2024 Year End Recap – Part One

Gene Volpe:

What’s up, Bridgecast Nation? Today, we’re switching it up a little bit. If you’ve been following us for the last couple of years, I dunno if you can believe this or not, but it’s going to be three years of doing this podcast. You believe that? Wow. It’s crazy, right? If time flies when you’re having fun. 

Scott Kinka:

Tiny third annual, kind of like two, two years and a quarter. 

Gene Volpe:

Yeah. Yeah. July. I think we taped our first episode. July of 22. What episode are we up to? This is going to probably be 70. Okay. No, 69. Wow. I’m not going to tell you; just let that go. But listen, we’re going to do something different today. Finally, every year. I think you are waiting for this. Scott is on the hot seat. So the bridge cast with Scott Kinka, star Scott, he brings in, we bring in a whole bunch of people throughout the year. Friends, business partners, authors. We had ’em last year. We had everything last year. Today. This one’s going to be chockful of stuff. You’re not going to want to miss it. I have some surprises for him. I have some surprises for you. We’re going to recap 2024. We’re going to talk about Tech Summit. We’re going to get into AI. We’re going to talk about AI. I don’t know if we’re going to scare them or not. Is AI going to get into it? Is AI going to be taking your job? We’re going to talk about that, right?  So why don’t we get started?  I thought you said you were going to open the wine while I did the intro. 

Scott Kinka:

Well, we do it now. 

Gene Volpe:

You want to do it now? We did it. 

Scott Kinka:

We did wine last year. 

Gene Volpe:

Alright, so you do that. 

Scott Kinka:

We’re just going to do it. 

Gene Volpe:

Okay, let’s go. So talk to me about this one. I like it. 

Scott Kinka:

You know this one? 

Gene Volpe:

I do, actually. Yeah, it was a little bit of a setup. I think it was a little bit of a setup. That’s okay. 

Scott Kinka:

Why do you know this one? 

Gene Volpe:

Should I get into it? 

Scott Kinka:

Do it just real quick. 

Gene Volpe:

Real quick. We went to Italy in 2023. A good friend of mine said, if you were to go to Italy, hire these guys as your travel guides and by good friends. I mean, this guy here, we did it. I took his advice. They took us to this winery called Po, which I got back with some wine. Showed it to him. He said we were there too. So we’ve both been there. And then every year right around this time, as a matter of fact, if I’m being honest, tomorrow night’s the night. Tomorrow night, yeah. They fly in and do a USA World tour from Tuscany with a bunch of bottles of wine. They shipped it to my house, and we had a big event and a big dinner. Forty people, I think, will be there tomorrow night. There’ll be more of this served. I promise you. Tomorrow night. So this is what we’re going to do today. I appreciate this greatly. So, while we’re doing that, let’s celebrate a little bit. 25 episodes. In 2024, thousands of downloads. We had a super successful T Summit 2024 in Palm Springs with over 450 of our closest friends. That aside, are there any moments that you would take out some highlights from 2024, whether it be around the podcast or on the tech summit, business life, or whatever? Talk to me about some highlights. 

Scott Kinka:

I think we’re going to get into a lot of them. We will, right? Well, I mean, you mentioned Tech Summit, which was amazing. Before we do it there, let’s do this: Thank you for another great year on the pod. 

Gene Volpe:

Absolutely. 

Scott Kinka:

And hopefully, you’re all celebrating with us. So let’s sip this guy, and thank you. 

Gene Volpe:

O,h man. 

Scott Kinka:

Just like I remember it. 

Gene Volpe:

What year did you open up? 

Scott Kinka:

It was 19. 

Gene Volpe:

That’s 2019. And that was the Chianti Classico. It was the Chiante Classico. Listen, he’s not being cheap today. That’s a good wine. That’s a good bottle of wine.

Scott Kinka:

That’s a good bottle. I’m just being honest. That’s not cheap. I mean, look, there were just so many special moments. We had unbelievable guests this year. I do. Of course. This summit’s always a highlight, not only what everybody in podcast Lynn got to see on our AI episode, but that entire event was just over the top. The keynote there, the speakers we had there, and the friends we had on the show. I don’t want to steal thunder from your hits throughout the episode, so I’m going to leave that go. Obviously, our guests this year were amazing. We had a fantastic time with some of our own this year, which was great. It wasn’t just external guests. We had some bridge pointers on there as well. So I think it was amazing. And look, at the end of the day, it was a banner year for us at Bridgepointe. I think it was a banner year in the industry. I think the idea of letting someone else take care of the plumbing while you figure out how to build the house is resonating with C-level executives. And it’s been, as a result, just a boon for alternative models of IT procurement like the ones we deliver. But in terms of the moments, maybe we will just leave it for some. I’m curious to see what you picked out. Oh, I picked; I’m not going to spill the pump. 

Gene Volpe:

Okay. But I do want to go back to something that you just said real quick. Give me that little plumber thing again. 

The Evolving Role of IT Leadership: From Cost Center to Strategic Partner

Scott Kinka:

Well, I think, look, at the end of the day, we talk about this a lot. If you’re an IT director CIO, you’re just in various phases even of your IT career. I think what’s interesting about the last couple of years is that the job has changed. You’ve heard me say this on the podcast a million times. The job has changed. So intrinsically, post-COVID, I think, and I said this on stage at Summit during the lead-up, it hasn’t changed over the last couple of years. And what I mean by that is that it was a cost center pre-pandemic. The CIO reported to the COO or, under the CFO, considered a cost center. And then COVID happened, and the CEO was like, what do I do? And now the technology’s coming at us. We’ve got hybrid work. That was a big topic for us a couple of years ago. We sort of shifted into way more around AI and collaboration strategies and formalizing all of that. These are not cost-centered conversations. These are how we grow the business. How do we attract employees? How do we? I think a lot of it was really in the plumbing business previously. And now they’ve got to be kind of in the design business, the house design business. They’re working with the GC upstairs. Do you know what I mean? And to have organizations that like Bridgepoint that enable customers to focus on the plumbing, if you will, the process of procuring, buying, managing, implementing technology while they’re thinking about the plan strategically, I think, is what I’m really referring to there 

Gene Volpe:

No great points. And the reason why I’ve made you bring that back up again is, first of all, I got to go back now while we take a break, and I’m going to look up the word intrinsically. I don’t know what the hell that means, but I digress. Well, the reason why I brought that up is because as I went through this, I noticed that there are a lot of little quips that you bring up when we talk. You have those little, like you want to work on the plumbing and all this stuff. And I think we’re probably going to need to make some mugs called Kinka-isms. Should we do Kinka-isms on mugs? If you want that, make sure you hit one of us up via email or whatever. We’ll send you a mug. I’m not going to lie unless there are 8 million people that ask for a mug. I don’t know if we have, 

Scott Kinka:

At least if somebody picks everybody picks a different kinka-ism, we have a problem. 

Gene Volpe:

Would you call it Kinka-ism, right? 

Scott Kinka:

Oh boy. We’re starting something new here.

Gene Volpe:

Yeah. Listen, It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s going to be good. Alright, so here’s what we’re going to do.  We’re going to get into some apps. We’re going to do some fun stuff. I want to talk about some of the apps because, at the end of every episode, you always ask our guests some personal questions. What’s your one app? What’s your book? What’s on your end table? What’s one of the biggest mistakes you’ve made as an IT leader? We’re going to get into all that stuff at the end of it. I’m going to drop that on your lap. You’re going to answer for 2025. We’re going to see what some of those things are. We’re going to get into predictions, but first, let’s talk about some apps. Were there any apps in here that really caught your attention? So I would say we were heavy. So, in the 25 episodes we’ve done, you’ve asked this question 25 times. We were super heavy on the podcast and music apps, which, I think, if I remember, 2024 was your app. And we’ll revisit that at the end of 2023. That was your app of the year. 

Scott Kinka:

So we asked every one of our guests if there was a dystopian future, and they had one application working on their phones. I mean, I always love the people who say flashlight because that’s such an informative answer. It’s obvious to those who mentioned their own app: Patrick, Kelly, God bless. It was like, I’ll have Zoom. I’m like, how about SOD? So, I called out the Signal. He wanted the signal. And, of course, you have the Apple music and the podcast stuff, which I always look at. If there’s some dystopian future, there’s probably not a whole hell of a lot of news going on. I did enjoy it; a couple of people said TikTok, and they said that because they were like, for as long as I live, I’ll never run out of content. So it’s probably the one thing that will get you out of the hunter-gatherer. That’s where you land on a day-to-day basis. So that one popped in a little bit. Jack Jackson, I think, whose book’s about to come out, said DoorDash, which, of course, he commented about needing to eat in a survival situation. I’m not sure that you’re actually able to get DoorDash to you, so you need to think about that. Brian said, Instacart. 

Gene Volpe:

Well, it’s the same thing  You always talk about with the ESPN apps: is there going to be any sports? You’re going to be looking at old games. Exactly. So we’re going to have to figure that out.

Scott Kinka:

I knew what would happen. So, at least on TikTok, it would be new content. 

Business Mistakes and Leadership Lessons from the C-Suite

Gene Volpe:

So here’s what I think we should do actually between the apps and the books. I think maybe the listeners, and this is just me going out on a limb here, might like a list of C-suite executives, what they’re reading and what they’re using on their phones. I think maybe we put that out. Let’s do it. We can do that, right? Yeah. Alright, so let’s jump in. Alright, so one of the things that you asked these guys and gals was business mistakes and business mistakes as an IT leader. And I want to say this really quickly: if you’re watching it on video, I have a thing in front of me. There are a lot of quotes, and I don’t want to misquote anybody. So I’m going to be doing a lot of reading. So, the business stake, Chris Cochran of Prosper OP said, is being overly conservative in the early stages of a business. So the question for you is if you were leading a technology overhaul at your company and money was no object, where would you be aggressive with that money? 

Scott Kinka:

I mean, it probably sounds obvious to say AI, but I think it’s a perfect answer, given what we just said about this. Hey, it was the plumber’s cost center, which is sort of an essential communication center. Now, IT departments are focused largely on efficiency and growing the business going forward. So I think the place to be aggressive from an expenditure perspective, not risky, but aggressive from an expenditure perspective, would probably be in AI. 

Gene Volpe:

In AI. Okay. I like that. And I think we’ll get deeper into that and more niche if you will, as we get further along in this episode. So, I might pigeonhole you into a specific type of AI, right? It depends on what you’re using. And we have, 

Scott Kinka:

Yeah, look, we could be on this topic for the remainder of my life. Is it a greenfield company? Are you reinvesting in something that already exists? And I think the answer would differ, but at the end of the day, the opportunity to drive margin into the business from the IT suite sits in AI. I don’t want to go too deep. I know you have a bunch of other, 

Gene Volpe:

Yeah, because we’re going to really hit on what you just said there, and I know you’re going to rip that apart, which will be good. Alright, so this one’s from one of our own. Melanie Thomas is the VP of Cybersecurity Bridgepointe, right? Completely losing track of an important deliverable for a board of directors meeting. So what I would ask you is, you have to dig back here. Have you ever lost track of or ignored an important deliverable for a board or a customer meeting that you can remember? And what was that 

Scott Kinka:

You mean besides forgetting to use the restroom before the meeting? That’s a big one.

Gene Volpe:

That’s a big one. Sorry, I got to get up. Oh, so wait, so wait. You having to pee doesn’t make you move faster. 

Scott Kinka:

Always use the restroom.  This is interesting advice, though. I’m sure I can think of, geez, 50 instances of if I only had a slide on this or what about this, but I think that usually they center around one primary topic, and that’s not anticipating the next question. Look, you don’t necessarily have to have content for the next question. You could be creating content for days. But I do think that as you’re preparing for a meeting, particularly one where there’s content to be presented, like a board meeting or a big meeting that you have in a customer’s boardroom or something along those lines, you are anticipating objections. Be the customer. When you review your content, you don’t need to stick it in your, but it’s super cool when you get asked a question, you’re like, you know what? I thought you might ask that. So it’s back in the appendix. Hang on, just give me a second bang, And as effective as that is, the converse is really bad. Oh, that’s a good question. Lemme get back to you. Obviously, that’s a fine answer, but try to anticipate the next question, I think, and really, the idea there is to review your content in a way where you’re acting like the customer, and you’re thinking about what the next question would be. Have six or eight of them ready. 

Gene Volpe:

So when we talk about the marketing perspective, in my day-to-day business, I was talking about finding out what your client’s looking for before you put together a service proposal, let’s say. Right? And we’re watching Suits now, right? He always says that as an attorney, he should never ask a question. You don’t know what the answer’s going to be. You’re working that in reverse, almost making sure you have the answers to the questions that they’re going to ask, right?

Scott Kinka:

But I will say it’s an interesting question. And I love that because my wife just watched the entire seven years of Suits in so good three months. I had never seen it, but I used to stay all the time. And this is going back; it’s like 99; I’m a 20-something-year-old kid working for a carrier in their internet division. Nobody knew what that was. But I got hired to do it because I was the most senior person who understood what the internet was. But we were working with traditional telco salespeople in our business. And I always say, don’t be afraid. And I still say this to this day to our partners, even our strategists: don’t be afraid to ask the question that you don’t know the answer to. Because in tech, you couldn’t possibly know all the answers. But I think the value in having partners, consultants, advisors, et cetera, is that they’ve got access to get the answer so that you don’t have to seek them. So, if you’re the consultant, get loose and ask the question you don’t know the answer to. That’s okay. And the answer is a really great question. I don’t really know, but I’ll respond later today with a little bit of an answer. 

Gene Volpe:

I think that’s the technology equivalent of, I got a guy.

Scott Kinka:

I got a guy, I got a guy. 

Cybersecurity Challenges: Addressing End-User Apathy

Gene Volpe:

I don’t know the answer to that right now, but I have a guy. I’ll get that for you in a minute. Right? That’s brilliant. I love it. All right, so this next one is from Mark Houpt of DataBank, who is underestimating apathy and ignorance towards cybersecurity. So, as a consultant, we just talked about that to large tech companies; what would be your first step of advice for making sure they do not underestimate internal apathy or ignorance towards their security issues? 

Scott Kinka:

Yeah, I mean, I think it would be hard for me to answer this question without mentioning compliance, which is businesses that have compliance needs can’t be apathetic, but they still struggle with the end user being apathetic. The apathy component is really around the end user, which, as I think anybody who’s followed any of our security-focused episodes will tell you, every single one of our guests who’s had this conversation has said the biggest attack factor in any company is the humans in it. So the biggest area around apathy is like, yeah, you’re going to figure the perimeter security out. Yes, you’re going to have all the devices in place to answer the questions on the compliance or regulatory questionnaire, fine. The real issue is making sure that your largest attack vector takes it seriously. And that absolutely requires executive endorsement. I think that’s the biggest way to manage that. The way to make sure that the executives understand it is, unfortunately, one of the blind spots that most IT leaders have, which is making an ROI case for expenditures, being able to have the financial conversation in terms, not in cost terms, Right? Yeah, I bought this thing that’s going to cost, but more in terms of cost avoidance or margin generation or those types of things. It’s really hard for a lot of IT people. So, I think making sure that the rest of the C-suite understands the risk. And then I think for IT leaders if you’re not somebody who’s able to make a financial case, lean on a partner to do it. Many times we say it all the time; Melanie, God bless her, says it all the time. It’s like the first time that a company gets serious about their security expenditures, and in particular, end-user training is the first time they get attacked, but unfortunately, the damage is done. So I think situational that to the executive team and getting their endorsement is really the key to that.

Gene Volpe:

So, unfortunately, it becomes easier to put an ROI after the attack. Sure. 

Scott Kinka:

What did it cost us? That’s a hard way of looking at it.

Gene Volpe:

It is. But for me, from that perspective, if I was in that space, it’s one of those things like insurance. I know I need it, and I’ll get it down the road. This hasn’t happened to us yet. I’m going to roll the dice. So when you come in as a consultant, and you sit in front of me, and you go, you need security. And I go, yeah, I know, but we’re just not doing it today. Right? Because you haven’t felt that pain yet, right? So that’s a good piece of advice there. That’s boardroom advice. 

Scott Kinka:

And the only qualifier I’ll give you there is everybody’s doing security. The question is, are they doing the physical security, the edge security, the network security? The rest of the package focuses on end-user training. Having compliance and regulatory policies in place that are trained, tested, et cetera, is really where people fall. 

Gene Volpe:

So stop bitching about your v VPN connection on your laptop. Alright, there’s a reason for it. Alright, so real quick. So we’re going to shift gears here. We’re going to do books. So, I’m going to point out my book, and I know you. I had a quick conversation about two that maybe we want to get into. Okay. Shoot. I think the one that grabbed my attention is not going to be a surprise to anybody, but Lumen said, the Field Guide to Whiskey. 

Scott Kinka:

By the way, if you go back and watch the episode with umes, it was a good one. He’s awesome, first off. And second of all, once you hang out with him for a little bit, you’re like that perfect sense. This is a dude; I actually would enjoy drinking whiskey 

Gene Volpe:

A hundred percent. 

Scott Kinka:

He’s like the world’s most interesting guy. 

Gene Volpe:

Yep. You know what I’m saying? No, that was a great episode.

Scott Kinka:

Yep, that was a great episode.

The Importance of Clean Data for AI Implementation

Gene Volpe:

Alright, so two that caught your attention were Rei Kasai from Talkdesk talked about Crossing the Chasm or Chasm by Jeffrey Moore. 

Scott Kinka:

Yeah, I mean, Jeffrey Moore is arguably one of our greatest futurists, and if you can catch any of his books, it’s amazing. Crossing the Chasm is really about the cycle of technology adoption. And I mean, gosh, I don’t know exactly what it was written. It’s probably 25 years old at this point, a venture to guess. But you can, if you’ve never read anything from Jeffrey Moore or haven’t read Crossing the Chasm, and as a reformed CTL Innovator coder, that book is just an amazing way of thinking about how technology gets adopted and interesting. It becomes part of the lexicon in certain schools of thought in technology development. But what’s interesting about it’s, if you read it now and you’ve never read it before, it’s like it’s being written about ai, oh, the whole adoption curve, Moore’s Law, all that. 

Gene Volpe:

It’s just Spectacular 1984 esque, 

Scott Kinka:

No, it’s really more about how it’s less about what’s coming and more about the way we overhype the technology at the beginning, don’t understand it, rush into it, and how it gets adopted and becomes mainstream. It’s just the way, and you can apply it against the internet and music on your phone. You can apply it against it, name it, and drag it all the way forward into AI. It’s an amazing time if you will love it.

Gene Volpe:

And then the other one is from our friend Mike Nowak at BCM, which was The Art of War by Sun. 

Scott Kinka:

I keep it on that. I keep it on my end table. I have one there, too. Yeah, look, I think, and maybe I’ll reserve a little bit of this, but I think what’s interesting about that book first off is that you don’t have to read it. You can just open to a page and read one thing and be like, okay, here’s a thing for today. So I just open a page every once in a while on it. But again, it’s almost like the ancient version of Crossing the Chasm. You can read it today, and it’s still applicable. And I think in particular, and we’re going to beat AI to death, I’m sure, in this episode, but one of the principal tenants in there, and I think Mike actually called it out in there, and it was like energy without strategy is chaos. And I think there’s a lot to be said about that statement when you think about customers who are generally either all in and making mistakes or not in and making mistakes. You know what I mean? This is one of those scenarios where we’re constantly saying the customers either slow down or speed up, but they’re rarely in the middle and with a good equilibrium and on AI. And we’ll get into it on some of these future questions, and maybe we’ll refer back to it throughout the rest of this episode. But that, to me, couldn’t be more appropriate. And when was that written? How many? Hundreds of years ago, right? Yeah, I couldn’t even tell you. So yeah, it’s an amazing book.

Gene Volpe:

Good stuff. That’s one of the ones of all these; most of these are all new to me, so I’m looking at ’em going, so I’m looking for you to give me advice. Sun Tzu is one that I’ve read. I’ve had that a couple of times. Perfect. Alright, so now we’re going to get into AI a little bit deeper. We’re going to talk a little bit about Tech Summit. So, at Tech Summit, we had a panel, and we did a live version of the podcast. We did part one and part two. If you haven’t checked that out, make sure you get onto the Bridgepointe technologies, bridgepointetechnologies.com/blog, and search for the podcast. They were great episodes. Nick Slater from Dialpad pointed out that companies needed to ensure their data was clean and accurate before they started deploying AI solutions. Otherwise, the AI outcomes will be flawed also, which is not really part of this one. But in our first episode that we dropped 2025, would Dwayne Barnes of Rapid Scale discuss with him being ready for AI, whether it be cleaning your data or trying AI or tying AI? See, I can’t read sometimes, and that’s not great. Tying your AI to attainable ROIs and goals, discuss some ideas companies can use to start to see if they’re even close to ready to have the AI conversation internally. 

Scott Kinka:

Yeah, I mean, I think the challenge that we’re having right now is, and this happens anytime I think a new technology comes out, that the immediate inclination is that new tech can solve old problems. Just think about that for a minute, right? So, any AI, or any large language model, in particular, is informed based on data. We had this problem even years ago with our CX business customers; we’re going to deploy bots, and it’s going to take out agents because we’re not training them fast enough. And we’re like, alright, well, where’s the training material for the bot? Well, we don’t have any, okay, well listen, good tech isn’t going to make up for a bad process if you don’t have it written down. And I’ve had customers go, well, listen. We’ll just inform the AI about the transcripts of our call recordings. Well, how do you know your agents did everything? And I’m using that as obviously an extreme example, but that’s what both of them were referring to is that there’s a data cleansing project and a bit probably of a moment of self-reflection in any company where you’re, oh, we’re going to do a private large language model. Okay, well, hold on for a minute. What do you have to inform it with? And that’s one of those things to just think about as you go. And that’s really what they’re intimating: that companies with data challenges or, let’s say, a lack of documentation in some cases are not going to solve that with AI. You’ve got to kind of get together what’s the ideal call policy, process, whatever looks like, make sure that it’s documented, inform off of that, or you go the opposite, which is you inform with everything you have, you test the hell out of it, and you watch the results. And maybe that is a way to get some documentation, but you’ve got to be thoughtful about it. Just turn it on methodology. I’ll give you an example. Copilot is arguably the most powerful and probably the most dangerous way for you to step directly into AI because, think about it: it’s every email and every document, and it’s your Office 365 scenario. It’s being informed as you go. You start asking the copilot, Hey, how do we do X? Where’s the answer coming from? Yeah, your docs, right? Yep. That is probably chockfull of a bunch of crap. It’s not accurate. And listen, great technology, that’s not the point. This is an application conversation we’re having.

AI Governance, Regulation, and Avoiding PR Disasters

Gene Volpe:

Okay, I love that. This is going to be fun. I think. So, along those lines in the AI space, some consistent items came up, and I broke these things out. There are some comments that we got revolving around them, and I have questions that are up as well. So the three topics that kept jumping out were AI governance and regulation, AI budget, and then human and machine collaboration, which is when you’re going to tell the audience whether their job is safe or not. I don’t know yet. I don’t know. We’re going to find out. We’ll see. We’re going to find out. So the text of it, Kristy Thomas of Vonage said, governance isn’t a buzzword. It’s the only thing standing between your company and an AI-driven PR disaster. The first question is, let’s talk governance and regulation. Any PR disaster examples that come to mind for companies to potentially look out for? I’m going to set this up because I want you to think about that. I just dropped that on you. In my mind, I go for PR disasters. Yeah. I mean, that’s my business. PR is my business, but what could I proactively look forward to and be able to stop from one of my clients because of an AI implementation? Where do we go with that? Are there any things you can think of? 

Scott Kinka:

Yeah, well, I mean, I think in that same panel, and I don’t want to get ahead of you, but I think it was Milind Pansare from Observe AI who made the statement when you start thinking about making your humans better as opposed to replacing them. Because while AI and a well-informed model might suggest the next steps and things like that, you’ve also got a human in the middle to basically stop it from getting crazy. If you just think back to that whole Air Canada thing back in the day, we’ll find a link to the story and put it in the show notes if you’re not aware of it. But it was a scenario where they had just turned customer service over to a bot, and it was a satisfaction issue, and it just made the decision to make up a promotion for the end user, and it became a thing. I won’t get into all the details, but I’ll allow you to read that on your own. But it’s those kinds of things where I think we’re going to get there. But human-assisted in customer service scenarios is a nice middle ground there where you’re using the AI to make the agent faster, better, smarter, and offer additional opportunities and thoughts, but not necessarily turning the keys over to something that’s still learning. In a lot of ways, think about AI as a really smart child with an insane amount of ability to grab data, but it doesn’t have empathy; it’s not going to look at the conclusion it’s coming to and go; maybe I reached there, it’s just going to draw lines together, make connections between data and present them. 

Gene Volpe:

Love it. So, it’s not really along those lines, but it’s continuing the same conversation here, with AI becoming more important and more talked about. Right. Do you think regulatory frameworks evolved at all in 2024? Not 

Scott Kinka:

Really, no. I think the need for them is becoming a screaming mess. But I think the challenge here is that individual governments are moving at their own pace. The EU is doing a thing, but if we’re being honest, is China ever going to care? No. Right. So, do they outpace innovation because they’re not regulated? So that’s the biggest concern you have from a regulatory perspective: are we going to do this universally? Look, we’re tied up right now. In the middle of this, is TikTok going to get banned?  

Gene Volpe:

I just wrote that down. 

Scott Kinka:

So I think that one of our challenges is that regulation is going to be on a nation-state organized group of nation-states like the EU, and they’re going to be happening at different levels. That’s one. The second one is there’s going to be regulatory around use, and there’s going to be regulatory around source. And that one’s even harder. What I mean about the source is what copyright means. Yeah. Every answer that’s delivered from a large language model that’s pointed towards the internet has every song, every set of lyrics, every chord chart, every movie script, every book as its source material; it’s all derivative. So most models are not copying word for word, but you’re like, okay, well, let’s put these lyrics together. Here are some lyrics for your new song. Well, I dunno. Is that a copyright issue at the end of the day? And then, if you think about it, how many songs over the course of history went back and said similar things? We’ve created language out of rock and roll. Were those copyright issues? 

Gene Volpe:

Well, you see this lawsuit going on about the sampling all the time, right? Yeah. Well, exactly. 

Scott Kinka:

Sounds like, but even pre-sampling, a lot of the defences in sampling cases have been like every piece of music is a derivative work, right? So, where do you draw the line at the end of the day? So it’s really those two things, right? Regulatory around use, country by country. Yeah. Some countries have pushed it forward, and the EU push some things forward, but when the rest of the world isn’t where they are, it’s going to be hard. The second one is going to be. I don’t know what we’re going to do about copyright at the end of the day. And then we do something here in the US, but nobody cares in China. Right? It’s going to get really interesting. 

Gene Volpe:

It’s going to get very, and when you put it like that too, I even think about, I forget what it was, I think they were talking to Elon Musk about when he purchased Twitter, and they were like, why can’t you just regulate the way things come out of Twitter all the time? And he was like, the rules and laws in Saudi Arabia are different than the United States. So we have to have somebody that understands the laws in every single area. We have Twitter to help us make the right decision. So, I would imagine that’s going to be a challenge when it comes to the governance of AI down the road as well. It’s completely, that’s great. That’s going to be crazy. You’re right. And do you want in on that? Do you want to sit on the board? If they need help doing that, what do you think? 

Scott Kinka:

Sure. I’m signing up right now. 

Gene Volpe:

I’m putting his name on it. Let’s go. I’m in. Alright, so let’s talk about the budget.