The Mastering Podcast

Digital Twins & Terminators: Debunking AI Myths with Lucas Meadowcroft

• The Mastering Team • Season 1 • Episode 6

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The AI revolution is here, transforming how we work, build businesses, and solve problems at unprecedented speed. In this illuminating conversation with Lucas Meadowcroft, founder of Crofty and veteran technology entrepreneur, we unpack the realities behind AI implementation and dispel common misconceptions.

Lucas breaks down the crucial distinction between AI and automation, revealing that most business AI implementation is actually 80% automation with only 20% true artificial intelligence. This perspective helps demystify what's happening in the technology landscape and offers practical insights for business leaders wondering how to approach this rapid change.

The most powerful takeaway? "AI won't replace your jobs, but people using AI will replace your jobs." This isn't about fearing technology but embracing how it can transform your work life by eliminating tedious tasks. Lucas challenges listeners to identify what they truly love doing in their roles and focus exclusively on that, using AI to handle everything else. This shift is already enabling businesses to reach a million-dollar revenue with just four staff instead of the traditional 15-20 employees.

We also explore the evolving investment landscape, where venture capitalists no longer seek "AI companies" but instead expect AI integration as standard in any business. Yet despite ChatGPT's massive impact on public awareness, Lucas believes we still haven't seen the true "Steve Jobs moment" for AI, suggesting we're only at the beginning of this technological revolution. With forecasts of $15 trillion in market value to be added in the next five years and medical research timelines collapsing from decades to years, the message is clear: don't fear what's coming, but position yourself to capitalize on it. Are you ready to become an AI-first business?

• AI won't replace your jobs, but people using AI will replace jobs
• Focus on what you love doing and let AI handle everything else
• Admin roles will be eliminated as AI takes over routine tasks
• Companies can now reach $1M revenue with just 4 staff instead of 15-20
• Becoming an "AI-first company" requires a fundamental mindset shift
• VCs are now investing in traditional businesses using AI rather than AI companies
• We haven't yet seen the "Steve Jobs moment" for AI
• Forecasts suggest AI will add $15T to the market in the next five years
• Medical research timeframes are collapsing from 50 years to potentially 2 years
• Australia lags behind the EU and the UK in AI governance and regulation

Don't fear what's happening with AI, embrace it. Where can it add value to your life?

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Lucas:

AI won't replace your jobs, but people using AI will replace your jobs.

Don:

Especially when you're trying to understand how it impacts your business. I'm going to lose my job.

Lucas:

Think about what you're trying to solve in your business. What is the biggest pain point that you're facing in your business? And if you were to come to work next Monday and that pain was gone, how would that make you feel? We're physically making a digital twin of yourself. Terminator's not coming anytime soon. I think the catalyst was Steve Jobs and the iPhone.

Don:

Have we seen the catalyst for AI yet? Are we still waiting for the Steve Jobs? Welcome to the Mastering Podcast, where we decode the complex and unlock the secrets of success. Today we dive deep into the world of artificial intelligence with our special guest, lucas Meadowcroft. Today we have Lucas Meadowcroft, a really good friend of mine, but more importantly, lucas was the founder of Crofty, who's in the forefront of technological advancements, mainly in artificial intelligence, an acronym that's taken over the world last 12 or 24 months. Lucas is also an expert in all things technology. He's founded four companies. He's been the advisor for many other companies that's been trying to find efficiencies and ways to modernize technology. Lucas, hopefully you can help us unravel some of these mysteries around artificial intelligence and some of these acronyms that have come with artificial intelligence. And why is everyone so afraid of it, mate, welcome.

Lucas:

Thanks very much for having me, man. I can't wait to dive into this conversation. We actually started building AI in 2018, or machine learning back, what we used to call it, and I say that from a general public point of view, because no one really knows the difference and we couldn't have a conversation with anyone. What has happened in this world from an AI perspective? It's leaps and bounds from 2018 to 2022, essentially a silence Any time we try to talk to investors or try to talk to customers about AI. It's really, really difficult. Chatgpt launches in 2022. It took about 12 to 18 months for that to catch on from the general public, but this year it's like the only conversation everyone's having is AI.

Don:

So what is. Ai Like everyone seems to sort of think they know what AI is, but no one seems to know what the hell you can do with AI. What's AI? Everyone seems to think they know what AI is, but no one seems to know what the hell you can do with AI. What's AI? Give us a bit of a history. And then how did we get here?

Lucas:

Yeah Well, ai has actually been around since 1960s, which is around understanding how we can piece together what we already do in our human life, what we already do from a technology point of view, using systems, processes, piecing all that together and using a let's call it machine network to solve those problems for us. Um, like we've already been doing. Everyone's been using excel for 20 or 30 years. However long excel has been around, for, there's already macros as a form of like, a simple form of like artificial intelligence back back in the version. So it's like taking an algorithm that already exists, or you create an algorithm and the machine does the work of what a human would do. And so if we would fast forward today, I guess the buzzword is around AI, and this is where the confusion is right, because people just think AI is everything.

Lucas:

We like to call it AI, automation, artificial intelligence, automation, majority of implementing AI into your organization like this is from a business process perspective. I would say 80% of what we do is automation, 20% is AI. The AI component is the decision-making component. So think about whenever we make a decision in our business or in our personal life. We're either using our gut or we're using our. Whenever we make a decision in our business or in our personal life, we're either using our gut or we're using our mind to make a decision. That decision making component is where the artificial intelligence component really comes into play, and that's the true form of AI.

Lucas:

If we're looking at implementing AI technology into our organization, we're looking at implementing automation and AI as a combination. Because we're looking at implementing AI technology into our organization, we're looking at implementing automation and AI as a combination because we're essentially replacing. We talk about roles like AI agents, but we're replacing functions and responsibilities and how we actually do our daily work. We're replacing all that. That's a combination of all different technologies, not just AI. But we try not to talk about that. It confuses everyone and we just say AI and that's all people think about.

Don:

That's a really good breakdown, right? I heard somewhere last week, I think, said large language models are going to be the fastest depreciating asset over the coming years. Right, I think that's sort of what you're talking about, and how people can take those large language models and build wrappers around it, or the AI models and build wrappers around it.

Lucas:

So the automation models, so is that what you're talking about?

Don:

And, first of all, you know what is a large language model. So what's machine learning, All of these acronyms, LLMs. It just confuses a lot of people, right, especially when you're trying to understand how it impacts your business and how it impacts you as a person who's trying to run a business, start a business or manage people. How does all of these things come together and what do they mean? There is Not a question, sorry, there is.

Lucas:

This is what confuses a lot of people, right? So where my mind goes towards is don't think about the technology. Think about the outcome you're trying to achieve and don't get held up and confused around the buzzwords and the conversations around large-language models or machine learning or AI. Think about what you're trying to solve in your business. So a really good question I like to ask most business owners and leaders and employees is what is the biggest pain point that you're facing in your business? What is the biggest pain point you're facing in your role? And if you were to come to work next Monday and that pain was gone, how would that make you feel okay? So then focus on that, whatever that is, whether it's sales or marketing or operations or service delivery or finance, whatever role you're doing and whatever pain point you currently have that you want solved. We're then using the large language models, the machine learning, the ai, to build components as real world applications to solve that pain point.

Don:

So it's no different to any other efficiencies and products, software as services we've implemented in businesses. This just is something that's quantifiably growing so much faster and can do a lot of things.

Lucas:

We can do a lot of things a lot quicker, we can solve problems a lot faster. The biggest scenario is we're physically making a digital twin of yourself. So say don, this is your current pain point in your business. You want to scale your company. You want to go nationally, internationally um, what's your biggest pain point? People always say staff. They always say hiring really good, skilled, skilled, skilled staff, or we have a lot of admin work in our organization that people have to do. So they might be amazing at sales, they might be amazing at delivering a product or a service, but there's always paperwork, there's always compliance, there's always checklists.

Lucas:

No one wants to do that stuff.

Don:

But someone gets paid to do it right. This has been one of the biggest sort of. I don't know if it's a myth or a faux pas, but it's been one of the biggest fears. A myth of four-part, but it's been one of the biggest fears, which is displacement right. A lot of people are thinking am I going to lose my job? What kind of new jobs are going to be created from this?

Lucas:

But more than that, am I going to lose my job? Because people always worry about putting this. It's a fear, right. So back to your original question. Well, the fear is the unknown and people automatically think that AI is going to replace my job because that's what the media tells you is going to happen. It's not realistic. Humans still need to drive it. We're talking about artificial general intelligence. Yes, it will be here 10 years, 20 years, whatever that timeframe looks like, but if we're talking about… so that's.

Don:

AGI right AGI the scary little thing, the Terminator, terminator, yeah.

Lucas:

Terminator, terminator. Yeah, terminator is not coming anytime soon because of governance and regulation and a whole different conversation. If we look at, Ray Kurzweil might disagree with you on that.

Lucas:

Yeah, he's written an amazing book on it. Society won't let it happen too soon. Terrorists obviously will, but society general society won't. If you were to look at how can we make the most out of what's happening and the shift in the society from an AI point of view, and we want to make sure that our fear isn't around losing our job. Embrace it, dive into your role, into your career and go. How can I help advance what I'm already doing and be a leader?

Lucas:

And there was a really good meme that was out maybe 18 months ago which was like literally stated around this whole fear conversation around AI. Right, it's like AI won't replace your jobs, but people using AI will replace your jobs and because it's a combination of human and the technology that we have now which will enhance what you're already doing in your career or in your role. And that's the key point All these admin jobs or people who are currently doing admin work they will 100% lose their job. Admin is 100% not needed in a business and we've already done it for companies. We've eliminated every admin role you can think of in a business. If you want to have a career in admin, don't.

Don:

I don't think anyone wants to have a career in admin. They just start there or they just fall there. So I think it's going to create some. If you look at humanity as a society and that perfect life we want to live, all those rudimental sort of jobs that we never wanted to do. Hopefully AI is going to take them over and then we're going to do the important stuff. Is that what you're saying? A?

Lucas:

hundred percent. The only conversation I have with every single person when we're talking about AI is focus on what you love doing and replace everything else. So I usually say, when you come into work on a Monday morning, what is the number one thing that you come to work for? Why do you love a job? What are you passionate about? What type of work do you love doing? That's all you should be doing. Everything else should be removed.

Don:

So you're saying AI is going to let you do that? Yes, 100%, it's going to facilitate a better life for the human.

Lucas:

If you embrace it and don't push back.

Don:

So, in terms of embracing right, like, how does a leader or just a normal person, how do they embrace it? What do they have to do to understand this thing? Where do they start? Because, you know, using chat, gpt to write your emails is a very different thing to adopting AI to help with exactly what you're talking about, or building a business with the AI automations being the backbone of it and scaling it to a million dollar business with 30 people. Right, and this is not hypothetical, it's happening right now. What does a leader have to learn, understand to do that?

Lucas:

We now have studies where you can scale a business. Let's call it a million dollars as a starting point. Everyone wants to get that first million dollars before 10 million. You can now get to a million dollar business with four staff, so it used to be 15, 20 staff, right to try and get to a million dollars. Now you can do it in four staff.

Lucas:

So your point around what does a leader need to do?

Lucas:

They need to have a mindset shift around embracing AI, and what we talk about in the business landscape is being an AI-first company and so, either, having an AI-first mindset, being an AI-first business, what a leader needs to do is start listening to podcasts, diving in, doing research, putting some time and effort into this, ignoring the media.

Lucas:

Just completely wipe the media out of your mind because you'll just get the doom and gloom and everything that is actually not true. But if you start diving into what AI can do in my industry and start learning real world case studies of what other organizations are doing around the world but that's why we can start a consulting company, right, it's because people don't have the time for that. They don't want to put the effort in. They just hire us to do it for them and we come up with the ideas for them. But if you want to be an AI first company or have an AI first mindset, then just start researching and looking at ways on how we can embed AI into our organisation. It doesn't mean you know how to do it. You don't have to become a programmer. You don't have to learn Python, but you can start understanding on where it adds value in my business.

Don:

Interesting. So, as you know, I'm part of an educational faculty and one of the biggest things that we try to find is, if you're, when you're trying to build new educational programs or what's relevant. You know you've got to always look at what impacts the most when it comes to artificial intelligence the capacity to being able to measure the return on investment, or ROI, the models that you work with and how you wrap those models around, the large language models or any artificial intelligence that you want to work with, and then the ethical and ethical, the governance implications that it's going to have to your customers and to your business. They seem to be the most important things and I'd love to hear your thoughts on it because, you know, for a business owner or a leader, right, if you have those four pillars understood well, does that give you a foundation then to sort of dive into this confusing field of AI and be ready for, you know, the workplace of tomorrow?

Lucas:

Well, we talk about our ethics, right, and so this is a big push from the UK or the EU. It hasn't come to Australia yet. So when I talk to business owners around implementing or embracing AI in their organisation, I talk about the SME to mid-market. Enterprise and government organisation is not quite there yet, but the SME to mid-market is embracing it. And I asked a question around governance control, data controls, privacy, ethics no one cares. I'll just be completely direct and blank.

Don:

They're going to have to start caring soon. Right, it's inevitable.

Lucas:

This is because there's no governance in place from the government that stipulates you must do this, this and this to follow the guidelines. Right now we don't have that. It's right now. It's a wild wild west. We can do whatever we want, right? Morally, we should have that in place, especially around the ethics and control, especially around data privacy and sovereignty, but there's no regulation there yet. It will come, like ISO. There's now an ISO certification for AI and implementing the right framework that's driven from, you know, the EU and the US, but Australia just isn't there yet.

Don:

So it's even more important understanding the ethical implications and the governance that needs to be, because once it gets there, it's going to be too late if you're not ready for it. Right, but tell me about. I kind of I threw the word rapper at you before right Like it's return on investment and how to rap right. That's nothing to do with Kendrick Lamar or music.

Lucas:

Different type of rapper. This is a very interesting shiffer. So when we were in the tech startup game back in 2018, raising capital for VCs it was all about being a SaaS platform and being an AI SaaS platform, and that's where we were able to raise capital from. It's now shifted to being a tech-wrapped business, ie be a traditional business but make sure AI is implemented throughout the entire foundation.

Lucas:

I was talking to VCs and investment portfolios recently and they're no longer investing in AI companies, so investing in an AI company now isn't even a conversation. They're investing in traditional businesses using AI to solve a problem, and so it used to be. You're building an AI company. Now you're building a platform or an ai agent to solving a real world problem, and so it's more conversation about what problem are you solving? And they just assume and expect they being vcs and investors. They assume expect it to be ai driven company. So everything they're building, the entire tech stack, all the operations, everything has to have ai in there and they're just expecting that. If you're not doing that, you're completely left behind. We're not going to invest in you, but they're not going out and saying you must be an AI, not an AI first company, but you're being an AI company. That's no longer a conversation, okay, which is super interesting, right, and we're talking two years.

Don:

Yeah.

Lucas:

Like it's a very short period of time, very short period of time. This is a completely changed landscape. Wow, okay, that's also tech wrap. Sorry to answer your question. A tech wrap business, um, is a traditional well, what I call a traditional company says platform versus traditional business. So, financial services, education in your space, um, uh, you know, construction manufacturing like traditional business and using artificial intelligence to I don't't know who came up with the tech rap but essentially putting an AI layer, whether above or below the business, and making sure it's implemented in every aspect of the company, because that means your valuation will be 10 times, 20 times, not three times. Yeah, wow, okay.

Don:

Well, I've got one more final question before we finish up when is AI at Like? The reason why I asked is there's been some. When it comes to technology, there's been quantum shifts, right, mobile phones for me is one of those ones when I was too young to really recall that first instance when mobile phones became what ChatGPAT became for us in the last two years um, but I think the catalyst was steve jobs and the iphone, right. Have we seen the catalyst for ai yet? Is um chat gpt it, or are we still waiting for the steve jobs?

Lucas:

yeah, honestly honestly, we're still waiting for the steve jobs. Um, god rest his soul. It's um, oh, wow, that's where. So chat tbt yeah, it's been. It's been amazing from a conversation in the general public. So before they released chat tbt, like I mentioned, you could not talk to anyone about ai. Right, it was just, it just wasn't a thing. So it's great to have a general public awareness of the potential of what AI can be. The conversations in the AI space is like here's all the technology. You as the consumer, as the business owner, as the innovator, can you use the technology to solve problems, real-world problems? That's what we're waiting for. It's already started. It's already happening. There's 20,000 AI apps out there now. When I say AI apps essentially applications that are using that technology to solve a problem I don't think we're there yet. Honestly, I don't think we'll be there for maybe another two, three years.

Don:

We've got platforms that can write off billions of dollars worth of market value. We've got platforms that can create trillions of dollars worth of market value, and we still haven't even seen the catalyst.

Lucas:

We're still early days If you look at the medical space right, it's scary it is really. I am a pessimist. Optimist, I see it as scary in a good way, right. If you look at the research around the medical space and diseases, cancers, spinal research like we're talking, like what would take us 50 years to figure out is now 10 years. In the next two to three years that will be like two years and we'll be solving real-world problems from a medical point of view. That's just absolutely insanely amazing.

Don:

I think the forecast is about $15 trillion worth of value added to the market in the next five years. I can't even imagine that that's a big number.

Lucas:

Huge opportunity, and so if you talk about the fear conversation, I'll leave you with this that's what's happening. So don't fear what's happening, embrace it. Where can it add value into your life?

Don:

It's very important for business leaders to actually embrace this right.

Lucas:

Absolutely.

Don:

Lucas, appreciate your time. Thanks again for demystifying this confusing field of technology. Um, and yeah, appreciate, really appreciate it, thank you, thank you, yes, yes, man hope you enjoyed this exciting episode of the podcast.

Lucas:

If you got value from today's conversation, hit that subscribe button now and share this episode with a friend. Until next time.