Harnessing the Power of AI and the Human Mind: Insights from Global Thought Leader Manuj Aggarwal

[00:00:00] Welcome to the Business Chop podcast where our guests speak on meeting the challenges of entrepreneurship,

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[00:00:23] Let's chop it up!

[00:00:30] Hello, Chop Squad. Audrey Wiggins here, your host.

[00:00:33] And this episode is going to be exciting. My guest is an expert in one of the hot topics worldwide.

[00:00:40] I can't wait to share him with you. He's a global thought leader in artificial intelligence.

[00:00:46] He mentors others and serves on boards. He's respected in his community and abroad.

[00:00:52] President Obama and Bill Gates have made special mentions of educational education technology that

[00:00:59] he has delivered. And Miami Dade, the second largest college in the US,

[00:01:05] has listed him among the leading experts in AI. He went from $2 a day as a factory worker

[00:01:12] to being recognized as one of the top 500 global thought leaders in AI and startups

[00:01:18] by Brains magazine. His technology projects have impacted the lives of 10 million people.

[00:01:25] He has four patents in artificial intelligence and he's the author of two books on technology.

[00:01:32] He's the founder and chief information officer of Test Renewal Technologies,

[00:01:37] a premier artificial intelligence and cybersecurity consulting company in Vancouver,

[00:01:43] British Columbia, Canada.

[00:01:54] The tagline, your colors, even the fonts for your business. And then jab left with your website,

[00:02:01] jab right with core values. Back up with product experience and bring it on with you.

[00:02:08] Visit altogether.biz and let us help you create a knockout brand.

[00:02:14] Chop Squad meet Manoj Argawal. Manoj, welcome to the Business Chop.

[00:02:21] Thank you so much for that exciting intro. I'm so honored to be here. Thank you.

[00:02:25] Yes, it's a pleasure and honor to have you here. I want to just dive right in. How did you go

[00:02:33] from $2 a day to the boardrooms of a Fortune 500 company? Let's start there before we get

[00:02:39] into the elephant in the room of AI. Sure, sure. Well, you know, it has been

[00:02:45] quite a long journey. I wish I could say that I had a plan in mind, but it was basically just

[00:02:52] sort of taking one step after the other. And as the cliche goes, just follow your passion

[00:02:59] because earlier on, I recognized that working in a factory is not going to give me

[00:03:04] the life I wanted. And so I needed to build something, some more value in the world so

[00:03:11] that the world can allow me to have the life I wanted. And at that moment, I recognize,

[00:03:17] okay, you know, what is the most valuable thing I can provide? And, you know, technology was

[00:03:23] something I was fascinated with software, computers. It was pretty new at that time.

[00:03:29] I'm talking about 1995-96. So internet was still not available in our city in India.

[00:03:38] But somehow I got some basic education in computers and programming, and I just fell in love with it.

[00:03:45] And since then, you know, for me, it has been a fascinating thing to watch how technology

[00:03:51] changes lives, you know, impacts lives of common people. So, you know, I've done work

[00:03:58] in healthcare, I've done work in education, in real estate, in many, many, many different

[00:04:04] industries. And I see how when we write a simple program on our computer, and then make a copy of

[00:04:11] it on some other person's computer or, you know, a website or something, just by that act like

[00:04:17] how it improves a patient's life, how it improves a doctor's ability to care for patients,

[00:04:24] you know, these kind of things are what drive me, my passion. And I think working on these

[00:04:32] kind of projects over and over and over again led me into boardrooms of Fortune 500, many Fortune

[00:04:39] 500 companies, you know, talking to the CEO, vice presidents, and all kinds of like real, real,

[00:04:47] real successful people, real people with, you know, a mission in life to accomplish things

[00:04:57] and, you know, build wealth, build success. So just interacting with them, learning from them,

[00:05:05] seeing, you know, how this world works, and then back converting those ideas back into

[00:05:11] technology. So it's a snowball effect when you start building your passion,

[00:05:16] you start using your skill to help others get feedback from the marketplace, and then again,

[00:05:22] repeat the cycle, right? Keep repeating it. So that is the exponential growth cycle that

[00:05:27] I've been on. How does it feel to be a global thought leader in artificial intelligence and

[00:05:33] having, you know, the likes of Bill Gates who are, you know, a president, in this case,

[00:05:36] President Obama? They praise the technology that we delivered. They don't know my name.

[00:05:41] They didn't use my name. But the technology that we created was so impactful. Basically,

[00:05:48] the technology we created was to allow university students to complete their degree programs,

[00:05:55] because as we all know, there is a huge student debt problem in our country, right?

[00:06:01] Yes. Yes, that's right.

[00:06:02] And what happens is when students go to universities, many times they find out that

[00:06:09] the courses that they have enrolled in are too difficult for them or they are not very

[00:06:14] interesting to them. And so within the first two years, they say, you know, rather than

[00:06:18] accumulating more debt, I'll just drop out. And so in order to fix that, we created a technology

[00:06:24] that matches the students with the right courses based on their interest, based on their

[00:06:29] aptitude, based on their SAT scores, all of that. And so the result is that those students

[00:06:36] are very, you know, it's quite unlikely they will drop out. And in fact, in real life,

[00:06:43] we see that they actually take 20% more courses to finish their degree program because

[00:06:49] those courses are of interest to them. So this is a patented technology. And when President

[00:06:56] Obama was in office, one of the big pushes was higher education. So he noticed this

[00:07:04] product that we built and he said, you know, he mentioned it several times in his speech.

[00:07:09] And then Bill Gates through his foundation, he also mentioned it in several of his speeches,

[00:07:14] plus Bill Gates invested in this product.

[00:07:20] And now coming back to, you know, how was that experience and being a global thought

[00:07:25] leader? You know, once again, like I believe, you know, I don't have any extraordinary thoughts.

[00:07:33] So for me, being a thought leader is kind of surreal. But what I understand from this word

[00:07:40] or this phrase is that when I talk to other thought leaders, like, you know, the likes of

[00:07:48] President Obama, like the likes of Bill Gates, if my ideas are resonating with their ideas,

[00:07:57] that means that is what a thought leader is, right? Our thoughts are basically resonating with

[00:08:04] people much, much higher up. And so that is the feeling that I'm really proud of. And

[00:08:10] it's still sometimes, it's kind of, you know, doesn't settle in, you know, surreal.

[00:08:16] Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. So and then I get to work with, you know, directly with other

[00:08:24] people who have worked for NASA, who have worked for, you know, large governments,

[00:08:30] who have worked for the UN, you know, standing next to people who have won Nobel prizes,

[00:08:38] you know. So these kind of people, when you find yourself, you know, in the same room,

[00:08:44] on the same stage with them, that's what I think the world calls a thought leader.

[00:08:50] When I look at myself, you know, I just attribute that to the people that I, my name is now

[00:08:58] listed among or, you know, I'm associated with. And that's something definitely I'm proud of.

[00:09:05] But again, it's kind of unbelievable at this point.

[00:09:08] Yeah, I couldn't imagine. For sure. Moving on, today we have chat GPT,

[00:09:16] you know, the generative AI. So that's really opened up the eyes to more, you know, common folk

[00:09:21] who are in business or even employees or young folks just doing things at home writing papers.

[00:09:28] But it didn't just start. Artificial intelligence, we've been using this technology

[00:09:33] for decades. Yeah. Educate us on really where did it come from or how it actually,

[00:09:39] you know, came into being, not where did it come from, but the development.

[00:09:42] Sure. In fact, you know, the very first AI development happened in 1940s, 50s. So,

[00:09:51] you know, we have been, the technology has been around for a long time. The names have changed

[00:09:56] from multiple, you know, it has been given multiple names. But let's talk about the modern

[00:10:03] times. So modern times, you know, when the internet was just coming online in the early,

[00:10:11] late 80s, early 90s. Some people recognize the potential of AI to make really big

[00:10:21] changes in society, really, you know, build large companies. And people like Jeff Bezos,

[00:10:28] people like Bill Gates and some others, they have used this technology over the last 20

[00:10:35] years to build massive companies. So when we say you, we already have been using AI

[00:10:41] absolutely correct. If you have used Amazon to order something and the package shows up on

[00:10:47] the same day or the next day, it is not because Amazon has thousands of employees just waiting

[00:10:53] for your order to come in. You know, it's because they have used AI to really optimize

[00:11:00] the whole supply chain. And even in their warehouses, they have large warehouses storing

[00:11:07] all these goods, right? Right. So when the person who is working in the warehouse,

[00:11:12] they go from one end of the warehouse to the other end of the warehouse, their path

[00:11:19] is also optimized by AI so that they can pick the most orders in the least amount of time.

[00:11:26] Okay. The inventory control, how do you know what price to charge, all this is controlled

[00:11:32] by AI. When we take out our mobile phone, you know, we all carry these devices in our

[00:11:39] every little thing on that device is a result of AI. Right? This meeting that we are recording,

[00:11:46] we are sitting thousands of miles apart. Right? So even about 10 years ago,

[00:11:51] we couldn't have imagined having this conversation face to face on video

[00:11:56] in high definition and real time. Why is it possible? Because AI in the background,

[00:12:02] it is optimizing all the bits and bytes that are going from my computer to your computer

[00:12:09] and vice versa. So AI has been in our lives already for the last 20 years. Now what has

[00:12:17] happened is with chat GPT, you know, so far, as I said, for the last 20 years, people

[00:12:25] who really had the resources, the knowledge, deep pockets, they were utilizing AI to build

[00:12:31] these large companies. Right? Now with chat GPT, it has been democratized, meaning

[00:12:37] it is free. Anybody with absolutely no knowledge of AI can go and interact with this technology

[00:12:43] and they can benefit from it and they can see, okay, you know, how does that impact

[00:12:47] my business? How does that impact my life? Starting from, you know, a five-year-old kid

[00:12:53] who can just play around with chat GPT, ask any question to, you know, science professors

[00:13:00] doing research or lawyers or what have you. And it is available for everyone. So that is the

[00:13:07] shift that has happened recently. I have a question about the chat bots on a website

[00:13:14] and you're asking questions, you know, so you can chat with the bot. Why is it that

[00:13:21] some of them, they really can't, when you ask a question and say, I'm sorry to understand,

[00:13:26] can you rephrase your question? And you keep rephrasing it. You never get an answer. Is

[00:13:31] there any work being done or is it the old garbage in, garbage out scenario?

[00:13:36] Yeah, I think that has been the major breakthrough. Earlier chat bots, they were

[00:13:40] basically just written by rules. So, you know, some engineer and a business person sat

[00:13:48] down together and said, okay, let's list down, you know, most frequently asked questions. And

[00:13:54] they may come up with like 10 or 15 questions. And then they say, okay, you know, if somebody

[00:14:00] asks something outside of this, just ask the chat bot to say, I don't know what you mean.

[00:14:04] Like just, you know, explain it to me. Now with chat GPT, it has actually, it has learned

[00:14:10] the entire written, written by humanity. Basically starting from the beginning of time till today,

[00:14:18] it has, you know, gone out there and read everything and understood how humans talk to

[00:14:24] each other. So now with that technology, even if it doesn't understand, it can pick up certain

[00:14:29] hints. It can pick up certain contexts, some nuances, and then based on the intelligence it

[00:14:36] has created in itself, it can start to guide us so that, you know, we, it doesn't say, oh,

[00:14:42] I don't understand you. It will say, do you mean something like this? You know, I don't really

[00:14:47] understand you, but I think given the context, this is what you mean and so on and so forth.

[00:14:53] So that is the breakthrough in the level of intelligence that has happened. So new chat

[00:14:58] bots that are going to come out, which will incorporate chat GPT, OpenAI, all these new models,

[00:15:05] they will be much more intelligent. In fact, you know, we have developed technologies where

[00:15:11] these AI models can actually make phone calls to people and have intelligent conversations,

[00:15:18] just like humans do in the business context and say, okay, you know, for example, if you,

[00:15:23] if you're an insurance company, if you're a small business owner, if you,

[00:15:27] you know, any kind of business scenario where you need to interact with your customers,

[00:15:33] your prospects or what have you, rather than hiring a whole bunch of like

[00:15:38] people making these calls, AI can do that today.

[00:15:42] Okay. All right. So that brings up another question about is AI going to take over

[00:15:49] humanity? Because I can remember in the factories when they were putting in, you know,

[00:15:55] robotics, you know, to perform certain tasks. And so now we're at another level with AI. Can

[00:16:01] you speak to that? Yeah. So see, you know, jobs are going to be disrupted, but I had a very

[00:16:08] interesting conversation just recently with one other pioneer in AI.

[00:16:31] People will find some disruption in their jobs, but let's look at history. Right. So for the

[00:16:40] majority of our history, you know, human life has been just around survival. We used to work

[00:16:47] in the fields all day long, every waking hour. 99% of humans used to work in the field just

[00:16:54] to feed ourselves. Right. Yes. And then modernization came, factories came, you know,

[00:17:00] cost of goods went down, availability of food became ubiquitous. Like everywhere we can find

[00:17:07] food now easily rather than working seven days a week. You know, we were introduced to five

[00:17:14] day work week, you know, working conditions improved and people who were able to upskill,

[00:17:20] they found better and better and better jobs. Right. So now, you know, with robotics,

[00:17:28] it's not like people are not needed in the automotive industry or manufacturing industry.

[00:17:34] Their job became from labor intensive doing work with hand to just monitoring the robots

[00:17:41] and making sure that nothing is wrong. That level of intelligence, that level of sort of

[00:17:49] understanding of the real world that is not going anywhere. That will always remain with humans.

[00:17:55] Okay. But the mundane work, you know, like all this drudgery of work that is being offloaded

[00:18:02] to the machines. So now coming back full circle, when we say, oh, you know, I'm afraid that

[00:18:10] AI will take away my job. If I ask somebody, how will you like to win the lottery?

[00:18:17] Yeah. You know, and they'll say, oh yeah, you know, that is my dream. Like if I win the

[00:18:20] lottery, I will not work. I'll just go lie on the beach and just, you know, have drinks all

[00:18:26] day, enjoy my life. And the idea is that that's what AI is here to promise because it will

[00:18:34] reduce the cost of goods. It will create jobs which are more enjoyable, which are, you know,

[00:18:39] more sort of creative in nature and fun in nature that the definition of work itself is

[00:18:47] going to change. Oh, wow. I never thought about it like that. Shifting gears a little bit. I know

[00:18:52] you're into, you know, the power of your mind and neurodiversity, different concepts, something

[00:18:57] we haven't heard about. So how can we use the power of our mind to achieve anything?

[00:19:03] So we're talking about artificial intelligence. Let's talk about our human intelligence.

[00:19:07] Yeah. So human intelligence, you know, this is no secret that basically our thoughts that we think

[00:19:15] over and over again, they become our beliefs. And these beliefs are what guide us subconsciously.

[00:19:21] You know, our subconscious mind is 90% of what we experience in life. And in most cases,

[00:19:29] we don't understand what is happening in our subconscious mind. Research has shown that each

[00:19:34] human thinks about 60 to 90,000 thoughts per day. Okay. And 90% of those thoughts are negative,

[00:19:42] like, you know, they are self criticizing, they are, you know, just negative thoughts, right?

[00:19:48] So if we start to utilize methods like meditation or yoga or Tai Chi, or, you know,

[00:19:58] there are many, many, many disciplines around the world, which help us understand what is

[00:20:05] happening in our mind. And it's almost like when we get into these methodologies,

[00:20:12] our conscious mind can become the observer of our subconscious mind and you can say,

[00:20:18] Oh, look, this is a negative thought. Let me replace it with a positive one.

[00:20:23] Okay.

[00:20:24] And the fact is that AI can actually be very effective here by planting a positive thought.

[00:20:31] So, you know, one exercise I always recommend to people is, let's say you want to achieve

[00:20:36] something in the next 30 days. Let's say you want to go on a trip with your kids or,

[00:20:42] you know, you want to get some sort of promotion that you're applying for,

[00:20:48] pass your exam, whatever. What I tell people is just go to AI and ask it to write a very

[00:20:56] descriptive story of how it will feel like once you have achieved that goal. So,

[00:21:02] you know, just say, okay, so let's say if you want to go to a picnic with your family,

[00:21:08] to a nice destination, describe that destination, describe the weather,

[00:21:12] describe the food you're having, describe the people around you and then ask AI to,

[00:21:18] you know, sort of write a story in the first person in the present tense and read it out

[00:21:25] to yourself. That will really help you visualize that and plant those positive thoughts in your

[00:21:33] mind. And it's spooky and you will be pleasantly surprised at the outcome because I always tell

[00:21:43] people try it and let me know how it went. And then, you know, it's just like when people

[00:21:49] come back to me and say, oh, you know, I cannot believe what happened, you know,

[00:21:53] when I was doing it. So it's like form of a meditation on steroids. So, you know,

[00:21:59] combining technology, the power of mind, all of these methods are so fascinating and they

[00:22:07] are so powerful. Very easy to implement. Absolutely. Now you talked about traveling.

[00:22:14] Why is it important for us to travel? Travel, you know, like again, our mind is always

[00:22:22] seeking new experiences, new impressions. In general, humans did not evolve to stay in one

[00:22:28] location. We are originally in the cave man days like we were gatherer, hunter, hunters,

[00:22:35] you know, we had to roam the land to figure out where to get our food. So even when we

[00:22:44] look at the history, you know, major improvements have been made by humans who were explorers. They

[00:22:51] went out there and found new lands, met new people, tasted new foods. What that does is

[00:22:58] it expands our horizons in our mind and tells us what is possible because absolutely there is

[00:23:05] no limit to what humans can achieve. And we have proven that, you know, in very short

[00:23:11] period of time we have become the most dominant species on this planet. Why is that? Because

[00:23:19] we are always pushing the limits of what is possible and that when you travel, you find new

[00:23:25] ways of living. You find new solutions to similar problems. At the fundamental level,

[00:23:32] humans, we all have similar problems. You know, in our lives, we want prosperity,

[00:23:37] we want abundance, we want like, you know, happiness for our families, food, water,

[00:23:42] all these things, right? Basic stuff. But when we go to Australia, you know, they'll solve

[00:23:48] this problem differently. When we go to Indonesia, they'll solve these problems differently.

[00:23:53] When we go to, you know, Europe, they'll solve this problem differently. And the other thing

[00:23:58] is a lot of history of these places teaches us again, how did this region evolve? You know,

[00:24:05] what were people like? And when you assimilate all that in your mind, again,

[00:24:11] it expands your horizons. There is no substitute to that.

[00:24:14] All right. So as we expand our horizons and we're more open to this, we're going to bring

[00:24:19] it right back to technology. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:24:24] Yeah, absolutely. So is there anything else to share about business and technology in general?

[00:24:31] I know a lot of us, you know, sometimes y'all want to be a millionaire and not necessarily from,

[00:24:36] you know, hitting the lottery. You mentioned that. What is the fastest way to do that?

[00:24:42] Yeah, I think one thing I always teach people is look into a concept called Ikigai. It's

[00:24:50] a Japanese concept. And many people, you know- Can you repeat that? What's the concept again?

[00:24:56] Ikigai. Ikigai. I-K-I-G-A-I. So the idea here is that, you know, we get the massive success in

[00:25:07] our life when we find our true purpose, when we are fulfilled, when we are happy doing what

[00:25:13] we are doing. And just like I mentioned earlier, many people get into, you know, things

[00:25:19] which are of no interest to them. You know, like I mentioned, university students getting into

[00:25:26] programs which are of no interest to them. So even in life, we say, oh, you know what? Oh,

[00:25:32] my cousin is really successful being in the automotive industry. So let me go into automotive

[00:25:38] industry or what have you, right? But my passion could be music. My passion could be

[00:25:44] art or whatever. So Ikigai really helps you narrow down what it is that you are really good

[00:25:51] at, what it is that the world is going to pay you for, what does the world need and what makes

[00:25:58] you happy. So once you find an intersection of that and you start to focus on that skill or

[00:26:06] that passion that you have, things become automatically very, very easy and success

[00:26:12] becomes faster and quicker. And then we can take advantage of that AI to help us along the

[00:26:17] way. Exactly, exactly. Yeah. What other concepts or trends in AI do you want to share with us today?

[00:26:24] Trends, you know, things are moving so rapidly. Just yesterday or day before, OpenAI released a

[00:26:32] new platform which can convert your text into high definition video. So now you can create,

[00:26:40] you can use AI to create text, images, video, and this will continue, you know, I think in the

[00:26:46] next five to ten years. It is expected that AI is going to add about $10 trillion to the

[00:26:52] world economy. So $10 trillion is obviously $10,000 billion and this is the biggest

[00:26:58] wealth making opportunity. And the reverse of that is that, you know, it's also predicted

[00:27:05] that if businesses don't use AI within the next five to seven years, they will be obsolete.

[00:27:11] They will not be competitive enough to survive. This is a very huge turning point in human history

[00:27:17] and I believe, as I said earlier, the definition of work is about to change. I predict that,

[00:27:22] you know, in five to ten years, there will be public companies listed on stock exchanges

[00:27:27] with one employee, which will be the rest will be done by AI. Even today, if you go to

[00:27:36] cities like San Francisco, Phoenix, there are driverless cars driving around and you can just

[00:27:42] call them with your mobile phone. So these kind of changes, these are very, very drastic

[00:27:48] changes in human society and they are going to happen in a short period of time. So I

[00:27:55] just want people to be ready and embrace this change and take benefit of it rather than be

[00:28:01] victims of it. Yes, absolutely. Now how can we get in touch with you and so we can learn more

[00:28:07] and sit at your feet, so to speak? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So we are giving away a lot

[00:28:12] of free content. I have prepared some free video series for people to get started on AI.

[00:28:18] Reach out to me on LinkedIn or my website, manujagarwal.com or there is another

[00:28:24] website called AImerge.pro or Google my name. I'm very easy to find, just reach out and let

[00:28:32] me know that you would like to learn more about AI. You want the free stuff that we

[00:28:37] distribute to people and we'll be happy to help. Awesome. Really appreciate that,

[00:28:43] Manuj and thanks again for coming today. Absolutely. Thank you so much.

[00:28:47] Yeah, you're welcome. All right, Chop Squad, you've got your orders. Definitely. This is

[00:28:52] one we can't afford to miss because it's going to pass us by if we don't. So definitely go to

[00:28:58] Manu's, find him on LinkedIn, get in touch with him and what was the other website?

[00:29:04] AImerge.com. AImerge.pro, sorry. AImerge.pro. Okay, all right. Well,

[00:29:11] thanks again and we'll see you next time. Thank you for listening to another episode of The

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