside and the outputs that I'm now able to generate and to create are so much richer
that the the thing that again that all of it is missing. And one of the things that completely drives me is this ability to learn how to prompt because you're prompting to learn. And when you know how that AI system is learning.
from your input specifically, when you are not interacting with a generated pre-trained transformer model that has been given to you, that takes your data and your data is used in a way that is unknown about how it is training the model and how the weights and measures are set and all of the choices that a human being has made. I think
That is when we're going to have a completely different relationship with AI. I know it. And it's the relationship that my team has with AI. We know how our questions and our input change how the AI system responds.
Katie Smith (39:50)
Okay. So for the thread of our podcast, beginnings and endings, you know, it's sort of like what's ending is maybe multiplayer video games without just, but we need to actually meet each other in person too. It's like, we've gone through like this, ⁓ generation of
playing video games and I was part of that generation. Like, you know, I was the first video game generation and ⁓ we, and then we went through the pandemic and I just feel like we've lost touch of things that are not within our device. And so this, really liked this thread that's been building of like, we need community. How do we show up in community? What are these spaces? Where do we go to? Because, you know,
We're always gonna have video games. They're not so bad actually. ⁓ Social media is always gonna be around. It just needs to look different. Religion's always gonna be here, but.
Beth Rudden (40:51)
Well, but people have always created so many parents and I, I really, totally dodged a bullet because I definitely am on the side of like, it with your children, whatever it is, and teach them how it works. And then if you try to restrict them, you're restricting their ability to learn. you know,
The funny one I tell all the time is my six-year-old boy child looking for big black snake on the internet without any restrictions, because there were no restrictions back then. And I was like, yeah, that's not a snake. So I think that my children did this and they continue to do this. And their friends' parents would restrict them from texting.
And then they would text in Roblox and talk to each other in Roblox. And then the friend's parents would get on them and I would try to teach them how you can create like a robot server and then you could curate that or you could monitor it again, or you could do it with them. And you can be a part of it and you can show them how to build the community. And it's like every restriction, a human being, a child,
would always like figure out a different way to create community and to get into their friend groups or to be able to belong and show that they can belong to that community. I don't know. It's like, think that the more you restrict, the more necessity the child has to get really creative. And don't you...
Don't you want to be a part of that creativity with them?
Katie Smith (42:41)
Yeah, absolutely. Do you want to hear a random story about a snake?
Beth Rudden (42:47)
⁓ maybe? ⁓
Katie Smith (42:51)
So I am, so I'm writing Zoe Bios. I'm in Tanzania. I got accepted into this artist residency. I'm going there because I'm going to study rock art, right? And so part of this is the creative director is like, let's go camping. We're going to go study rock art, but that's going to mean that we're going to go, you know, into the bush, long, long, long way, way from humans or anybody. We're going to camp and then we're going to hike. And I was like, this sounds great. Let's do it. So we do it.
Beth Rudden (43:00)
Hmm.
Katie Smith (43:18)
It's just me, the creative director and a guide, the local guide. And the local guide is like, you know, sometimes there's, there's cobras, sometimes there's black cobras. He's like, if you see a black cobra, you run. And like, he said it so like nonchalantly, we're like, okay, we're not, it's just, this is just like putting on your, your, your oxygen mask. It's like, it's not going to happen. You should just know these things. So we go up the mountain and we climb up the mountain. We get to, we're like in deep bush. We're like,
of mile plus into it and like maybe more than that and we're right at the rock art. And the next thing I know is the guide who said it very nonchalantly just screams run and then he runs. So he's zipped by my creative director who I am with and he like he I'm in his care basically right because he's done this a few times.
Beth Rudden (44:14)
Mm-hmm.
Katie Smith (44:16)
He decides he wants to take a picture of the snake. Okay, so here's the next thing I see. Its body, it must've been the oldest co- or, you know, in existence. Its tail comes by us, goes up into the rock. And the only thing I see before I go, my God, should we not be running? Is this gigantic head.
and then it just goes into the rock. And he just starts taking photos.
my god, so it was so long. It was so big. It had to be more than once. And if it gets you once, you're dead. And we saw the head of the thing.
Beth Rudden (44:55)
But that... That is amazing! Like...
Well.
But the story!
Katie Smith (45:08)
I got the best snake story
on earth. So it slithers by us, it goes into the rock and he's like, we're here, we should look at the rocks. It's over there. Let's just not go that way.
Beth Rudden (45:18)
Yeah. So,
okay, that totally reminds, that is an excellent snake story. I'm glad that you didn't get bit by the cobra and my God. Yeah. So growing up in Florida, we always did camping. So I was actually around a lot more reptiles than people realize. Cause in Florida, like if you ever go camping or tubing or anything, ⁓ river or there are always alligators. There are always warthogs. There are always now,
very, very large snakes and lots of things that you're just like, holy crap. ⁓ But reminds me so much of why I've always loved traveling. And I remember being very young and going to Ireland and like just you can walk off the cliff. Like there's no like guardrail. Right. Like and there's no guide telling you don't walk off the cliff.
Katie Smith (46:09)
Yeah.
Beth Rudden (46:16)
And it was just such a stunning revelation that we have all of these things in America where we're like, ⁓ we're at Disney World. There's no real big, it's just like, you know, it's like we've become immune to actual like information that we should pay attention to. If you see a big steak run, that'll never happen.
Katie Smith (46:43)
This story sounds like I wrote it from AI, but no, I have a witness. I have two witnesses. We never saw him again. We never saw that guy again. He ran and we never saw him again.
Beth Rudden (46:47)
no, AI!
You will never find, I don't believe that AI can write those types of human stories. Yeah.
Katie Smith (47:03)
So this is
a good segue into like maybe, you know, this, well, it's an ongoing conversation, but when we talk about community and we talk about service, and this is a good day for that, people are in community celebrating service. And, you know, part of what these soldiers did was to go into other places in the world and either they were serving as a protector.
Or I guess we always thought we were serving as protectors, right? I guess, you the soldiers did at least. I have great empathy with the soldier mindset.
Beth Rudden (47:38)
There's
a yeah, but there's a lot of American soldiers who are like, why the fuck are we here? You know, you know, yeah, because yeah.
Katie Smith (47:44)
Why are we here more than ever, more access to information?
Yeah. Yeah. So I think, I think I was very lucky and you know, my whole family died and then I left my career and I gave myself a sabbatical. So it wasn't like, yay, Katie had this one. was like, it was like my, it was my journey that I had to go through. But after I went through it and you think you've asked me this question is like, you know, what was that like for you? And it's like, it completely fundamentally changed me.
You know, in the best of ways, in like the conversations I had with people in all of these places were just, I'll never forget it. It's completely changed me. It's made me love the human race more than anything else and believe in the human race more than anything else. And if like we could just give that to our youth, you know, like, so could our youths doing that? Can we just send them away for a little while? Get in trouble.
Beth Rudden (48:33)
We can, we do.
Katie Smith (48:42)
Don't get stung by or bit by the black cobra, but go up the mountain. You know what I mean?
Beth Rudden (48:49)
Yeah, just, you know, you don't actually have to travel. You can read books and you know, I'm reading a book. Gosh, it's fascinating. But it was from 1968 and the way that he talks about like alcoholism not being a disease. Like it's like this is what people believed, you know, not even 70 years ago. So I don't know.
Katie, think about it. Don't you think that humans are going to get bored with this thing that just writes for them now? I want to predict this, but it's not that I care about being wrong or anything. I think that young people are going to get very bored with writing marketing copy or being like, what do mean I need a
business plan. Okay, here, here's your business plan. Like, you know, it's, it's, it's more about how do we pass the wisdom on in stories? And, you know, who is telling those stories? And that is whom our children will be listening to.
Katie Smith (49:48)
My first...
You know, what I hope is beginning along those lines, if AI really is going to create this moment where we can all actualize ourselves, self actualize, like we are at the top of the pyramid, it's going to give us all of that, that enlightenment that we've all been seeking for, right? You know, yeah, I hope people can read and get it in books, but if like, if we could create a program where we actually do travel and
we are inspired to meet different people and feel humbled and privileged to be welcomed into those communities and do the same in return. Like exchange networks, the thing we're trying to shut down in this country right now, international students and things like that. No, I feel like we need more of that. We need more of that. more representation in that. You know what I mean? And so, yeah, I think...
Beth Rudden (50:51)
Absolutely. And yes.
Katie Smith (51:00)
If AI is going to give us time back, if AI is going to end poverty, wouldn't that be amazing that we can all actually see each other, explore each other, explore each other's communities.
Beth Rudden (51:09)
Explore.
I
know that's that's what I and it could be because I'm biased in that you know I've reached a point in my life where that is absolutely what I'm going to do is I'm gonna go live two months and every place that I I've ever wanted to live two months in or see or explore do whatever and ⁓ you know something that I do find interesting is that there is a there's a sensitivity to being a guest
Katie Smith (51:28)
amazing.
Beth Rudden (51:40)
and there's a sensitivity to being a host. And I think that we're gonna have that type of sensitivity start to infect our culture in a way where communities are going to want to welcome people in using rituals that have similarity and consistency. I have found, are you part of any CEO groups or any like
Katie Smith (51:43)
Mm-hmm.
Beth Rudden (52:10)
⁓ I've joined a couple and they all seem to have different kind of rituals, but those rituals are so important, so, so, so important in creating that sense of welcoming and community and wanting to learn more.
Katie Smith (52:27)
Yeah, yeah. And I think communities as they get really large are hard. know, as they say, like organizations are hard. Like you can't manage more than six people effectively, but in small organizations, you shouldn't have more than 150 people. Like you always have to try to keep things, you know, smaller so they could be well organized. ⁓ I think that's true in organized religion. I think that's true in sports. I think that's true in lots of different ways, but
I don't know, there's something to that. Anyways, I'm exploring this concept and it's been fun to talk with you about it. Yeah, I think this is gonna be an ongoing theme for sure. We have some themes.
Beth Rudden (53:04)
Yeah, completely, I both decry the 250 person limit for any community and I actually, I have some ideas on how AI could literally change that notion as well. I think it's a total myth. And I think it's, ⁓ it's somebody who sees history as linear and it is not. Human beings are not linear.
Katie Smith (53:32)
Hmm, what would Darwin say about that?
Beth Rudden (53:34)
Surprise!
Darwin would say, our environment has changed. It's survival of the fittest for the environment, for the context. That doesn't change. And Darwin wasn't all that bright on some things as well. there's a lot of very interesting.
Katie Smith (53:55)
I want to unpack that with you. I want to unpack.
Beth Rudden (53:58)
There's a good teaser. ⁓ Let's go take a survey of ⁓ anthropologists and botanists and evolutionologists. What would you call Darwinism?
Katie Smith (54:11)
Definitely evolutionary scientists, right?
Beth Rudden (54:16)
gosh and we could talk about Freud and Jung. ⁓ Yeah, the psychologists were interesting, fascinating.
Katie Smith (54:23)
And it all gets linked to AI because that's the new beginning, folks. So here we go.