Work in Progress GS301

CES 2024: ‘AI is the buzzword’

A conversation with Gary Shapiro, president and CEO, Consumer Technology Association
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In this episode of the Work in Progress podcast for WorkingNation, we travel to the largest technology show in the world – CES 2024 in Las Vegas – to talk to Gary Shapiro, president and CEO of the Consumer Technology Association (CTA), about the impact of technology on the way we do our jobs and what job skills we’re going to need in the future.

CES, produced by the nonprofit CTA, showcases companies from around the world, including manufacturers, developers and suppliers of technology hardware, software, content, technology delivery systems, and more.

“AI is the buzzword for CES 2024,” Shapiro tells me.

From manufacturing to health care to cybersecurity, most of the 4,000 exhibitors on the showroom floor are highlighting how they are changing their industry using advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning.

Here is some of Shapiro’s thoughts on the power of AI and the impact on the way we work and live.

“AI has been around for a while, but what’s changed in the last year or so is that generative AI has come along with ChatGPT, available to anyone who wants to download it, and, now, there’s some other competitors out there. It basically can create things and learn from them based on feedback, which I think is a good thing. Certainly, 99.99% of the uses of this learning AI is such that it’ll be very positive.

“I think the long-term future potential is combining AI and robotics, which is what a self-driving car is. But to take that one step further, there would be all sorts of devices and things which provide service and mobility.

“They’ll move some of the horrible jobs of society that are perhaps more dangerous. Clearly, it started out years ago with bomb disposal units. Why should a human sacrifice their lives in the hope they’re saving others, or their limbs, when a machine could do a lot of that, perhaps, with greater accuracy.

“In every area of endeavor where people are getting hurt, or injured, or they’re getting sick which is avoidable, I think we have an opportunity there with AI. And then, of course, some of the business processes that we all deal with in our jobs, those can be made more efficient with AI.”

Shapiro adds that in addition to highlighting the latest tech innovations using AI, CES is examining all tech’s potential impact on basic human securities – community security, health security, political security, environmental security.

“You combine these technologies in incredible ways and the future for eliminating human suffering, improving the human condition, solving fundamental global problems with technology, is absolutely amazing.”

Listen to the podcast here, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also find the conversation on our new Work in Progress YouTube channel.

Episode 301: Gary Shapiro, president and CEO, Consumer Technology Association
Host & Executive Producer: Ramona Schindelheim, Editor-in-Chief, WorkingNation
Producer: Larry Buhl
Theme Music: Composed by Lee Rosevere and licensed under CC by 4
Transcript: Download the transcript for this episode here
Work in Progress Podcast: Catch up on previous episodes here

Dana Beth Ardi

Executive Committee

Dana Beth Ardi, PhD, Executive Committee, is a thought leader and expert in the fields of executive search, talent management, organizational design, assessment, leadership and coaching. As an innovator in the human capital movement, Ardi creates enhanced value in companies by matching the most sought after talent with the best opportunities. Ardi coaches boards and investors on the art and science of building high caliber management teams. She provides them with the necessary skills to seek out and attract top-level management, to design the ideal organizational architectures and to deploy people against strategy. Ardi unearths the way a business works and the most effective way for people to work in them.

Ardi is an experienced business executive and senior consultant who leverages business organizational transformation through talent strategies. She uses her knowledge and experience to develop talent strategies to enhance revenue and profit contributions. She has a deep expertise in change management and organizational effectiveness and has designed and built high performance cultures. Ardi has significant experience in mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, IPO’s and turnarounds.

Ardi is an expert on the multi-generational workforce. She understands the four intersecting generations of workers coming together in contemporary companies, each with their own mindsets, leadership and communications styles, values and motivations. Ardi is sought after to assist companies manage and thrive by bringing the generations together. Her book, Fall of the Alphas: How Beta Leaders Win Through Connection, Collaboration and Influence, will be published by St. Martin’s Press. The book reflects Ardi’s deep expertise in understanding organizations and our changing society. It focuses on building a winning culture, how companies must grow and evolve, and how talent influences and shapes communities of work. This is what she has coined “Corporate Anthropology.” It is a playbook on how modern companies must meet challenges – culturally, globally, digitally, across genders and generations.

Ardi is currently the Managing Director and Founder of Corporate Anthropology Advisors, LLC, a consulting company that provides human capital advisory and innovative solutions to companies building value through people. Corporate Anthropology works with organizations, their cultures, the way they grow and develop, and the people who are responsible for forming their communities of work.

Prior to her position at Corporate Anthropology Advisors, Ardi served as a Partner/Managing Director at the private equity firms CCMP Capital and JPMorgan Partners. She was a partner at Flatiron Partners, a venture capital firm working with early state companies where she pioneered the human capital role within an investment portfolio.

Ardi holds a BS from the State University of New York at Buffalo as well as a Masters degree and PhD from Boston College. She started her career as professor at the Graduate Center at Fordham University in New York.