How do you counter the fears that people have that this is going to lead to a lot of job loss? I imagine you, you know, deal with that sort of thing because there are a lot of people who say, oh, man, this is gonna be really disruptive. A lot of people are going to lose their jobs. How do you deal with that as a hub or as a policy?
Jeffrey Oakman: 10:00
Yeah, I mean, that’s certainly a lot of concern out there. And I think that part of that concern, I think, comes from a sort of lack of understanding of what AI does, because I think I think a lot of people, a lot of people could do the jobs they do could be done better and more efficiently if AI was effectively used. But they don’t, they don’t have anyone to train them on how to do that. And so their, their, their thought is, I don’t know how to do it. So I’m going to get laid off so somebody else can do this.
But I think that I think that there’s, you know, there’s part of what we’re focusing on is, is, you know, how do we, how do we promote, you know, strong training programs so that, that not only can people understand how to use AI, but, but you promote AI adoption in a way that, that, that leverages people’s existing expertise to, to, to, to be more productive. Like it’s not necessarily productive for a company to lay off a ton of people and change something, you know, change processes so that they’re AI driven. If, if they don’t like it, you have to have people who understand how to do that. So you may have different types of jobs, but, but a lot of those jobs can be done by people who are already working in these companies and already already understand how to do it. They just need the tech training, right?
And so upskilling is the key, I think. And, and certainly, you know, focusing on how do you, how do you bridge that space between the sort of entry level jobs that are at risk? You know, how do you give people the tools to sort of advance beyond that to, to where they can be adding value, you know, in their jobs?
John Corcoran: 11:52
Is it amazing how, you know, you think of this AI is kind of viewed as this like innovative technology. It’s going to change everything, but it really does kind of boil down to the most brick and mortar type of thing, which is just educating people, just training people, you know, on these tools. And I’m a tinkerer, so I’m constantly going all day long. I’m in different AIS and I’m trying different things, but not everyone’s like that. And even if they are, it’s a slow way of learning. And so, you know, creating, you know, training programs that will educate the masses can really make a big difference in whether these tools ultimately are helpful or not.
Jeffrey Oakman: 12:35
Well, I agree and also, like, you know, part of what we’re thinking about is like, you know, there’s a lot of companies that are really on the cutting edge of what you can do with AI, and they’re transforming themselves with this technology. And you sort of see that in the, in the, in the higher tech industries, but in a lot of areas like, you know, small business or sort of nonprofit organizations and places that don’t have the capacity to do those types of things. They’re not using it at all. And so part of what we’re thinking about is like, how do you figure out what some of those relatively simple, low hanging fruit use cases are that can be applied across a lot of different organizations that are facing similar challenges and make sure that that you’re democratizing access to that kind of training and product so that you’re not, you’re not seeing like some people jump ahead of others because they can use AI when really these are tools that everybody should be able to, to use to, to make their business run better.
John Corcoran: 13:38
Right, right. And then of course, you mentioned training. Like how do you create training when everything changes so quickly? You know, it’s just absolutely bonkers how, you know, you could create a training last week and it’s different this week.
Jeffrey Oakman: 13:52
Yeah. Just, just earlier on a call today, you know, somebody was pointing out that like, you know, a year or two ago, you know, like prompt engineering was really what we were training people to do, you know, and now it’s like, that’s, that’s a so second nature to people and be so, so sort of done for you that it’s not really a skill anymore. I mean, I mean, skills are certainly changing. And that’s the other reason why the upskilling piece is so critical is it’s, it’s without, without sort of a lifelong learning pathway here. You know, we’re, we’re never going to be able to get where we need to go.
I mean, everybody’s job is changing whether they like it or not. And so the upskilling is helping you evolve with the job, right.
John Corcoran: 14:40
How has the affiliation with Princeton played out? Like do? Are you involved in the classroom or are there students from Princeton that are involved in the AI hub?
Jeffrey Oakman: 14:52
I mean, you know. So Princeton is one of our equity founders. So they contributed some of the space and some of the early funding seed funding for this. I mean, and we are so so we’re affiliated with them. We’re not part of the university, but we’re definitely doing a lot of things, you know, like our R&D program interfaces with faculty in a lot of different ways.
Some of these events we’ve talked about are bringing in students. And, you know, there’s a lot of that type of overlap. We’re looking at actually ways that students could be, you know, could, could take on some fractional work with, with some of the startups that are in our space for their own learning purposes, you know, thinking about, you know, and the other thing we’ve been doing a lot with, which is not just with Princeton, but, but sort of across the, across the, the higher ed landscape is that the experiential learning piece of this is so important both for the learner and also for the for the company that that is learning as they go sort of what they want people to be able to do. So we launched with the Community College Consortium in New Jersey. We launched an apprenticeship registered apprenticeship program in AI and machine learning recently with the idea that like getting the people, getting the students out there into the jobs where they can earn while they learn is sort of the way to adapt with AI.
And so that’s something Princeton is very much supported as well with their relationships with community colleges and others.
John Corcoran: 16:28
Yeah. And the edge, I mean, the way that it’s going to affect the education system is a little crazy. So I’m actually going this afternoon to an AI task force advisory meeting made up of like parents and members of the community for my kids school district to talk about how the school district is going to adapt with AI. And I’m very much in favor of it. I mean, I’ve seen with my kids, you know, you’ve got kids that are interested in different things.
And, you know, I have one kid who loves sports and struggles at science. And so recently I, you know, was helping to prepare for a science test. And I created a project in ChatGPT, which we were speaking to. We were explaining what we needed to be quizzed on, and it was quizzing him on these, you know, subject matters in a way that used like baseball and sports metaphors. So it made it really kind of real for him.
And, you know, and it was also at his level and it was adapting to the level. And it was just like an incredible tool that will, in many ways, I think, level the playing field, especially for people that come from, you know, socioeconomic backgrounds and don’t have access to, you know, expensive tutors that they will have a tutor in their pocket that if they’re motivated, they can use to help them to learn faster. And that’s, that’s pretty amazing.
Jeffrey Oakman: 17:44
Yeah, there’s a lot of potential there. I mean, I think the example you just gave is a great one, which is, you know, the Allowing us to, to basically create educational tools directed at the individual sort of how, how are people learning and how can we meet everybody where they are? I mean, I think AI does offer that opportunity. The challenge is, as you know, is that like, you know, there’s a lot of I mean, there’s also a lot of ways that you can use AI to, to get around traditional assignments. And so a lot of, you know, there’s a lot of like, you know, is it cheating?
You know, how do we make sure that people are not using it to cheat? And I think that that part of part of what has to happen over time is, is, is educators have to learn how to adapt the way they teach and the types of projects they give so that they’re still testing the individual on what they need to know, but they’re not sort of making you do the stuff that AI can do for you. Like you need, you need to do critical thinking. You need to, you need to, you need to focus on the problem solving question. And like, that’s what we need to be teaching us, you know, just like the internet.
I mean, like, you know, it, it, there’s a lot less memorization in school now than there used to be because we’re never really going to live in a world again where you can’t Google stuff and figure out the, you know, figure out what day something happened.
John Corcoran: 19:12
Yeah. I mean, I just thought of a metaphor. It’s like, you know, the internet comes along and it was less important for schools to teach our kids how to, you know, address an envelope to send a letter in the mail because of email still, like they would do it from time to time. Still important. But I mean, do we really need to spend a lot of time on that, you know, because like, all of a sudden you have a new world where you can communicate in different ways.
And that’s kind of what’s happening with AI. But as far as the testing piece goes, yeah, I don’t know what the answer is to that. I’ve heard that more and more schools are bringing out blue books, and they’re testing people in blue books and writing essays in class. Honestly, at this point, if I was a teacher, I’d probably be doing the same thing because you, you know, I don’t know how else you can, you know, verify that the student knows the information or you, you know, there’s definitely there’s also software you, if you take a test on a laptop, you can lock out all other things like a software that will block all other, you know, abilities to, you know, to communicate. And so that might be a possibility as well.
I’ll give you another example. I had another, you know, son who was taking a test. He had a test. And this teacher, I think it was history. This teacher for some reason said, you can write everything you want on like a three by five card.
Sometimes teachers do stuff like that, right? Yeah. So he’d written tiny little, little, little chicken scratch, like all the things that he wanted to remember on there. And I was like, how are you doing for this test? Are you ready for it?
And he’s like, well, I got all this stuff on this, you know, card. And I was like, but are you really ready for it? And he was like, well, you know, I could tell he wasn’t. So I was like, okay. I took a picture of that card, uploaded it and said, you know, create quiz questions on all the information on here and of course, a process for a little bit.
And then it started, you know, quizzing him with different questions related to that material. And it was just amazing how quickly, you know, you can turn that into something interesting.
Jeffrey Oakman: 21:01
Yeah, that was great. I mean, it reminds me of a story from college where, you know, like, similarly, somebody was, you were able to bring like one, you know, eight and a half by 11 sheet of paper and put on it whatever was going to help you for the test. And so somebody brought one in, put the piece of paper on the floor, and had his friend stand on top of it. And then he would ask him questions from the test, you know, but that’s sort of what that’s sort of what AI is like.
John Corcoran: 21:29
On top of it. That’s great.
Jeffrey Oakman: 21:33
But that’s what AI is like. But you have this interactive sort of Q&A opportunity. And so how do you turn that off? Or at least find ways to test people’s knowledge or ability to sort of write something where they’re not able to basically just have it, have it, do it for you.
John Corcoran: 21:52
Yeah. Yeah. And by the way, Jeffrey went to Rice University. So that’s where the smart ones come up with those kinds of ideas, like putting your friend on an eight and a half by 11 piece of paper. But I don’t.
Jeffrey Oakman: 22:02
Remember if that was actually something that happened at rice or if someone told me that.
John Corcoran: 22:06
But it’s a great story.
Jeffrey Oakman: 22:07
It was funny.
John Corcoran: 22:08
Yeah, it’s a great story. Yeah. So, you know, we mentioned earlier, like cloud bot, this is this new technology that’s been the rage for about a week or so. But how do you keep abreast of all the things that are happening? You know, for you personally, how do you keep, you know, in touch of all the things that are changing?
So, so, you know, day by day.
Jeffrey Oakman: 22:30
I mean, I can’t claim that that I’ve, I’m very successful at that, honestly. I mean, it is really difficult. I think, you know, we’ve tried to, I mean, I mentioned some of the priority areas for the AI hub and a lot of my work is really on the policy and operations side. So like I, I try to sort of focus on the things that I’m doing and try to stay abreast of that. But I mean, the other thing that’s hard to track, and I think if you’re if you’re out in Silicon Valley, you know, you, you, you see this maybe more, more readily in the news, but like, like all of the financial changes in the industry like this, this company is suddenly investing billions of dollars in this other one and sort of like, what, what are those?
What do those related financial relationships mean for some of the tools and some of the products? I mean, that, that, that type of thing is hard to keep up with because, you know, you don’t know what’s in the works until it becomes public. And then it’s like, oh, there’s this suddenly there’s this big change. I mean, we are, we’re spending a lot of time talking to pretty much everyone we can to sort of build partnerships. And, and, you know, some people are really much more invested in, for example, in New Jersey specifically than others.
So we’ve invested our time there, but there’s a ton going on. I mean, core weaves, an example. They’re a large A.I. company that’s based in New Jersey that, you know, sort of every month something significant happened. A big transaction occurs. It sort of changes their trajectory or sort of what they’re focused on.
And it’s really a remarkable company. And they’re, you know, so. But, but the things they’re working on are, you know, are, you know, like, there’s just, there’s just a lot going on in the background.
John Corcoran: 24:23
Yeah. And for other companies that you’re like reaching out to proactively or talking to, what is that like? Are they, do they have a point of contact inside of the company that is innovating with AI or other companies? Like, well, we’ve been watching it, but we haven’t really thought about it. Like, what are those different conversations like?
Jeffrey Oakman: 24:47
Yeah, I mean, I think you can, you can learn something about where a company is in the transaction, in the AI transformation, sort of by who, who they kind of connect you with, you know, like sometimes it’s like they’re doing more in the, in the sort of hiring and skills and HR space. Like other times, it’s the, it’s the, the sort of the innovation space where they’re, you know, they’re doing the most with AI, you know, or maybe it’s more the sort of operational CIO who’s kind of driving it. I think many of the really innovative companies are being driven by what are the research needs and what sort of product needs and how can we evolve that in AI? And then, and then the rest, the rest of, of the sort of business operations kind of flows out of that. But I think it, I think the most important thing is, you certainly need some sort of top level executive buy-in for the type of AI transformation that that that many companies are going through now.
John Corcoran: 25:56
And then for the smaller companies, you obviously can’t call all of them, but do you do like, you know, online training, webinars, do you do in-person, you know, training? Like how do you target them?
Jeffrey Oakman: 26:10
Yeah, I mean, we’re, we’re working on a number of programs that will do that. Like one of the things that we have on the street right now is a survey of employers of all sizes across New Jersey to get an idea of sort of what their AI adoption looks like, what’s the trajectory of that over the next couple of years? You know, what does that mean for their skills, needs, etc.? And I think the goal of that data collection is really to, to, to, to develop our programming, to focus on, you know, where are the gaps, like where are the real needs and to make sure that, you know, to your point like that, that the training that the types of training programs that that we support or create are training people for the skills that are in demand. And that’s, that’s evolving all the time.
So part of what I think the plan is, is to really like, get a, get a baseline, get a foundation of data, and then continue to do focus groups, you know, over time to, to evolve that information.
John Corcoran: 27:12
We’re almost out of time, Jeffrey. So this has been great, but what else are you excited about in the evolving world of AI right now? What, what, what gets your attention? What are you excited about?
Jeffrey Oakman: 27:23
I think one thing that’s exciting to me that we’re, we’re doing some with is kind of the, the opportunity for AI to accelerate, you know, scientific research and development. And, you know, we, Microsoft , are one of our partners. And they have a product called Microsoft Discovery as an example. But, but many of the, You know, AI companies have these sort of science accelerator platforms that are, you know, agentic AI, you know, they use essentially computers to allow you to ask some incredibly broad questions. And AI pretty quickly can narrow it down to like, you know, out of a 5 million potential, you know, products that could do this, this thing like only 15 really makes sense for you.
And then you can figure out like, all right, let’s take those 15 and take them to a lab and figure out if they really work. And all of a sudden, like a, a question that would have just been hypothetical ten years ago or might have taken ten years to, to, to, to evaluate can be done in less than a year. And most, most of that time is in the lab, because the sort of compute aspect of it is done very quickly. And I think, I think the potential of that, you know, not just to answer some really, really challenging scientific questions, but I mean, the potential of that is also to allow for more, more start up companies with good ideas to actually be able to get an answer fast enough to be be potentially profitable. I mean, a lot of a lot of companies have an idea, but you just can’t make a company out of it.
And I think some of these tools are changing that dynamic. And I think that’s exciting.
John Corcoran: 29:13
Yeah, I remember this was maybe a couple of months ago, there was an announcement that AI discovered some kind of like, I think it was a synthetic anti-venom that could help with snake bites of some sort that hadn’t been discovered before and AI was involved in it. And I thought, that’s really cool that these sorts of innovations are starting to happen, and it’ll be exciting to see more of that stuff as we move forward.
Jeffrey Oakman: 29:38
Yeah. It happens. I mean, it’s happening daily. I mean, there’s, you know, and it’s, it’s, it’s just, it’s just, yeah, it’s amazing to kind of read like the things that people are discovering.
John Corcoran: 29:49
Yeah, yeah. Jeffrey, this has been so much fun. Where can people go to learn more about you or connect with you or learn more about the New Jersey AI Hub?
Jeffrey Oakman: 29:58
Within the New Jersey AI Hub is on LinkedIn, so you can find us there. And then our website is just njaihub.org. So happy to have anybody check us out. And you know, again, my name is Jeffrey Oakman. So, you know, feel free to find me on LinkedIn as well or, or, or look us up that way.
But yeah, lots of exciting things are happening all over the country, including New Jersey.
John Corcoran: 30:27
Yeah. All right. Jeffrey, thank you so much.
Jeffrey Oakman: 30:30
Thanks, John. Good to see you.
Outro: 30:34
Thanks for listening to the Smart Business Revolution Podcast. We’ll see you again next time. And be sure to click subscribe to get future episodes.