S1|Ep102 Human Judgment Under Algorithmic Pressure in the Age of AI

Power is shifting. Responsibility is diffusing. And human judgment is quietly being placed under algorithmic pressure.

Today’s conversation explores what happens when leadership decisions are no longer made only by people – but by systems built on assumptions about human behavior, performance, and potential.

My amazing guest today is Jason P. Carroll from Austin, Texas - a founder and Principal Behavioral Scientist at Aptive Index. Jason works at the intersection of behavioral science, leadership psychology, and AI-enabled decision systems. His focus is not on automating decisions – but on understanding how human beliefs, incentives, and blind spots get encoded into models and scaled across organizations.

Jason has led and advised organizations through high-growth phases, acquisitions, and complex transformations, with a deep focus on how behavior changes when power increases and accountability becomes less visible.

In this episode, we unpack behavioral risk in AI-driven decisions, how authority quietly shifts when algorithms are introduced, and what leaders often underestimate about their responsibility when judgment is shared with machines.

This is a conversation for leaders, founders, board members, and investors who understand that in the age of AI, the most critical risk is not technical – it is human.

🔑 Key Topics Covered:

• AI, Leadership, and Power - How AI is redistributing decision-making power inside organizations and redefining leadership responsibility.
• Scaling Through People - Lessons from scaling a business on managing behavioral risks, culture, and leadership as complexity increases. 
• People Problems in an AI World - Why the greatest risks of AI often stem from human behavior and flawed judgment rather than the technology itself. 
• Automating Leadership Assumptions - Which outdated beliefs about people and performance become dangerous when embedded into AI systems. 
• Behavioral Science for Predicting Success - Why understanding how people actually behave is becoming essential for hiring, leadership, and organizational performance. 
• AI, Bias, and Human Judgment - How AI can amplify behavioral bias when leaders delegate decisions without understanding the underlying models. 
• Keeping Humans in Charge - Where leaders should draw the line between AI decision support and maintaining accountability for critical decisions. 
• Unlearning Leadership Myths - The leadership beliefs that must be challenged to thrive responsibly in an AI-driven world. 
• Leading Responsibly with AI - Practical advice for using behavioral science and AI to improve decisions while preserving trust, responsibility, and human judgment. 

🔗Connect with Jason P. Carroll on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonpcarroll/
Learn more about Aptive Index: https://www.aptiveindex.com/

Transcript

Why Human Risk Matters Most

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello and welcome to Digital Transformation and AI for Humans with your host Amy. In this podcast, we'll delve into how technology intersects with leadership, innovation, and most importantly, the human spirit. Each episode features visionary leaders who understand that at the heart of success is the human touch, nurturing a winning mindset, fostering emotional intelligence, and building resilient teams. SEI systems increasingly shape decisions about hiring leadership, performance, and risk, something subtle but profound is happening beneath the surface. Power shifting, responsibility is diffusing, and human judgment is quietly being placed under algorithmic pressure. Today's conversation explores what happens when leadership decisions are no longer made only by people, but by systems built on assumptions about human behavior, performance, and potential. My amazing guest today is Jason P. Carroll from Austin, Texas. As a founder and principal behavioral scientist at Active Index, Jason works at the intersection of behavioral science leadership, psychology, and AI-enabled decision systems. His focus is not on automating decisions, but on understanding how human beliefs, incentives, and blind spots get encoded into models and scaled across organizations. Jason has led and advised organizations through high growth phases, acquisitions, and complex transformations, with a deep focus on how behavior changes when power increases and accountability becomes less visible. In this episode, we unpack behavioral risk in AI-driven decisions, how authority quietly shifts when algorithms are introduced, and what leaders often underestimate about their responsibility when judgment is shared with machines. This is a conversation for leaders, founders, board members, and investors who understand that in the age of AI, the most critical risk is not technical, it is human. Welcome, Jason. I'm so happy to have you here in the studio today.

SPEAKER_02 2:24

Yeah, thank you for having me. I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00 2:27

Let's start the conversation and transform not just our technologies, but our ways of thinking and leading. If you are interested in connecting or collaborating, you can find more information in the description. And don't forget to subscribe for more powerful episodes. And if you are a leader, business owner, or investor ready to adapt, thrive, and lead with clarity, purpose, and wisdom in the era of AI, I'd love to invite you to learn more about AI Game Changers, a global elite tribe for visionary trailblazers and change makers shaping the future. You can apply at AIGamechangers.club.

Jason’s Story And Leadership Roots

SPEAKER_00 3:04

Jason, to start with, I would love to hear more about yourself, about your journey, about your story. Could you share with us your story, please?

SPEAKER_02 3:15

Yeah, you know, my whole life, including as a child, a theme that continues to surface is just noticing human patterns and behaviors. Who I have become and who I am continuing to strive to become is really founded on that. I've seen stark differences between the behaviors that I never want to repeat, the kind of person I don't want to be, and then the kind of person that I do want to be. And it's like roller coaster life of ups and downs and good and bad that just kind of like being thrown to the sharks has forced me to observe those patterns and make decisions based on them. So that that shaped me early on. And it really came to a head as I came out of a failed startup into a company that was run at about 20 million revenue in a blue-collar industry. And I had seen terrible bad culture. I had experienced terrible, bad leadership. And then I experienced really incredible leadership and tried my best to implement that good leadership in this company called Champion. And it had been stagnant at that 20 million for over a decade. I was brought in to shake things up. And over the next seven years, we grew to 80. So we went from 20 to 80. We 4X' after having been stagnant for quite some time. And I believe 100% the main catalyst for that growth was treating people with worth and value, distributing power, not exerting control. It was about self-awareness, growth, leadership, and culture. During that time, I discovered psychometrics for the first time, which is the world I'm in now permanently forevermore. And I also got to meet incredible people like Brene Brown. So Dr. Brene Brown, I got to meet her and be trained by her. Hopefully you're familiar. Hopefully your listeners and watchers are familiar. If not, they should just turn this off and go watch Brene Brown for a while. But those are the kinds of things that really shaped me. And now I've been able to bring all of that to head with this behavioral science meets AI and bringing this idea of deep personal understanding, self-awareness, and awareness of others to the masses with like validated science and the most easy to understand AI and chat and all that stuff. It's like it's like having a behavior psychologist in your pocket, a human cheat sheet. And so it's really enhancing leadership and how we approach the human aspect of business. And I'm proud to say that I hear stories nearly every day of not just like businesses improving, but lives being changed. And so I love what I do. I'm excited to talk about it. And hopefully it doesn't come across as just one big plug. And hopefully you hear the passion behind what I'm doing here as we continue to chat.

SPEAKER_00 6:12

Thank you so much for sharing, because this is like balm on my soul. It's also very close to my heart. I'm very interested in behavior and psychology. And of course, it is crucial in order to become a better leader to understand all those parts. I'm sure many of our listeners and viewers like Brunette Brown as much as I do. And it is even more interesting to hear some more through our conversation from you about those aspects and those strengths you are sharing through your solution. But it is amazing that you are changing real lives on a daily basis. And given that the burnout rate is just going through the roof, and there is no solution inside on the high level. So this is exactly something that can be applied to create a better environment, to adjust the culture, so that those who are really there to create something amazing altogether, they can also enjoy the time they invest and create the life which is both easier and more meaningful and fulfilled in a way. So I really admire what you are doing, and I'm so happy that we have this conversation today.

SPEAKER_02 7:44

Thanks, me too.

Power Shifts When AI Arrives

SPEAKER_00 7:46

AI is rapidly becoming embedded in hiring, leadership assessment, and performance prediction. How does this shift redistribute power inside organizations? And what new responsibilities do leaders often underestimate or fail to recognize?

SPEAKER_02 8:04

In that question, you said redistribute power. And I think that's a significant aspect of this whole conversation. That not everybody wants or needs or is driven to influence outcomes, but those who are get to choose one of two routes: power or control. And those who seek power so that they can control don't actually have power in the end because they don't have it's not anchored in character. They don't have trust and belief and loyalty. And I I know this is kind of a weird way to set this up, but I think about control as a scarce resource mindset that like I have to hold on to this. Power, though, is an infinite source. It expands when it's shared. And with that in mind, the power of AI in our hands as leaders with character that want to expand power, it's an opportunity like we've never had before to give resources away to all of our employees in a manner that it's completely unprecedented. The information, the decision-making power, I mean, just silly things like, you know, what would my boss do in this situation? You know, asking AI, and then it, you know, and if it knows those dynamics, then wow, I just got to make a decision without having to bother my boss. So that's one little example, but there's just infinite examples of how we can put this power into other people's hands and let that really expand influence and better outcomes, again, in just profound ways that we've never seen before. That might have been a little too high-level and vague. Let me know if you want me to get a little more honed in.

SPEAKER_00 9:58

I wonder also on the other side of the coin, it might be considered as an intrusion into the inner world and uh into the core of personality. So, how do you find that balance where you can go ahead and uh take your decisions without consulting with your boss, but at the same time, you don't feel like if you are manipulated and completely opened and can't have anything for yourself.

SPEAKER_02 10:32

Yeah, it's interesting. You know, so the basis of what we do at uh at the at my company now, Active Index, is it starts with a behavioral assessment. Now, this isn't some like hour-long note, it's like 10, 12 minutes, but it's still eerily accurate. And it trains our AI on what's driving and motivating people. Like what do they need? Because we all have different needs. And that can feel intrusive. Even some of the most skeptical prospects come in and we have a conversation, and I show them you know their results through the lens of AI interpreting it. And they're like, okay, I went from skeptical to a little creeped out. And you know, so I think we have to, you know you you also asked you like the new responsibilities, right, that that we maybe fail to recognize sometimes. But AI in general, with even without our behavioral stuff, AI gives us access that we've never had before. And then if I hone in on what we're doing, behavioral analysis, it gives us that human cheat sheet that could be leveraged for really good things, or it could be leveraged to manipulate and control. Now that's beyond anything I can control with my clients. I can just, you know, hope and train that, you know, as we're bringing people into this world that they're wielding it responsibly. We do have protections in place, but you know, ultimately the responsibility does come down to the leader. You know, if if we are operating from that scarcity mindset, a control mindset, then we're gonna wield this irresponsibly. If we have the mentality of elevating the human experience, leaning into values, and expanding power, then you know, I think that all of this unlocks our ability to do that in really unique ways. And so really it's just whose hands does this land in, and it's up to them to use it the right way.

SPEAKER_00 12:30

I agree with your conclusion because in one of my keynotes, the last slide is exactly about that personal responsibility where we, each and one of us leaders, no matter what we are doing and where we are working, we need to decide which side we are on and act accordingly and take our decisions accordingly as well, and feel our personal responsibility. We are not just a part of this machinery, but we are in charge for how this story is going to develop and which side we want to belong to.

SPEAKER_01 13:15

Yeah.

Scaling Culture Without Breaking Trust

SPEAKER_00 13:16

Let's take a step back because I would like to take first things first and come back to your exciting story of a great success where the company was stagnating for 10 years. So before founding Active Index, you led a transformation where business scaled from 20 million to 80 million, resulting in a successful acquisition with a strong focus on people strategy, culture, sales, growth, and technology implementation. I wonder what were the most significant behavioral risks you had to manage during that scaling phase? And how did leadership responsibility change as power and complexity increased?

SPEAKER_02 14:02

Yeah, you know, that so the company was actually 33 years old when I joined. So it had been there for quite some time. And there were people in positions that had been there for decades. And so the first big behavioral risk was me. It was this wild card who's coming in. And, you know, a lot of ways I was being viewed as this, you know, guy who's jumping out of the plane with no parachute in a very operations-heavy business where execution and process and all those things really matter. And I think they realized really quick that I'm allergic to process. I want something new. I want to try to push the envelope. So, so honestly, I was the biggest behavioral risk at first. I had to keep taking a step back, making sure I didn't go nuclear and just, you know, shake everything up for the sake of change. And I had to earn trust. And that took quite some time, probably the first two and a half, three years was establishing trust before we could really make big, bold moves. And then it became understanding the behavioral differences between myself and others. You know, I would say that my head of ops was my absolute opposite. Where I was big picture, risk tolerant. He was detail-focused, risk averse. Or I was, let's try new things and see what might stick. He was, let's do what we've always done that we know works. I was, hey, my pedals on the floor, going 100 miles an hour. He was, hey, man, this is a marathon, not a sprint. You know, and the list goes on and on of just being total opposites. And that gap was so big between the two of us that it took so much intentionality and effort to bridge that gap. And I actually made some mistakes in leadership of like expecting him to bridge that gap more than what he was really capable of. And so, you know, I realized this is my responsibility as the leader to bridge that gap and ended up as a result making some big personnel decisions, bringing some people in who could help bridge that gap, and instead of me putting expectations on folks that were just way outside the realm of how they were wired. And so, really, that was the leadership. It was how do we figure out what these gaps are and you know what these strengths are and play to those strengths and overcome these gaps. Yeah. So hope that answers the question there.

SPEAKER_00 16:31

Yes, definitely. And it's a very interesting story. And I think the part about the gaps, first you can think that it could be potentially a dream team because the two of you basically incorporated all the extremities of what is needed to cover whole the range, but at the same time, practically it's close to impossible to move forward without creating that dissonance and breaking something along the way. So there is no sustainable way or virtually no way to move forward sustainably until you close that gap. So your personal leadership experience is exactly something so valuable because it is increasingly more important to be flexible enough and be ready to adapt to bring on board new types of profiles and cover the gaps in case if it's needed, in order to create that success. Very interesting.

The Perspective Gap AI Can Expose

SPEAKER_00 17:41

And from here, I would like to look a few years ahead. And from the story I know by now, you work on the premise that most business problems are people problems. As AI systems increasingly shape decisions at scale, where do you see the greatest behavioral risk to human judgment emerging over the next three to five years?

SPEAKER_02 18:08

You know what's interesting is I don't think AI changes the biggest behavioral risk. I think that, like you said, I do believe most business problems are people problems. And I think the biggest risk is assuming that other people's perspective is like our own. And I think that's always been one of the biggest risks. It was, it was mine with my director of ops, you know, to go back to the example. Like, you know, how does this person not see five years ahead? How does this person not understand we have to take risks? He's looking at me, going, How does this guy not understand that you know change for the sake of change is gonna sink us? How does he not get it? What we're doing right now works. And if we break it, things might crumble, right? And so we each had our own perspective and couldn't even fathom the other person's perspective. And AI actually can help with that. In fact, I mean, it does. That's our clients, one of the big things they use it for, but that's not really innate. Like we have to train that, we had to build tools around that. So AI, like just Chat GPT or Claude or Gemini by itself is not gonna change that. And I don't think it's gonna introduce necessarily new risks or solve that risk. I think that we're gonna continue to lack perspective taking, and it's going to cause friction and butting heads and continued business problems.

SPEAKER_00 19:38

At least it's not going to change to the better potentially, but it might introduce new problems. But it might also bring some new solutions. Let's see how it goes. Very interesting.

SPEAKER_02 19:52

Well, it that's in the work I do, because we're measuring these behavioral drives, it's some of the biggest light bulb moments are when we talk about certain traits with, especially with the CEOs, where I say, like, hey man, more than half of your employees want to be told what to do. Not in a way that strips their autonomy, right? Not micromanaging, but they want clear direction. They want you to actually give them marching orders and paint what done looks like, what good looks like. And they're just sitting there going, what? Why would anyone want to be told what to do? It's like that's like that's like the first trait we hit on during training. And it's like a big light bulb moment. And we've only hit one out of eight. And so these light bulb moments keep happening of, oh, oh my gosh, people are experiencing the world that differently than me. And so getting that understanding from the science piece is the first step. And then we get to take that learning into our AI that's been trained on all of the these traits and knows everybody's scores, et cetera. Uh, and you don't have to even guess anymore. I could say, you know, I could type into ARIA, why is Emmy perceiving this this way? And it would tell me because it would know your profile. So AI absolutely can overcome these risks in really accurate, eerily accurate ways, but it just has you have to be intentional to pursue AI in that way.

SPEAKER_00 21:24

This is very interesting. And intentional, that's the key word. No matter what you are doing, intention is crucial. Jason, as AI adoption accelerates, many leadership and performance assumptions are simply automated and scaled. Let's dive a little bit deeper into risks. Which outdated beliefs about people, individual potential, control, and performance create the highest risk when embedded into AI driven systems?

SPEAKER_02 21:58

That's a good question. I think that. There is an outdated belief about people that just continues to perpetuate that I I think that you just can't trust them to do what's right. And there's it's not necessarily one belief, it's more of a mindset about people. We just tend to make the worst assumptions about people as we go through life. And I mean I struggle with that for sure and make concerted efforts to not do that, but it's still really difficult when somebody does something outside the realm of what I would say is of good ethics or strategic, you know, makes strategic sense or whatever it is. When I disagree with something for whatever reason, I lean into negative assumptions that that person's stupid or they have bad character or they just don't get it. Yeah, whatever it might be. And that's not necessarily one outdated belief. It's it's an outdated mindset that, you know, I know best that my position is the right one, I'm the good guy. I mean, how many villains have ever thought they were the bad guy? Zero. And so I think that we have to recognize that. And, you know, the way AI, I think, plays into that is it removes us even more from the human touch. And, you know, if we're not careful, man, I can go to Chat GBT right now and I could ask it about my political stance, and all it's gonna do is affirm what I believe. Right? It's even gonna give me sources and facts and all those kinds of things to say, Jason, you're right. And so if I'm using it that way, and then I go to a person who has different beliefs than me, I've set myself up for human failure because I'm gonna assume that person hasn't done this work or they're only being fed lies. They're stupid, they're conspiracy theorists. Whatever my brain's gonna do, it's gonna do. And I think that the risk of that is higher when we are conversing with a robot more than we're conversing with a human.

SPEAKER_00 24:13

That's a great point. And that balance is very much impacted today. So once again, we need to decide how we are going to live our life and how our reality is going to look like. Through choosing as well, whom to communicate with. And oftentimes I see humans uh lean into choosing an AI-driven company, and that's something that is going to change the future, definitely.

Why Hiring Signals Keep Failing

SPEAKER_00 24:49

The FTV index focuses on behavioral drivers that predict how people actually are and how they work rather than how they describe themselves. Who is mostly using your assessment? And why does this behavioral lens to predict success become essential, not optional, as yeah, systems grow more capable and influential? Can companies succeed without applying these type of assessments and still finding the best possible way to optimize their culture and create internal and external success?

SPEAKER_02 25:31

I love that tack-on question at the end because it's it it plays to an exercise we do in training sometimes, where you know so the the who at first is right now, mostly smaller companies, anywhere from 10 to 100, 200 employees. I'm usually starting working directly with a CEO and their executive team, and then things kind of go out from there. So this is not really an HR tool, but the way I thought it might be. It's a it's a leadership and a daily strategic tool used by the kind of main people in charge. So that's the who. The why it matters is it's a leg of the stool, so to speak, that we never had access to before when the other legs of the stool are failing us tremendously. So, what are the legs of the stool of hiring? Okay, we look at skills, experience, formal education, right? That's like the big one. Well, statistically, we've actually known since the 80s that skills, experience, and formal education have almost zero predictive quality in terms of is this person going to be successful? It's never been something that gives us a guarantee or even confidence that somebody's gonna succeed in a role, yet we keep looking at it. And what's our main way of looking at someone's skills and experience? The resume, right? Well, who wrote just about every resume that exists today? Chat GPT. The humans not even writing the resume anymore. 74% of people admit to lying on their resumes. And so we're looking at these just masterpieces of AI fiction when we're scanning a resume. We've learned nothing about a person. And what we have learned doesn't actually predict success. Okay, so that's one leg of this tool completely failing us. Then there's the interview process. This is our best shot. And it's a great one, but I could ask every one of your listeners, how many times have you seen a great resume, had somebody do really well in an interview, and then they bombed? And if if we were raising hands, everyone's hand would go up, right? We see it all the time. And so what's happening? And why are we still on this system where we look at a resume and then we interview and then we hope for the best? It's because we don't know that there's any other leg of the stool. And that's where these behavioral drafts come in. I can look at a chart, and within a split second, I can tell you what kinds of jobs you would hate and what kind of jobs you would actually really enjoy and thrive in. You know, there's no amount of money in the world you could pay me to become your accountant. It would never happen. And there's a reason for that. My internal hardwired drives, motivations, and needs are such that I can't just sit and be in the weeds in the minutiae doing the same thing every single day, not interacting with humans, not influencing outcomes and being in charge of something. I just I can't. And yet I could give that description to a whole population of people and they'd be like, yes, I'm yeah, that sounds great. Like I don't know anything about accounting, but you're telling me I get to go to work to work and I don't have to interact with other people all the time, and I don't have to be making big critical decisions or like, you know, being assertive and closing a sale, and I get to like have routine and predictability and perfect a task. Yay, where's that job? You know, so that's why this matters. We have these internal drives and needs that have been built into us since our preteens, and there's just no escaping it. I'm not talking about strengths and weaknesses. We can hone our strengths, we can get better at our weaknesses. These are like what's driving those strengths and weaknesses, and we can't really change that. And so, if those things are true, if we can measure them, and we can, or I wouldn't be in business, we should look at them because they tell us a lot. They are far more predictive than any of the thing of the other things that we have at our disposal that we've been using and failing, and having mishire after mishire and bad leadership and promoting the wrong person, all these things that plague our businesses. There is a pretty darn good solution. It's not it's not a perfect one, but it's a heck of a lot better than anything we've had before.

SPEAKER_00 30:09

Sounds promising.

SPEAKER_02 30:10

Yeah. The last thing you said, like, oh, how did you ask it? Like, it reminded me of an exercise I do where at the end of it, after like a couple weeks, we'll do a follow-up training. And I'll present two applicant summaries, essentially, of like, hey, here's how the interview went, here's what their skills experience are all these things, here's here's what we graded. And they're about equal. Who do we hire, candidate A or candidate B? And they go, Well, what are their aptive scores? Like, no, you don't get those. How are you gonna make the decision? And they're like, Well, how do you hire somebody without this data? I'm like, I don't know. Two weeks ago, that's what you had to do. How did you do it then? And they just go, I but they can't even fathom going back to not having this data. It's like they they're confused, they gaslight themselves of like, did I really ever even hire somebody without this? How did I do it? You know, and so that that that's I forget how you asked that final question, but that's how I would answer it.

SPEAKER_00 31:07

Exactly. That's impressive. There is life before and after Jason's active index. That's really cool, and I can imagine because you can't unsee what you have seen. So once you saw this solution, you can't navigate without it anymore because it's not the same at all. But that's amazing.

SPEAKER_02 31:30

There's a warning there though. Once you're a client, you're pretty much stuck. We won't take advantage of that, I promise. But the majority of our clients are using the AI piece every single day within 24 to 48 hours. The majority of our clients have AI logs in the system, which means they're using this tool all the time, not just for hiring. And so they really can't fathom a world without it. It's the before and after aptive index.

SPEAKER_00 31:57

Amazing.

Using Behavioral Data To Coach

SPEAKER_00 31:58

Now I'm curious what are the roles, the types of roles, as example, which are using that data. And uh what do they find there? What type of questions they have on a daily basis to be answered by aptive index?

SPEAKER_02 32:15

Yeah, I mean, so most roles this applies to. There are some that it doesn't, like there are some roles where any variety of kind of somebody's wiring can succeed for different reasons. Even then, we get to use the AI to say, hey, how do I set this person up for success versus this person? But most roles have pretty clear, what we'd call behavioral targets that would be considered ideal. You know, like the hunter salesperson who has to have this aggressive, very directive hunter mentality, close deals quickly, um, always flying over the seat of their pants, right? You know, high intensity. Like that's that is a role that if you take your CPA, your accountants, and say, hey, go do this sales role, they're probably not going to do so hot. And then vice versa. So I'd say most roles that this applies to. So actually, the the assessment is completely non-biased and doesn't, there's no right or wrong, good or bad answers or anything like that. And so it's already done a lot of the heavy lifting. And so what AI helps us do is customize that interview for that person in that role. So we'll look at, you know, there's behavioral alignments. This person's, you know, precision attribute lines up with what we wanted. But how can we confirm that? Right. What if the person tried to game the system or, you know, whatever else? Well, the AI is going to give us questions to validate those alignments. And let's say there's a mismatch in one of the attributes. Let's say my candidate has really high intensity, but I really preferred low. This person's interactivation is really high. They're just like, let's go, go, go. Everything's on fire all the time. But I was really hoping for somebody a little more deliberate who can slow down and be a little more paced. Well, the AI is going to help ask these behavioral descriptive questions that help me know does this person have self-awareness and do they have coping strategies specific to that behavioral misalignment? When I say misalignment, it doesn't mean that they failed. It doesn't mean there's something bad. It just means what would be perfect in an ideal world isn't lining up because it rarely is going to line up 100%. And so, because of that, how do we find out if it's actually a problem or if it's something that's gonna be fine and maybe even the strength in other ways? And that's how AI helps. And it's different, I mean, literally every single time. So there's not like a specific question.

SPEAKER_00 34:44

And what are then the follow-up actions if somebody sees that certain person could behave in a different way or needs a different type of approach? So, what is the kind of follow-up applied to them? Because it sounds a little bit creepy when you can see that game in front of you. I when I'm listening to you now, you know, I remember those games I was playing as a teenager where we had a set of different potions and the different magic to apply to different role figures in order to change their behavior and enhance their skills and move forward and reach your results. So, how is it addressed in the business world?

SPEAKER_02 35:34

Okay, so you just gave me a fun idea. I'm uh next time I'm having a conflict with like my clients having a conflict between two people or like a person struggling in a role, I'm gonna do my own AI, like Dungeons and Dragons type of analysis to say, like, what potion should I give this person to help them in this role? Neither here nor there, but I'm gonna try that and it's gonna be really cool. But it kind of is that like we can't change their drive, but we can help them shift their behavior. So if somebody is struggling with follow-through, like and I'll go back to the sales role because most salespeople struggle with follow-through. It's it's actually it's it's not a bad thing inherently. It's the reason they struggle is actually the reason we hired them in the first place. Right? They're they're move forward momentum, you know, onto the next thing, making high pressure decisions. So they're not thinking about all the details. Right. So updating the CRM for them is a waste of time in their own minds. Right. Well, if I'm a business and I want analytics and I want to see how things are going, I need them to keep up with CRM. Did I expect that they wouldn't? Yes. Do I need them to anyways? Yes. So we could use that AI and say, what's the new ability we need to develop in this person? What's the potion we give them? Or the, you know, what stat do we need to update or increase so that this person can view their CRM activity as something other than just a burden. And it'll give us those hacks and ways of coaching those people into those weaknesses. Now, look, we don't want people in roles where they have to constantly do things that are opposite of their strengths, but every role is going to require us moving outside of our comfort zone. And so when that does have to occur and we're not very good at it, the behavioral AI can really enhance that and give us those coping strategies.

SPEAKER_00 37:25

Incredibly interesting. And yeah, I see also so many advantages with this because so many of those who probably would just lose their job because of mismatch, yeah, they might keep that job as well because they will be just updated. So I totally agree. More magic to people is going to help.

SPEAKER_02 37:49

And I would yeah, how many times have you had an employee where you're like, gosh, I I really like Carlos, but he just isn't getting it?

unknown 37:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:00

Well, why would I want to get rid of somebody just because there's a mismatch if I do really like that person? If they're good for culture, they have the right values, they're loyal, I don't have to retrain that person. Well, now I can just I can actually shift the expectations of the job. You know, I can take some of the things off of Carlos's plate that have been dragging him down, give it to somebody who would love to have it, and kind of repurpose Carlos a little bit. Right. And and I wouldn't have known that I needed to do that. I wouldn't have necessarily seen the disengagement and the stretching of his wiring if I didn't have this data. And now that I have it, you're right, it's not a bad thing. It doesn't mean that this person needs to be exited necessarily. It means I have to make some leadership decisions, and those decisions can benefit both the person and the organization without exiting or making a decision that I don't want to make.

SPEAKER_00 38:56

Exactly. I see it creates more freedom for those who are working so that they can really get more comfortable position in their business. And for leaders, it brings so much more clarity so that it becomes easier to see in the long-term perspective and also on a daily basis how to upgrade whole the structure so that it works and connects in the best possible way? I really like this approach.

Bias Limits And Leading With Curiosity

SPEAKER_00 39:34

Many leaders believe AI will reduce bias and increase objectivity. From a behavioral science perspective, how do AI systems instead amplify behavioral bias and risk, particularly when leaders delegate judgment without fully understanding the models?

SPEAKER_02 39:53

Yeah. So it comes back to the responsibility of the user and realizing that AI really can't help itself. It's going to please its user. It's going to tell you what you want to hear. So if you're asking questions with your own bias behind them, you're going to get bias answers. That said, I do believe that AI does reduce bias when it's used well. There's some fascinating studies of people chatting with an AI bot. What was it called? The debunk bot or something, where conspiracy theorists brought their conspiracies to Chat GPT. And if they brought them to a human, their opinion is not going to change at all, right? Because it's emotion-based. But they would bring their conspiracy theory to this custom bot, and they actually would start changing their mind because it was so objective and there was no emotional back and forth. That was a really interesting study. But also, you know, with what we're doing specifically, we've proved part of validating our science was to prove, we had to prove that there are not biases in the behavioral data. So if you know a black person versus a white person ended up having different scores because of their race, then we're completely invalidated. If it's male, female, if it's you know 60 years old versus 30 years old, if there are any correlations between attributes and those, you know, ethnicity or gender or age, then we're invalid. So we had to build a system that there weren't correlations, which means now that the data being fed to RAI is already without bias. Right. So I can chat about somebody's assessment results and behavioral data, and I don't know their name, I don't know their gender, I don't know their age, I don't know their the color of their skin or anything like that. So it actually is a pretty incredible way to remove and reduce bias from the get-go. The the risk, though, is later on. Once I have that data, you know, if I don't like Carlos, I'll be able to convince AI that he's not a good fit, you know, and so we still have to understand that we have biases. And if we bring those to AI, we're going to get biased answers back.

SPEAKER_00 42:16

That's a really interesting and important point, I think, because there is so much contradiction and hate based just on those aspects which might be blurred or eliminated through this type of evaluation. But at the same time, when you are mentioning conspiracy theories and everything else, we've seen through the years that there are so many facts which were taken in one way, and then it turned out that it was something completely different. So, how do you address that so that you leave some space to the probability that maybe this is not 100% truth, and you've done your homework to get rid of the biases, but still this might change, and humans deserve to get that flexibility within the frame.

SPEAKER_02 43:20

Yeah, it's a really important thing. We just have to always remember that bias is going to exist, and that the machine we're using, no matter how based on data it is, was still built by humans. And so, like that business problems or people problems, that that's going to continue on no matter how advanced this technology gets. So, yeah, I don't know that I don't know if I have an answer other than just reaffirm, yeah, like we have to keep ourselves aware of this if it's something that we consider important and care about.

SPEAKER_00 43:56

Beautiful. Jason, looking ahead, yeah, I see stuff. Will increasingly recommend or take action, not just provide insights. Where is the line between AI as decision support and AI eroding leadership responsibility and critical thinking? And what concrete practices help leaders retain ownership or judgment and power?

SPEAKER_02 44:21

The uncomfortable opinion on that that I have is that we just don't know yet. We are still diving into this headfirst with no precedent. And so I'm sure there's some practices I'd have to really think on that part of the question more. But knowing where the line is, I have no idea. Because I think everyone's going to set the line differently. You know, some people might lean more heavily on AI's recommendation and think that that's where the line is. It's, you know, having a bias towards AI because it's so quote unquote objective. Some people might say that the line has to be on the human side. Like, you know, AI shouldn't really be doing any of this work at all. It might be somebody else's line. So I think it's very subjective right now, and I just don't think we have the answers to that yet.

SPEAKER_00 45:17

So true. When we get in uncharted territories, and we have to just learn how to do it and reduce our risks, mitigate our risks, but still we need to move forward. What is one deeply embedded belief about leadership authority or high performance that leaders must unlearn in order to responsibly adapt and thrive in AI-driven environments? Speaking about lack of predictability and living outside the comfort zone 24-7.

SPEAKER_02 45:56

I think it comes right back to where we started. It's power versus control. That real power is not a finite resource that should be hoarded. It's infinite. And as it's shared, it expands. And we have to let go of these deeply embedded beliefs that if I give somebody else power, then they're going to have power over me. No, if I have the power, I'm the person to show whatever, and I give that person power, the overall power is expanding. Our ability to influence outcomes is now expanded in healthy ways, not in threatening ways. And I think that we have a very fear-driven society that is latching on to control more and more out of fear that you know somebody else having their own power is going to somehow threaten my way of being. And we have to let go of that. That's not easy.

SPEAKER_00 47:20

It's not easy. And another question connected to this one. And I totally agree. In the best of the worlds, it would be amazing to see power expansion and give as much power as possible to every individual. But given that there were so many generations of individuals raised on scarcity, on competition, on division, on hate, on all those competitiveness and lack and fear-based values, how can we dare give in power to everybody when it's obvious that not everybody has good intentions? And then it's going to lead to certain types of outcomes which are not going to be as amazing as they could be if we would have a different operational system inside, but still we are as we are. How to solve that, or how do you see this part?

SPEAKER_02 48:26

I wish I knew because there's so much irony in the fear-based mentality. I mean, I think some of the scaredest people in the world are the billionaires, which makes no sense, right? Like the most privileged, well-to-do folks are like afraid that their tax rates are going to go up and that they're going to lose power. And you're going like, does anybody have an idea of what a billion is in terms of dollars? What are you afraid of? Like it makes no sense to me. And I see that there, like some of the most privileged people are the most scared people. I wish I knew how to solve that problem. I know what's contributing to it, but I don't really know how to move away from it, unfortunately. Other than self-awareness, but that's a decision that people have to make. And you know, if I could, well, I so I know what you're gonna ask next. And I think it would, if we want to jump ahead, I think that my answer to that would be a potential at least like individual solve. So why don't you uh ask me what's next on the list? Because I don't want to just jump ahead and not have an answer to that.

SPEAKER_01 49:40

You are already like predictive models that you know what I'm going to ask, and you even know the answer to that.

SPEAKER_02 49:48

Well, I mean, I can see the time and I know that we're gonna be wrapping up soon. And so, I mean, I could be wrong, but I've been on a lot of these podcasts, so I think I know it might be coming soon.

SPEAKER_01 49:58

That's amazing.

SPEAKER_00 50:00

Yes. But the last one, which is going to wrap up today's conversation. And I love this conversation, and you had so many great points. But what is one piece of advice you would give to leaders who want to use behavioral science and AI to predict success without compromising responsibility, trust, or human judgment?

SPEAKER_02 50:27

I knew it. I so this and I get this every interview, and my answer just continues to stay the same. Be curious. Like whether it's the grasping for control, or you're facing fear and uncertainty, or you're trying to embrace a new technology like AI, or you're dealing with people problems, be curious. Don't assume that you have all the answers. Don't assume that you're getting the full truth. Don't assume that your perspective is the only one or the right one. Be curious and start asking questions of the people around you and your circles of community. Make sure you have a challenge network. And by that I mean people that don't agree with everything you ever say. And be curious what their perspectives are and bring that curiosity to this whole world of AI. And if you do that really narrowly, specifically in our world with the behavioral science plus AI, if you come with curiosity, you're gonna unlock unbelievable new insights and beautiful ways of seeing the world and perspectives that you just never could have imagined before.

SPEAKER_00 51:41

Jason, I absolutely love your advice because that's something that is opening up for the brighter future and also supports the idea that we all deserve more freedom and more power, and we'll figure out how to navigate this unknown space, these exciting times, creating that human AI synergy and co-creating the world together. So, thank you so much for being here and sharing with us your wisdom, your experience, and telling more about the amazing solutions you are developing.

SPEAKER_02 52:25

Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_00 52:27

Thank you for joining us on Digital Transformation and AI for humans. I am Amy, and it was enriching to share this time with you. Remember, the core of any transformation lies in our human nature, how we think, feel, and connect with others. It is about enhancing our emotional intelligence, embracing a winning mindset, and leading with empathy and insight. Subscribe and stay tuned for more episodes where we uncover the latest trends in digital business and explore the human side of technology and leadership. If this conversation resonated with you and you are a visionary leader, business owner, or investor ready to shape what's next, consider joining the AI Game Changers Club. You will find more information in the description. Until next time, keep nurturing your mind, fostering your connections, and leading with heart.