Hi everyone, before we dive in, a quick heads
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would be great to see you there. Now, on with
the episode. Hello everyone and welcome to this
episode, the more content one of the Women Talking
About Learning podcast. I'm Andrew Jacobs. We
recorded the content one in March of this year,
and our guests had felt that the time went too
quickly, and they didn't cover everything they
wanted to. All of them decided they wanted to
record another episode. It's been tricky to arrange
a day when they're all available, but with some
assistance and support from them, we've managed
it. Our first guest is Gaynor Aitken. Gaynor
has been working in L &D for over 25 years, specialising
in systems training. Currently working as a learning
solutions lead for an international shipping
management company as an L &D project manager,
she gets the opportunity to make a demonstrable
impact on L &D and wider business. Our second
guest is Karen Curitan. After working in sales
and marketing for over 20 years, Karen was an
early adopter of social media. As soon as it
emerged, she embraced it with open arms. Roll
on to today and she has become a results -driven
social media specialist. Her aim is to unpick
the often complex world of algorithms and analytics
and share her expertise. Our third guest is Katie
Swandell. Katie is currently working at Immediate
as a Senior Learning and Development Partner
and has over a decade of experience in designing
and delivering strategically aligned experiential
learning. She began her career in teaching before
moving into apprenticeships and developing leadership
and management qualifications, including collaborating
with the CIPD to shape HR and L &D qualifications
at all levels. KT champions inclusive real -world
learning that empowers individuals and drives
organisational success moving beyond traditional
models. Our final guest is Laura Giles. Laura
is Head of Learning at DESC, a Sheffield -based
digital learning agency who design award -winning
experiences for world -leading brands. She's
been on a mission to fix e -learning's bad reputation
since 2009 when she took her first job as an
instructional designer and came face -to -face
with the dreaded Page -Turner course. Today,
she draws on the fields of cognitive and behavioural
science, user experience and storytelling to
create learning that truly sticks. Recorded at
the end of October 2025, this is Women Talking
About Learning, this is Gaynor, Karen, Katie
and Laura. talking about more content. All right,
well, good morning. It's brilliant to see you
all again. We spoke last in March for the original
content podcast, and we had so much to talk about
that we've been invited to speak again, which
is great for me. I always have so much to talk
about in the realm of content. How are you all?
Good. Good, thanks, Zora. And I think you're
absolutely right. We agreed that we could have
talked and talked and talked because it's such
a fascinating topic, isn't it? Yeah, and it's
always changing. There's always something new
happening with content. It's never something
that just stays the same. So it's really, really
exciting to work with content, particularly,
I think, at this time. Yeah, and I think that
with AI, obviously, rapidly developing and changing
the realm of content there's no matter what even
if we spoke every week there would be new stuff
to talk about I imagine Yeah, I was trying to
remember, Katie, if we spoke about AI at the
end of the last podcast, whether it was when
the podcast ended, because I do remember we kept
chatting for about half an hour after the podcast
stopped recording. And I think Andrew had to
kick us off of the podcasting app. So this is
why we were so keen to get back together. But
it is like Gayna says, I think it's a topic,
even like it's such a fast moving topic. I think
if we spoke again. in six months time, we would
have even more different elements and layers
to it. And I think that's the thing is from a
learning and from the two elements of it, I think
there is so much happening now. I mean, I see
it and we touched on this the other day, we were
chatting and I've got clients who when we spoke
six months ago, yeah, six -ish months ago, wouldn't
have touched AI. were terrified now they're almost
seeing it as this is a friend that can help them
yeah and i think that if you look at the mckenzie
report that when we spoke i believe it was around
the sort of mid 60s as um sort of ai being used
inside a function or bau and now already um from
going from like pilots to mainstream it's up
to 71 percent wow so um my company we we have
uh AI adoption, our BAU is 86%. But we've done
a lot of work since it came about. We have our
Summer of Learning program that happens each
year. And we've done a lot of multi -touchpoint
preparation for AI. But the fact that since we
spoke in March, to have gone up by 5%, 6 % into
the mainstream is huge. And so... There's a lot
of content around what content do we produce
to support people in the best ways of adopting
this and working alongside and with AI as a critical
thinking partner. But also what do we need to
be aware of, of what content is out there, what's
being produced and where do we actually need
to put our weight and effort? Because if there's
already so much mass production of X, Y and Z
and content is being churned out. We don't need
to add to the noise necessarily. Really? Yeah,
I agree, Katie. I remember actually last time
we spoke quite a lot about does learning design
have a content problem? Is there too much content?
And again, we spoke about content dumping and
too much information. So I think adding AI to
that space is really interesting, really, when
you think about, well, is this knowing that so
much of AI in learning? at an L &D is being used
for content creation, you think, are we adding
to the problem? Are we making things better or
worse? I think it'll find its equilibrium point.
I think it's almost like it's become a buzzword.
And if you ask the majority of people, what is
AI? Probably a lot of people wouldn't be able
to tell you. It's just something that's appeared
in... they'll know about ChatGTP, it's appeared
in Canva, it's appeared in Rise, it's appeared
in all these products that potentially they're
already using. So it's almost like it's become
part of the way content developers work without
them really having to think about it. Yeah, I
see that a lot with, so a lot of my clients are
people who are a little bit... frightened wary
of social media and when they heard AI come in
they were frightened and now they've actually
had a complete pivot I think it's my word of
the week a complete pivot a complete about turn
and we've done some exercises where I've shown
them how they can use AI to save them time and
energy and headspace And all of a sudden, they're
totally obsessed with it now to the point of
saying, you need to create a custom GPT. But
for me, as somebody teaching people to use social
media, what I've found is that... They almost
hook into it. Oh, this is easy. This is going
to be easy. But it's getting that. And it's like
you said, it's about they're not losing. I say,
you know, their unique special source is what
I call it, is their personality, who they are,
because there's only one version of them, whereas
AI is going to create multiple, multiple, multiple.
And I think that's the challenge. And from a
learning point of view, you know, when we're
creating. new workshops. I think that then becomes
another challenge, doesn't it? So, Karen, do
you think we're losing, we're in danger of losing
authenticity with AI? I think there's a risk.
I sort of am using AI slightly differently with
my learners now. So, one of the challenges, and
this comes from my sales training background
forever ago when I used to do a lot of sales
training, that Humans are very good at talking
about facts. So back in the day, I worked for
a national house builder and I taught our team
to demonstrate show homes. And they would say,
and here's the kitchen. And they were very good
at talking about features rather than the benefits.
Now, where our AI is coming in and that's where
I found it really useful for my clients. And
I think that's the thing with any tool, isn't
it, girls? It's finding how you can make it work
for you. So I'll say, well, OK, this is what
you do. What does that mean to your perfect clients,
the people you want to work with you, your future
clients? Then let's put that into AI and say,
change these facts into a meaningful series of
benefits to my perfect client who is a busy HR
director. And then the output then becomes something
that they can use. And that's when you get the
light bulb moments and they go, oh, yeah. It
makes a big difference, I think, at that point.
For my particular learners, yes, definitely.
I agree with that. And I think that this is where
we need to make sure that when we're using AI
and not only adopting it for ourselves in the
content that we're creating, but... When we're
supporting people in their skills development
to keep our humanities, that critical thinking
type of prompting. So, you know, I would almost
take that a step further and saying when when
you put it in saying what what tweaks could I
make or analyze this to show the gaps of where
the benefits could be done or what tweaks could
I make to create benefits and kind of bouncing
around the ideas. So then when it gives it back
to you. you've still got some thinking to do
or some analysis to do. There's a really big
push on, well, there's a lot of buzzwords going
around, but I think that talking about using
AI in the centaur mentality where you are using
it as part of your thinking, part of your process,
it's humanity and AI collaborating together to
come up with an answer rather than... it giving
you the answer and it not being fact -checked
because AI hallucinates so much so unless you
put in a grounding prompt and a really strong
prompt it can hallucinate whatever it wants as
a language model so I think what you're doing
Karen is brilliant like that is that critical
thinking talking to AI and bringing it into I'm
trying to create something how can you help me
create it I love that. I love that. And I think
that for me is a big thing is as a collaborator.
I think that's a great way of putting it actually.
And there's also, so there's Centaur, but there's
also going to, and we'll see it more as it comes
along. And I think this is what people are worried
about is that cyborg element where if you embrace
it, there's a really great opportunity inside
it. But the cyborg element is where AI is literally
working in tandem. where you where you're not
asking it to do things it's pre -empting and
doing it for you so as we have um for example
our like automatic uh spell correction on on
our phones we're not asking it to do it each
time sometimes it's just trying to do it for
us sometimes it gets it right sometimes it gets
it wrong but there's an opportunity inside AI
for as an example if you were like a graphic
designer that you're going around making little
changes and that your AI is working on something
in the background so you don't have to make as
many changes when you come to it so you're working
in tandem to the same purpose and the same drive
and it's learning your behaviors to try and support
them preemptively and there's if you see it as
there are risks in inside things that people
might be worried about there's also opportunity
inside that so I think that really understanding
the prompt in the model and the more knowledge
you have of the capability can also reduce that
threat risk. Because at the end of the day, our
brains are always scanning for threat. And the
way to reduce threat and risk in our perception
is to feel that we have control. So the more
knowledge we have, the more control. So I think,
Karen, the way that you're building out the sort
of understanding and showing people. how to use
a critical thinking prompt and how to use it
in the way of using it as a partner is that great
first step into building into those areas. What
do you think, Laura? Yeah, I have to say I'm
hearing a lot about the time and efficiency gains
of AI. And as you described there, Katie, about
the working in tandem with the tool and it's
helping you to arrive at your product a bit quicker.
Totally agree about the critical thinking skills.
I'm not concerned AI is coming for my job just
yet, but I can see how I need my experience and
my knowledge to select what is a good output
from the AI and indeed to put the correct outputs
into it. into the ai um current to speak to your
point around using ai to to uh predict your client
behavior or or the clients of your clients i
think that's such a phenomenal use of ai and
it's a space where i've been using ai the most
really is to kind of stay in the the analysis
space so rather than quickly trying to produce
content as quickly as possible it's really promoted
me staying in the analysis space maybe a bit
longer than I might have done because you know
when you have a fixed budget for a project it
can be really tempting to move as quickly as
possible to spend the money that you have to
make this thing the best it can be and and not
all Clients don't always appreciate the value
of the analysis space. They might think, why
are you asking me these questions? I already
know what the problem is. Or why do you need
to speak to my learners? I've told you what the
problem is. And what I found with AI is the more
relevant input that you can give it, the more
information about your learners, about their
behaviors, about the business context, about
the solution that you're trying, the problem
that you're trying to solve. the better able
it is to help you to create that content. So
what it's encouraged me to do is not skip past
analysis stage, make sure I have all of those
inputs, make sure I have the learner interviews,
make sure I have the stakeholder interviews so
that I can have something to give AI to understand
the challenge that I'm working on. So yeah, that
critical, I think critical thinking, as you said,
Katie is so important and Karen that using your
AI to personalize your content for us. specific
audience i think again is a really a really great
use case how is everybody else using ai on their
in their day -to -day work gainer can you speak
a little bit about that i use it um in a couple
of ways again i can kind of tend to use it within
the tools that i have things like canva the the
ai and that is is good but it's really slow i
find maybe i'm just maybe i'm just really impatient
but it's like it's almost like a help when they
like come on give me give me what i want but
agree and it's time to even say that you'll say
this is a developing technology and you go yeah
but hurry up so so yeah and i think that's really
it's really you can produce good things quickly
with that another place that i use it again i'm
also a yoga teacher so i use things like chat
gpt for i'll put in i want to have a class on
back bends for example and again it can give
you up those in that information what it's not
so good at yet use the word yet is it's not telling
me contraindications for that so if you know
where the dangers are and people doing that it's
not particularly good sometimes at the linking
movements from one to the other so it again it's
that sort of you know that sort of symbiotic
relationship between it can give me the basis
of what I want and I think oh that's that's quite
nice but I still need to do some work to make
that something that is a is going to be useful
for for me to prepare a class plan. And I think
it's improving. It's definitely improving than
before, but I just keep going in and that's kind
of my test of it to see where we're getting to.
So yeah, that's kind of what I'm using for it
now. I'm actually doing some, just a course on
future learn on AI. Again, it's one of those
things, if you're a generalist in learning and
development, there's all these different things
that you need to do. We can't all specialize
in. necessarily e -learning or you know ai and
stuff so again i think there's a lot of upskilling
needs to be done for people in general like corporate
uh for corporate learning and development people
to understand it could be well be out there but
if the company's not looking at it you're not
using it then you're kind of going to get behind
the curve very very quickly yeah i think that's
the same for i'm sorry i think that's the same
for um anyone in any job at the moment if you
don't start adopting and embracing the foundational
ai um then you're going to get left behind so
found and what i mean by foundational ai is really
understanding good prompting so the the things
that sometimes when people are talking about
oh ai turns out you know such trash or like it
just makes stuff up it's not the ai model Most
of the time it is the prompt isn't detailed enough
or grounded or asking it not to hallucinate.
So like to your point about the yoga bits, it's,
you know, the prompts that I put in are paragraphs
long. They're not it's because it's not being
used as it's not the same as Google. It's it's
a detailed, deep prompt. And the the. more detail
your prompt is and like you guys have said the
more detail that you're giving it the the better
the model will come back with because the language
model is just trying to find a best fit it's
not trying to base it on anything else unless
you put in the control mechanisms and the wording
to say i don't want a best fit i want you to
cite your sources i want you to do it like this
i don't want any hallucinations i want x y and
z i've actually built um And I do recommend this
for anyone listening, build yourself a GPT or
even a project. So I have the paid for chat GPT
account and I have projects. And one of my projects
where I've written the instructions and everything
is to do, to help me write better prompts. So
I put my prompt into there and then I say, like,
analyze this of, this is what I'm, this is my
goal, but analyze this prompt to see if there
are anything, anything that I've missed that
could help me. have a better prompt when I put
it through and it's such a quick and easy tool
it's just almost like a checker I love that I
think that's great I think it's great because
I learned just last month to create my own I've
created two different types of custom GPTs and
I too have got a paid one and I think that's
a question I get asked a lot is is it worth paying
it and is AI using AI to help us do this stuff
worth all the fuss? And I think that it's, I
think it's about, so as a, for example, we came
out from holiday and I was really unwell and
wasn't feeling great at all, but I had some work
to do. And I actually put some of the stuff into
my custom GPT and said, Give me some output and
ideas around this. And I input a recent proposal
that I'd written when I was well, when I was
on full Karen mode. And then it then gave me
and it really helps me out. And I think that's
the other thing is, it's like you can make it
your friend to help you when you have, you know,
when I was. When I wasn't feeling great, I was
asked to design a new workshop about using Facebook
personal profiles for your business. And it's
something I've been physically doing, but I hadn't
designed and delivered a workshop before. So
I put it into my custom GPT and said, this is
what I want to do. Write me an outline so I can
market this out and create a sales page. And
it did it for me. And I think that's the thing
is I think it's finding, you know, I don't think,
you know, you don't have to use it. But I think
I know that last month it paid its monthly fee
more than because of how much it helped me. Yeah.
I think there's that element is deciding what.
I suppose it's thinking about what do you need
most and where can it help you save time, energy,
headspace? Yeah, I definitely think that that
is true. And I would just, oh, that when we teach
it out of there are things you can do where exactly
as you said, where it'll come back and be like,
here's the outline, here's the da -da -da. And
then that's when it saved you time by pulling
up that first idea. So you're not looking at
a blank sheet of paper. And we need to... remember
that there's that next step of, okay, now you
analyze it and take it and run with it and do
whatever you need to do. And I think that where
there's maybe a bit of lag is people just taking
whatever it produces and going, oh, perfect,
done, copy, paste. And that's where we're going
to, if we don't readily teach the steps that
need to come with analyzing what's being put
out and not taking it as face value. And you
can even fire it back into the chat, right? You
can say, okay, that's great. I can see you've
done all of this. I've tweaked it down below.
Now analyze it to tell me how it's going to come
across. For example, in comms. So I use it for
comms writing. Like I'm dyslexic. I find it super
helpful to not look at a blank sheet, to look
at a kind of starting place. But I can also ask
it. Like we've said about analyzing it for your
audience, Karen, you can then, once you've changed
it, you can ask it to look back at it and go,
how will this land? Will this engage? What could
I do to better it? And I just think that there's
making sure that we're really clear that AI isn't
going to fact check. It isn't going to generally
check whatever it produces. Even if you don't
have facts in there, it's not about that. It's
just it's producing whatever it thinks is roughly
right. And it's to help you not start on a blank
page. 100%. I'm just listening to you there,
Katie, and I'm remembering my nephew who's almost
30 now. I got him using computers almost as soon
as he asked what it was. And he got a new computer
game and he turned around to me and says, Gaynor,
what does whatever is look like? And I'm like,
what are you talking about? He says, well, I
press the start button. I go to Disney Interactive.
I go to start programs, Disney Interactive. What
does whatever is look like? And at that point,
I realized he was three and he couldn't read.
But he's just in there. He's in there and he's
pressing those buttons. And there's a little
part of me thinks, how many people are doing
that with chat GPT? It's like they've just got
this tiny little bit of knowledge. And a little
bit of knowledge can be a dangerous thing. And
a bit like my nephew, it's just that he's going
into it and just, like you say, they're just
pressing the first couple of buttons and almost
using it like a search engine. Again, for those
of us who are old enough to remember pre -Google,
all the things that you had to put into a search
engine, you had to put your quotations and all
your symbols and stuff like that back in the
early days of search engines. Nowadays, we just
Google it. I think someone here said earlier
that it was, I think it came from Buffy the Vampire
Slayer. Yeah, Buffy. There's an entire generation
of, I'm saying younger people, like I'm really
old, but they don't remember. You just put it
into Google, you just do that. And I wonder whether
people are using chat GPT like a search engine
and kind of missing a trick. Yeah, certainly,
especially if they haven't had access to sort
of an education about it. I was very fortunate
at the end of last year to go on Dr. Philippa
Hardman's AI Learning Design Bootcamp. And the
amount I learned in four weeks, I was kind of
reeling. I needed to sort of sit down in a dark
room afterwards because there is so much about
the input that you put in. And as you said, Katie,
about constructing those, you know, I would say
several paragraph prompts. You know, she talks
about the CD prompt, which is context, instructions,
directions and inputs. And so you're really giving.
the AI a lot of detail before it answers. And
then there are additional conversational prompts
that you can use to guide it into the right direction
and then to validate the results that it's giving
you, making sure it's not hallucinating, as we've
mentioned. But I was very fortunate to be able
to do that. I wonder if that's available for
everybody else. And with all the hype about AI
that you see, hey, we can make content quicker.
Hey, you can make content even if you don't have
a video. have a background in video design or
graphic design but I don't see the same kind
of noise about hey this is how to prop to engineer
a good prompt this is how to validate your results
it's just not as shiny it's not as glamorous
and I think that isn't that the risk is that
we're getting sometimes that human creativity
gets lost sight of a little bit because we get
I'm terrible. I'm proper geeky with new things.
I love new things. But then sometimes you think,
well, what's at the fundamental? What's the foundations
of this? And you're absolutely right, Laura.
I think there is an education piece for people
to understand because people will dip in and
out of it without really understanding it. Yeah.
I think also you need to have a purpose for it.
It's like the other day I went and I created
a... an avatar of myself one of these little
cartoon things and I was like that's really great
and then I thought what am I going to do with
it you know it's like it's like just because
you can do something doesn't necessarily mean
you should and I think that personally these
sort of AI avatars that you can create the ones
that are supposed to be like real life. I took
a photograph of myself and AI -ified it with
a press of a button, which is all well and good,
but it didn't then look like a real person. It's
almost good enough, but not quite. I did that
too. It looked nothing like me. I actually showed
it to my husband and he started laughing. He
went, who the fudge is that? From that perspective,
it's like it's almost there. but not quite. And
I find I'd rather have like an animation where
it's quite clearly not the real me rather than
something that's 98 and a half percent there.
Because if I was doing layering or something
and I saw someone and I see something that is
clear, it's almost like the eyes aren't quite
right. It really, personally, it puts me off.
So I'm waiting for that point where that gets
to that, you know, actually, where I can create
a video that completely looks like me. Maybe
that's a dangerous thing. I think that it also
depends on the tools that you're using. Some
tools, they're putting their effort into producing
that and some aren't. But our brains are wired
to be able to, there's a certain level of detection
that it will look at something and think that's
slightly off, which is getting harder and harder
for our brains to process and do, obviously.
But yeah, I think it's still there. as as a little
bit but um it's definitely considering which
tool you're using as well because they're putting
more money into the production in certain tools
than others so others are getting lagged behind
for example this is this is a fun thing that
i have done with my my nieces where we put in
a photo into chat gpt and and i've got i've got
all my memory and data collection all off so
we put in our photo into chat gpt and turn it
into a coloring page and it's really good at
doing that because it's quite a simple outlining
but if i wanted it because i'm just making it
into a black and white kind of cartoony outlining
but if i wanted it to do a replication yeah that
isn't that isn't where chat gpt shines at all
and so it's for us as lnd and when we're creating
content really understanding which tool we're
using for different the different things that
we need it for is is also a really important
aspect and i don't know if you guys have seen
it but um there's that site that's uh called
there's an ai tool for that that's quite good
i've used that a few times when i'm trying to
find different tools so you know Again, it's
that critical thinking of, is this the best tool
or is this the quickest tool that I have access
to? And will that actually end up me taking longer
to do it than if I took a little moment and found
a tool that maybe was a bit more aligned? But
I think we've always done that, really, or at
least I have. You never just went into one tool
and used it if you were creating a course or
creating an e -learning course. You're always
in and out of different programs. So maybe that's
just... That's just the next evolution of the
tools that we have. Yeah, definitely. I have
to say one of the spaces that's really helped
me in content design is writing robust assessments,
being able to give the AI all of the course content
and the learning objectives and the learner personas
or the learner behaviours that I spoke about
before and coming up with robust assessments,
particularly around good... distractors good
quality distractors there will be something that
I would always struggle with before because they
need to be meaningful they need to be there's
a reason why you might have selected this um
as a wrong answer so they need to be good good
wrong answers and then AI tools have been so
helpful for for coming up with that I wanted
to just circle back to your comment there Gaynor
about just because we can doesn't mean we should
and I do think that's so much about some of the
AI tools that I've been asked to use there is
one called Synthesia which creates talking head
videos, which I've always been dubious about
anyway. you know if uh having somebody read out
content to you is probably one of the lowest
forms of video use cases i can think of is people
can people might prefer to read people might
prefer to listen so having you're very tied to
the speed of the of the delivery of this person
and then to make that person an uncanny not quite
human not quite robot person i i i have a i have
some problems with and um i uh the way that I
would encourage people to use media in learning.
Well, one of the ways I would encourage people
to use media in learning is to create that personal...
aspect just to create that humanity um you know
distance learning online learning can be quite
a lonely task you sort of just start on your
own so when you see a real person in there and
they're an expert in their field or they're very
charismatic in a certain way you're connected
to the content in some way and then to take that
thing which has its use this of creating human
connection and replace it with an AI version
because we can because it's cheaper because it's
faster you're kind of losing the point of having
a video you there in the first place so yeah
just because you can doesn't mean you should
do a wider realms of content karen maybe it's
it's linking to your profession but the fact
that we're getting kind of ai actors and um you
know ai reporters and and things like that what
are your what are your thoughts on that guys
i've always felt that we should be using ai to
be doing the the boring tasks the difficult tasks
the monotonous tasks the tasks where there's
too much information for us to synthesize in
one in ourselves using it as a co -pilot in that
way i really don't like the idea that we're giving
it the enjoyable creative tasks that we would
do ourselves that we would just don't worry you
do the acting i'll carry on the other night i
was watching the latest episode of the morning
show And behind the scenes, they've been developing
these AI hosts of the shows. And they launch
it at this live event. And the AI that is the
boss, that is of the boss, has been learning
from the boss. And the whole thing implodes.
And then repeats back things that the real person
has said. And it totally went, oh, my God, no,
you don't want AI doing this sort of stuff. That
to me was, and I think, Laurie, you made the
perfect point, is the tasks that take up our
headspace that isn't, you know, like back in
the day, my first business coach said to me.
Best advice I can give you is get a virtual administrator,
somebody who can do the jobs that you hate to
do, that isn't a good use of your time, that
will cost you a lot less. I see AI a bit like
that, is that I'll use AI to do the stuff that
I can sit and probably procrastinate about, but
then I can look at it and say, do you know what
it is? Okay, this is my idea, bring it to life.
And I think that's the thing is, is that... To
me, that's the biggest help it can give me is
I can say, well, okay, you're going to save me
some time now and some headspace. And that to
me is invaluable. And that's how I get around
it. I don't want to see an AI version of Karen.
That would be bloody scary. It would be bloody
scary. In fact, oddly enough, I just recorded
a new lead magnet and I sent it to some clients
for some feedback. I didn't have myself on the
screen. It was just me narrating it. And the
feedback I got was we wanted to see you. And
I think that's the disconnect, isn't it? When
it moves more advanced. Yeah. And I think we
can also get stuck into, I mean, we have it in
social media, right? We go into like a social
media vacuum where it's kind of because the algorithm
keeps you inside a vacuum. And I think that AI
is similar. If we don't put in our humanity and
our almost disruptors. in because because of
how we think and we're curious human beings that's
the whole thing about the critical thinking is
that we put in almost random acts that that it
can't necessarily predict and that shakes up
the vacuum and the ai kind of loop and that's
where we can disrupt the the loop it creates
where it might be hallucinating or kind of if
if you stay inside like a one chat and and you're
trying to do emails, for example, because it's
learning each time, your emails become more similar
and more similar. Or if you're doing it for like
posting, your posts would become very repetitive
because it's learning that, oh, that's what you
like. So I'll keep making things very similar.
And so that humanity and that disruption element,
and what you were saying, Karen, about being
a person behind it. people notice people notice
when the pattern is becoming too repetitive it
starts switching people off having you on screen
and those little sort of whimsical things that
you might do that's what disrupts your brain
from kind of turning off and so i think that
those are really really oddly and this actually
aligns exactly with what we're talking about
i was reading a report from linkedin about the
algorithm changes and one of the ways in which
linkedin's now telling you love it or loathe
it best way to disrupt the algorithm is to go
live be a real person back to what we're talking
about and I mean I go live every Monday anyway
and have done for nearly eight years but I'm
now saying to my clients don't just hear my word
for it this stuff works yeah I think on the flip
side of that as well and I don't know I certainly
am very aware that if I am on social media facebook
linkedin and i've looked at something the algorithm
is then giving me more of the same and i think
there's a real danger that you get into that
little you're just given what this this little
world view um and i think it's really important
that you look at things and again whether it's
political views or whatever that you go and you
look at the what other people are seeing and
other views because otherwise you end up just
in that little sort of bubble of this is my world
and I believe this and the bots everything is
coming to your same world view whereas actually
you need that and again whether that's to do
with content or or anything it's like you get
i may be the only person it's like when netflix
suggests things based on what i've watched i
deliberately go and look at something completely
random so that it it screws up screws up the
bot so that but it's like i don't want to just
watch all of the same content all the time and
i think that there's a real um you know i'm really
conscious that i don't want to be stuck in this
this bubble of where it's like algorithms and
ai is giving me what it thinks my worldview should
be it's giving you what it what his notice is
a pattern of what you engage with so it thinks
it thinks on that basis of you engage with it
you like it therefore that's the right thing
correct move i'll do more of it you know the
same as when we're a child and we learn to to
please someone we try and do it again and again
and um you know if you've ever been around children
have children worked with children you say one
thing that you like you say you like their picture
of a son and by the end of the day I've got 20
pictures of sons on my desk and I'm like oh I
just liked that one but sure um so you know if
you think about AI in the same way you say you'd
like it once and it's like great I will give
you 20 of the same sort of thing rather than
I liked that, but do something different. And
even that prompt in itself, I like that, but
now show it to me differently so I can see a
different perspective. It'll do it, but it needs
the prompt. As we sort of come to the end of
our time together, I wonder, we've sort of discussed
some of the challenges there of AI. And I wonder
if before we leave, we want to sort of go around
and say how we think that we can reconcile those
challenges. I think for me, really strongly coming
out of the discussion is the humanity. I would
wholeheartedly agree, Laura. I mean, I see it.
And AI isn't going to do this stuff on its own.
We really need to be putting the strong effort
into our prompting, into reviewing the outputs,
into working with AI as a co -pilot rather than
letting AI do these things for us. It's going
to save you a lot of time. And I think it's,
It's not compulsory. You don't have to use it.
But when you have a moment where you think, what
could I change or do differently for my learners
that's going to make a more meaningful experience?
Then actually, I often talk about the way we
behave and we do things. It's like turning a
cruise ship around quickly. That takes time.
Whereas what AI can help us do is to... shorten
that time that we make those changes. Yeah. For
me, I think AI is a tool. I think it's developed
very rapidly. I believe the first time anyone
mentioned AI or machine learning was in the 1940s.
So that concept has been around for a long time.
So it's here and it's become a tool that we can
use and we should use. But again, using it with,
using our heads, using our intellect with it
rather than just giving it free reign to just,
you know, take over the world. I completely agree
with everything that you guys have said of how
to reconcile. And so I would just sort of leave
us with one thing that I readily pick people
up on in sort of training. And hopefully not
in an annoying way, but just that sort of nudge
element to psychologically change how we see
AI. So instead of saying, I'll get chat GPT to
do that for me, change that wording to, I'll
get AI to do that with me. Yeah. Never use for
me, you know, never use, I'll get something to
do it for me, always with me. I love that. Brilliant.
Yeah. Well, it was lovely chatting with you guys.
Yeah, always interesting, always fascinating
and thought -provoking. It's always good to chat
and we never run out of things to see, do we?
It was really interesting how our guests referenced
AI more in this episode. We can't ignore its
changing L &D content and it was great to hear
from our team about how it's changing work. A
huge thank you to Gaina, Karen, Katie and Laura
for their insight into this topic and for their
time in making this brilliant recording. I know
you want to connect with them afterwards and
their details are in the show notes along with
information about how to connect with us here
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