HELLO FUTURE: Leveraging AI to Pivot Into Careers — Education for Employment

Speaker 1 (00:08):
Listeners of this program, Bill that I believe we are
at the start of the Second Industrial Revolution, and that
the change that is happening not just from the rise
of artificial intelligence, but the inevitability of quantum computing, the
harnessing of potentially fusion energy technology, and outer space exploration
is catapulting our human civilization and society into the unknown,
and I am very optimistic about it. At the same time,
anytime you navigate through these impressive, impressive transformations of society,
we have to make sure that people are able to
have work, that people are also able to maintain jobs
and to rise the ranks if they want to pursue
rising through the middle class system and hopefully earning more
than their previous generations. So today we're going to look
at that Hello Future, It's media in the dispatch from
the Digital Frontier. The year is almost twenty twenty six.
The planet is still a planet Earth, and I'm thrilled
to welcome back to the program the CEO of Send
Gauge Group, which has this awesome education for Employment program.
They are now more than seventy percent digital and they're
focused on providing education for employment, helping individuals improve their
lives who are eating tangible education outcomes. Michael A. Hanson,
the CEO of Senda. Michael, thank you so much for
coming back. Last time we were talking about students and
how young people are learning and the transfer knowledge. But
now I want to focus on people who are already
in the workforce, people who are already having to maybe
they are working at a refinery, or maybe they are
working in the medical field. A. People are very nervous.
There's very real sense of economic anxiety that AI is
going to replace them or dismantle their industry. But you
have a lot to say about this because you actually
think AI can help to quickly reinvent someone's career, provided
that they are able to learn these skills earlier.

Speaker 2 (02:03):
On Absolutely, Kevin, and thanks for having me. I would
say two things. One is when you get for the
first time in the workforce. And let's use our example.
Both you and I went to college at some point
and then we went out and like would try to
get a job, right, and we were lucky to get
one at some point.

Speaker 1 (02:19):
Right.

Speaker 2 (02:20):
Millions of a million students face this every year. Now
they are today very ill prepared, many of them because
the education system is not connected to the workplace. The
education system is here and higher ed to get you
a degree, but whether that degree gets your job, your
professor doesn't really care all that much about They want
to make sure that you get the degree. So the
first thing we have to do is to bring the
real world jobs into the classroom. And we could do
this now, and we can do this better than ever
with AI. The second thing is what you are saying, like,
when you are in the real world and you have
a job, right, that doesn't mean that your opportunities and
infect your opportunities start. But with the advance of technology
as fast as it is quantum computing AI, you need
to reinvent yourself, not like me every three or four years,
or like you maybe every two or three years, but
like possibly every six to eight months. And therefore you
need to learn skills. And the beauty of the current
situation that many large employers have understood that and instead
of saying I'm going to fire a bunch of people
because they don't have the right skills and hire other people,
which is very costly and very time consuming, they are
now jumping on the bandwagon and saying I can actually
teach the people while they're in a job while they're
making money, and I can still teach them the relevant skills.
And that's called reskilling and upskilling in fancy ways.

Speaker 1 (03:45):
I see. I think that's really interesting, especially because I
think one of the things is that the middle class
in our country feels so incredibly nervous that they're going
to be put out of a job. But what you're saying,
I think I just had to meet the future moment
I like to call it. What you're saying is that
the companies that will survive and the employees who will
thrive are the leaders of the companies who understand inherently
that quants of artificial intelligence. We just have to get
used to surfing this wave of industrial transformation, and part
of that means retraining your workforce constantly, constantly, and not
just through stupid cheesy videos. I will stop talking, but
we all know what stupid cheesy videos I'm talking about about.
Stupid cheesy videos. But you get what I'm saying. So
what is an example. Give us a case study of
an industry where this has proven to work incredibly well
for both the most importantly the employee, and then also
for the company.

Speaker 2 (04:48):
So I'll give you. I'll give you the example. I
would say two things as a preface. One is, we
are at the beginning of this. This is not you know,
this is now leading companies are going into this, but
it's not like a mass phenomenon. That's number one and
number two. I think one thing I would add to
what you're saying is we need dignity in.

Speaker 1 (05:09):
Work, amen, not just work. Pause pause right there, just
like let's bold that underline it. There is dignity and work.
And I just that really resonated with me. Michael Hanson,
CEO of Engaged Group. I mean, there has to be
because you don't have purpose without dignity, and you can't
have dignity without self respect and mutual respect. So I
really really respect and appreciate that comment.

Speaker 2 (05:32):
Keep going here and here is and here is where
the beauty of this moment lies. What artificial intelligence can do,
promises to do or quantum computing is get rid of
a lot of menial tasks that need to be done.
But what it cannot get rid of is the ingenuity
of the human mind and the care of the human spirit.
So a lot of jobs will become or are already
in high demand. Think about healthcare, any job that requires
human to human interaction. Huge amount of opportunity there, and
a lot of the stuff that you have to deal
with now, like you know, insurance reimbursement and like paperwork, filing,
et cetera, will increasingly be substituted. So I believe we
have a huge opportunity to bring dignity back. And you know,
just to hark back to the olden days, when somebody
was working at Ford Motor Company on the assembly line,
they were dignified. It was dignified work. They were they
were happy, there were the bread winners in the family.
They came home, and we got to go to that
and back not into like into assembly line work, but
really making sure that people can put their best abilities
forward and not deal with the mundane stuff that we
all at times have to deal with.

Speaker 1 (06:44):
So I think it's it. It must become important, And
I want to use the energy sector as a potential example,
because like right now, for example, a lot of energy
companies are looking at creating data centers and whatnot, and
data centers and infrastructure for transforming America and other parts
of the world into upgrading our power systems and our
energy structures to be able to run on artificial intelligence,
because no community wants to be left behind in five years,
ten years. Even candidly, right now, I want to make
sure that the hospital that I'm going to, or more importantly,
my loved ones are going to, that they have access
to artificial intelligence data servers for the best quality of
care for medicine. So you're going to need engineers to
help with that transition. And if you're an engineer who's
in their forties or in their fifties, you're not going
to go back to school to get an AI degree.
But Ken, I guess my question is could artificial intelligence
retrain an employee to who has a great understanding of
working in the industry to be able to move within
the market, to be able to do more training, and
can AI even solve that problem faster.

Speaker 2 (07:51):
The best AI solutions so far that I've seen, Kevin,
and that we all have seen, are an integral part
of the workflow that's already happening. That engineer that you're
talking about, well, he or she works on a particular
problem every day, and then AI augments accelerate some of that.
I don't believe in the AI will take away the
job of that engineer. But I will pivot on this
one as well. You know, also who's going to be
thriving electricians? We need millions of electricians in this country
to build all these data centers. Right now, if you
tell some middle class dude like me right say, like, hey,
you know your son is becoming an electrician, probably I
get a lot of stairs at the cocktail party. Like really,
it's like we have such stigma attached to it, right
Whereas I think those types of jobs electricians x, RAG technicians,
et cetera, coupled with AI and with an ability to
be more efficient in that job, are in many respect
jobs that should have the same dignity, the same esteem,
and not the stigma that is attached with them.

Speaker 1 (08:51):
Now, I mean, it just snaps all around, brother, Michael Hanson.
I mean where I come from, no one's rolling your
eyes where I grew up. If you want to be electricism,
they're saying that's a good job. That's a great job.
I mean, and quite frankly, I've seen the same reports
that I'm sure you have. There are some electricians right
now who are making like several hundred thousand dollars annually.
These are great jobs. These are American jobs. These are
the jobs that are building the future. And shame on
higher education as a whole. And you know, maybe not
not asking you to get political. I'm not a political person,
but shame on higher education institutions that have demonized this
line of work, that have demonized what it means to
actually roll up your sleeves to do hands on work
and appreciate it. And quite frankly, it is crazy to me,
absolutely crazy to me that the people running these higher
education institutions who have slapped on billions of dollars of
debt to millennials, to gen z on the promise that
you'll be able to get a good, decent paying job
and not have to work hard. That's criminal to me.
That is criminal to me. And it is not a
too big to fail argument. And I mean that in
every sense of the word. What you're saying is that
coupled and harnessing in the power of the innovation of
artificial intelligence, jobs like refinery workers, jobs like electricians, jobs
like mechanics jobs. These are good, meaning paid jobs. I
love it. I love it. So what would that look
like if you're merging AI with these more hands on
jobs like electricians.

Speaker 2 (10:25):
And what you cited a number of really great hands
on jobs and it's exactly. But we've talked about dignified
jobs that people have, and then there's a whole list
in healthcare that is also there, phlebotomist, farm techs, et cetera.
They all are thriving jobs with good incomes and good
dignity in the work that they're doing. And I couldn't
agree more with you. This stigmatization of like, you know,
if you don't have a college degree, do you know
how many high school graduates in the United States end
up with a college degree at the end? Twenty five
percent of them? So what happened and that hasn't changed
over the last twenty years, by the way, So what
happens to the other seventy five percent? What happens to
those people? So are we arrogant enough to think that, oh,
we'll just leave them figure out like being an ober
driver or whatever, instead of elevating those and not saying
you're a failure because you didn't go college, No, quite
the opposite. You have an opportunity to a path to
the middle class that is exciting, that it's dignified, and
that gets you an income that is actually better than
the previous generation.

Speaker 1 (11:29):
So you're seeing it today, Well it's come from yeah,
but where does this come from for you personally, because
this is obviously something you're very pap.

Speaker 2 (11:36):
It comes about, it comes it comes from my childhood.
So full disclosure. I was born and raised in Germany
and came here with two suitcases to JFK and New York.
No freaking idea what I was doing, no idea what
my plan was. I just saw a television series. I
was twenty four and I came here and you know,
and I kind of figured it out. And I'm internally
grateful of will ever be grateful to now my adopted home,
have become an American citizens for twenty five years now,
et cetera. But the one thing that I that I
will never ever forget about Germany, Austria and Switzerland. These
are the only three developed countries in the world where
youth unemployment for twenty years was lower than average unemployment.
The only countries in the world. Why, they brought the
education system and the workplace together at an early stage,
meaning when you're in middle school in Germany, you're in
law likelihood, fifty percent of the student's work. They work
two days a week, they work in a shop, they
work in a factory, they work somewhere, and they actually
learn why on earth they're learning the stuff that they're
learning in middle and high school. And that has profoundly
changed that system. Now I'm not saying you can copy
and paste that system.

Speaker 1 (12:42):
But no, you can, though, because that's a great point.
Michael Hanson's CEO of is engaged. Or you can because
in our society right now, we put so much emphasis
on extracurricular activities, which are important. And I'm not trying
to say don't play soccer and don't try out for
the school play, and it's important, you know, you want
to let kids play. There's a lot of science behind
making sure kids are doing all of that. But I
always had a part time job even when I was
doing that, and I remember being like mom and dad,
why do I have to go scoop ice cream? Or
why do I have to go wash dishes with the
local retirement community? Because it taught me, I mean that's
why it taught me. It taught me and there's dignity
and work, and there's dignity and understanding that and you
learn so much and I always tell young people who
I mentor, I'm like the paint. When you get paid
for we're great, but there might be a period of
time where you're actually working and not getting a paycheck unfortunately.
But if you want to get experience or you want
to start your own business, it's called pre revenue. And
so I've got to keep working.

Speaker 2 (13:49):
I'm glad that your parents thought about it the same way.
I have Freeissians generation gen Z, and they all are
telling me. I mean, they worked early on in their
lives and they all told me, like, you know, the
benefit of actually looking it's not just you understand the
work environment, but you also understand why you're learning. And
that is highly motivational for them. And that has really
panned out, and I think it's panning out now. Is
that getting into the workforce, having jobs. One figured out
he wants to be in construction. He wanted always to
be in construct He didn't want to sit in the
school and just have like academic you know whatever, French poetry.
That was a nice thing, like you know, and that's
saying that's great, that's great, you know exactly.

Speaker 1 (14:27):
Michael Hanson, thank you so much, CEO of Sengage group.
I really appreciate this, really fascinating. The Meet the Future
moments that I just had was was really the merging
of AI with these hands on jobs and these dignity
jobs like electricians, and I think that there's beauty in that,
and also this idea that the overwhelming majority of folks
are not going to have a college degree, and that's okay.
It doesn't make them dumber. It's just the facts of life.
So quite frankly, I know a lot of dumb people
with PhDs. That's all I'm going to say. A lot
of them are in the town where I currently live,
wat from to DC. All Right, my friend Michael Hanson,
thank you so much for showing up to Meet the Future,
having great tomorrow today.

Speaker 2 (15:05):
Thanks for having

Speaker 1 (15:12):
H