Exploring The Dynamic Potential Of AI with Manuj Aggarwal

FN Intro/Outro: Welcome to the Freedom Nation podcast with Jeff Kikel. On this show, Jeff shares his expertise in financial and retirement planning from a different perspective. Planning for Your Freedom Day, which is the first day that you wake up and have enough income or assets and do not have to go to work that day. Learn how to calculate what you need, how to generate income sources, and listen to interviews from others who've done it themselves. Get ready to experience your own Freedom Day.

Hello, Freedom Nation. It's Jeff here once again with another episode of The Freedom nation podcast and today's show. I have Manuj Aggarwal on he is an expert in artificial intelligence. And he's got a really interesting story of how he got from India to Canada, and worked with wind from working in a factory to being a sought after consultant helping implement artificial intelligence. So Mauj Welcome to the show, my friend.

Thank you so much for having me. Excited to be here.

Glad to have you on. I'm looking forward to hearing your story again. So let's, let's kick us off. Why don't you tell the folks about our your story and how you got to where you're at today? Yeah, sure.

But as you said, you know, I grew up in India, and most people can recognize x and I grew up in a small town. And there were very limited opportunities. This, we are talking about 30 years ago, and India was still a developing country. And being in a small town in developing country, you don't get a lot of opportunities. So I, I, you know, my career started at 16 working in a factory. And one, one evening or afternoon, I was going through some business magazines, reading success stories of these tycoons who made you know, empires, starting from nothing. And I think that that was the seed of a very powerful inspiration. Because I started thinking, okay, you know, if these people can change their lives, like, what is wrong with me, why can't I change my life? And, you know, at that time, obviously, you know, you don't actually know what actually happened, what changed in your mind, but it started creating some thoughts in my mind that, okay, you know, I need to acquire an high value skill, so that I can create more value in the in the in the world. And that led me to learning about software and technology, and computers. And it was, it was not easy for me to acquire all that knowledge. You know, even the computer course I enrolled in the fee was more than what I used to make in a year. So you know, it used to be like, it took took me a couple of years to get that. And, and that it turned out like once I got in, I was really good at it. I enjoyed it, you know, I was spending countless nights just programming and wheeling value. And so that was the start of my career and then came over to Canada. This was the.com, boom, time around 1998 99. I got a job quickly. But then the.com bust happened September 11 happened and Gulf War started. So I during that period, you know, I lost three or four jobs within two years. So I was like, okay, you know, this job security thing doesn't work. Doesn't matter whether you're in North America, or any other country. So which led me to start my consulting company, I thought, okay, you know, if I'm going to be like, uncertain my might as well start my company and start helping more clients. So

Uncertain, but I'll be in control of my life at least. Exactly. Exactly.

Yeah. So So you know, that was a, like a good blessing in disguise. I started working with multiple clients, and help many startups build their technology. And then I started working with Fortune 500 clients. So I worked with Microsoft, Pearson Education, we build systems, which scaled globally like it generated hundreds of billions, or sorry, hundreds of millions in revenue per year. And, you know, going from startups working with these fortune five hundreds, I saw the gamut of like, you know, how business works or digital business in this economy. So I started getting deeper into technology, artificial intelligence, Blockchain, all of these things were really good. But then I was having a lot of problems at home with my ex spouse and you know, my relationship with my kids with my parents. So all of these personal challenges made me depressed and I almost became suicidal at one point. And that was a wake up call for me. I was like, you know, okay, you know, what am I doing with my life like all this professional success is not going to lead to any, any fulfillment, if I if I'm not happy, so which led me to like meditation and learning about my own mind and How our reality is affected by by ourselves. And so, as I was unpacking our human mind, our psychology, I was also understanding the impact of AI. And not only in a sense of, okay, you know, what can I do to help business or automate things? But also, how does the human mind get affected by AI and vice versa, because interesting see around us, our lives are controlled by the information we consume, and the information we consume on daily basis, starting from social media, to even like, you know, the podcasts we are recommended, or videos, we watch online, or, you know, advertisements that we are shown, everything is actually controlled by AI. So when you start to put all these pieces together, you know, you start to think, oh, you know, AI is not just a technology, it's a way of, it's almost like a way of life. It's almost like a foundation of process of society. Almost like the internet now. Right? Yeah. So. So when I started noticing all this, then I started thinking, you know, so AI is causing a lot of anxiety in people, a lot of stress in people. And I was one of the victims of that. And so, when you think about any technology, it technology itself is never harmful, or it's never, you know, nefarious in, in itself, but the humans who use it, they use it for nefarious purposes, maybe knowingly, unknowingly. So I thought, okay, you know, AI is a powerful technology that can help shape our thoughts. So why can't we use the same technology to help open up people's minds and help them see what is what is the potential they have in their life, help them reach some meditative states, because another thing that happened was like, meditation saved my life, when I, when I talked to people about meditation, they're like, oh, I don't have time, you know, my head, my mind is not still enough. So I was like, okay, then you should meditate even more, but I know, that's not gonna happen. So, then, you know, having done research on AI, and all that, I also came across methods on how AI can be used to get you to experience a meditative state, almost. And then so all of these things combined now is is my work now, you know, using AI, because, you know, helping people open up their mind at an individual level can also be scaled at the organizational level, business level, community level. So what we do is what we now do is in our company, we use all this knowledge, and help people really leverage the full power of AI. Because I see people are just scratching the surface of AI right now, just right, using it to write you know, content. But if you go deeper, it can actually impact how we think how we take action in the world, how we serve people, a lot of these, like, these very, very deep and profound implications of AI is what we implement for businesses.

That's wonderful. Yeah, I mean, yeah, I think, to me, this is intriguing. You know, I, I look back and I feel like I'm an implementer of AI. But the reality is, I haven't even been involved with it for more than a year, at the, you know, I feel like the world has changed massively in such a short period of time. I mean, what do you see, I already love where you're going with this. But what you know, where do you see AI fitting into the world going forward? You know, if we fast forward, let's say five years, because it's moving so fast. Yeah. Yeah.

See, I'll give you an example. Five years is a long time, as you said, first, let's address that. So AI is going to be as instrumental and essential as fire or electricity. Okay, so let me repeat that. Again, if you can imagine your life without fire or electricity or any activity that you do in your life, then you can imagine your life without AI. That is how profound this technology is. Regarding the timeframe. So AI is estimated it is going to add about $10 trillion to the world economy by 2030. Okay, so the current world economy, yearly output is $96 trillion. More than 10% of the total world's wealth is going to be added by AI in the next seven years. And so, this has happened before, as well, like technology moves so fast. So I'll give you an example of that in 1995. It was the first time I logged on to the internet. And in 1998, three years later, if I did not have an email address, I could not apply for an entry level job. Right?

I totally Yeah, I'm in the same world. We must be pretty close in age because, you know, my, I started to work, or I started to working for Fidelity Investments in 1995. Same as you. And I remember, I mean, we had just literally like two months before I got there. They had set up the first web page at fidelity. And I mean, it was horrible. It was just like a one pager where you could click to like, a PDF document or something like that. And, you know, I mean, within five years, yeah, we were, we were doing financial plans online. And I mean, just massively changed so quickly. Yeah.

So that's where we are. But the only difference this time around is, it's 1010. Or maybe like a magnitude, times faster and more impactful than the internet now, because what what it will do is, you know, human, human civilization and capitalist societies are based on our cognitive abilities, how fast we can think and come up with solutions. But the now with AI, you cannot compete, the cognitive level, you cannot think fast enough, or, you know, accurate enough like Einstein, Einstein, I believe, had an IQ of 170. Today, AI has an IQ of 1000. So you cannot, you cannot compete with that. So, so that's where we are going, because it will start to break down our reliance on our cognitive ability and force us to, you know, empathize with other people and sort of listen to other people to understand what they need, and then use AI to solve those problems.

Yeah, I mean, it's interesting, too, because I guess, you know, from a relational standpoint, I'm actually taking a course through MIT. And it's heavily math focused. Yeah. And so there were some concepts I just wasn't getting, you know, and I would go back, and I'd watch and I'd watch and I watched the videos, and they just wasn't coming around to me. And it was interesting, because I pose the the answer, I posed a question to chat GPT. And I was like, okay, here, I'll here's, here's the question, I'm being asked to help me find the answer. Well, it, quite frankly, was a better teacher than then the class that I was getting it from, because not only did it doesn't just give you the answer, it gave a very detailed and expletive answer of, okay, well, this is why and this is it. And here's all the steps and everything else. So it's interesting how it can learn. And it can you know, it can be a really good teacher.

There you go. Yeah, there you go. You can see in that narrative that you shared with me, how AI was able to enhance your mind. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And so if you if you do that at a scale at a societal level, and it can teach you new skills, imagine the impact it can have.

Right? Well, and and the fact that it has the ability to look at every piece of information that's ever existed on this planet, you know, so you compare that to a professor who, yes, they are an expert in their area, but they don't have the ability to access everything in the world, and come up with, you know, with an answer, or come up with an explanation of why the EU would do it this way. So it's intriguing to me, I think, you know, from my own world, I see how things have changed. I mean, I, you know, initially used it very much as a content creation tool. And I've seen how it's expanded my world even more, and how different ways I could use it. So you know, I use it now, when I'm making real estate decisions and things along those lines to say, Okay, well, here's, you know, here's three different options. Here's the details of them, you know, what should the decision process or, you know, think through the decision process with me? Exactly,

exactly. Yeah, that's just so amazing. Because there are only a handful of people like you who I mean, the you are, you belong to a category of innovators. And there are only two to 3% of the human population that dive into these new concepts. Because let's face it, there is so much fear and confusion about AI out there, right. It takes a lot of how can I say, almost a lot of courage to get over all that misinformation and say, okay, you know, I'm going to try it. So what you're doing is, is is fantastic, like using it to your advantage, and and reaping the benefits of that I wish more people were doing that, in fact, that is that is one of the reasons why I go on these podcasts to tell people don't get into the fear. You know, use it.

Don't Don't let people complained about machines and you know, the Luddites in England in the 17. Now hundreds and early 1800s, that, you know, thought factory machines, were going to get rid of the working class. No, it just made it easier, easier and safer for them to do a lot of the stuff that they were doing, and it was much more productive. And, you know, I think in the world of the mind, I see AI being, you know, a mind enhancer, in a lot of cases. But you know, the the other part that I've learned with it is, it doesn't always have the right answer. So you really, you know, people think that, oh, well, I can just put the anthy I put the question in and it'll answer the question, it doesn't always have the right answer. So you better have an idea of where you're going with it. And does that answer look? Right? You know, when you're when you're asking a question of it?

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, I tell people again, you know, AI is such a powerful thing. Imagine if you come across a wise professor who has, you know, multiple PhDs, and he or she can answer any of your questions. What will you ask them? You know, that that's what, how you need to see GPD and AI, as being this wise person. But if you ask a wrong question, you'll get the wrong answer. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting.

Well, now, you know, here's the other, I always love the conspiracy theorists that, you know, have theorized that Well, the reason that it gives certain answers is because it was programmed a certain way. I think they are missing the boat, a lot of cases because, yes, it was programmed a certain way, but it learns on its own, and then it learns the world around it. So yes, it might not have been programmed that way, but it will eventually learn and it will eventually hounds, correct?

You well, you know, this is a very interesting question. Yes. And no, because people say it was programmed certain way and it should be bias free, and it should not have any, you know, like any preferences, anything like that. But the end of the day, everything that we do in our life, as humans is going to be biased, because humans are biased. You know, we cannot we cannot help but being biased, because we like familiarity, we like to feel comfortable in a situation with people and all that. So, when AI collects the data from the world, it is collecting that bias data, because that is our human behavior, right? So it is, in a way be realistically speaking is not biased. But then once the model is ready, they have to add some protective measures so that AI cannot be misused. I'll give you an example. Okay, so I was talking to a very famous film director just recently. And he was trying to write a script for like a horror movie like a, you know, some sort of a like a thriller. And he was talking to AI about okay, you know, how, how will Jack the Ripper, you know, murder somebody, you know, I want a script of that. And then AI said, you know, I cannot do that to you, sorry, you know, and he was getting frustrated. Why? Why is it not doing that? So I was like, Okay, if you think that is, it's okay, for the AI to give you all this details? How about if somebody said, Okay, help me build a nuclear bomb? And then he was like, Oh, okay.

That's bad. Yeah. You know, that along those lines, though, I mean, do you feel like they're at this point in time that there does need to be some further curbs? On it, you know, so that it doesn't get used in the wrong way going forward? I know, there's been a lot of concern in the industry. And some of the biggest minds in the industry have said, along this lines,

Feet, the thing is, anything that humans build will be misused. That's just the the just the fact. You know, that's just a fact. The thing is, of course, we need regular regulations. Of course, we need, you know, safeguards. And this is an evolving technology. No, no doubt those will come into play. Yeah, but we also have to think about, you know, humanity has become the most powerful species on this planet. Because not because 5% of the people are bad, and they use technology for bad purposes. But 95% of the people are good, and they use technology for good purposes. And so no matter what 5% of the population does, we will always find a solution to fix that problem. So it doesn't, it doesn't have to, like you know, imagine a car can be used to you know, run over people or you can go and get groceries, we can make your life easier. So, that is not to say a car is a bad invention or cannot be you know, us or whatever. There has to be regulation rules, all of that stuff. And those are coming in, you know, as we speak, you know, Singapore has passed on legislation Europe is working on on one US is working on one. But apart from regulation, we just need to know that, you know, humans are the species, they use technology for good overall. And that's just the way it is. Yeah. Well, and

I mean, the reality is, it's it is becoming Yeah, I think literally every marketing program that I have, that I use in my business has brought in an AI component to it, you know, and it's, in a lot of cases, it's been an amazing enhancement. You know, when I'm sitting there facing a blank page, it's nice to be able to put in some parameters and go boom, you know, okay, now I've got something to work with. And yes, I'm probably still gonna go in and edit that or whatever. I actually did a course, for Udemy on how to write a book, using AI, you know, and it's, once again, it's not something that I see. You can't just go in and say, Hey, write a book about X, boom, and then go, it just, I mean, it stopped. Yeah, it kind of stops and goes, No, I'm not going to do that. But you know, fleshing out chapters or getting an outline, I find it to be exceptionally good at. So I just see the world being improved. And I agree with you. I think it is. I think when we look back five years from today, it's going to be a point of, you know, can you use fire candy? Yeah. Can you live without fire? Can you live without an internet connection? At that point? You know, I think it's totally different. So what you know, in your world, what's really new, that you're working on? For the future, if you're willing to share?

What, you know, it's a very first step infancy of AI right now. But just like you mentioned, you know, fidelity had this ugly web page, you know, in 1995. That's where we are with AI right now. Right? So what people are trying to figure out, okay, how do I use AI? For my benefit? How do I make more money? How do I, you know, grow my business. And those are the things where we are going into businesses, medium sized, large, large scale businesses, and some small scale businesses, like, you know, you like yourself as well, where people are thinking forward until saying, okay, you know, I know AI is coming, it's like a tsunami that is approaching, how do I get ahead? And then what we do is we sit down with them, and we say, Okay, tell me, what is the biggest problem? Or where is your the most of your time being consumed? Where is most of the money being, you know, produced from? How do we now break it down and use AI to speed things up? So a couple of examples will be, you know, working with one company, and what they do is they provide human resources to their clients. So they have a team of about 200. And their goal is to double that within the next year or two. So then we start, okay, you know, where are they spending most of their time, these 200 people, and now we break it down, and we start to shave off, like, you know, okay, one minute here, two minutes here, you know, using AI, and now we are on track to double their capacity without hiring, even a single, more employee, right? So so these are the kinds of things that you can start doing. And it's no different than start using internet for your business, start using smartphone apps for your business. Technology always enhances your capacity to do more, right? Yeah,

if you use it correctly, I think, you know, the other part of it is using it to eliminate those repetitive tasks that your employees are doing, that are not the best use of their time, you know, let's use that. And let's use it to do those repetitive tasks. Because it never gets bored. It doesn't ask for, you know, a raise, because it's not, you know, being fulfilled or whatever. It's exactly. Just keep doing those repetitive tasks over and over and over again, which is

fantastic. I'm getting smarter over time. Yes,

I am. I'm super excited for the world coming up. I think you you've assuaged a lot of fears that people have about AI. And you know, like I said, I think the most important thing I by my nature, I'm an experimenter. But you know, I think for people that haven't tried to use AI, I mean, it one everything that you have, whether it's Google or whether it's chat, TPT or whatever, I would say just start treading on testing it. Yeah, you're met with that. That was a lot of what I did was just kind of experiment with it and see what it would do and see where the, you know, if you if you don't if you're not very explicit about what you want, it's gonna give you not a really great answer. You know, I think one of the things I learned was, I think, and this may be I don't know if it's with other platforms like this, but chatty, busy especially. I had You know, I have a unique terminology in my business that I use that isn't, you know, this isn't terminology that's available in the world. It's my own take. It's my unique language that I use. And I actually had to have one specific Chat, where I built out it's probably a several 100,000 words at this point. And it that's basically its resource field. When I ask a question, or when I when I'm trying to do something, it's all within that one chat, because we've built that together. So you know, I think that was something that I experimented with, and found, because then every time I started a new chat, it was like, it never heard the stuff that I had done before. And yeah,

fantastic. You know, I mean, these are the things, these are the things that when people start doing, you know, now you start to open up your mind, you start to see the possibilities. And then your mind automatically starts to connect more dots. And okay, you know, where can I? Where else can I use it? Where what, you know, what else can I do with this? Right?

Yeah, absolutely. Well, I mean, I am just super excited. And I thank you for coming on today to talk about that. So let's transition to the first five questions. Surely? Yeah. All right. So first question, you wake up in the morning business is gone, you have $500 in your pocket, a laptop computer, place to live? What are you going to do first?

Well, I will start reaching out to my network, asking them what kind of problems they are facing today and start giving them help to solve those problems, without any expectations of any money back, because I know that if I provide enough value, you know, eventually, it will convert into dollars into my account.

Yeah, exactly. But I mean, I think this is one of the more common answers to questions I get. It's, it most often is I'm going to reach out to my network. And I think that's, that's the important thing that people need to understand is you have a natural network, even if you're not out there in business for yourself, you have a network of people that you know, that you can reach out to and say, hey, you know, here's my situation. Here's what, you know, here's my situation, what, you know, what challenges are you facing or that you're seeing out in the world? And then how can I help you fix them? Yeah, exactly. Exactly. What is the biggest business mistake you've ever made?

You know, the biggest business mistake, I believe, business is all about people. And my biggest mistake far my, my hire that didn't work out. And I kept giving them more time because I get emotionally attached to them. And I don't I don't want to, you know, sort of let them go. But at some point, I should have realized, okay, you know, this is, it's for their own good as well, that we part ways sooner. That has been a painful lesson for sure.

As one of my guests said, I think it was a couple of years ago put it he is, you know, you can't have Eagles if you hire turkeys. Yeah. No matter no matter what you think of them, and how much you love them. It's just not going to work. And sometimes it's the it's the best thing for both of you to say, you know, you're not happy. I'm not happy. Let's let's figure out how to make you make both of us happy. And yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. What's a good book that you would recommend for our audience?

So there's a book called Principles of work and life by Ray Dalio. So Ray Dalio is one of the most successful hedge fund managers. And so his approach to building companies and even just humanity is fascinating. Like, you know, he basically has a concept of radical transparency. And he can call you out on your weaknesses and strengths. And it's a radical approach. So read it, and I think it had a big impact on me, read it for yourself and then see how you can implement it in your life

and business. I love it. What is a good tool that you use in your business every day that you might recommend for our audience?

So you know, we obviously we use Chad GPT we use a bunch of other AI tools I don't recommend so Okay, so here is the situation a lot of people ask me what tools do I use? We are a software company so we build our own tools for ourselves. But when I recommend to people okay, what can they use, I will say go with the most reliable the most stable tools which is charge GPT if you want to do something with video with the with the images, use mid journey or you know, even charge GPT has its proper like capabilities now. And other than that, if you're looking for something specific, go with some company which is reputed Because right now it's the wild wild west of AI, there's gonna be millions and millions of AI tools that you may find fascinating. But how long? Are they going to stick around for your business to rely on them? That is a question. So, so think about going with larger sort of more stable companies for now. But as things settle down, then you can start to venture into more sort of experimental smaller tools.

Oh, yeah. Especially if you've got majority of your the things that you're doing on that one main tool? Yeah, maybe there's some things that can enhance that or can tweak, you know, whatever you have, because I've done that with a few, you know, we're, I might create an article on chat GPT. And it wasn't, it wasn't the greatest. But take that and then throw it into another tool that can actually massage it a little bit more and, you know, get it a little bit farther down the road to where I can personally edit it. I mean, I like that idea. Last question, what is your definition of freedom?

I think freedom is, you know, if, if you can do anything that you like, with the anyone that you like, at anywhere you like in your life, I think that's true freedom. And inherently, everybody is running after that. But I think what, what happens is they think, oh, I need to make certain amount of money before I can do that. But if they just flip that on its head and just say, Okay, I'm going to do that, regardless, whether I have money in the bank or not, it just a radical shift happens, because the money starts to follow you almost you know,

that's, you know, it's one of the principles of our Freedom Day method that we use is, the second step in the process is to actually build a bucket list, and build that bucket list, and then choose just two or three things on the bucket list and figure out a way to make the money to do those two or three things. And it's that little shift of not postponing the reward, but giving yourself the permission to have the reward, then figuring out how to get to it. You know, I think that's, that's the way that you know, you flip it on its head. So absolutely. I totally agree with you where you're going with that, because it is it's that mind shift. And I think it was the mind shift you made in your own personal life as well, of saying, You know what, I'm not happy. I'm, you know, the things around me are not working. What do I have to do to shift those things around me, so that the rest of my life works?

Absolutely, absolutely.

Yeah. Good on you, man. Well, thank you so much for being on I appreciate it. It was a wonderful conversation. I could talk for hours with you about this stuff. Thank you for your time and your help to our audience and advice to the audience.

Absolutely. I'm glad to be of service. Well,

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