Speaker: You’re listening to a new episode of The Brave Technologist, and this one features Dr. Maha Aziz, who has crafted a portfolio career in global risk and future trends. She’s currently a professor at NYU’s international relations program and a risk and foresight expert advising the World Economic Forum.

She’s written a trilogy of books, is a seven time award-winning bestseller and created the award-winning VR / AR political comic, The Global Kid. In this episode, we discussed how AI is reshaping not just industries, but how people define purpose and stability in their careers, the growing anxiety around job displacement and the concept of an emerging occupational identity crisis, how we’re seeing a rise in reliance on AI for emotional support, along with insights from her global risk prediction work.

And now for this week’s episode of the Brave Technologist.

Luke: Maha, welcome to the Brave Technologist. I know that you’re speaking at the AI [00:01:00] Summit. What is the core message you hope to leave the audience with?

Maha: Thanks so much for having me. Yes, I am speaking on a panel on AI adoption later today. I think the main goal I have as a professor and advisor on risk is to highlight the risk because I think there’s obviously been a huge push towards AI investment and you see that here at the AI Summit.

There’s so many new companies, but I feel that. there should be focus on what the challenges might be. Are we thinking about you know, the, the risks including sustainability, the effect on unemployment and in this AI transition? I, I think that’s sort of my main hope to, it’s not about being a downer.

It’s about preparing people so that they can ultimately be more productive and, ideally maximize on the opportunity.

Luke: That’s great. I think, it’s important because a lot of the risks are kind of hyperbolic and people are very doom and gloom with like, okay, is this gonna replace our jobs? Or whatever. what would you see as the, the most misunderstood risk that [00:02:00] people have or, or understated one with regards to AI deployment?

Maha: Yeah, great question. I mean, I think what concerns me most is the fact that we’re not really, we’re hearing a lot about how AI will take away jobs, and I think that is adding to our collective anxiety. And at NYU, we’ve created this AI anxiety index. To kind of track in certain, well, we, it’s a prototype.

It’s only 10 countries so far. But so far it looks like in countries like the us, uk, France, there’s a lot more anxiety about how AI will take away jobs. So I think I think there is a need to be more responsible in terms of tech leaders to be more responsible about the rhetoric they use. it’s concerning if a big tech leader says, oh, in a couple years you won’t need to work, so what do we do?

So I, I think there, there is definitely a need. To, to focus in on that aspect. I also think that we’ve also seen studies including from MIT, where it’s pretty clear that there’s no return, there’s no sufficient return on investment on AI adoption. [00:03:00] So maybe we shouldn’t be rushing to adopt when we still have to figure out.

how this plays out. And obviously it is very challenging because AI itself is evolving as we speak. What we talk about here and hear about at the AI Summit may be less relevant a, a week from now or a month from now. So I think that is a significant challenge.

Luke: Absolutely. I think, yeah, like a lot of people using kind of, using a lot of this hyperbole too as an excuse to like kind of trim the trim company sizes down and, and things like that.

It’s hard to know like, okay, the more I talk to people in this space too, the more like. How much is this actually replacing people’s problems right now? And it seems like it’s, eh, not, not, not quite there yet. But you know, I, you’re leading this global risk prediction project at NYU.

Is there a real world risk event you’ve analyzed with your students that’s revealed something surprising about where the world is heading?

Maha: Yes. So thanks so much. So we’ve been, I’ve been leading this project for 10 years with my grad students at NYU and crowdsource consultancy Wiki Strat. So every year the agenda is with a [00:04:00] crowd of experts plus.

Students, we hope to predict what could be next in the coming year. And now we’ve been thinking more towards 2030. In fact, it’s the 10th project is happening this week as we speak. So my students are hard at work. I think what has come up in the last two years has definitely been AI risks, again, relating to the impact on the job market and really our our mental health because it’s it is concerning where, when.

A lot of young people in particular are wondering, you know, are we are we gonna be able to get a job? Is there a job for our age group when we get out of college? Because there’s a study by from Stanford that suggests early career roles in certain industries are being wiped out already at this stage, at least in the us.

I think there’s also been indication in our research in the last two years that AI is impacting mental health. There’s, I mean, I was shocked when Open AI data revealed that every week 1 million people are engaging [00:05:00] with chat GPT to talk about their mental health issues. And unfortunately, also suicidal elements as well are part of that discussion.

So. it’s not that we can blame the LLM for, for the fact that there are these suicidal discussions happening, but it is a scary statistic and I, I do feel that we need to perhaps put more focus on what are the policy implications of this? What can we do? I think big picture, if I reflect in our research the last couple of years, I think it’s pretty clear, especially in the last year.

That the world order has shifted and you might, I think most people would say that. Okay, well everything started just now The, the Post Cold War era ended now because of President Trump, but that’s not the case in our research. It’s been building for over 10 years in some of my data indices that I do as well.

It’s been building since the two thousands where we’ve seen a rise in challenges to US hegemony. And I think what’s interesting is that we’ve also seen the rise of not just other powers, [00:06:00] of course it’s a multipolar era, but other types of actors. So you see the tech firm, the tech leader, the activists playing a bigger role in driving global change.

So from our perspective, it’s becoming more of a polycentric world order. It’s not enough to say multipolar. A couple of big powers. Let’s, let’s face it, a lot of the big powers are terribly burdened at home. Youth unemployment is one, one example, and plus we have major wars that are happening. I think what’s interesting is, again, the rise of these other actors.

The tech leaders are, the tech firms in a way are, already starting to fill the gap the leadership gap on the global stage. Personally, I think long term this will be better for us. It’s an era of empowerment. As power disperses, but obviously there’s a lot of uncertainty and the rules of the game are very unclear and I think we should be concerned about that.

Whatever field we’re in, you know, whatever age you are. I think that’s something that if. That will be with us the next couple of years.

[00:07:00]

Luke: How do you feel that we’re doing in the US with adoption and, and with some of these challenges, like you pointed out the anxiety index and how this is like mentally impacting people.

Are there similar challenges happening in other countries from your colleagues or other people from other countries that you’re talking about?

Maha: No, that’s a good question. I think with respect to AI adoption, if you look at the studies in the stack. I think most countries, most governments have shown they are ready to invest.

they are approaching it that way. What I think is interesting is that in terms of the use of ai by the individual or by companies, I think most of the statistics actually indicate that it’s not just US and [00:08:00] China. You do see that the UAE Singapore those two countries in particular are rising.

Faster than one would expect. I think they’re punching above their weight, so to speak, on the global stage. I also think that they are showing more effort towards AI diplomacy in Saudi Arabia as well. They have the digital cooperation organization. I think these three countries in particular seem to be having more constructive dialogue.

They’re not burdened by big. Power sort of baggage as you know, US and China might, with all due respect to them. So I think that’s interesting to note, but if you look at some of the broader studies, the IMF has done a lot of global studies as you can imagine, and one in particular emphasizes that the impact of ai, unemployment will be more in the developed world.

60% will be impacted in the developed world. And less so in the emerging markets and. In the low income countries. ‘cause I, I guess the idea is adoption is happening a little bit faster here, perhaps. I, I don’t know, but I think [00:09:00] that’s, that’s a interesting statistic to note. And as I said, my AI anxiety index does show that we have more reason to be concerned about AI anxiety here.

Versus in other parts of the world. And I’m not sure our government, our governments are really in tune with that. And my broader concern is that, okay, this is gonna spill over into unrest and a recurrent legitimacy crisis. And that’s. We should be worried about that. Yeah.

Luke: I totally agree.

I think, you know, , everybody’s kind of trying to find their way with this stuff too, as everybody, all the technology’s kind of being brought from top level down, which doesn’t tend to happen in the way that it’s kind of happening right now. I mean, I want to dig in a little bit on this idea that you’ve warned that.

AI could create an occupational identity crisis. What does that look like on the ground for everyday people?

Maha: Yeah. I think that’s a great question. So in our research, and I, I’ll, I’ll piggyback off an idea from this economist at SOAs, that’s a university in London. His name is Guy [00:10:00] Standing. I think over 20 years ago, he coined the idea of the Pre-Care Act class.

People who feel, for instance, who felt at the time left behind by globalization. As we know, globalization isn’t perfect. It’s, it’s, it didn’t just the, the challenges didn’t just start now. and I think that idea of people falling through the cracks of the global economy, I think that narrative began with the pitfalls of globalization.

And then we heard it again during the COVID pandemic when we realized that, okay, this is obviously a major challenge to the global economy. I still remember I was in London at the time and the Minister of Finance, or the treasury century, whatever his name is, he said that we have this package to help people through the pandemic economic package, but many will fall through the cracks.

Like literally he said that. So I think that we’ve already had a history the last 20 years of a rise in economic frustration from people around the world and. Perhaps that has manifested itself with bursts of protests. Yeah. You know, inflation, unemployment, and at, don’t forget the 2010s. [00:11:00] We had a youth unemployment crisis around the world.

I mean, I, I was a Business Street columnist for a few years at that time, and we wrote, we had a cover story about this youth unemployment bomb. And it wasn’t just the Arab Spring region where young people were. Pushing back and saying opportunities are not there. But it, it was also in other parts of the world and I, I guess my fear is that we’ve had layers or a growing number of pre-OT members, this economic class that feels they have no occupational identity.

So in building for a while. And now in a post pandemic world, we also have the added layer of ai. That is for many of us, it’s going to cause us to question our occupational identity. We have, you know, we, you know, I’m sure like me, you have you have years of experience and if tomorrow’s, and I have, you know, education and, and books and so forth.

But if tomorrow I was told, look, AI has made you redundant at this phase as an aging millennial. I would be pretty worried. I would be pretty [00:12:00] worried. I can’t just rely on my crypto investments right now and so forth. And I think that that occupational identity crisis, that, questioning, we, we will have to do what is our sense of purpose?

What do our children, you know, what are the younger generation do going forward? I think that is, that is really the crux of it, that we’re not having. Enough debate and discussion about it. And obviously we don’t know how quickly it will come, which adds to the anxiety.

Luke: Yeah, no, I think a couple really good points in there.

Especially when you’ve got, now, , I, I’m in the ID like aging millennial, right? Like generation, I mean the global financial crisis was huge, huge impact. I think that was kind of like a really big shock to. I mean after, at least from the financial world and you saw people’s retirements getting, you know, cut in half basically, and then lots of job disruption and all of that.

But now you’ve got like Gen Z that’s kind of coming up and the whole COVID pandemic hit in, in a different way. But I, it’s almost like If there isn’t a better meeting in the middle between the corporate rhetoric and the government you know, the, the regulatory side or whatever, like, people are just, [00:13:00] there’s just gonna be a general disillusionment from the millennial class or demographic.

And then the Gen Z people that. haven’t necessarily been hit by it, but are way more earlier adopting of the tech side. It’s a really interesting kind of set of conditions and, part of me thinks that everybody will progress as we do, but like at the same time, people’s faith in these organizations is just going to weigh into the point of almost being.

You know, non-existent at a certain point. I don’t know. There’s all this disruption happening, right? Like I,

Maha: I completely agree with you. I think the concern I have is that there, in addition to what I’ve already said, but we will have a tech clash. I think a, you’ll have people who, I don’t know if they’ll necessarily just be the younger set, but there will be people who say, I don’t want to use ai.

I don’t need to use your products. I’m gonna go in a different direction. And I think that should be a concern for. Tech companies. I think, and as I alluded to earlier, I do feel tech leaders have to be more responsible in their rhetoric. When the head of Anthropic says This is a bloodbath that, you know, the jobs are going and it’s gonna affect, you know, ‘cause prior to the pandemic, we only talked about automation impact in [00:14:00] retail, food transporting, you saw there was a lot of dialogue amongst the tech billionaires said, Hey, you know, UBI would be a good option.

And it made sense and I wrote about it too, and I was excited too. But now we have another layer. of impact on another group and educate more, you know, different different sectors and college educated. I think, I mean, it depends who you believe, but supposedly gen AI will replace young lawyers marketing, advertising, education potentially, which is one of the, one of my roles in my portfolio career.

I just think that there needs to be, I think our, our tech leaders need to be held accountable a little bit that, if you’re gonna say this, then follow through with a suggestion as to what we should do. I, I think that dialogue isn’t happening. There’s just so, such a race by governments to just get the tech leaders the money they need and get, you know, get the data center set up and all of that.

But the human impact is, is not sufficiently discussed. And we should be worried. And yeah. [00:15:00] I hate to be set a downer, but that’s the reality.

Luke: What, what would the accountability look like from your point of view? I, it’s a hard thing. It’s always like, okay, well, like we want people to be more accountable. But you know, it, it’s hard to see what that looks like.

Right. You know, and I mean, is there a realistic pathway towards global AI governance from your point of view?

Maha: Yeah. You know, we’ve talked about this a lot in different forums. I spoke at the Paris Peace Forum and just was it in October, I think, and also the London AI Summit in the summer. I think there, I think the good news is there is an effort by certain countries and certain you know, certain actors to talk about the, the desire for regulation.

I think in E, in the eu, for instance, they have the AI Act, right, which is enforceable. Then the G seven, as we talked about at the Paris Peace Forum, launched the Hiroshima AI reporting framework so that tech companies, tech leaders, and other executives would report how they manage AI risks, and that would be a way to [00:16:00] collect data.

And hopefully help us. But it’s it is not enforceable. It’s voluntary. So I think in the current climate, I, I don’t given, given the way the US position in the world has evolved just in one year with President Trump and, and frankly, it’s been building for a while, I don’t think it’s realistic to have a global AI policy.

Where all of us come together, just like it’s unlikely we’ll come together on climate, I’m afraid. Right. As well. So I think, I think what’s more likely is that you have regional efforts that will likely be more enforceable and more localized to what’s happening on the ground. And I think that. I think that is probably the best way forward.

Obviously, we have to realize down the road if a GI is upon us a SIA lot of these discussions become irrelevant ‘cause the AI won’t need us or listen to us. So that’s sort of, I hope, you know, hopefully many decades from now, I, it’s hard to know when a GI and a SI will be upon [00:17:00] us, but. But it’s still good to be part of these discussions.

Luke: No, that’s super, super interesting. I mean, just to kind of switch gears a little bit I know we talked about governance and that side, but what about addressing like. , Actual progress on things, , like, a lot of sustainability issues or poverty like, is there a, real near term example where you think AI could meaningfully advance any of these areas?

Maha: Yes. I, I think and we talked about AI sustainability I think last year as well at the summit. I think everyone is aware that there’s an energy problem, there’s a water usage problem. it’s not a hidden story. I think the good news is it’s out there.

We know that there’s a sustainability challenge for ai. I think what’s really positive is that you do see tech firms. Samsung is one example that are actively and independent of any government influence are saying, this is how we should tackle it. We’re gonna experiment with sewage water, purified sewage water as a way to reduce.

Regular water consumption. I believe Microsoft [00:18:00] also has figured out a way to completely eradicate water from their cooling process, if I’m not mistaken. So I think it’s encouraging and that tech leaders, tech firms are taking that initiative. In a world where nobody is telling them what to do, there’s no government or set of governments that can enforce it.

I think it’s also encouraging that tech firms have taken the lead on AI upskilling efforts in a lot of countries. Google and a few other companies have gone to South Asia. They’ve gone to Southeast Asia and again, on their own accord have said, we are, we commit to upskilling 2 million people in the next two years.

For instance, in India. And I. I think again, independent of government influence, you do see. These tech companies, maybe they’re concerned about PR as well, how they look, but it’s still for the greater good. And I think that’s, that’s encouraging. Yeah.

Luke: Do you worry at all about the consolidation of these tech companies, like having too much influence?

Maha: Yes. I think that’s an ongoing discussion [00:19:00] that we have in our, in our work. And, and as I said earlier, I think on some level, these AI firms. Or big tech firms with AI divisions are already kind of their own countries. they’re on their way to becoming sort of the, the first, the world’s first.

Non-state superpowers. That’s something I talk about in my upcoming book, global Springs. So I, I don’t know how we tackle that, if I’m being brutally honest. I think that’s just something we have to accept. I think what what’s important is to continue the dialogue with these tech leaders. If they are willing to engage, which they seem to be, they’re quite a friendly group, right?

The usual suspects, Elon Musk, they are engaged with the public. I think there’s more scope to talk to them about what can we do. And I have to say in some of the events I’ve gone to UN General Assembly, for instance, that there were a lot of, and the summit of the future last year at the un it was really a lot of tech leaders.

They were part of the discussion. So I think that. That’s positive. Yeah,

Luke: I agree too. And I think one thing that’s been really great [00:20:00] to see is, you know, a lot of outreach from the academic community to work with the tech companies too. there is a good level of concern and I, I don’t think that that necessarily gets that much attention in the public very much.

But it’s something I’ve definitely seen in. Just having people on, talking to them about it. And I, I know you’ve been super gracious with your time, I heard about this evolution project you’re working on, and I, I kind of wanted a comic that you’re putting out there.

I kinda wanted to, without giving too much away hear a little bit more about that if you’re open to sharing. Sure.

Maha: Thanks so much. So I, yes, I have a portfolio career in global risk and future trends. So I, although I have a PhD, I’m not a traditional academic. But it’s, I always wanted to be a cartoonist.

So actually 10 years ago I drew my first comic. It’s called The Global Kid. Your maybe your kids would appreciate it. Yeah. And it teaches kids in a fun way about the world. And I’m actually I am a global citizen, but with Pakistani roots and I lived in seven countries. So the first comic kind of tracks this kid traveling around the world and it talks about what the challenges are in a fun way.

And it was kind of loosely based on my life. And then during the [00:21:00] pandemic. I like everyone else, I was rethinking my life and I thought, how can we take the global kid to the next level? And I connected with two startups, MIO and AR market based, based in London and Italy in Rome. And we created the world’s first vr ar political comic book based on my original comic.

And you read the physical comic and then through the app you can see the characters come alive. Including Lucky who is my dog. It’s his birthday today. It’s also my birthday, so happy birthday to Lucky. And he’s a rescue and anyway, so I, I guess I have that creative side, which I’ve, I’ve been very excited to sort of develop and now.

take VR ar elements into it. And this, now, this year I’m pursuing a comic book for grownups and that is evolution, as you said. And I’m really you know, over the years I’ve seen how, sadly how extremism, global extremism has evolved. And they’re very, they’re different strains around the world, and I, I guess the goal is to kind of show how [00:22:00] that, how it has evolved and then say, these are the, these are the next types of, or forms of extremism or terrorism.

So I, I won’t give it away, but, but that’s kind of the idea. Thanks.

Luke: No, that sounds great. And we’ll have to put that in the show notes to check it out. For people that want to kind of follow your work and or, or, you know, check out your work. Where would you recommend that they go check you out?

Maha: Yeah please find me on LinkedIn and I do post a lot on Instagram. It’s the underscore, global underscore kid. It was, I created it originally for the comic. So yeah, I’d love to stay engaged. Please reach out if you have any follow up questions. Yes, my book is coming out Global Spring in the first quarter, so it, it talks a lot about AI and, and what’s next.

Luke: Thank you so much, Maha, for coming on today. Maybe we’ll have you back on and talk about the book when it comes out and really appreciate it and thanks for taking time to come away from the summit and and time to this conversation.

Maha: Thanks so much. I appreciate it. Take care.

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