Good morning. It’s John Garrett coming to you with another episode of Green Apple Slices. I have on the phone the Accountants Group Leader for Canada in Sage or something like that, I don’t know, I mixed up the phone, whatever the proper thing is. Rachel Fisch.

Rachel: Hello. How are you?

John: Doing great.

Rachel: Good.

John: I’m lying. I can’t even remember words. This is going to be fun.

Rachel: You should totally not be doing a podcast then.

John: Right. I’m sure that you think that every —

Rachel: Words are important.

John: But yeah, we’re going to have a lot of fun. We always talk through an article on engagement or culture or things like that. This one bringing it into your home court with AI talking about some artificial intelligence. The article AI, To Create New Jobs, Enhance Employee Engagement. It was on moneycontrol.com. I don’t know. I thought it was pretty interesting talking about how their take is that AI is actually going to have a positive impact on workplaces and create more engagement.

Rachel: Yes. I’m kind of a bit of a techie. I’m not sure if you’re aware. I love all of this kind of stuff. We talk to a lot of accountants and bookkeepers and all of that, of course. And so there’s been this inundation of technology in AI is incorporated with that in the industry. These jobs are going away. Accountants and bookkeepers would be obsolete and all this stuff. Meanwhile, there’s companies like mindbridge.ai out of Ottawa Ontario Canada who are actually automating audits and things like that and actually using them as constructive tools to work in a better and more efficient way for accountants which is incredibly cool. And then we have, we’re starting to see AI creeping into other industries. The two next biggest ones around accountants is also like health care and HR, human resources which is usually where that employee engagement company culture usually kind of falls under from an administrative or management standpoint.

For example, we’ve got plum.io out of Waterloo which is kind of local to me here really kind of looking into that. How can we improve the hiring experience, the engagement experience, making sure we’re really getting a great fit for not only the job but also the organization. And so, it’s been really fascinating to kind of see this new technology seep into all of these different industries in these really amazing ways. Yeah, I totally agree. This is a really positive thing in my humble opinion. Although, sure, it will replace some jobs. It will also create as a sector a lot of jobs. It’s pretty exciting to see.

John: I agree. Even the article states that there’s many things that AI is really good at. But things like communication, understanding, empathy, creativity, none of those things are — I mean you have to be a human to be able to do that.

Rachel: Right, except that then what that means is that we as professionals, now, if we weren’t doing that before, we now need to step it up. Because if the technology is taking over the redundant or automated pieces that we do in our regular everyday lives, we have to go where the machines can’t and that’s in that relationship and connection and communication piece.

John: Exactly. That’s almost exactly what I was going to say. That’s so perfect though. That’s where the whole green apple message comes in of the human side to all of us and our passions and interests outside of work make us a lot more relatable. One of my biggest pet peeves besides general surveys to entire firms and companies is people that go around calling themselves trusted advisor when they’re doing absolutely nothing for the trusted part.

Rachel: Isn’t that your favorite phrase ever?

John: Oh, man. It’s the worst. You’re not doing anything to develop trust. You’re an advisor, advisor. Developing trust is being empathetic, being human, being vulnerable and that’s where your strengths are. It’s really just getting professionals to see that that degree and certifications and all those letters after your name are important. But that’s not what develops trust, and that’s not what makes you a good leader, but it’s also the stuff that computers can’t do. It’s even more of that reason to step outside and go for that.

Rachel: Yeah, I totally agree. Closer to the end of the article, it talks about Professor Ken Goldberg leading AI Research at UC Berkeley talking about the fear that AI will surpass human thinking. There is of course a lot of fear around AI and technology because of that fear of taking jobs and stuff like that. Here’s the thing about fear is that you kind of decide what that fear does to you. Does it beat you down or does it motivate you? A lot of things that people are fearful of, it’s because they’re unproven or untested. Right now, people are afraid of this thing that nobody knows yet. You know what, how about let’s go with, we know the direction that AI is going. We know what it can’t do. Let’s go there because that we know for sure and then kind of worry about the rest later.

John: Right. I think people were scared of excel at the same way.

Rachel: I think so.

John: It was way before my time, but I’m just guessing. But yeah, if you want to read the article or see some of the data that we’re talking about in the studies that they reference, be sure to go to greenapplepodcast.com and click on the link there. Follow us on Twitter. You’re @FischBooks and I’m @RecoveringCPA, and the show itself is @GreenApplePod. Don’t forget to hit subscribe to the show, so you don’t miss any of the future episodes. Have a great rest of the week, Rachel, and we’ll check up next Monday.

Rachel: You too, John. Talk to you later.