Guy Diedrich, SVP and Global Innovation Officer at Cisco joined Cheddar to discuss how our digital diets impact our well being & an upcoming study to prove it!
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00:00We are all connected all the time being working on a laptop, scrolling social
00:07media, on our iPhones, or even tuning out on our earpods. But how are our digital
00:13diets impacting our well-being? Dr. Guy Diederich is the Cisco SVP of
00:18global innovation. He joins us from the digital well-being forum in Italy. Great
00:24to see you doctor. This is the seventh such forum that you're holding but
00:28things are different now and how you are studying our digital well-being. Tell us
00:32how. That's absolutely right. So we all as technologists and technology
00:39companies have been studying digital readiness for over a decade. There are
00:44multiple studies. Cisco has one, the World Economic Forum has one, but really we've
00:50never studied the impact of digitization on a population's well-being. And more
00:57importantly we've never really studied it at an individual level. So that's what
01:04the OECD and Cisco are doing today is launching a digital wellness hub where
01:10people can go and they can take a 10-minute survey, give us an idea of how
01:16they're interacting as a lived experience with a digital world. And
01:22we're going to be gathering that data and it's going to be incredibly useful
01:26not just for us to see how we're interacting with the world in a digital
01:31world but also help influence policy and help influence the way we develop and
01:38distribute technologies. What do you expect you'll do with that data? Were
01:42there assumptions that led you to begin studying this? Yeah the assumptions were
01:49that we're in the middle of an incredible technology evolution. A cycle
01:58that we haven't seen before. Technology is churning so quickly that it's
02:04difficult in some cases to keep up. You know every 18 to 24 months we see a
02:10complete churn of technology. Policymakers are having a hard time
02:15regulating because we're churning so fast. And so first and foremost we
02:20thought you know what let's gather this data from real users. It won't be
02:25theoretical, it won't be academic, it's actual real user data so that we can
02:30help them and inform them on the best policies moving forward. But it'll also
02:36help us as technologists to realize the impact that our technologies are having
02:43on the well-being of the very people that are stakeholders and our customers.
02:49Coming in what do you believe your biggest concerns are today regarding our
02:54digital well-being? You know I think that that remains to be seen. That is why
03:00we're creating this. I think that what you see across the board is a full
03:06spectrum approach. Let's just take AI for instance. You have a group that believes
03:13that AI is all positive, that it's going to fundamentally change the way that we
03:18interact with doctors, the way we are educated, the way we access government
03:23services and all of that's true. But then you also have this other group that is
03:28suspicious of AI, that AI may be moving too quickly. And I think that's why we
03:37have to have this sort of data so the policymakers can keep up with the speed
03:42of evolution and that we as technologists and providers of skills
03:49training can keep up with the incredible evolution of technology and innovation.
03:56When it comes to AI how concerned should we be about a the lack of guardrails and
04:02the capacity for disinformation? You know I think that we're catching up quickly.
04:09The guardrails issue has been one since chat GPT came around. Now I will tell you
04:16this that for instance inside Cisco we've had AI embedded in our technology
04:23for over 10 years. I mean AI has been studied since the late 60s. So AI is not
04:30new, there's nothing new about it. But it came to the public consciousness in just
04:37the last couple three years with the advent of chat GPT. And I think that the
04:44governments are starting to set those guardrails. They didn't want to be too
04:49quick because nobody wants to impede innovation. But at the same time you don't
04:55want people being too opportunistic and to allow people to take advantage. So I
05:02know that the EU has just come out with some good guardrails, that's a great
05:06start. I think the rest of the world will catch up quickly. And once those
05:11are in place then we're going to be able to move at speed. But you've got to have
05:15the guardrails up before you can start speeding down the highway. What gives you
05:20confidence that can happen when we still don't have guardrails around social
05:24media which has been around for decades doctor? Yeah I think that it's going to
05:29come down to a combination of three entities working together that don't
05:35usually work together. And that is industry, academia, and government. I
05:42mentioned the pace of change. You're familiar with Moore's Law. Moore's Law
05:46stated that back when doubling the processor speed every 18 months with a
05:52halving of the cost. You can now apply Moore's Law to our entire industry. It's
05:58churning so fast. And now government, academia, and industry are coming together
06:04to work to make sure that those biggest challenges are being faced and that
06:09everyone has a seat at the table. Because the challenge has always been that
06:14someone's been left out. And so you never have a consensus around those guardrails.
06:20You never have a consensus about a way forward. What we're starting to see is
06:24government, academia, and industry coming together and making sure that this
06:28doesn't happen in this case. Are you suggesting that the AI and the tech
06:33companies want these guardrails? When we look at what happened in California with
06:38some AI regulations, the AI and the tech companies squashed them. And the belief
06:44is that is what will happen across the country. Yeah I'm suggesting that that
06:52the way forward is for industry, academia, and government to come together and come
06:59up with common sense rules. As I mentioned earlier, nobody wants to squash
07:04innovation. And that's obviously what what industry wants to see. We want to be
07:09able to innovate with as much freedom as possible. At the same time, we
07:17can't write our own rules. That's where government has to come in and smartly
07:23regulate. There is a balance. There's a balance between regulation and innovation.
07:30And that's why all three have to be around the table in order to come up
07:34with those rules. Going to be difficult for government to regulate when they
07:38don't truly understand artificial intelligence. No disrespect to government
07:43officials. Most of us cannot grasp what's happening in that segment. Some of the
07:48OECD numbers that you guys have, 50% of people trust information from
07:53social media. It's more men than women. It's far more young people than old.
07:58What's your biggest concern or takeaway from those numbers? You know, we need to
08:05do a better job of educating. And that's absolutely key. Not all
08:12information that's out there is accurate information. But an educated viewer, an
08:19educated consumer, can help parse through that, can look at multiple data
08:25sources, can build a consensus of information and therefore make up their
08:30own mind. But one of the things that we've learned is that 40% of adults in
08:38OECD countries do not have digital skills. And we've got to correct that. In
08:46fact, one of the other stats that we are working on right now, trying to
08:50address, is that two thirds of the population is connected. One third of the
08:57world has no meaningful connection to the internet. And if we were to connect
09:05them, then we would instantly lift 500 million people out of poverty. We would
09:12also be contributing $6.7 trillion to global GDP. So it's not just the morally
09:19correct thing to do. It is also an economically prudent thing to do. And
09:25connecting the unconnected is something that we can do now. We know that. And
09:31here's the other point that's critical and why now is the moment for action.
09:38We're about to connect 500 billion things between now and 2030. So we the
09:44connected, you and me, and those of us that are able to watch this broadcast,
09:49we're the connected, we're the lucky ones. We're about to get on a rocket
09:54ship and go to the stratosphere. The unconnected are going to be invisible.
10:00They're going to stay on the ground. That's not fair. And they deserve to be
10:06on that rocket ship with the rest of us. So to me, number one priority moving
10:10forward is to connect the unconnected, make sure everyone has a fair shot at
10:16prosperity and equality of life.
10:18I think we can agree on that today, maybe the one day I feel like the unlucky one,
10:23being on social media and scrolling the misinformation, in particular, when it
10:28comes to our election, when it comes to our politics, never seen anything like
10:33the amount of political content we are having thrown at us today. Curious as
10:38far as Cisco comes, one of the central issues that you do see on social media
10:42regarding this election is tariffs. They will impact tech, they will impact every
10:46company in the United States. Your CEO, Chuck Robbins, criticized US tariffs on
10:52China last year, saying they were illogical. We've even seen the AutoZone
10:56CEO saying on an earnings call, they will raise tariffs in advance of them if
11:02in fact Donald Trump is elected. How do you prepare for tariffs as a major
11:08company in this country?
11:11You know, Cisco's very fortunate because we have been in the middle of watching
11:17this, along with our other technology companies and all industries, quite
11:23honestly. And what we've done is over the years, we've diversified. We've
11:29diversified broadly around the world. We have multiple countries that we source
11:35from. And quite honestly, it's what we learned coming out of COVID, is that if
11:40you rely too heavily on one country or one region for your sourcing, for your
11:47supply chain, that you do put yourself at risk. So we consciously went out there
11:53and we built up a massive supply chain network that is spread around the world.
11:59So, you know, we'll deal with tariffs as they come. But that diversity of
12:07country affiliation and where we draw from will give us some comfort.
12:13All right, Cisco SVP of Global Innovation, Dr. Guy Diederich, best of
12:18luck with the forum there. Thanks so much for spending some time with us here
12:21on Cheddar.
12:22It's my pleasure. Thank you for having me.