PAPod 618 - Poop In...Louder Poop Out?

PreAccident Investigation Podcast

This episode features host Todd interviewing Brent Sutton about their new book, The AI Paradox in Safety. They explore how artificial intelligence can

Key takeaways

Brent Sutton emphasizes that AI amplifies existing organizational culture rather than improving it, making leadership mindset crucial.
The book warns against surveillance-heavy AI implementations like Flock cameras and exclusion zone tracking, which foster blame over learning.

Main topics

AI in safety and reliability
Surveillance vs. learning culture

Notable quotes

"AI won't make the organization's culture better. It only amplifies the culture that's there."

Conclusion

Listeners gain a balanced framework for evaluating AI tools through a

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:00) So you guys are still having quite nice days. Speaker 1 (0:03) Yeah, Speaker 2 (0:04) exactly. Speaker 1 (0:04) The days are nice. And we've had, New Mexico's had a lot of rain, which is really highly unusual. I mean, like a couple inches in the last couple days. So that's, I don't know what that is in centimeters, like a thousand million centimeters, I think. Did I do the translation correctly? Speaker 2 (0:24) Yeah, you'll get there one day. Speaker 1 (0:40) Hey everybody, welcome to the Pre-Accident Investigation Podcast. I'm Todd. I'm your host. Well, we've got another exciting podcast, but before we go one step further, I want to take a moment and thank everybody who reached out from last week's podcast. It was a hard week for me. You could probably tell, but the amount of love and just... contacts I got really, really was helpful. Thank you so much. It means so much to me. It's weird. Grief is kind of a crazy thing. Crazy enough that Anderson Cooper pretty much talks about it on my phone every day, or I get some kind of thing. It's a process I'm going through, and it's so helpful to have people that reach out. Thank you so much for that. That means a ton to me. Today's pod is interesting. Because if you're not watching the news, you must live in some kind of cave. Because everything is about AI. And the fact that AI is eventually going to take over and kill us all and there's a 10 % chance. I mean, there's a lot going on here. And yet in the safety and reliability world, AI is kind of all people talk about. Like you go to a conference, there's 9 million people that have AI stuff that they want to hook you up with. And maybe it's good. Maybe it's not. I mean, I don't know. And I'm really struggling to kind of figure it out. You could probably tell. If you listen to the podcast, you know that it's a topic that I've picked up on a bunch before because I see great potential for it, no doubt. But I also see a lot of pretty gigantic pitfalls. Like I'm not in love with the flat camera thing. I mean, I don't like that idea. I don't like the idea of surveillance as a way to manage behavior. I mean, I'll grant you that a watched worker behaves differently than a non-watched worker. We know that's true. And there's a whole phenomena around it. If you're interested, check out the Hawthorne effect. It's a pretty interesting thing to look up because you'll get kind of the history of general electric and plants and industrial safety and production and efficiency. But I'm still not in love with the fact that there's kind of a big brother looking over your shoulder. I don't know how you feel. And you may feel differently. I just don't. And it's something that's, I've thought about it a bunch for many, many different reasons at many different places in my life. I'm not really happy with the increased amount of surveillance that's happening. It seems like it's. squelching our ability to sort of have free will. And that is always sort of the underlying topic of every podcast that exists. That's what today's about. So take a moment and listen to this pod. It's a discussion with Brent Sutton and Brent Robinson, and they had some help with a co-author named Nicola Noble, and they're going to talk about their new book. And their new book, I think, is kind of worth looking at. And I don't... casually recommend books. I mean, this one's a pretty good read. It's called The AI Paradox in Safety, Blame and Punish or Learn and Improve. Let's go into the conversation now and you tell me what you think by the time we get to the end. Here it is. Speaker 1 (4:13) We're the worst. Okay. Freedom units. Freedom units. I'm sorry. Freedom units. Yes, exactly. Okay. I'm holding a copy of it right here. The AI Paradox in Safety. Oh, you have one too. That's weird. Yeah. So this is a book by the Brents, Brent Sutton and Brent Robinson. And this book, so first of all, Brent, I mean, and I don't, usually I say this and don't mean it, but. This is really super readable. Yes. Which you kind of think a book on AI and a book with the term paradox in the title would not be very readable. I'm just saying it has the potential bones of being either highly technical or super academic. And it's neither. Yes. Speaker 2 (5:05) No, no, Speaker 1 (5:07) but that's Speaker 2 (5:07) probably reflective of the authors. Speaker 1 (5:10) So, yeah, you're right. I mean, you can hear your guys' voice in it for sure. It's just really, it's really grabbable. Part of it is that it's definitely laid out for the working safety professional. So it's got old man size type. So it's got larger type and it's double spaced and it's just really readable. Although that's, quite honestly, with this book, we shouldn't waste a lot of time talking about it. the fact that it's readable and it looks good. What we ought to talk about is what on earth, how are you motivated to tackle this topic? Because the thing that scares me most about AI as a safety person is not the benefits that AI can give us. And AI is in the news. I don't know in New Zealand if it's like it is in the United States. It's in the news all the time. And then the fact that they're coming out and saying that AI could destroy humanity in the next 10 % chance. destroy humanity and that it's getting loose. It's got lots of potential pitfalls for sure. The biggest one of which, at least from the safety standpoint, is I'm really worried about, you know, how it's used as a surveillance tool. You know, flock cameras, all the weird crap now at all the airports. I mean. The potential for it to sort of surveil a worker is really high, and I'm just not sure there's any benefit to that. Okay, that's the longest question on earth. What's going on? Tell me why you did this. Speaker 2 (6:47) Yeah, well, a couple of reasons. We've always talked about, you know, when we're working in hot, the whole purpose is to stop doing safety to people. Right. Stop doing safety for people. Start doing safety with people. Speaker 1 (7:02) Yeah. Yeah, I mean, that's exactly the shift. If you ask me what the biggest shift is, that's the biggest shift, is that how we look at the workforce is changing. Speaker 2 (7:13) Absolutely. So AI just has that power to amplify that. Speaker 1 (7:18) Yes. Speaker 2 (7:19) So for those that do want to surveil and monitor, and when I say monitor, they're really basically surveilling to make sure they're doing what the system says. Speaker 1 (7:29) Yeah. Speaker 2 (7:30) Then AI is simply going to amplify that whole doing safety to people. Speaker 2 (7:36) So why tackle this? I mean, isn't this kind of a big topic? I'm sure it is. And I know lots of people said to me, you know, the book will become dated. But the book is not about what AI model you choose. Right.