Do you want a wealthy retirement without worrying about money? Welcome to “Retire in Texas”, where you will discover how to enjoy your faith, your family, and your freedom in the State of Texas—and, now, here's your host, financial advisor, author, and all-around good Texan, Darryl Lyons.
Darryl: Hey, this is Darryl Lyons, CEO and co-founder of PAX Financial Group, and you're listening to Retire in Texas. Thanks for tuning in. I always have to share with you the disclosure that this information is general in nature only. It’s not intended to provide legal, investment, or tax advice. Visit PAXFinancialGroup.com for more information.
Then I always want to remind you that you can text the word “TEXAS” to the number 74868, that's “TEXAS” to 74868, and you can speak with one of our advisors. It's a 15-minute consult. They have a heart of a teacher. I think you'll find it to be a refreshing way to begin to engage with our community. [01:05.8]
And very much at the PAX community, we provide a lot of resources and we tend to take care of our clients more than our community—and you would expect that, right? We give information and attention to the people that are within our ecosystem, and if you want to be a part of that ecosystem, be sure to text the word “TEXAS” to 74868.
Okay, so this particular segment, I won't keep you guys long. I want to make sure I don't get too much into the numbers. I always try to make sure that I don't overwhelm you with numbers because you can get that anywhere. I just want to give you a general idea of what's going on in the artificial-intelligence space. It's crazy unbelievable.
Now, let's make sure that we understand what artificial means. We know we've had nondairy creamer before. We know that's artificial. Faux wood, you know the faux wood is good, but it's not quite the same. Artificial sweeteners, they've done a good job there over the years. But none of it really replaces the real thing, and so when we think about artificial intelligence, A.I., it is artificial. It doesn't quite replace humans, but . . . or does it? So, let's go into that a little bit. [02:09.2]
I have to tell you, we're already in the age of artificial intelligence. I was talking to somebody the other day and he said he was in Colorado and he was driving in his rental car, and there was overcast. There were some clouds and there was ice on the road, and so his high-beams-- And some of you guys have vehicles that your high-beams automatically go on when it's dark, right?
What was happening was his high-beams in his rental car, because it was artificial intelligence, was saying it's dark outside because of the overcast, so it was shining on the ice and you know what happens when those high-beams shine on ice. It blinds you. So, the artificial intelligence was doing what it was programmed to do, but it wasn't smart enough to know that the ice on the road was problematic, so obviously, he had to figure out how to manually override this artificial intelligence, and that's an example of artificial intelligence in real time. [03:11.8]
And we have it all the time. We have it with Siri, and we have it when we open our phone and it looks at our face and scans our face. There's just a lot of ways. I think Waze, too. Investment firms have been using artificial intelligence for a while to analyze companies, so we're just at a different iteration of that. I think the iteration that we've experienced is answering questions, gathering data in a really, really fast and efficient way.
But now I think this next iteration is this artificial intelligence is beginning to learn, and then that's where you'll often hear people say this is scary and I'm going to address the scary part, for sure. But we're already there, too. I mean, think about it. If I'm chatting with you around the kitchen table about a cruise, it doesn't take long for a cruise-app solicitation to show up on my phone, right? [04:05.8]
So, there's a degree of learning that's taking place. I think that phase, so the initial dissemination of information, gathering information kind of phase, one, we've already experienced that. Learning, we're in that phase, and then there's this part of reasoning and I think that's where it's kind of weird. It's like, okay, let's say you have a little robot kitty litter thing and it starts to see that your cat is approaching, and it might open the door as it senses the heat from your cat. Then it learns about your cat's pace and cadence and size.
Those are the types of things that artificial intelligence will do. It'll start to learn, and I think that's where we say, “Wow, that can be pretty scary stuff,” and it kind of reminds us, if any of you guys have seen I, Robot, that's really kind of where we started thinking. If you haven't seen I, Robot, it's a Will Smith movie. I think it's good. I think it's a fun movie to watch and there's some rules in that. [05:00.3]
The first law, so they have these laws, the first law is that a robot shall not harm a human or, by inaction, allow a human to come to harm. Okay? The second law is that a robot shall obey any instruction given to it by a human, and the third law is that a robot shall avoid all actions or situations that could cause it to come to harm itself. Those are the three laws of I, Robot. Maybe those will be the laws of artificial intelligence, we'll see.
This was first developed by OpenAI. Actually, artificial intelligence has been around for a long time, but OpenAI has been the big one in 2022. They've launched ChatGPT, which many of you guys have heard of. If you haven't played around with it, you probably ought to. The other day, I was messing around with it as I was preparing for this and one of the things I did, I go, “Who is the 34th president?” You just type it in, it's pretty simple. You can go to ChatGPT. It's in a beta test, by the way, so there's no cost. They're gathering information, seeing usability. I don't know, ultimately, when they'll launch it, but it's in Version 4 now. I went in there and said, “Who's the 34th president?” [06:03.0]
Of course, it said Dwight Eisenhower, who was one of my favorite presidents, by the way. Then I asked, “Was he a good president?” and here's the answer: “Dwight D. Eisenhower is generally considered to have been a good president. During his time in office from 1953 to 1961, he oversaw a period of economic prosperity and relative peace. He’s also well known for his efforts to promote civil rights and for his establishment of the interstate highway system. However, like all presidents, his tenure was not without controversy and criticism for some quarters.” Very interesting.
What else? I went in there and I said, “Okay, can you give me a poem about him?” I didn't put Dwight D. Eisenhower. I just put, “Can you give me a poem about him?”
“Sure. Here's a short poem about Dwight D. Eisenhower.
With confidence and skill, he led the nation.
Dwight D. Eisenhower, leader with determination.
From war hero to President, his record was great.
A man of courage and vision, that was his fate.
He oversaw the nation during times of peace,
And built a strong economy with great ease.
His legacy still shines as history will tell,
A true American hero. That's Eisenhower's tale.” [07:13.5]
Wow, that is accurate and creative. That's what we're talking about in this next iteration of artificial intelligence. And kids all across the country are using it to develop papers, right? Think about how easy it is to just say, “ChatGPT, write me a paper on the efficacy of matcha green tea?” or whatever, right? Just whatever, and all professors are scratching their heads saying, “How do we get around this?”
Pastors are using it for sermons. “Give me a sermon, ChatGPT. Write me a sermon on love, agape love.” Podcasters are using it for podcasts. Now, I tell you, this is original content. But it's being used all the time, so we have to ask ourselves, is this good or bad? [08:09.6]
Now, just recently, Elon Musk said, “Hey, we can't. We've got to pause this.” Him and a group of people who are on the inside of the potential of artificial intelligence have said we cannot rush this thing. We don't understand the consequences of implementation of artificial intelligence on the global economic system and what it can do for humanity.
Now, the thing about that I think is interesting. Usually pausing innovation and capitalism comes from the state or the regulatory bodies, not the benefactors. I think that the fact that Elon Musk is pausing innovation is worthy of recognition that this has so much stinking potential and could be a threat if not properly implemented. [09:06.0]
In fact, a few years ago, Elon Musk predicted that artificial intelligence will overtake humans and grow much more intelligent than our species by 2025. So, is it something we should be scared of? Let me give you some examples of how it could be good and then we'll go into the bad stuff, and then we'll wrap this up.
I mean, the CEO of Google said it's going to be more transformative than electricity and fire, and there's some really good-- I mean, think about this. For example, if you can't see, you're visually-impaired and you are used to wearing a stick, there will now be robotic dogs that can walk alongside you so you can travel more. There's one called an alpha dog that will walk alongside somebody who's blind rather than a stick and protect them along the way. Good stuff, right? [09:58.3]
Computer chips. This makes sense to everyone. It'll take less than six hours to design a computer chip. For humans, it takes months and months and months, so that's going to accelerate all of technology. Cancer diagnosis, I mean, artificial intelligence will detect breast cancer with 99% accuracy. So, there's a lot of good that's going to come out of this, but we've got to be careful because there has to be a degree of moral consideration.
For example, I'm going to tell you this sounds crazy, but humans will fall in love with robots. I know, but you know this is true and then we'll be debating on whether or not humans can marry robots. It's just going to happen, and so there's the moral issue that we're up against that. And that's just one of many, of course. We're talking about there's also the military components. You can go on and learn how to make a bomb, although ChatGPT does screen out some of that stuff, but there is the concern about geopolitical risk. Of course, humanity, and then we talked about cheating. There's the job-- recreating the job markets, totally disrupting that. [11:15.6]
So, there's a lot that's going to be disruptive with this, and here's what I would say to you about all of this and I want to say this with a hundred percent confidence. Do not be scared. Do not be scared of this. China, let me give you an example. China missed the Industrial Revolution, which we moved from an agricultural economy, global economy, where farming was our economy to machines. China completely said, “We have no use for their technology.” That's what China said, and the whole country, billions of people missed out on the biggest economic boom in our world history, the Industrial Revolution, because they said, “We have no use for that,” because, of course, the idea of moving from agriculture to machines was scary and they said, “We don't want to have anything to do with it.” [12:03.4]
My biggest concern is this. My biggest concern is that I speak with a lot of people who have faith in Jesus Christ, who are Christians. I speak to a lot of people who just say, “Look, I don't buy what Jesus is selling, but I respect your beliefs.” Here's what I'm saying. I'm saying a lot of people who have a moral compass that are Christians, they missed out on the internet and they missed out on the wireless-communication innovations that took place. They do not need to miss out on this one. We need to be on the frontlines on this one and be making sure that we're fully engaged in the development.
So, here's what I would say to you. First of all, in terms of your investments, in terms of your investments, stay invested. Lean into this. Companies like Google and Nvidia are two of the leaders in this space and you want to ride this innovation wave. The stock market is not driven long-term by the Federal Reserve or politicians. It's driven by businesses and innovation, such as railroads or televisions, or computers or wireless cell phones, and now the next innovation wave will be artificial intelligence. Do not, do not take yourself out of the game or you'll miss one of the best economic booms of our lifetimes. [13:17.2]
I also want to tell you in your job, don't be content with your job or your kids’ jobs. I've seen some case studies here, but it was about five years ago that robo-advisors were supposed to take over financial advisors. That did not happen. Why? Because judgment and empathy, judgment and empathy could not be replaced by robo-advisors. There was a massive investment in robo-advisors to take over advisors, but because people, consumers, you listening to the show, want somebody who can use good judgment and can empathize with their situation. Financial Advisors didn't lose their jobs. We actually thrived.
But it did hurt in the early ’90s. Accountants where the information was black and white, where you plugged in data from a tax form into a system, very black and white, very relative judgment and empathy. Totally changed that system to where accountants no longer want to be in that game, but rather decided to move into a different area, which many of the best accountants are no longer doing individual returns. Many of them are doing business returns, which is a marketplace that does require judgment and empathy. [14:22.7]
So, if you do have a job right now and you're worried about artificial intelligence, then I'd ask yourself, “Do I have a job that requires judgment and empathy?” and if I don't, I need to get in a place where I'm paid for my judgment and my empathy.” Does that make sense? I hope it does. But your job, you just have to think about your job, because artificial intelligence will disrupt everything if you're not in a place where you're using judgment and empathy.
Finally, I want to say this. Encourage youth. Encourage our youth to encourage the next generation to become leaders, especially in the Christian space. We need to be on the front lines, developing, coding and providing leadership to the artificial-intelligence space. We don't need to wake up 20 years from now and realize, Oh, man, we totally messed it up. All the leaders and all the wealth are back in Silicon Valley again and Christians don't have a place in this world, and we're being pushed around by all the new leaders in these capital markets. [15:15.6]
We don't need to do that again. We need to make sure our youth are fully engaged in artificial intelligence, and we can't do that if we look at this thing and go, “We're scared.” We weren't given a spirit of timidity, but a boldness, and here's the thing, sound mind, which means we're very capable of being creative and intelligent. So, this artificial intelligence boom that's about to occur in our economy? This is when you lean into it with boldness, and invest in it, too, and then find a way to participate as much as you can.
I hope that helps today. That's artificial intelligence from my point of view. Stay tuned. A lot of stuff coming your way on artificial intelligence. Don't ignore this. And remember, as always, you think differently when you think long term. Have a great day. [15:58.2]
This is ThePodcastFactory.com
