Will Ai help develop a new generation of leaders or turn human brains off to the idea of decision-making with out it? In this Tough Things First podcast, Ray Zinn explores the nature of this serious question.
Rob Artigo: Got a good topic here, Ray. Let’s dive into how emerging technologies like AI are reshaping leadership roles like decision-making and team dynamics in modern business. Ray, has AI improved how leadership is defined?
Ray Zinn: That’s difficult to answer because AI is so new. It’s hard to understand exactly how it impacts leadership. Maybe organization work function, AI will have an impact, but leadership is still a personal thing; it’s not an AI thing. AI, again, is relatively new, and there’s a lot of good capability of AI and helping us as leaders. It does a lot of the menial tasks as you would that we might have to do like answering the phone or maybe doing a podcast with AI or whatever, but that personal relationship I don’t believe is going to go away, even though AI can make it pretty personal.
Rob Artigo: I look at AI and I think of all the possible benefits of it, but also the drawbacks to it, and I think we’ll cover some of that here. What about decision-making? Do you think AI has helped or hurt the process for a leader?
Ray Zinn: Well, it depends upon how you make your decision. What I do is I examine all of the options, alternatives, and then I check my gut. I say, “Well, how does that feel? How does roll off in my head,” as you would, and that’s how I make my decision because not everything is black and white. A lot of it’s very, very gray, and so I don’t know how AI can take the grayness out of the equation.
AI is impersonal; there’s no feeling involved, so in decision-making, there’s a lot of feeling that’s involved in the decision process. They say, how’s your gut? How does it feel? How does that roll off your head? Because you can look at the gray area in the decision much better than AI can. AI will just, at some point, just come to a decision, but it’s not based on your gut or how it rolls off your head; it’s based on a bunch of parameters that will help you make a decision. So it’s not a problem using AI to map out the pros and cons of your decision; that’s a good part. But then you need to look at those options, the pluses and the minuses, and then come to a decision. You can’t be caught between two points. I mean, you either got to go one way or another, and that’s where the decision… The decision is what we’re talking about, not looking at the alternatives of the options.
Rob Artigo: AI can’t predict or can’t detect danger. For example, let’s say AI is driving your automated car and you’re going down the street, and it’s the middle of the night. Let’s say it’s following a map, and it’s going the fastest route to get to your destination, and it’s taking you through an area that you wouldn’t personally drive through because it’s late at night, maybe it’s in a place like… In San Francisco, they have these areas like open air drug markets and the streets get filled up with people who are just strung out and have problems, and AI doesn’t detect danger. A human being would go, “I don’t want to go there, I don’t want to go down there.”
Ray Zinn: Well, that’s true, but AI can map those areas that are dangerous. I mean, they would reroute you. I mean, if part of your concern… If you’re a policeman, then you want to go into those areas, but if you’re just the average citizen, you don’t want to, and so it will reroute you. Just like if there’s a pile up on the freeway, it will reroute you. That’s a form of danger, as you would.
No, AI is pretty good about looking at all the alternatives, but as I said, when it comes to making a decision, they’re mostly not black and white. They’re not flipping like a coin type thing; they’re gray areas, they’re difficult to discern.
For example, this government shutdown that we’re going through right now, these are difficult decisions to make, and you have these polarized views on which way we should go. AI can run itself to death trying to help them decide whether to do a continued resolution or to continue with the shutdown, but it comes down to a political belief, and AI can’t do that. AI can’t do personal thing, which is that political belief. It can talk to you about the ramifications, like what it might do for the election in ’28 or what it might do for some other bill you want to get passed, but when it comes down to making that decision, it’s a human decision, it’s a gut reaction and not just some computerized model that defines which way you should go.
Rob Artigo: Well, is it possible that AI may make future leaders, some future leaders, at least, lazy and really unable to make critical decisions without relying on AI?
Ray Zinn: Yeah, I mean, even in school. I mean, if AI takes hold the way it looks like it is, I mean, people are going to even forget how to read a book or how to analyze a problem, because it’s all being done by the computer, and so if somebody says, “Hey, what is your decision?” And he says, “Wait a minute, I got to check with my computer,” that’s getting to be nonsensical. We don’t want to lose that edge that we have, which is that uniqueness that makes us not a machine, but it makes us more personal. We like that. We like to know that it was analyzed by a person, not by a machine.
I mean, can you imagine trying to choose a wife, or not a wife, but a spouse by using a computer model? That’s insane to say, “Well, I chose you to be my spouse because the computer told me to.” That’s not very personal; that’s impersonal. And so I think there are some control or some limits that we need to place on AI or we will not be able to make a decision on our own; we’re going to have to say, “Well, I got to consult my computer.”
Rob Artigo: Do you remember the name Paul Harvey?
Ray Zinn: Oh, yeah.
Rob Artigo: Yeah, The Rest of the Story, yeah, The Rest of the Story. He would always say that self-government will not work without self-discipline. I think AI falls into that same category, is that it will not work well for humans if humans don’t take personal responsibility for it.
Ray Zinn: Yes. As I said a minute ago, how would it seem to say, “Well, will you marry me?” and the person responds, “Well, let me check with my computer”? I mean, it doesn’t roll off my tongue very well to say, “Well, before I say yes or no, I got to see what my computer says.” Or, “Whether or not I should accept a job at this company X, Y, or Z, I got to go check my computer.” If we get to that point, then we’ll lose the ability to decide.
Rob Artigo: Wow. Heavy topic, but good podcast, Ray. The listeners can join the conversation at toughthingsfirst.com. Questions and comments are welcome there. Follow Ray on X, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Pick up Ray’s books, Tough Things First and the Zen of Zinn series one, two, and three, and on sale now, The Essential Leader: 10 skills, Attributes, and Fundamentals That Make Up the Essential Leader, and it is a bestseller. It got to number three in its category on Amazon, and we’re happy to say that it’s going to have its little label pretty soon, little gold label that says bestseller. Thanks, Ray.
Ray Zinn: Thanks, Rob.
