Posted by I have spent the last 3 days at the Web Summit. As expected, besides the AI-specific-summit, I dare say 80% of all other talks and summits included the word AI on it. And I may be being a touch conservative in my estimate. This year, I deliberately focused my attention efforts on the AI Summit, so the outcome is clear. I am AI-ed out. At least until tomorrow morning I expect 🙂
Beating the FOMO*
If you have been to the Web Summit or any large format conference of the type, you know that is the breeding ground for FOMO. Picture 15 stages, hundreds of companies, dozens of sponsors and I don’t know how many more side events as I block them out of my eye sight. Oh, and let me add an app that enables you to connect and investigate anyone and any company that you may be interested in speaking to, and at the same time make you available for connection.
Last week, I sat down with the Web Summit app in hand and I defined my schedule in advance. I still allowed a few slots to have multiple talks selected, but mostly I was focused on AI and then allowed for a few extra interests to chime in, predominantly on the Government Summit and some Fintech. I even added the events to my calendar (big mistake as things change) and I felt ready to face the thousands of people around me for these hectic 72 hours.
The planning in advance kind of worked, with only some small deviations when a speaker was less interesting or too much in pitch-mode. I beat the FOMO.
Absorbing it all
Given this was a tech summit, I did not feel I could come in with my usual notepad, even if it is a half-techy notepad that imports my writing straight into an app. And it is dark in most audiences, so ink and paper might have been a struggle. I took a tablet instead and whilst the writing experience is not the same, I was definitely faster in collecting notes or thoughts across talks. Perhaps I will go for my laptop next time.
One of the dangers of a summit like this is that at some point you are no longer processing information. You find yourself noting down something that you don’t even know what it means as your hands are processing what you hear but are you really listening. I had more of that on the 1st day, but certainly paced myself and took breaks on days 2 and 3 to ensure that, whenever I was taking notes, I was actually absorbing them into my brain. It is no surprise that I learn and process by writing. On top of that, my massive fear of early memory loss also feels more in control so I can go back and read the notes (one day, I hope)
Disconnecting
Feels weird to be talking about disconnecting in a summit that is all about connecting and technology. I am using the term loosely no doubt. The fact I was out of battery on my phone before Day 1 finished means I was either i) over-using it (not to take notes) or ii) I forgot my power bank charging (as one would do). Or both.
It took me a while to disconnect. The incentive not to be left without battery again on Day 2 helped me keep the phone in my pocket for longer than usual. In light of the dependence on the app to guarantee I was on the right place at the right time, I still picked up my phone (likely) more often than the two hundred and something times that we pick up our phones every day. But I was less and less connected to it.
I also disconnected by not listing myself as a Business Angel Investor this time round. I know, tricky one. But I did feel I wanted to focus exclusively on the content this year, rather than feel thorn between meet-ups and presentations. The amount of inbound requests I got on the app was much lower and that also allowed me to be more focused. Disconnected from the noise, connected to where I chose to be.
Learning and Connecting
You may wonder how many talks I can possibly hear about AI. I have not counted them all yet (I will) but I expect there may be diminishing returns to some of them. And suddenly you find a speaker (like the LVMH one, more to come on that) that blows your mind and you wish you could listen to the talk all over again.
Now, what I truly enjoy about the learning is what it does to my brain. It builds connections, it reminds me of similarities, it fosters ideas. As I sat in the LVMH talk, I thought about all the stuff we went through in the HBS Competing in the Age of AI Exec Ed last year and thought what a perfect case that would be. As I sat in the Financial Inclusion talk (one of the few Fintech talks I attended), I thought of a new measure of impact on the financial inclusion of our beneficiaries in Mozambique. And as I heard a panel by a Washington Post journalist talking about misinformation and the need for educating our children about it, I linked it back to a syllabus I am developing on critical thinking.
For me, learning activates the brain and comes back through the following months (possibly years) in different forms. It allows me to collect best practices and analyse how they can be brought across industries. It makes me think. And re-think.
The Aftermath (and the Lessons)
My brain is processing still , but what kind of article would this be if I would not share my 5 cents I took away from it. It is early days, and it could be that I have another 5 takeaways tomorrow, but for now, I share the first 5 that come to mind for you to also think about:
- AI is a macro structural change. You may think it is a bubble like crypto, but indeed what you will have is that some people are in this temporarily and that bubble will burst, but most of us are in it for the long run, because it will change the course of life and business.
- AGI is something we need to talk more about. We can’t just accept it is the next step of AI without thinking of its consequences. It is not inevitable, because we are still in control. I will be thinking more about what it means and how we can analyse its risks and opportunities.
- AI is perhaps one of the only ways to solve real world problems for the population that is not finding solutions in the way the world works today. For education, healthcare and financial inclusion. For half of the planet.
- Ai is not just the conduit of the big tech names we all talk about nor of the cool start-ups being created. This was a frustration I had during my AI course, because I craved for more real life examples (as in physical products) that were undergoing transformation given that is what I think every business needs to do. LVMH brought back my hope.
- The ethics and fairness debate needs to get up to speed fast. Whilst we may all like to criticize the EU AI Act (including the legislator involved in writing it), the truth is we need guardrails and, more importantly we need debate and education. At the end of the day “machines are not moral agents, we are”
For now, this is it. If you have been there, please shout back your own takeaways. Perhaps we can process together.
* FOMO = Fear of Missing Out