The AI Era: The positives and pitfalls of artificial intelligence - George Khouri

Key Takeaways:

• Artificial Intelligence Overview: AI is fundamentally about simulating human intelligence through machines, enabling smarter decision-making processes in our everyday lives.
• Technology Adoption: Effective change management is crucial in technology projects, ensuring smoother transitions and stronger stakeholder engagement.
• Potential of AI: AI offers vast opportunities for improving life quality, from automating repetitive tasks to enhancing learning experiences and mental health services.
• Balancing Risks: Users of AI must find a balance to avoid overreliance and ensure authenticity in personal and professional engagements.
• Human Connection: Despite the digital advances, genuine human interactions hold irreplaceable value, underscoring the need for responsible technology use.

Notable Quotes:

• "AI should be about augmenting what we do, not replacing it."
• "Technology can improve the way we do things. It's about embracing it, not fearing it."
• "Artificial intelligence is in development... it's part of our lives every day."
• "I'll always be a father and a husband first... nothing will ever replace that."
• "We need to tread lightly with AI but also celebrate our humanity."

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Transcript

0:00:04 - (Debbie Draybi): Welcome to Finding Sanctuary. Our shared conversations into how we think and feel and how we find peace and comfort in daily life. We get together with experts to chat about all things mental health, getting insights and understanding on the struggles of life. My name is Debbie Draby, and I'm a psychologist and a proud Maronite woman and a mother of three children. And I'm passionate about bringing people together to share their stories, to support each other through life and all its beauty and all its pain.

0:00:32 - (Debbie Draybi): I look forward to hearing from you in this podcast series as we engage in conversations around our shared experiences as a community. We love to hear what you think of the podcast, so please subscribe, share like, and comment wherever you get your podcasts. Oh, welcome back, everyone, for another episode on Finding Sanctuary. It's been a while. I feel like we haven't recorded for some time now, and I'm really excited. Today we've got a special guest, a fellow member on our Maroni Hill Sanctuary House board, George Curie.

0:01:09 - (Debbie Draybi): He's a member on a few boards. Actually, he's a board groupie. So he's also on the Maronite College of the Holy Family Board. But also his day job. He does have a day job. He's the lead technology delivery for infrastructure for the University of Sydney. George is also a proud Maronite man and father of four children. Most important, John. Yeah, I have a disclaimer. George is a wonderful friend of my family. We go way back.

0:01:36 - (Debbie Draybi): I actually roped George into joining the Maronite Youth Organization probably about, I don't know, 25 years ago or more, and then I ran. But, yeah, so we have a long history together. And I'm really excited to be sharing this conversation with you, George. And I've also got Eddie, Eddie Reich with us today as well, joining in this conversation. It's good to have you back, Eddie.

0:01:56 - (Eddie Reaiche): It's always great to be here.

0:01:57 - (Debbie Draybi): Yeah. So welcome, George.

0:01:59 - (George Khouri): Thank you, Debbie. Thank you, Eddie. Good to finally meet you. Yes, we do have a long history, Debbie, and one that I will never forget. You've roped me into a few things. First, it was the myo back when I was probably 18 or 19. So, yes, it has been about 25 years. Not giving away my age there. And then you roped me into something like this doing a podcast, which I'm delighted to do. Suffice to say, I've been involved in the church since that day 25 years ago, Debbie. So thank you.

0:02:29 - (George Khouri): But it has been a great journey, especially meeting people like you, who I very much value and cherish in my life.

0:02:34 - (Debbie Draybi): There are a lot of fears when we start having tech conversations, particularly, you know, this rapid evolving technology moving faster than we can keep up with. And I thought as a start, I wondered whether you can tell us. I know you started your early days with the Maronite youth, but a bit about your story and your journey with technology and sort of how you came. I know when I first met you you were a dj.

0:02:56 - (Debbie Draybi): Yes. And that's how you. Yeah, that's right. So what is it, you know, tell us a bit about your journey with technology and what are some of the things that have influenced your journey.

0:03:06 - (George Khouri): So when I was at school, so it was probably about 94, geez, that's going back, the Internet was just starting and things like, you know, you had your 56k modem and people heard that dull tone and you know, got excited when it actually connected and got frustrated when it didn't. That's when I first started to get a bit of an interest in technology. All the things, the fact that you can access so much information, I always thought though would never interest me to actually follow it and pursue it as a career. And I thought, you know, I'm probably more of a law person. I liked law.

0:03:35 - (George Khouri): Legal studies was my thing at school. So I went down that path initially at university. After leaving school I didn't like it and then I thought, oh, maybe I will take a look at this information systems and see what it's all about. So I spent three years studying at university information systems and from there sort of grew into technology and grew a love for technology and what it can do. For me, technology very early on was about improving life and improving the way we do things generally.

0:04:07 - (George Khouri): And so that's how I sort of got into it. I started working like every other tech person in a help desk, fixing people's problems and saying to people, have you turned it off and turned it back on? So that was my journey. Then I got into project management. I was very fortunate and blessed that a good friend of mine, someone you'd know, actually, Debbie, Angela Arban, her brother was quite a senior person at a company called Unilever and sort of reached out to me and said, would you like to have a go? We're working for us. And I said yes. They put me on a three month trial and that got me into project management and I've been there ever since I've been there, I've been doing project management now in all sorts of companies for about 22, 23 years. I've worked at airlines, Qantas, I've worked at Telstra banks, Westpac, I've worked at consulting firms and Hewlett Packard, construction companies, done a lot of work with them.

0:05:00 - (George Khouri): And now I've been at the university now for about eight years. Nine years, sorry. Today was my nine year anniversary at the University of Sydney and so yeah, it's been quite a interesting experience working at the university and seeing a different side of technology where I think university is quite interesting because that's where technology is really put to the test. Right. So they try to break it and they try to see what it can do as well. So yeah, that's my journey.

0:05:25 - (Debbie Draybi): Yeah.

0:05:25 - (Eddie Reaiche): It's funny George, when you say the advent of computers came while you were at school.

0:05:30 - (George Khouri): It happened way before that, but.

0:05:32 - (Eddie Reaiche): Well, the advent of the calculator came when I was at school. So I go back a lot further. We were very excited that a machine could actually count for us instead of us because that's what we had. Everything was manual. Technology has been something that people either grasped or feared.

0:05:47 - (George Khouri): Absolutely.

0:05:48 - (Eddie Reaiche): And I think what happens a lot now is anything new causes a lot of fear. And the first thing they want to do when they hear about technology is run away from it or find any flaw in that technology where they can put it down because people aren't ready. There's a lot of people who aren't ready and there are people who embrace it. It seems like. I think Australia embraces technology more than most. But there's a lot of people even in our community who are always scared of technology because they feel it's going to take a job or it's going to replace education or the kids will never learn.

0:06:23 - (Eddie Reaiche): These are sort of things that I'm seeing in the community whenever something new. And now AI people have been watching a lot of science fiction movies and they're all horror movies about AI and that's really what feeds a lot of people's discomfort. A lot of people's fear is because they think it's going to be Hollywood set and AI will take over, they're going to launch these missiles and kill everyone on the earth. And I think it's only a matter of time before either AI or robots take over the world.

0:06:52 - (Eddie Reaiche): But that's kind of some mentalities is out there and that becomes a problem.

0:06:57 - (George Khouri): It does become a problem. Eddie, you mentioned the word there change now. And I'm going to give you a bit of history in terms of project management. In project management we used to basically focus on delivery we never focused on change management as a concept. So over the years change management becomes such an important part because it starts to talk to people about specifically that change and why it is actually good. So you're actually managing change rather than saying to somebody, hey look, we've got this new piece of technology, just go ahead and use it.

0:07:27 - (George Khouri): Now you taking them on the journey to say how this particular technology can improve what you're doing, augment what you're doing, but also improve the business, because ultimately that's what businesses do. They want to improve how they operate, their efficiency and things like that. You're absolutely correct. There's a lot of fear mongering out there at the moment as well. About AI. 30 years ago we probably would be having this conversation about the Internet, but look what the Internet has done.

0:07:55 - (George Khouri): I always say that anything good in the wrong hands will be bad. It's the same with the Internet and it will be the same with AI. It's, it's just a part of life, you know, so that's the way it is. But we've got to move away from that fear, we've got to embrace it. And there'll be a few things that we'll talk about tonight where you'll be able to see that artificial intelligence itself will be a great thing for society.

0:08:21 - (George Khouri): The Internet was a great thing for society. People in regional towns now have access to the same education that people in CBDs do because of things like fibre connections out to regional towns, people in remote locations, same sort of thing. The accessibility and information that the Internet has provided has given us ability to do better research, quicker research. There's a lot of fear and there are some things that we need to be cautious about. Absolutely.

0:08:48 - (George Khouri): But I don't think that we need to fall into that trap of being scared of AI and what it can do for us. I think there are some really good, positive things and we'll talk about those as we progress today. Yeah, it's definitely something to keep an eye on.

0:09:02 - (Eddie Reaiche): Some of the things that I think about, particularly when there was a lot of fear mongering around the Internet because they're going to get your data, they're going to get this, you're going to lose all your money. And then everyone starts to freak out and then all of a sudden, and I'm only talking about our culture, our Lebanese people, all of a sudden they realize that they can pick up their phone, go on a WhatsApp, talk to someone in Lebanon without having to sit down and wait for A phone call, someone who's going to do a trunk call over to the other side and have to screen down the phone so they can hear them, but they can now actually watch them and talk to them to know that they're okay.

0:09:36 - (Eddie Reaiche): And those people turn around quite quickly and start to think to themselves the benef of having the Internet. And that changes a lot of concepts too.

0:09:45 - (George Khouri): Yeah, you're right. I've seen it with my own parents in the last three or four years. I go to mum and dad's and you know, he's a 70 plus woman on YouTube looking up, reminiscing and looking up some, some Arabic movies or you know, some shows and they're on the WhatsApp recording messages if they can't do a phone call at the time. But this all wouldn't have been possible without the Internet. This very episode that we're recording right now would not be possible without the Internet.

0:10:11 - (Eddie Reaiche): That's right, yeah.

0:10:13 - (George Khouri): So we're able to share experiences, our learnings. It's great. It can be a great thing, technology. And I think we need to embrace it, not fear it. And when we fear, it really becomes a problem because as you said, then we start, oh well, there's a panic. There's a panic. And yeah, I don't think it's a panic that we should really be embracing.

0:10:34 - (Debbie Draybi): I'm curious about what you said earlier in terms of your project management experiences and how there's been a big shift from thinking about and introducing a new technology. It's been about understanding the change process and that often that fear and that resistance to change and that's been a big part of how things are introduced now, how new technologies introduced.

0:10:55 - (George Khouri): It's actually created jobs. Right? It's actually created the position of a change manager.

0:10:59 - (Debbie Draybi): Yeah.

0:10:59 - (George Khouri): So that change manager you now bring on early in peace in a project which could last three or four years or two years or whatever, whatever it is. And they're part of the journey of the project, so they're part of the implementation. But what they do, they actually understand the project and they're also the ones that provide the communication so they understand the stakeholders that are being impacted by it. So they'll do an impact analysis who's being impacted by this change.

0:11:23 - (George Khouri): And then they will also be the ones that control the narrative that comes out of the project. They also key stakeholders within the project to say, oh, maybe you guys should consider this because we've heard some feedback that this is where some of the concerns lay. Whereas previously you would be like, well, here's a piece of technology, we're going to implement it. Here's our plan. Maybe in the last couple of months before you go live, you bringing on someone and say, this is what we're going to be doing and this is the new piece of technology that you need to use and this is where you record it. And that was it. You didn't take people on that journey.

0:11:54 - (George Khouri): So now not only do they have a say in what is being delivered, they're actually being consulted and they're actually part of that journey. And as you guys would appreciate, when someone's part of a journey, they feel ownership, they're less resistant. So it actually works out well for everybody because projects are a lot more successful and there's a lot more buy in. And when there's buy in, everybody's happy. Right.

0:12:18 - (Eddie Reaiche): I love that word journey. It resonates so much with clients, particularly those that once you tell them there's a journey, it's such a great metaphor to think there's a road ahead for them and it's structured and we know where we're going. So I love that terminology that you use because I think once you use that, people can relate to it a lot better. And we use it a lot in counseling. And so when you say, you know, we're both on a journey, we'll both get there as soon as we can and at some point you're going to say, I can take it from here, and then you let go and then that's the best thing that can happen.

0:12:51 - (Eddie Reaiche): And I think when people use that metaphor to their benefit, that's when I think a lot of them seem to get a lot of empowerment.

0:12:59 - (George Khouri): Yeah.

0:13:00 - (Eddie Reaiche): Because they've managed to achieve it themselves. Really. We're just there to assist, but they do all the work, but they empower themselves because they now know how to deal with their own stuff and go forward and move on to developing who they are.

0:13:14 - (Debbie Draybi): Yeah, a journey, it's progressive. You know, there are things that we learn along the way and that we pick up on and are thinking about the journey with technology. We all had our own experiences with that and some of us embrace it straight away. We're excited about it. We're the first ones to buy the new iPhone or. And then others completely avoid it to the point where there's such a level of fear and resistance and then it takes them a while to come on board, but then they're converted once they give it a go.

0:13:46 - (Debbie Draybi): So thinking about that, when we're exploring things like Artificial intelligence. And for those of you who aren't familiar with it, when we say AI, that's what we mean. Artificial intelligence. It's a journey and we're all at very different stages with it. Some people don't even know what AI actually is. And I'm wondering, you know, if you could explain it to people who are hearing this for the first time or have heard it a lot, but really never had it explained.

0:14:10 - (Debbie Draybi): How would you describe AI? What is it?

0:14:12 - (George Khouri): I actually went to ChatGPT and I want to see what it gives as an example.

0:14:16 - (Debbie Draybi): It's going to explain AI using AI people.

0:14:20 - (George Khouri): Debbie, you're spot on. So AI as it is, it's defined a simulation of human intelligence by machines. Very simple, right? Very simple definition. Enabling computers to learn, recognize and recognize patterns and make decisions. So straight off the bat you can think of an example where that's happened in your life probably today. Have you used Siri, have you used Google? Have you used Google Maps? That's artificial intelligence. You're using it every day. And we've been using it for many years.

0:14:50 - (George Khouri): We just haven't realized. We have. I don't think I can make it any simpler than that. Yeah, right. It's basically simulating what a human can do and the human intelligence. But how does it do that? It learns. It learns. You know, we've spoken about this before, but it's about it, the information you put in. And so at the moment, AI is connected to the Internet. It's got a vast array of information portals that it can suck information from and actually provide an answer.

0:15:16 - (George Khouri): So ChatGPT is a good example of that. So you say to ChatGPT, Hey, I need you to pick me a picture of two people playing in a park. It'll give you a version of it. If you don't like it, you say, well, that's not what I was thinking. I was thinking more of a colorful type of picture. It'll go and give you some. So it's taking an input and giving you an output. So that's what artificial intelligence, it's that meet in the middle. It's being able to process the input and to give you a educated somewhat output.

0:15:46 - (Debbie Draybi): Give me a bit of a summary of information that you might need, really guiding you and almost summarizing because there's a lot of information out there.

0:15:55 - (George Khouri): There is a lot of information and that will, you know, that probably, you know, we can go to some of those things that you should be. I won't say pitfalls, but I'd Say maybe things that you should be aware of.

0:16:05 - (Debbie Draybi): Yeah.

0:16:05 - (George Khouri): So when you request a summary of information or information at all from anything with artificial intelligence, you should check the source chat. GPT has a disclaimer on the bottom of it that says, check your source. It may not be correct. Yeah, we need to do that. So it will give you some pointers, but don't let it be the source of truth. Artificial intelligence, put simply, really should be augmenting what we do, not replacing what we do.

0:16:31 - (George Khouri): And that goes to that fear that you were talking about, Eddie. I don't like when people say it's not going to impact jobs, because it is, but it doesn't mean it's going to replace your job. And if, you know, we can talk about many examples, but I'll give the ones that are most relevant to the circle that I work within, and that's teaching and learning. Now, teachers are consumed by paperwork and compliance.

0:16:52 - (George Khouri): Now, if we can take away compliance, work through AI and the teacher gets to do what a teacher loves to do, and it's perform, because that's how teachers refer to it, performance. Perform in front of students and teach students. But what have we done? We haven't replaced their role, we've augmented it. Now, there are situations where, yes, things like autonomous robots will replace jobs that are considered dangerous, like mining.

0:17:17 - (George Khouri): They will change those roles, absolutely. But again, it's for safety, not for the only reason is to replace the role. No, I think there's some valid reasons where it does replace roles, but I don't think that we should be scared of it replacing all our jobs because it's not going to do that. I think there's a lot we've got to learn about AI. AI itself is still in development. There's different levels of AI.

0:17:41 - (George Khouri): It's actually part of our lives every day. We just don't know it or don't realize it.

0:17:46 - (Eddie Reaiche): Yeah.

0:17:46 - (Debbie Draybi): So what I'm hearing is it's been a bit of a journey with AI. It sort of came about before we even realized it and now it's out there. People talk about it more. Perhaps the fear is more heightened now because there's more obvious examples. There are actual robots replacing people in different jobs. And I think there is that fear of being replaced. As humans, we want to feel like we have a place and we have a purpose, particularly if we have a job that we're very attached to and it's being sort of replaced by a robot. It's hard because, you know, we want to feel like we're Irreplaceable. That's part of our humanity, to know that we have a role and a purpose, and particularly when it's something, you know, our jobs are part of our identity.

0:18:32 - (Debbie Draybi): So just being able to reflect on that, I think in that journey there are things that we're going to lose. But what I'm hearing from you, George, is that sometimes we have to lose and let go of things to improve things as well and to do things better and safer.

0:18:47 - (George Khouri): I agree. And Debbie there, I guess for me it's the paradigm by which you look at everything, right? So if we look at AI as something that's going to, you know, destroy my life, then it probably will. But if you. If you embrace and say, you know what, I'm going to use AI to see how I can improve my life, I can do training, I can better myself, I can educate myself in different ways that I previously could not.

0:19:10 - (George Khouri): It's all accessible to me. It's all explainable to me. Maybe I'll use AI to actually better myself and actually get a different role. And I think that's the important thing here. If we fear, it's like fearing anything, right? It's going to take over and take control. You guys would understand that more from a psychological perspective than anything. So I think it's really about how we look at it.

0:19:33 - (Debbie Draybi): Yeah, yeah, yeah.

0:19:34 - (Eddie Reaiche): I was thinking about that perspective when you were talking, particularly when people fear that it's going to take a job away. Or let's say a psychologist says, oh, people can look it up, get their information, then walk away. But I want to think about those people who would actually do that, who don't want the human contact or prefer getting it off a machine than a human being. That person, I don't think, would probably want to go and see psychologists. That person probably would avoid that because they're happy to Google it, get their diagnosis, and go on their merry way and think to themselves, I'm content.

0:20:10 - (Eddie Reaiche): And I wonder, the people who really enjoy the human interaction, no AI can replace that. And so they will just choose. Because I guess in the end, it's a matter of choice, isn't it?

0:20:22 - (George Khouri): Absolutely.

0:20:22 - (Eddie Reaiche): Whether or not I choose AI over a human being or I choose a human being over an AI. And for a counselor, I would prefer someone who would rather choose a human being over AI to discuss things so I could have a really good conversation. But the person who chooses AI, I prefer they go to AI because I'm not going to get a good conversation with that person.

0:20:42 - (George Khouri): Absolutely.

0:20:43 - (Eddie Reaiche): It's their choice.

0:20:44 - (George Khouri): I think that's a, that's a key component of the understanding.

0:20:47 - (Eddie Reaiche): Right.

0:20:47 - (George Khouri): And if we don't look at it like that, then we fall to the negative too far. You've got organizations, Black Dog Institute, Lifeline, Headspace, they all use AI, but they use that as an entry point. They don't use it for continual counseling. So what's that done? It's taken the counselor away from that entry point, discussions with a possible patient to focus more time on more complex issues. Right.

0:21:12 - (George Khouri): And for me that's a, that's a positive. Just like the teaching, focusing people on teachers on actually teaching rather than doing paperwork. Wow. How good is it that we can get counselors actually focused on the complex issues of this world? And let's face it, those complex issues are just getting even more complex day by day with everything that's out there. So technology has also opened the door for counseling remotely. Right.

0:21:37 - (George Khouri): So previously the person living, you know, 300 kilometers away from Sydney, how would they receive counselling? Now they've got chatbots that they can talk to that can help. They're not going to give you that human interaction just yet. It may in the future. There's enough there to say, well, okay, look, here are your symptoms. Here are you here what we're thinking, this is some things that can help, but we also think that you should seek some professional help as well.

0:22:02 - (George Khouri): And so they're always leading you that way. But it's that entry level stuff that we really want to automate or use artificial intelligence to actually create a wider impact on society.

0:22:13 - (Debbie Draybi): Yeah. And what I'm hearing is, you know, there are incredible opportunities, what it can enable for us. There's a lot of paperwork, as you said, there's a lot of compliance work that does often get in the way with that human interaction and being able to use AI to enable those initial discussions and getting all the sort of demographics and the connections happening. And then it leaves space for that one on one work where all the details are set up for you with AI and then you're able to really fully be present with a patient, with a client, know that the administration's been taken care of.

0:22:51 - (Debbie Draybi): And it's about the human interaction and the connection and that's something that is irreplaceable. AI can't replace a human connection, no matter how sophisticated it is. And being able to be fully present, you know, to be able to listen fully, to engage. And as you said, you know, people's issues are getting more complex and we need to, you Know, as people support each other and sit with that complexity and listen a bit deeper and perhaps with AI it can enable that because we're not distracted with making sure we take the right information and get the notes in order and do all of our administration.

0:23:26 - (Debbie Draybi): That does often get in the way. I work in healthcare, I see that with staff, there's a lot of documentation that needs to happen and that does get in the way of that patient contact and communication and connection. So being able to find that balance, we see the real opportunities with AI in doing that.

0:23:43 - (George Khouri): And take this, take a scenario there. Debbie, if you were treating a person and you sort of just stumped, you're stumped for potential, you know, symptoms, causes, whatever, and you went to a GPT that was built for mental health and you said, hey look, I've got some of these things, this is. And you're stumped and it gives you some pointers. How good's that? Because it gives you something else to work with.

0:24:11 - (Debbie Draybi): Yeah, yeah. Can potentially unlock sort of new ideas that we haven't imagined, particularly when we are. We all often get stuck, particularly when there's complex issues that. Or presentations that we haven't seen before.

0:24:23 - (George Khouri): Yeah. Again, you also gotta vet that source and make sure that it's, you know, credible.

0:24:27 - (Eddie Reaiche): My neck. Your.

0:24:28 - (George Khouri): Yeah, but I use it in my day to day life as a project manager. Email is through the roof. Tasks are through the roof. You're managing staff, that's just all over the place. I use AI to actually help me manage my day. It filters my emails, it has a read of them and tells me which ones I really should be paying attention to as a top priority. And that's from a few different sources. The ones that are appropriate will go into a task that'll set for my, for me to look at the end of the day. But then I can focus on the things that I need to focus on and that's the meetings with stakeholders or executives. But that's for me that's a benefit.

0:25:01 - (Eddie Reaiche): George, could I ask you a question?

0:25:02 - (George Khouri): Sure.

0:25:03 - (Eddie Reaiche): Where do you think AI could be a problem?

0:25:06 - (George Khouri): Well, there's a few areas, but the two that stand out for me is over reliance. So where we say to AI, hey, write me this assignment or diagnose this patient, that's a big problem. And we leave it at that. We don't check the sources, we don't actually follow through. The other one is the. And probably a little bit more concerning is the deep fake stuff. In simple terms, it's basically where I can take someone's voice or take someone's face and place it in areas it shouldn't be or use it inappropriately.

0:25:38 - (George Khouri): And we're seeing a little bit of that through social media and that sort of talks to a bit of the bullying that we see sometimes at schools. So that's probably a big area of concern because that can, it's again, it's like anything, anything good in bad hands can become really bad. So that's probably the two areas that I would focus on as a concern. The over reliance one is important because you don't want AI to represent you.

0:26:06 - (George Khouri): We're seeing elements of that where people are sending through resumes for jobs and they sound very, very intelligent or their charisma based on how they write and is, you know, well, you got to meet this person and when you do meet that person or you dig into their history a little bit, it's not actually a true representation. They're using AI, but it's not really representing themselves. And I think that's a problem because we're going to get into this, I guess I call it the fake world, where people aren't who they actually say they are on paper.

0:26:36 - (George Khouri): And that's a concern. People are writing emails that don't sound anything like them and then you pick up the phone and you talk to this person and they actually don't understand the email that they wrote, but they've had AI write it for them. I think that's the area of concern for me.

0:26:50 - (Eddie Reaiche): This is why I think that was a great answer. Because I was kind of thinking to myself, that's predominantly, I was thinking overusing, overusing something that potentially is a good thing. But too much of a good thing can be a bad thing.

0:27:05 - (George Khouri): That's right, absolutely.

0:27:07 - (Eddie Reaiche): We had a roundtable discussion. We were thinking about it. We went through the different stages of technology and we said that calculators stopped us from counting, spellcheckers stopped us from spelling, grammar things stopped us from learning how to use grammar. And now AI stops us from thinking. And this is where the train of thought is. And I just wonder when you look at it that way, and I'm not trying to iron out all the negatives because I think there is amazing possibilities here, particularly even using it, even as note taking, which saves us a lot of time and I think it does a great job. We used it recently on the Zoom session and what it came back with was fascinating. I was surprised because I didn't even remember half the stuff we spoke about.

0:27:54 - (Eddie Reaiche): So a lot of that is a Lot of positives, but I think there has to be a balance somewhere, and people have to approach it knowing that there's a balance. And so we take it as something that we have to tread lightly with, but at the same token, not completely put all our energy into one thing as opposed to using our own minds, because we don't want to lose who we are and we don't really want to tell the world we're someone we're not, because I think that could be dangerous.

0:28:22 - (George Khouri): I think you're spot on, Eddie. And I think organizations need to be held to account as well. So in education, I'll give you an example, you don't ask a student to write a essay about Shakespeare anymore, because they will go home and chatgpt, write the. Write the essay for them. But what you do is you get them to critique what ChatGPT. So we've got to also change the way we look at learning. But you're right, we need to keep that authenticity about learning. And, you know, we don't want to stop kids from learning how to spell, how to multiply, how to do all those things, because we've also seen with the Optus outage, what not having the Internet can do.

0:29:01 - (Debbie Draybi): We'll see the impact of over reliance.

0:29:04 - (George Khouri): Yeah, so I think there is. Balance is absolutely crucial.

0:29:08 - (Debbie Draybi): So what I'm hearing is just as we're wrapping up a couple of themes around thinking about in that journey, how to find that balance, thinking about over reliance and then over representation and misrepresentation of who we are and almost losing ourself in the technology. So I'm wondering for our listeners, George, you know, as you've navigated this, as I mentioned earlier, I know you well. I think you're a very balanced person. You're an incredible father, and you're a great professional, and you have such integrity in everything you do.

0:29:38 - (Debbie Draybi): And I see that balance in you. And I wondered what's helped you, what's kept you grounded? Because, I mean, I'm sure you've got access to the most sophisticated technologies in your role. What is it that keeps you grounded and having that balance and that those boundaries that are important.

0:29:56 - (George Khouri): When you ask me, for example, what do I do, I'm a father first before I'm anything else, and I'm a husband before I'm anything else. And that's what grounds me in everything that I do. So I ask myself the question, if I do this, how will it impact my role as a father and a role as a husband? And if the answer is negative. I don't go near it if it's going to help. Absolutely. For me, that's the most important sort of view that I can take in life, because there's a lot more value to what you do at home as a father, as a husband, than there is what I can do with technology. So there's a lot of things that I can do in technology, but is it of value to me, family? If the answer is no, then don't go near it.

0:30:41 - (George Khouri): I also think so.

0:30:42 - (Debbie Draybi): Really, having that moral compass. Absolutely. Reflecting on who you are and what's important to you is critical.

0:30:48 - (George Khouri): Debbie. They're not going to put, you know, when I die at the age of 120, because that's my artificial intelligence date, they're not going to put on my headstone. Here lies George Curie, the ICT program delivery manager for the University of Sydney. Hopefully they're going to put decent father, decent husband, good man, and that's what I've got my eyes on.

0:31:12 - (Eddie Reaiche): I love that, George. I love that human way of finishing this program. The way we can actually say technology is unreal, but we're human. Let's enjoy and let's celebrate our humanity, because that'll always come first.

0:31:26 - (George Khouri): Absolutely.

0:31:28 - (Debbie Draybi): Well, thank you. Thank you. It's been a great conversation and I do have to say we're going to invite you back because I think we should have a series around this and there's a couple of other areas that I'm really keen to explore, but I really appreciate you being part of. This is our first conversation together, just so you know.

0:31:44 - (George Khouri): Thank you, Debbie, for once again putting me in it. And Eddie, you're welcome. Thank you very much.

0:31:57 - (Debbie Draybi): I hope this episode has helped you find sanctuary in this exciting journey of life. All of the resources we've mentioned in this episode are found in the podcast Notes. Notes. If you need some assistance with any of the topics discussed in today's episode, then please Visit our website, HSHL.org au if you have any thoughts, comments or ideas, please leave us a comment on Spotify. Alternatively, send us an email@adminshl.org

0:32:26 - (Debbie Draybi): au you& your mental health matters to us, and we hope you get one step closer in finding sanctuary. Bye for now.