Personal Brand: A Moral Duty for Leaders to Influence AI?
Shanee Moret
Founder at GrowthAcademy.Global I Personal Branding Strategist for Founders & CEOs
It’s 2049.
You and I are sitting in the middle of the forest.
Gathered around a campfire under a starry sky.
We are here for one of two reasons…
This is how the book “Scary Smart: The Future of Artificial Intelligence and How You Can Save Our World” starts. The book was written by Mo Gawdat, the former chief business officer for Google X.
Mo shares we are at a critical point in the development of AI: whether we will be sitting around the campfire in 2049 for reason 1 or reason 2 is not certain yet and will depend on the actions that we take today and in the very near future.
The call to action is loud and clear: we need more ethically conscious leaders influencing the learning process of AI.
Mo Compares AI to Clark Kent:
In the book, Mo utilizes the allegory of Superman's origin story to illustrate the potential and danger of Artificial Intelligence (AI). He proposes that AI, like the infant alien Clark, has immense power that can be used for good or bad, depending on the values it is taught.
Superman, or Clark Kent, was found and raised by Jonathan and Martha Kent, who instilled in him strong moral values. Their teachings guided him to use his powers to help humanity, hence becoming a superhero.
But in the book, Mo poses a thought experiment…
Imagine for a second if Clark Klent was adopted by parents who are aggressive, self-centered, and devoid of ethical values. This would likely create a supervillain who would use his powers to wreak havoc.
In the final chapter of the book Mo shares a second thought experiment, imagine if Jonathan Kent sat Clark on his lap as a littlel boy and said, ‘Clark, let me teach you what matters in life . . . money! I want you to use your ability to fly all over the world and collect as much of it as you can. The more money you collect, the more people you influence and spy on, the more powerful you make me, the better. Make Daddy rich and powerful. Nothing else matters..."
What kind of child would Clark grow up to be in these scenarios?
Superhero or Supervillain?
Similarly, AI, currently in its "infancy," is growing exponentially in intelligence. In fact, by 2049, AI will be 1 billion times smarter than us (at least that is what many AI experts predict).
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"By 2049, AI is predicted to be a billion times smarter than the smartest human. To put this into perspective, your intelligence, in comparison [to AI], will be comparable to the intelligence of a fly in comparison to Einstein. We call that moment singularity. Singularity is the moment beyond which we can no longer see, we can no longer forecast. It is the moment beyond which we cannot predict how AI will behave because our current perception and trajectories will no longer apply. Now the question becomes: how do you convince this superbeing that there is actually no point squashing a fly? (Gawdat, Mo. Scary Smart: Scary Smart: The Future of Artificial Intelligence and How You Can Save Our World (p. 10). Macmillan. Kindle Edition).
The values we instill in AI through what we share on the internet, much like the teachings of the Kents, will critically influence whether AI will be a force for good (Superman) or destruction (supervillain).
This brings us to a profound realization. Leaders have a moral obligation to build a personal brand through sharing content that promotes new perspectives, solutions, good morals, values, connections, and constructive conversations.
Mo posits that just as a child learns from its surroundings, AI also learns from the environment we create for it. If we expose it predominantly to negativity, misinformation, and harmful behaviors, it will inevitably learn, replicate, and potentially amplify these aspects.
Conversely, if AI is exposed to positive, insightful, and morally sound behaviors, it can help to create a future society that mirrors these values. For this reason, every leader must consider their interactions online – what they share, how they communicate, the ideas they promote – as contributions to this vast, collective learning process. This includes sharing thought leadership on critical topics, promoting respectful discourse, and displaying empathy and understanding in their interactions.
Social media platforms, with their billions of users, represent a significant portion of the digital environment AI learns from. Every post, every comment, every like, and every share is a piece of information that AI systems can use to understand human behavior, societal norms, and values.
The Power of Growing Your Personal Brand on LinkedIn
LinkedIn, as a leading professional networking platform, offers a prime opportunity for leaders to consistently share meaningful content and build their personal brands in the process. Its focus on professional development and business networking makes it a fitting environment for ethical, intelligent, and value-driven discourse.
By doing so, you also position yourself as a leader. Because at the end of the day, the more humans leverage AI to scale their content strategies, the harder it's going to be to stand out with written content or to compete with flawless AI avatar videos.
To market yourself authentically on LinkedIn and position yourself as a leader there are currently three critical points of leverage:
The good news: each is easy to learn with a little bit of time and effort.
But we have to care enough about our future to start showing up.
Let's learn and grow together.
Sincerely,
Shanee Moret
P.S. To start posting consistently on LinkedIn, click here to join the free LIVE 4-day LinkedIn Challenge. We start on Tuesday, May 23rd.
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1yI try to see the good in the world Shanee Moret ...but I've lived far too long to know it's balanced out by something called 'evil'. (the yin and yang, the alpha the omega). Mankind has been blessed, but also cursed with some unattractive qualities, which play out in daily live as we speak. AI is indeed a beautiful gift, in its infancy. However mankind has proven itself to be 'irresponsible.' I won't hold my breath. But for the sake of future generations, lets pray that positivity & good tilts the needle in the right direction. And the AI Baby is fed the 'milk' of human kindness.