The AI Human Paradox with Bruce Randall, Enterprise and Startup Sales Growth Strategist

Automatic captions of the conversation. They can contain errors and do not name who is speaking.

Hi, everyone, it's Alec Crawford, your host for the AI Risk-Reward podcast. And our special guest is Bruce Randall, an enterprise and startup sales growth strategist, specializing in AI, cloud, and cybersecurity. Welcome, Bruce. Thank you, Alec. I'm pleased to be here today. Great to see you. I heard you're writing a book called The AI Human Paradox, and we're not going to talk about it right away. We're actually going to go back in time first and ask a little bit about your background and your early career. Where did you get started?

Where did you go to school? I went to school in Providence at Johnson and Wales University, and that's where I learned I could have a business and make more money than I could working for somebody. So my second year in, I started a business and I never looked back. Wow, amazing. And you studied at places like MIT as well? Yeah, I studied MIT data science because I wanted to understand the back end. Awesome. And what first sparked your interest in AI? Like, when did that happen? That's a good question. I was selling software, and AI started coming in, and it was making a mark.

And I really wanted to understand it better. And you can read on AI, but you don't understand it until you go back and figure out how it works. And that's what I did. And it fascinated me. Because then I learned about quantum. And I said, if you put both of these together, you have many paradigms shifting at the same time. And that's fascinating. Yeah, say more. Yeah. Well, quantum, with regular data, we look at one like the top. It's on a paper, we read it, and that's all we get. With quantum, we look at it 360 degrees.

So we get more of what we don't even know is there than what we do know is there. And with that, we come up with problems that we don't know and potential solutions that we never thought of. So it just opens up a whole area of the unknown, where really anything's possible. Yeah, that's super cool. Yeah. I mean, I know not even enough of that quantum to be dangerous, but the stuff I do know is pretty crazy. It's like a different world, so to speak, right? Now, I like talking about people's mentors and influencers, and you mentioned before the show Tom, long ago with really empowering your creativity and helping you learn about sales.

I'm just curious, tell us that story. How is he so helpful? Well, Tom Longo was my boss when I had my first outside sales job. It was a sales engineer. And we had one big company as a client, and they were about 40 million. And he said, they're going away because laptops are starting to come in. And he said, we need to replace that cash cow. So he gave me some ground rules, and I went out, you did marketing then, you read magazines, you made appointments to people. I figured out I'd rather talk to the engineers than the business people, because they wanted to hear what I had to say.

And I'd land spec positions on prints, that when they went to purchasing, our company was on there. And I said, this is a pretty good deal, because when the print comes out, we own it for three years till they get a second source. And I stumbled on something that worked very good for me. Wow, that's exciting. And you also mentioned the book Spin Selling, which I haven't heard of, but it sounds interesting. Well, it sounds like a dangerous term, like you're trying to bring something on somebody. But really what it is, it is the art of asking questions, first level and third questions.

And if you really learn how to listen to what somebody is saying, you can easily ask first, second and third level questions. And it's usually not until you go five or six levels deep that you get the real answer. And that's why that's so valuable. That's super interesting. So explain to the audience what a first, second and third level question are. Well, if you say, what's your problem? And they tell you the problem, you know, that we have a problem with our data. Well, why is that a problem? And what specifically issues is it causing you?

And how does that work? And how does that affect business and so forth? And then you might get down to the point where it's a business problem that software is trying to solve. And that's a good understanding to have going into it. Because now you know who to talk to, to understand the rest of the story. Right. So this goes back to the five whys. That's right. Just keep asking why until you figure out what's really going on. Yeah, that totally makes sense. So your path seems pretty unique. You know, 10 years of software and AI, selling, like, tell us the story.

Tell us what was your biggest sale and how did that happen, as an example? Well, I'd say that my best sale, because of the way it happened, was I stumbled upon a pharmaceutical company that had hyper growth. And back then, they couldn't get enough hardware in, in time to facilitate the growth. And cloud was just coming out. So I talked to the new CEO coming in and we struck up conversations and he realized that in order to meet his growth path, he needed something that he could get faster than waiting for hardware to come in.

So we signed up on cloud and we got him in cloud as the first level and then from then on they moved more into cloud and it ended up being where they could just go in and sign up a database or sign something they needed and then turn it off when they didn't instead of trying to order hardware. So for a hyper growth company that was a game changer. Yeah, absolutely. That's great. That's great that you figured that out. Now, I do want to get back to your book a little bit. That sounds super exciting. So first, what was the genesis of the book, the AI Human Paradox?

Obviously, no one wakes up in the morning and drinks their first cup of coffee. He goes, you know what, I'm going to write a 500 page book. Doesn't that sound great? So where did this come from? Well, it came from my MIT understanding of data science. And I built my first app on an LLM, which was very simple, much easier than I ever thought it would be. And then I saw the chip going in a person's, on top of a person's brain and neural link. And Nolan, the first person, could operate the computer with his thoughts through the chip.

And he said that sometimes the mouse moves before he even thinks about it, but it always goes in the right place. And I had experimented before where I can put a piece of paper on a pin in my desk, and I can, with my mind, I can make it spin around. And I said, I can do that, and he can do that with the chip. That means humans and chips are coming closer together. Where will we go from here? And that spawned the book, The AI Human Paradox, where do computers stop and where do humans begin? Yeah, no, I mean, look, science fiction has been talking about this for a long time, right?

Like even back to goofy stuff like Robocop, right? So yeah, super interesting. And so tell us more about where AI and human intuition intersected in a surprising way. Well, I found that what they were able to do with AI right now, is they're able to get people who are quadriplegics to actually use more of what they have, so that they can become more of part of humanity. And with that, the thought is that they can just connect to the ocular nerve, and they can give you sight if you've lost sight. And by the way, we can probably give you x-ray sight and other things, just because we can, while we give you sight back.

So these statements, and I understand how they could potentially do that, and that's what really fascinates me, because where do we stop? Do we do it because we can, or do we do it because we should? Yeah, that's really what's going on with AI today, you know, in many things, like to paraphrase Jurassic Park, right, like we're doing a lot of things with AI because we can, without questioning, you know, whether we should. And, you know, it seems like such a race that a lot of the guardrails are really like being, you know, ripped down.

What are some of the risks of AI that you're most concerned about? Well, the risks that I'm most concerned about is that the guardrails and their weak guardrails, that they're not able to contain what we're doing. Because right now in AI, if you can do it, there's nothing stopping you. So that leads to judgment, and human judgment isn't always the best. So we tend to go in places where maybe we shouldn't go, because there are a number of questions, is ethical, is moral, and there's, you know, does it benefit or hurt humanity?

What's a specific example of a risk that you're concerned about with AI? Well, right now, I'm dealing with some people that are working with quantum entanglement. And I don't understand the entire situation, but I understand the capability of what is there. And the capability there is what is scary, because that needs to be contained. Because quantum, if it's left to its own vices, can excel beyond what human capability is. And if we don't know how to manage that, then we could be in a little bit of trouble. Yeah, that makes sense, not knowing a lot about quantum.

I mean, I certainly get when people are concerned about superintelligence with AI. And I don't know when that's going to happen. But humans are smart. They're eventually going to invent AGI. And once you invent AGI, you go back to Ray Kurtz's file and look at the singularity. And it's pretty straightforward. You have an AI, you tell it to build a smarter AI. It's going to do it. And eventually you're going to have something that's way smarter than humans, right? Are you concerned about AGI and those risks as well? Well, I'm somewhat concerned because we're not there yet.

I mean, they're experimenting with it, but we're not commercial with that. But what I do know is that humans have capabilities that AI will not have. AI can learn, but it can't do what we can do. We're unique, and I have a lot of unique experiences that I've had, that AI just isn't capable of having. What I focus on is what makes me unique, and I make it a point to step away from technology for a certain part of the day so that it doesn't become all-consuming. Keeping that separation, I think, is very important because there are some people that they talk to Alexia when they get up, when they're getting ready, and then when they come home, they tell Alexia about their day.

For people like that, that becomes a dependency and that's not a good thing. So there's a comparison. Yeah. Yeah, they're talking about the loneliness epidemic and how, you know, people are using ChatGPT as a friend, like that's long-term not a solution. Right. Yeah, so, and you've, you've, you've thought a little bit about AI with consciousness before, like tell us about that, like how does that happen? How do we define consciousness to start? Well, I define consciousness as, as an experience. For example, and many people have experienced this, that's what I'll say.

If, if it's a beautiful day and you're going out to leave the house in the morning and you say, maybe I should bring my umbrella, and you say, well, it's beautiful out, I don't need the umbrella. And then you're out for the day and in the afternoon, you get caught in a massive downpour and you say, I should have brought the umbrella, I thought about it, but I didn't. That's your consciousness saying, you need the umbrella today and you're saying, no, I don't. Well, you did need it. And if you listen to yourself, you would have been in better shape.

That's the best way of consciousness I can explain that most people would understand. Oh, cool. And then, so let's talk more about your book, The AI Human Paradox, right? So explores consciousness, the divide between human and machine, ethical frontiers of AI. Like the podcast is called AI Risk-Reward, right? So let's start with the ethical frontiers of AI. What are you concerned about there? I'm concerned that we may go beyond what's best for humanity. And it may be profit-driven or it may be ego-driven. And without a lot of guardrails in there, you can easily go in that direction.

It's a matter of how far you can go. And I can see AI, for example, I use an AI voice at times, and it contacts people for me. And many people don't know it's an AI voice. Some people do, and it's funny when they realize they're talking to AI. But these are the situations that we can get to that can turn out good or bad. It's just a matter of how far do we go. And when it comes to humanity, I think we really need to use that as a gauge. Is it good for humanity or is it not? And I think that should be the bellwether.

That's a great idea. The question is, how do you get that done, right? So there are nonprofits out there, like the Global Ethical AI Institute, things like that. But not a lot of governments are sitting there going, hey, let's do a bunch of rules. In fact, the EU just pushed back their EU AI Act timetable. I'm pretty sure that there are countries out there like China, which are just running as fast as they can and not really worrying about ethical boundaries. So I think that's one of the issues, right? Because the leaders have decided this is important and we got to get it first.

Well, it's been phrased, it's a global AI race and the country that wins that is going to dominate, you know, in commerce and so forth. So the countries don't really have a desire to slow it down now. They're just, I think they're just, you know, go as fast as you can for the best. And by the way, if you have over a billion bits, you can register us and make, register with the government and make sure you take good notes because we may need them. Yeah, interesting. So how does your background as a Reiki master and your meditation practice inform your perspective on AI's potential to understand or replicate consciousness?

I don't think that AI can replicate that yet. When we get to AGI, I don't think that will do it, but when we get to quantum, there's a lot we don't know there and that has the ability to do pretty much anything that we can think of. So with my consciousness, I've developed a gut feeling, and I feel when something's right or when it's not right or when it's mediocre, and I tend to use that gut feeling more often than not, and that is never wrong for me. So that's the consciousness. If you develop it within yourself, you can start to work with that in the outer world to help guide you in the right directions and make the right decisions.

Yeah. That totally makes sense. Yeah. So shifting gears to our advice to listeners section, I think one of the things that's happening in the world is that many students are graduating from school and discovering that the starter job is just not there. The reason it's not there and the companies will tell them this is, hey, we're just going to use AI for that. We don't need any junior software developers. We're using AI for that. So one of the things that's still out there and important is obviously sales and human-to-human contact.

For a student dreaming of a career in sales, what are your recommendations? What's your advice to them? Well, I advise everybody getting out of college to understand AI, learn on it, and learn as much as you can. I've got gray hair and not as much as I used to. I've built two apps in AI and it was much easier than I ever thought. So don't be afraid of doing that. It's not hard to do. Secondly, that if you want to get into any of the larger companies in sales, you're going to have to know technical aspects. You're going to have to have an engineering degree, or you're going to have to be very good in technical to get in there.

If you can write some code and you've built some things and you understand data science and you understand the concept, and you understand how AI works and how software works, and you can speak that in a way that makes sense, you're going to do a lot better now than somebody who doesn't. A lot of the kids coming out of school now, they don't have a lot of that experience. They've got what they learned in school, but they haven't been told how to relate that to the business field, and I think that's what's lacking right now.

Yeah, look, there's literally people working at companies that their job is to translate what the business wants to what the developers can do. I mean, that's a real thing. And if you can speak both of those languages, obviously, you become very valuable to an organization. And one thing that I did recently is in one of the AI courses that I took, at the end, I'm a certified AI project manager. So I can go in and manage an AI project from the beginning to the end. And that's something that's in demand now and it's going to continue to be in demand.

So that's a good area for somebody to get a certificate in, which is probably worth more than a degree right now, because that means you understand how to work with AI and you can work with the technical people and you can work with the lay people to bring it all together. And I see that is growing in the future. That's super cool. Great idea. Now we're going to pivot to our lightning round where I mentioned certain things and you tell the audience where you think they're underrated or overrated in a brief comment why.

So we're going to start with... Now you live in between the Cape and Providence, Rhode Island, right? Newport. Newport, Rhode Island. Newport, Rhode Island. And there's an area called Horseneck Beach there. So I'm just going to say lobster rolls on Horseneck Beach, underrated or overrated. Oh, they're underrated. They're the best. That's awesome. Now I got to go try one. Sales as a creative profession, underrated or overrated. That's underrated, because in sales, you need the art of creativity in order to bring a lot of this together.

And I've been in sales for decades, technical sales. And I can, I mean, I can help people with that, but it's something that you need. You need to have that skill. Corporate websites as a measure of a company's capabilities. Those are overrated. Yeah. Scaling startup sales teams quickly, underrated or overrated. That's underrated. There's a lot of work in that. Yeah. Meditation as a leadership tool, underrated or overrated. Very underrated. The idea that AI can become conscious, underrated or overrated. That's a bit overrated today.

Staying updated via personalized news feeds may be curated by AI, underrated or overrated. That's actually underrated and I'm building, this is the second project, I'm building a news site to go on my website for AI and quantum news, and I'm filtering that right now, so I'm doing that. Oh, that's awesome. The role of intuition in tech innovation, underrated or overrated? Very underrated. Dunkin Donuts Coffee, underrated or overrated? Very overrated. And last, the movie Schindler's List, underrated or overrated? That was underrated.

That's a great movie. Awesome. Well, look, this has been great having you on the show. This has been Bruce Randall, an enterprise and startup sales growth strategist, specializing in AI cloud and cybersecurity and author of the upcoming book, The AI Human Paradox. Bruce, can you tell the audience a little bit about where to find you, where to find your website, things like that? Sure. My website is theaihumanparadox.com, and I'm updating it now. And other than that, you can find me on LinkedIn, Bruce D Randall. Awesome.

Bruce, thanks for coming on the show. This is fun. Alex, thanks very much. It was fun. All right.