Leading with Purpose, Building for Legacy

 Auto-transcribed on Thursday, September 19, 2024.media and text playback available on this page: https://aliceapp.ai/recordings/QFl_U4fdCWvPLqtbckhzyw27BugY83NJ

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Duration: 	00:45:39 	
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Speakers:

 Speaker A - 16.48%

 Speaker B - 36.72%

 Speaker C - 23.68%

 Speaker D - 23.12%

Notes:

- Hollywood actor and renowned guru have a lot in common. All of them are best selling authors and motivational speakers. All have started major nonprofits that have had an incredible impact on the world. And all of them care deeply about the future of our planet. The panel will discuss leading for purpose.- Roots and shoots began with twelve high school students in Tanzania. It now has members from kindergarten through university and grown ups as well. The program is in 70 countries. Engage your kids in the program, share the word.- Matthews: What are you working on as it relates to climate? He says youth prevent before you need to cure. He started the just keep living foundation to be a curriculum in title one schools. Matthews: The more you're thankful for, the more you will create in your life to be thankful for.- Isha foundation's aim is to expand human experience in such a way that you transcend the limitations of your physical experience and in turn, your physical identity. As we get more and more enabled and empowered, we will create bigger and bigger problems, says Sadhguru.- Only 15% of the green cover is left. Every extra green leaf that you put on this planet from this moment onwards is one small step towards climate mitigation. How life will be in the next 30 to 40 years is not very pretty. We must take collective action.- Alex Castellanos: I excited about what Mark and Salesforce are doing with this idea of agent force. He says human mind is the basis of most of the misery that human beings go through. What is a miracle has become misery, he says. It's important that humans learn how to make a miracle out of this.

[00:00:00]  Speaker A 
Hello and good afternoon. Thank you so much for joining us today. Very, um, excited about this panel. I think we really need no introduction. Um, but I will say, when I first got this assignment, uh, to moderate this panel, I thought, what does a primatologist award, ah. Winning Hollywood actor and a renowned guru have in common? So it turns out a lot. And, uh, it was fun to do the research. I'm just going to give you an example of what they have in common. All of them are best selling authors. All of them have been in major motion pictures. All of them are on the road for about eight months of the year with their work.

[00:00:54]  Speaker B 
I'm a treadmill twelve.

[00:00:57]  Speaker A 
She's probably eleven. Matthew, amazingly. Got it. You got young kids. Um, all of them are motivational speakers, uh, and attract thousands to their talks. All of them have started major nonprofits that have had an incredible impact on the world. And all of them care deeply about the future of our planet and the future of our children. So I'm really excited, uh, to have you all here today. And then I got worried about, well, with all the wisdom then here, how am I going to get in more than one question? So it's going to be a fun dialogue. We're going to cover some ground. We're going to start with, uh, the title of this session, which is leading for purpose. And so I'd like to know from all of you, you know, what does that mean to you to lead from purpose? Why don't we start with you, Jane?

[00:01:56]  Speaker C 
Me?

[00:01:57]  Speaker A 
Yeah.

[00:01:57]  Speaker C 
What does it mean to lead with purpose? Well, quite honestly, if you didn't have purpose, I don't believe you could lead.

[00:02:09]  Speaker A 
Agree?

[00:02:10]  Speaker D 
Yeah. Yeah.

[00:02:13]  Speaker B 
True.

[00:02:18]  Speaker C 
Yeah.

[00:02:20]  Speaker A 
I love the answer. And Matthew has something called the 13 truths, which are super cool.

[00:02:25]  Speaker D 
My answer won't be as succinct as Miss Goodall. I mean, look, purpose, I mean, in my travels, um, uh, the thing that I've noticed that seemed to be a common denominator of whatever we define happiness as just having a reason to get out of bed, the more than something to look forward to. And that's, I think, the beginning of purpose. Whether that is in a, ah, place, farmers in Mali, Africa, where their reason to get out of bed is to go tend the crops that day, for that evening's meal. That's their daily purpose, to sustain.

[00:03:01]  Speaker C 
Purpose, uh.

[00:03:03]  Speaker D 
Gives us. It's when we have something to invest in, I think, that we feel like we can build. We all want to have some sort of traction, that we feel like we've evolved from yesterday to today. To tomorrow. And that doesn't happen all the time. A lot of things are one offs, but when we have purpose and it's something that we're building, we can feel it grow and sometimes go backwards, but keep moving forward, um, um, in the big picture, um, through our lifetime, and then hopefully something to leave behind to continue to grow for the people that follow us, uh, to grow, that's the immortal purposes are, I think, the best ones to have, if we can have them, that will live beyond us.

[00:03:50]  Speaker A 
So we can't lead without purpose. It needs to be something that is ever evolving and that we can leave behind. And what would you add?

[00:04:00]  Speaker B 
Well, namaskaram, uh, everyone see, every life, from the tiniest life to human beings, everything has its own purpose. The little purpose that an ant has for the ant is as important or whatever I think is very important. So the significance of human beings, ah, consciously recognizing a purpose. Everybody has a purpose of their own. Little thing. When they leave their home in the morning, they're going somewhere with a purpose of their own. But once you become human, is the purpose just of survival? Is it just about bread or is it just about fulfilling this and that? Or have you made your purpose as inclusive as possible? This is the significant aspect of a human being that we can think, emote and act beyond our survival process. The purpose of every life is it wants to find its fulfillment. So it is not about every one of us coming up with our own purpose. Seeing how to choose an action which will fulfill every purpose that every life is aspiring for. So you dont lead with purpose. Once you identify the course of action, the purpose leads you. Mhm.

[00:05:29]  Speaker A 
Thats beautiful. And its a. It is also sort of a nice segue into, um, what I want to talk about around climate, which is what we all work on, um, at some level. And it's about purposeful action, um, in this space. And I know you have done incredible work, sadhguru, with soil and with trees and.

[00:05:58]  Speaker B 
No, that is a tragedy on the world. I do something which is just a drop in the ocean and everybody thinks it's incredible. That's tragic.

[00:06:07]  Speaker A 
Hmm.

[00:06:09]  Speaker B 
That we do a little and everybody says this is incredible. Because others, unfortunately, have not even done that much. But with human intelligence and capability that we have. And now whatever this AI, everything, whatever, whatever I have done a billion times more needs to be done. Otherwise it's not a solution. Because, uh, the purpose is not about fulfilling yourself. If I close my eyes, I am done. I dont have to do anything. But, uh, action is about solution. I did something is not the important thing. Did it lead to a solution? Well, a few steps we take, but if the whole world takes the same steps, then we genuinely, as a generation, we would have found solutions otherwise. A few peop. Few people will slogan, some will be recognized, some will be dismissed, some will be awarded, some will be dumped, but the purpose is not fulfilled.

[00:07:14]  Speaker A 
So it's a process of, uh, innovation, experimentation, iteration, failure, success.

[00:07:24]  Speaker B 
Uh, I wouldn't see it that way. See, the problems on the planet are very simple, and everybody knows, generally, everybody knows whats the problem. They may not know all the details. They all know whats the problem in a vague way. Everybody knows the solution, but nobody takes action because everybody thinks somebody else should do it. So when I started the safe soil movement, thats what I realized. I went around in many countries. I meant the agriculture ministers, environment ministers, bureaucrats all across. Everybody knew the problem. Everybody vaguely knew the solution, but it looked like they were waiting for an idiot to bell the cat. Then I said, here I am, because it takes an idiot to bell the cat, because nobody else wants to do it, not because they dont know. They know there is a problem, and they know if all of us act, there is a solution, but they think its not their problem. They want to pass it on to their children because thats where itll go. Ultimately, the people that you love, you give them your problems and go away. Great way.

[00:08:31]  Speaker A 
Well, this one here takes a lot of action. This one takes a lot of action. Um, and I wonder if you could talk to us a little bit about the action that you have been taking, that you are taking through JGI, through roots and shoots, through. One thing the two of you have in common is policy, um, at a governmental, national level. But let's, um, share with these good folks the work of JGI.

[00:09:00]  Speaker C 
Well, the world of JGI. Um, as I don't have 2 hours to talk about it, I will just pick out the salient parts. And first of all, you know, I began as a very young girl wanting to go to Africa, live with wild animals and write books about them. Everybody laughed at me. We're going back 80 years. I'm 90 now, so going back 80 years, uh, I was told girls couldn't do that sort of thing. But I was really lucky, and there are young women out here, young women who have children, and I was so lucky to have a mother who said, if you really want to do this, you must work really hard, take advantage of every opportunity, and don't give up. And she was the only one. Everybody else laughed at me. How would I do that? I was just a mere girl. So anyway, as many of you know, I did get to Africa. I did get the opportunity to live with and learn from not just any animal, but the one most like us, the chimpanzee. And, um, I spent so many amazing years learning about these, our closest living relatives. And, um, what is so extraordinary? Maybe it's not to some of you, but I wish it was that as, uh, recently as 1962. Well, that may not seem recent to some of you. It seems pretty recent to me. Um, I hadn't been to college because we couldn't afford it. But my mentor said I had to get a degree. There was no time for an undergraduate degree, so I had to go for a PhD. And he got me a place.

[00:10:44]  Speaker A 
Yeah.

[00:10:45]  Speaker C 
So, uh, he got me a place in Cambridge University in England. And I was nervous. Imagine how I felt when I was told, well, everything you've done is wrong. You shouldn't have given the chimpanzees names. They should have had numbers. You can't talk about them. They're just animals. You can't talk about them having personalities, minds and emotions. Those are unique to humans. That's what was thought by science. Then there, uh, was an unbroken line between us and them. But because the chimpanzees are so like us, because they kiss in ways, hold hands past one another, because males compete for dominance, standing upright, swaggering, bristling, shaking their fist and reminding me so much of some human male politician watching the mothers raising their young ones. Long childhood. Because like us, young chimps have a lot to learn by observing, imitating and practicing. Because they use tools. Because we now know in different parts of Africa there are different chimpanzee cultures, um, it was a shock to find that like us, they have a dark, aggressive, brutal side. They're capable of a kind of primitive war and killing. But like us, they have a gentle side, love, compassion and true altruism. As when an unrelated male may adopt an infant whose mother has died and saved that child's life. Gradually science has changed because of the chimps and that's opened a doorway into understanding other animals too. And we now know, I mean, did you know that goldfish can be trained to play soccer? I'm not joking. You can google it. And there's a chinese, um, scientist and he's got three goldfish on each side and they will try and get the ball into the opposite goal. I mean, I've watched them do it. So, you know, and um, we now know that trees can communicate. So there's so much about nature that we have learned. And so from being in my dream world out in Africa, in the rainforest, feeling a very strong spiritual connection with the natural world and then realizing that across Africa numbers were dropping and forests were being cut down and therefore feeling I must now leave my paradise and go out and see what I could do. By then there were different field study sites. When I began, it was just me and um, so I visited them. I learned a lot about the plight of the chimpsd, but I learned about the plight of the people living in and around chimpanzee habitat. Crippling poverty, lack, um, of good health and education facilities, farmland overused and infertile. And it came to a head when I flew over the tiny Gombe National park, which is where our chimpanzee study is still going on in its 63rd year, uh, with a uh, team of researchers. But this is back in the late 1980s, what had been part of the great forest equatorial belt across Africa. I now look down in horror from this tiny, with horror from this tiny plain to see a little island of forest that was gombe National park and all around Bear hills. And it was clear there were more people living now than the land could support. Too poor to buy food from elsewhere struggling to survive. Why were they destroying the environment? Because they needed to make money from charcoal or timber or because they needed new land to grow more food for their growing families. And um, so that's when it hit me. If we don't help these people find ways of making a living without destroying the environment, we can't save chimps, forests or anything else. And so we began a program. There's no time to go into it, you can google it. Um, takari, t a c a r e. Very holistic, including things like going into the village with a local team of Tanzanians and asking the villagers what we could do to help them, not arrogant white people going in and saying, oh well, this is what we're going to do to make your lives better. No. And um, so that program is now in all the villages throughout chimp range in Tanzania and it's in six other african countries and it's including now up to date technology like GIS, GPS, satellite imagery and um, in some places we're using camera traps. So this kind of technology is coming into our research now. And then finally, I think this is going to be another question. Is it about youth?

[00:16:08]  Speaker A 
You can keep going.

[00:16:09]  Speaker C 
All right, well, traveling around the world trying to raise money for these programs to help people out of poverty. And, um, you know, it doesn't come enough into conservation, talking about the fact that people living in poverty are destroying their environment in wild areas because of what I've just said. But in urban areas, people are buying the cheapest junk food because that's all they can afford and that food is harming the environment almost always. That's why it's cheap. Anyway, trying to raise money for all this and realizing if young people are not understanding the need for protecting the environment, we might as well give up now. So then we began our program, roots and shoots, which is really exciting. We're about to have a partnership with Salesforce around the world, helping. So it began with twelve high school students in Tanzania wanting to know what they could do to make things better. They didn't like poaching in the national parks, they didn't like street children with no homes, they didn't like people who threw stones at stray dogs, all sorts of things like that. So right from the beginning, roots and shoots was a program where we said every single individual, and that means every one of you and us, uh, we make an impact on the planet every single day. And we are lucky. We get to choose what sort of impact we make. Some people can't. We can and root and shoots from the start. Washington, a bottom up young people get together and choose projects to make the world better for people, for animals, for the environment. So what began with twelve high school students, now has members from kindergarten through university and grown ups as well. And it's in 70 countries, m.

[00:18:18]  Speaker A 
Some roots and shoots students, um, in the audience. So thank you for being here with us. We're excited to co launch a base camp together for the parents here. Engage your kids in the program, share the word. Uh, it's an incredible program globally. Um, and Matthew, I know young people, um, are very important to you, I know the climate is very important to you, and so I'll kind of let you take this question where you want. But, uh, I know you supported the Surf Rider foundation. I think you just worked on a film around the campfire rescue, which for Bay area people.

[00:19:00]  Speaker D 
Ah, the fire in 2018. Pimp in paradise.

[00:19:03]  Speaker A 
Yeah, exactly. So kind of where do you, what was that experience like for you and what are you working on as it relates to climate?

[00:19:12]  Speaker D 
Let me talk about, um, with the youth first. Yeah, um, because rather than a certain policy, and there are some things that we dealt with with that film and surf Rider foundation, et cetera, um, if younger generations are thinking differently, between their ears and understanding differently between their head and their heart. That's just habits will change how we live, I think you said, each one of us, and how we have an effect on the climate and how we go about our life. Um, so prevent before you need to cure. That's, uh, what I've always turned me on. Um, and what did that lead me to? Kids, youth. Um, Camille and I started the just keep living foundation to be a, uh, curriculum in title one schools in the United States. These are 50% dropout rates, food, uh, stamps, uh, schools. And, um, what we started was a program where these kids can go. We found out we didn't know this. We found out it was actually a safe place for them to go up to school, which we didn't think that was going to be an asset of the whole curriculum. We said, let's say, okay, we're going to teach you physical fitness goals. You may come in and say, I want to make the soccer team, but I have trouble running 100 yards. We're going to help you get fit for that. You may say, I want to lose three pounds so I can fit in the prom dress in three months. We're going to help you reach that goal. Nutrition goals, um, where we say, we don't have anything against cheeseburgers, but here's how to go. Spend that $52 you spent with your family and go through the supermarket and go down the produce section and maybe get a little meat and beans, and you can also go home and you get the added value of cooking with your family, which we believe in. Um, they all do community service, which was our biggest surprise because I would not have given my Saturday mornings at 04:30 a.m. in high school to go clean a beach or a highway or to pack for the troops. But 100% of these young men and women do, because that's actually the part that gives them some ownership. And they're not getting a one way ticket of you're not just giving to me, I get to give something back. And then we have a halo of gratitude. Gratitude. Uh, we do believe, uh, in our family and in our foundation, that the more you're thankful for, the more you will create in your life to be thankful for. Uh, where they all gather around and they share out loud something to be thankful for. Um, the biggest compliment we've had on that is students saying, oh, sadhguru, I have that in my life, but I've never been thankful for it. And you just thanked, you just were thankful and had gratitude for that. In your life. Oh, now I realize I should be thankful for that. Um, we're in over 50 schools. The idea is, you know, when we've had some students come in in the 9th grade and being gangs or into drugs, and then four years later, they're a valedictorian, or they're getting a scholarship to help show them options. So much of what we're learning is that most of them just don't know better or know of a different path. Um, so that's youth prevent before the cure. Um, is really where most of. Most of Camilla and I's work, uh, has been put in. We just started this green light grant initiative. There was all that bipartisan safer communities act, billions of dollars that came out with that to help safe in schools through, whether it's physically safety in schools or through, uh, more mental health counselors. And what we found is, after that, billions of dollars that was available. Nobody was applying. No, american schools were. Very few were applying. And the ones that were applying weren't getting granted, were getting, uh, the grants, uh, awarded. And so we found there was, one, a big awareness problem, and two, a big communication problem from the schools, through the red tape, to the agencies and the government that have this money, that want to give this money. That's the thing. The government wants to spend this money, but they sitting there saying, if we don't spend it by 2026, we're going to reallocate it, and this thing's over. And we were like, well, do you want to spend it? They're like, yes, we want to spend it. You have to show us the need. Well, we found out that, uh, these superintendents that have to fill out these grants are usually wearing three, four different hats in the school. They don't have the time or the expertise. We help them. We give them grant writers, and we help them write those grants, and then the government goes, we see the need. Here's the funds to safe in your schools. So those are the two main, uh, purpose, um, driven things that Camilla and I are working on right now, uh, and mainly the US.

[00:23:47]  Speaker A 
And what I love about what you're working on, and it's similar to what you said around service being a really important element, gratitude being a really important element. I think, by the way, what I've learned with young people in the context of service is the great antidepressant also. Yeah, it's the best antidepressant to really kind of step yourself up, uh, and out of your world. And in a world where we have mental health. Ah, crisis with young people at record levels. Um, you know, the more we can be of service, I think the better we all are. Uh, and so I love what you're doing. I love how you're taking on the system. Um, the government is not always easy to kind of navigate through. So what a gift to give.

[00:24:32]  Speaker D 
We heard that earlier, um, with Michael Regan.

[00:24:36]  Speaker A 
Yeah, we had the head of the.

[00:24:37]  Speaker D 
EPA before this saying, we can't do it. Private and public, more power, private and public partnerships, and we need citizens to push us.

[00:24:46]  Speaker A 
Right?

[00:24:47]  Speaker D 
You said it very blankly.

[00:24:49]  Speaker A 
Yeah, I think that's right. And so I think coming together, getting involved in these initiatives, um, for folks here, I think, would be very fulfilling for you and very meaningful, um, for this team. And so I'd like the audience to hear a little bit about the Isha foundation, uh, the incredible work that you do around the world. And how can folks here at Dreamforce get behind your efforts as well?

[00:25:16]  Speaker B 
Well, uh, I won't go about listing few things that we do. The important thing is, uh, fundamental concern is the human being, because, uh, the nature of the human being is such. If they attune themselves, well, they are the greatest solution. If they are not tuned properly, they are the greatest problem, not just for their lives, but for every other life. Every other life is suffering on this planet because of us. So, uh, Jain, with her courage and commitment, focused on one species, which made a difference. At least the narrative changed in the world about those wonderful creatures. But we must know, uh, in the last 70 years, 84% of the vertebrate population on the planet has disappeared. So one thing that people need to understand this is, uh, this is not an environmental lesson. I'm saying this is a spiritual process. Because what is physical process means is that its about our body, its survival, its needs and its fulfillment. Physicality comes only because of a defined boundary. This is my body. That is your body. This means we define this by the boundaries of this body. In fact, the essence of physicality is a defined boundary. If there is no defined boundary, there is no such thing as physicality in the universe. So what we are referring to as a spiritual process is that in some way, you transcend the limitations of your physical experience and in turn, your physical identity. If this doesnt happen, we will create one after another problem. As we get more and more enabled and empowered, we will create bigger and bigger problems, because our intelligence functions according to the identifications and experiences that we have. So my essential work, uh, is to expand human experience in such a way that if you sit here if you sit here with your eyes closed you experience everything in this hall as yourself. See right now whatever number of kilograms we carry right now as our body, we were not born like this. See look at the baby. We were born like this, but baby came like this. Just the food that we ate from how many different places this came. When it was out there on the land we called it soil. When it came up we called it a crop. When it came into the kitchen we called it food. Then when we went inside we say this is me. So this process we have misunderstood and it's not in our experience. We're just looking at just what is within me as me, not everything else. We clearly know from our experience that uh, if we do not transact in terms of respiration, you wont exist here for more than two minutes. No, we did uh, in 1998 when some UN agencies came to southern India and made a prediction that by 2025 60% of the southern India will be in desertification process. I dont like predictions because predictions dont take into consideration what is beating in the human heart. Cold statistics and you project this is what will happen. So I wanted to make sure I just drove around southern India by myself uh, to see what is happening. Then I saw it wont go till 2025. Itll happen sooner because three rivers in where we are, the state we are perennial rivers had gone dry. Hundreds of tributaries had gone dry. Its just a question of time. So we started a project called Project Green Hands. When I told people I made a barefoot calculation, see right now in the state where we are at that time, I'm saying in early, I mean in 1998, I said, uh, see the average green uh, cover on this in this state is 16% but the national aspiration is 33%. So I just made a barefoot calculation and said if we plant hundred and 14 million trees in this state in eight to ten years we will have 33%. So I called a bunch of volunteers, uh, about 4000 plus volunteers and said see we need to plant 114 million trees. Their eyeballs rolled. Sadhguru, do you know how much is hundred and 14 million? How many zeros out there? How do we do this? Then I asked them a simple question. Whats your population? That region has a population of 62 million. I said if all of us plant one today, nurture it for one year and plant one more, the number is done. So number is not the problem. All of us consume but all of us are not willing to do the compensatory activity. So then uh, we came up with a simple process that, uh, I have a certain way of doing things with people, push them to the extreme and then make them experience something. So then I pushed them like that and made them sit under a tree and breathe. So in their experience, they clearly saw what I exhale, the tree inhales. What the tree exhales, I inhale. Once they experience this, now you can't stop them. M from planting trees. Just last week, about eight, nine days ago, we completed 112 million living trees.

[00:31:00]  Speaker C 
Wow.

[00:31:00]  Speaker B 
Uh, in that region. But now we took up one river, which has a, uh, catchment area, or a river basin area of 83,000 kmÂ². So that takes 2.42 billion trees to make the river flow once again. I grew up on the banks of this river and, uh, what it was then, today what it is, is only 40% left. Its a perennial river. Must have flown for millions of years, but today it is only 40% along the way. It is a rich forest and wildlife and everything, everything is dwindling. Nobody counts that. But im saying even for human consumption, only 40% of the water is left. So I said, if you dont put back the vegetation, that a river will not flow because its a tropical river. The only source that we have is the monsoon rains. The land has to retain the water and let it go slowly. That is the only way it works. These are not melting snow kind of rivers. So this project is on right now, and uh, its going on. But as I said, hundred and 12 million trees is a drop in the ocean. But people think its fantastic. Thats what is tragic, that we think little steps like this are fantastIc. No, what we need is hundred and 12 billion trees on the planet. Because right now, everybody, its fashionable to talk about climate, uh, change and, uh, global warming. Lets understand this much. Lets say global warming, ill make you stand in hot sun in summer, stand there for 2 hours, then move under a tree. Do you see theres a climate change minimum three to four degrees difference right there. One tree. So this is what is needed. We must understand life on this planet is sustained by a, uh, tremendous phenomena called as photosynthesis. How much photosynthesis we had thousand years ago. Today we have only 15% of that. So generally oxygen levels are going down. Nobody talks about that. Everybody talks about carbon dioxide or carbon monoxide. Please talk about oxygen. Hello. Because that's what life thrives on here, on this planet at least. No, everybody is talking about carbon because there is money in it. But oxygen, I think all of you are oxygen breathing people. I think so looking at you. So only 15% of the green cover is left. That means 15% of the photosynthesis is on compared to what it was a thousand years ago. Our populations have gone up significantly since then. And how life will be on this planet in the next 30 to 40 years is not very pretty. Not very pretty picture unless we turn it around. Not that we cannot turn it around. We can turn it around but everybody wants to do their own fanciful things. It wont work. We must understand a simple thing. Every extra green leaf that you put on this planet from this moment onwards is one small step towards climate mitigation. Every extra leaf. How um, many leaves will be put before we fall dead? Thats a question.

[00:34:27]  Speaker A 
And I think it's powerful. I think, you know, we're going for a trillion trees so I'm gonna up your 100 million number. I think you gotta swing big on these problems, uh, that are really critical. And one of the things I love about all of you is you take help to take the complex and make it accessible, whether it's for educators or for policymakers or environmentalists or very young people. Um, and I think that that's really important because we have to take collective action and I'm mindful of. So I just want to appreciate and thank all of you for that. I think um, it's really critical. And as we kind of wrap this panel and here we are at the biggest AI conference in the country. As we walk into this world of, you know, we're trying to simplify some very complex issue. We have this massive technology that is headed our way and is definitely here like sort of coming in at ground speed. And I wonder, you know, how you, what you're learning this week around AI, how you're thinking about AI in your own work and how you, you know, think that humans and machines can live together in the world. And what we should be hopeful about, a little bit about what you're worried about, but what we can also be hopeful about.

[00:35:58]  Speaker C 
Yes, well okay, you know, AI, we're already using in our work at Gombe and around Africa and we're using it for camera traps and we're using it in a way that images are captured on camera traps of shy chimpanzees or other animals. They can actually be identified by AI. So we can get a feeling of how many chimpanzees there are. We can even name them even though we've never seen them. So very different from my studies where I knew every chimpanzee like a family member. But you know, that's how things move on. And we also use, uh, the kind of new AI that's coming in with satellite imagery and things, uh, like that. So I can think of many, many ways AI can make the world a better place. My worries, though, are if it gets in the wrong hands and there's one country, I won't say its name, but if somebody crosses the road at the wrong place, by the time they get to the other side, their card has been duck dogged of the fee for crossing the road in the wrong place. And that's, you know, a dictatorship. That's the scare. And AI, like everything else, is a tool. And the tool can be used in different ways. A saw can be used to cut down dead wood and do something useful with it, or it can be used to cut down a living tree and thus make the carbon dioxide stored in the tree released into the atmosphere. Um, and so AI is like that. And when it's in good hands, then fantastic. But it's not always in good hands. How do we can AI answer? How we keep it out of bad hands, right?

[00:37:59]  Speaker A 
Maybe a few words from you, saguru, and then, Matthew, I'll give you the last word on it. Thank you.

[00:38:07]  Speaker B 
See, uh, what we are referring to as, uh, artificial intelligence is a tremendous empowerment. We are on that threshold where human beings could launch themselves to become superhuman beings. Well, to be super with anything is only good when our, whatever our intent and identities are all inclusive between nations, between organizations, between political parties. When we dont trust each other, this could have lot of upheavals. So inevitably, thats going to be there. But still, you cannot stop a technology. First of all, what you see as a technology is human aspiration. You cannot ever plug human aspirations. If you plug that, then the very purpose of who we are and what we are will go away. So how to have fulfillment of human aspirations without being destructive? Thats a question. Well, uh, at the pace at which this particular technology will go, the transition time that it allows people to catch up is so little. So there will be collateral. We should take care to ensure that collateral is minimized. It cannot be avoided. There will be collateral, and pretty serious. But we must minimize it with, uh, some compassionate heart. And above all, an inclusive approach towards everything. Because if you are an ant, you can crawl where you want. If you become an elephant, you can't walk wherever you want. You'll crush too many things. M so right now, weve become way bigger than elephants. Way bigger. Every human being. The footprint is so big that if we step in wrong places, damage will happen. And in terms of creating well being, which is there in everybodys mind, it is just a scale. See, every human being is working for well being. Some people are thinking, my own well being, all that matters, they get married and children and stuff. Theres me and my family well being, me and my community, me and my nation. We have come to a point of communication and vision and ability to see things clearly that we should not think on these terms in future. Anything that we think has to be universal. Otherwise we will be a very destructive force because our capabilities are reaching that point.

[00:40:40]  Speaker A 
Hmm, profound. Thank you. Yeah, yeah.

[00:40:49]  Speaker D 
It's going to have consequences both ways. I think we have to admit that it's no way to keep it out of the tyrant's hands. In the bad guy's hands. Um, just hope it's in more good hands. Um, you know, one of the particulars for me, and I was talking about green light grant initiative and working with Salesforce on this island, one of the main challenges is these 50 page grants that so many of these superintendents have to fill out to even have the potential to get awarded a grant. They don't have the time or the expertise to do that. We're working with Salesforce on a uh, program that would fill out 90% of those grants, 90 uh, percent of each 50 page grant, say 45 pages. And then um, the superintendent would go in and fill out some details and that would be a grant that they would be able to fill out and, and uh, send into the government agencies to possibly get awarded. So that's something specifically. Um, I excited about what Mark and Salesforce are doing with this idea of agent force. I am excited about that. I mean that it's a human assistant. Is it going to take a lot of human jobs? It is, it is. Um, is it going to be able to work 24/7 though, and not clock out 365 all around the world, be omnipresent in any language anytime? Yes, that's very exciting. As far as productivity for sure. Um, I personally use it a little bit for creativity. I summarize stories, I tell it stories and try to get images and art from it to um, give me some art from summarizing stories. Um, I am curious, how many of us been creating this digital God, if that's a fair word to use, and I wouldn't use a capital g there. But how many of us will be, uh, bowing to that instead of a spiritual God? That concerns me.

[00:42:36]  Speaker C 
Mhm.

[00:42:37]  Speaker D 
Uh, a little bit. That that's not really the right path to a higher ground. Um, um, and, uh, but overall, I am excited and optimistic these things have gone on. I mean, we've had industrial revolutions, we've had big, uh, changes in society through, throughout time. And I think we're on the, the hinge of one, obviously, right now, and let's see what we create, because we are creating a vision of ourselves and that mirror. We're going to be looking in a mirror when AI is realized. And what we see may surprise us. Hopefully it can surprise us in a wonderful way where we go. I didn't know I look so good. It could also surprise us in a detrimental way where we go. Oh, I thought I looked better than this.

[00:43:25]  Speaker B 
Uh, this aspect, what, uh, Matthew pointed out, its an extension, an expansion of who we are in a way. In many ways, the process of evolution. One of the most beautiful things the evolutionary process has produced, uh, is the human mind. But today, human mind is the basis of most of the misery that human beings go through. Its. What should have been a miracle has become a misery manufacturing process for themselves, and also share it with others in so many different ways. So now this AI is going to be a super expansion of our own mind. So we need to really watch this carefully as a part of this, uh, because my work is with people, and I see in how many ways human beings can produce misery for themselves, forget about others for themselves, in how many ways? Essentially their intelligence turning against themselves. That's what it means. We can give it so many different names, but essentially our own intelligence is turning against us. You can call this stress, tension, anxiety, depression, whatever, but essentially our own intelligence is poking us. What is a miracle has become misery. So once again, its important that human beings learn how to make a miracle out of this. As this transformative technologies are unfolding, its extremely important that we focus on individual human transformation. If we dont do that, what we create will turn against us. Not because technology is bad, simply because we dont know how to handle it.

[00:45:05]  Speaker A 
Yeah, yeah, I agree. Thank you so much. I think we heard it was a tool and a mirror and an extension of us. And I have a lot of hope that it will be beautiful. I know there's a lot of people in the room working on, uh, incredibly powerful use cases for this technology, and we have to walk into it with intention and inclusion and universality. I really appreciate you all being here today. Thank you so much.

[00:45:36]  Speaker C 
Thank you.