Embracing AI and Career Growth with Sreedhar Gade – Techstrong Unplugged EP18

Hey everybody, and welcome back to Techstrong Unplugged. This is episode 18 of our series, and I'm your host, Atan Solomon on Techstrong Unplugged. We dive into all things tech and get people up to speed with everything happening across the industry.

Recently, arcos Cassandra Chen went to the Great International Developer Summit, also known as GID 2024 at gid. Cassandra sat down with three R Gate and he delves into the potential for AI to surpass human intelligence. He also highlights the transformative impact of AI on various industries as well as the need for continuous learning.

Without further ado, let's sit over to GID 2024. Welcome back to Textron Unplugged. I'm your host, Cassandra Chin, and today we have Sri.

Thanks for having me. Can you introduce yourself? Yeah, Hi, uh, this is Sri Garre, and, uh, I've been in the technology industry for about 20 years now.

And, uh, I come from a small town in, uh, remote part of a ana state, uh, in India. And, uh, right now I'm working in, uh, uh, hydro var. So how did you get interested to start doing tech?

Um, so, um, by education, I'm an electronics guy. I always loved electronics, uh, playing with the hardware, communications satellites and everything else. Um, but then the, when I first joined my, uh, first company, which is HCL, uh, this company was all about, uh, building, uh, co computers and, um, the system integrators.

So that's when I felt, you know, though you're an electronics person, this could be, uh, one of the best implementations of, uh, electronics. And, uh, so I was kind of pulled into it. Um, and then after that, there's no going back.

It's been two decades and I'm having fun. I think that's really great that you're enjoying what you're doing. Yeah, I, I really love it.

Um, even after 20 years, it still feels like this is the first day in my career. I think that's good. Like every day is interesting for you.

Every day is interesting for me, and especially with this AI and all these new, uh, technologies that are coming in. Uh, it's all about how do we keep technology ahead of business. Uh, I think that is, that has been my personal quest.

And then, uh, that is the direction I've been leading my career so far. So have you always felt like you're learning every day? Or has the surge of ai like make you feel that especially I personally, uh, love to learn and be a lifelong student, uh, but then AI kind of in a good combination of my passion and goals, you know, um, you can work long hours just because you have to do it, but, uh, I, if, if it is part of your passion, then you know, you'll never feel like it's a work.

So with ai, uh, it's that for me, and, uh, and that's why it's kind of accelerating my learning potential as well. So what do you find about ai, which makes you so passionate about it? The, the sheer possibilities of what we can do with AI is just so outta the world, and mind blowing is, uh, uh, that's what keeps me actually going and passionate about it.

Just to give you an example, um, I have a keynote that is coming up tomorrow. I'll be talking to the folks about exactly the same topic is the human evolution has been around for about 85 million years, and the homo sapiens have been around maybe 35,000 years ever since the homo sapiens came into existence. This is probably the first technology that came into being, which will challenge humans intelligence.

Till now, we have no challenge. We are the masters on this planet, but with AI over the next few years, it'll start developing something called a GI and it, it, it starts creating that kind of distinction. So, uh, that's what keeps me excited.

But do you think AI can really be smarter than us, or is it just reiterating the information we already give it? I think we are building it to become smarter than us, way smarter than us. How do you define intelligence?

Well, um, so, uh, it could be different for different, uh, categories. For example, intelligence. Um, I think one good example to go with is a Nobel Prizes, right?

So Nobel Prize is to reward someone who reached, uh, probably the highest level you could ever reach in a humanity in particular subject like physics, right? Um, so to me, that person is intelligent because that invention, that person did to get the Nobel Prize, no one else could do. So.

Uh, but then that person probably did it in physics, but probably not in something else. Maybe martial arts or life sciences, right? Uh, AI is going to be that Nobel Prize level proficiency in every single field that can ever be there, and that's what will make it smarter.

But if we take cha GPT as an example, yeah, it gathers intelligence from the internet. Yeah. And the internet's a collection of everyone's intelligence.

Yeah. So it'll have a different range of intellectual ness. Yeah.

So to train a super smart ai Yeah. Does that mean we have to only train from the noble prize winners? So, um, I think this is a great question, by the way, right?

So when we look at today's LLMs, we call large language model like Chad O pt, it is trained on the human knowledge, what is available on internet. But, uh, and then you, uh, it's all garbage in, garbage out. If you train with the great information and then they're smarter.

So like Nobel Prize winners and everyone else, but what it is also doing with the information that it has, it's, it can improve itself, which was not the case before in the past. Any, uh, ML model, which is machine learning model, can do only thing that you train it on. It can't do anything more than this.

But these are neural networks. It kind of, uh, mimics, uh, human brain, which means you just train them on what is it today, but it can invent something tomorrow. So, which means even the founders, the inventors of AI do not know all the capabilities.

So you think AI is inventive, It is inventive self-learning, But what if AI is like inventive, but it starts going down the wrong direction? That can happen. And that's one of the reasons why all the large companies like Meta, Microsoft, Google, they're trying to form a, a consortium with the US government and all the large governments, uh, to prevent this, to put some guardrails, which is very important because it could be a double-edged sword.

And, and, uh, that can actually kind of impact our humanity, just like in Hollywood movies. So before you were saying that you think AI can become smarter than humans, Uhhuh, but we still need humans to produce the guardrails for ai. That is correct.

And then we don't have too much time, because if it becomes smarter before we implement guardrails, then it might be too late. So that's why, uh, open ai, the charge GBT, uh, inventor, the make, uh, they're working on something called the Super Alignment. Uh, they're working next four years, they'll be building this super alignment, which is actually guardrails, and we all praying that actually they will really work.

And if it does, then we'll continue to enjoy the benefits of ai even after that. I hope that kind of fixes things around ai. We, we all hope for the same.

Yes. Is there anything else you're really passionate about, what you wanna talk about? Um, so apart from ai, because I can talk, you know, on and on and on, but the other person I'm very passionate is people.

Um, so I come from a very remote village, uh, small company, a small role, but today I'm here where I am, uh, a lot of gratitude, uh, for the number of people that have helped me to actually get here, my mentors, my colleagues, uh, teams that have worked with me. So, uh, one of the thing that I always believe is the biggest asset, biggest asset that any company can have is its people. So, um, uh, take care of your people if they actually work for you or your family, and, uh, keep the relationships intact and, and, uh, that's the lasting relationships, uh, is what is going to matter for you.

And, uh, and also career guidance is another passion. So I published a book called Turbocharge Your Career. It's on Amazon.

And, uh, so this book is about, again, career guidance and building. So these are the two things outside AI that I really love and passionate about. Can you talk a little bit more about career guidance and how that can help someone?

Absolutely. So, um, taking from my own experience, uh, when I come from my, uh, hometown, uh, I was not aware of all the possibilities that are available on the industry, and that could be missed opportunities. So one of the things that I'm passionate about in my book, and I do a lot of, uh, articles on LinkedIn.

I have a YouTube channel and also do Instagram. So the purpose of all the social channels is to educate our youth, our folks who are in a career crossroads, to show them what are the possibilities. Hey, if you're a structural engineer, uh, if you're a civil engineer, here are the 10 different things that you could do at the highest level.

Okay? And that will open up their mind to actually aim, really begin their lives. Uh, and that's, uh, that's exactly my questions and I'll continue to do that.

I really like your passion to like showing youths all the different options out there. Thank you. Do you think that has helped youths a lot?

It, it did. It did, uh, big time. And this is my way of giving back.

And, uh, the way I approach my life is all about, Hey, if I'm going to ai, you know, what is a maximum that is possible in next 10 years, 20 years? Always think big and then deduce from there. And, uh, uh, I think some of these resources that I'm putting out and a lot of other gurus, the, uh, the leadership gurus that are there, uh, their job is also to help this humanity.

Uh, other, it's so easy for you to get busy with the social media, uh, Instagrams and everything else, and then not do anything for, uh, a large part of your life. And, uh, my personal goal is to make them more effective in their lives. So how do you do that?

Make it more effective? So, uh, I think, uh, uh, one is inspire them, giving them certain examples in their own, uh, way if they're athlete, uh, if they're, uh, like I said, like an electronics engineer. It could be a doctor or a, a movie, movie actor.

Uh, show them, uh, some kind of an example to so that they can actually inspire and think big. I think the entire thing is all about think big, right? So if you're a software engineer, can I one day become a CEO?

Because everyone has just one life, and you probably will work for like maybe 20, 25 years. Uh, so if you start thinking about it right now and uh, tune your mind and your skills and your training relationships accordingly, then you'll, one day you'll achieve it. I Think it's not just about becoming a CAO like you said you wrote a book and there's so many things you could do out there, so Much you could do.

Absolutely. Yeah. That's a wrong example, I know.

But there are so many other things you could, uh, that could make you, uh, proud of yourself. Uh, you know, as you actually move around your life, It's difficult to work up that courage inside to just go do it. Do you think talking to people around can help with that?

It, it does. I think, uh, inspiration is like, uh, the good example is like taking bath. You gotta do it every day, you know?

Uh, so you need to find certain mentors and Gus who actually, uh, or someone who's already there where you want to be, right? Like you said, like, I wanna publish a book. Then I, I can have a, a mentor who's already published multiple books and bestselling author, and then I can actually get all those inputs from that person and then be able to actually grow.

So I think that the continuous touch with someone who is already achieving large things in life, uh, will help you grow very fast. And the opposite is true too. If you're also in touch with someone who's not doing anything in life, then you end up actually not doing anything as well.

So do you think, like you said, to connect with like someone who writes a book, if you wanna write a book. Yeah. Do you think it would be better to connect to lots of different people who write books so you can get different perspectives?

Yeah, No, absolutely. So, uh, um, maybe like a few people who already published successful published authors, right? Uh, the success that you would like to have in five years from now, but they already have it today.

That's one. And the second thing is you can actually talk to your audience who will read your books. I want to write a book on women's psychology.

Then I would like to talk to a lot of, uh, people and say, Hey, what are the different things in life going on? Would you think such book would help you? I think that's really helpful advice, like to actually connect with the audience.

Yes. Sometimes we're a little blindsided and we just talk to ourselves or a little group. Absolutely.

Right? Absolutely right. They'll give you a lot of inputs.

You might probably tune a little bit in terms of what do you wanna do? Yeah. So how do you actually connect with your audience?

Yeah, like online or in person? Uh, I do both. Uh, online is like through my LinkedIn, um, uh, articles and everything, I kind of interact with people.

So people do put in some comments then, you know, try to interact with them and then also seek more feedback and uh, input in terms of what else you, you are do it. And then, uh, on the weekends I go to these colleges. I interact with the students and engineering colleges and all these colleges and interact with the students.

And those are the people who give you a lot more ideas because they're the Gen Z latest kids. And uh, and then start asking them, Hey, uh, what are the top two or three things that are bothering you? What if you had in your life you would really be successful?

You know, things like open ended questions, uh, more you meet people, I think better it is, uh, you know, for us to get more content. I agree. That's definitely one of the best ways to connect with the audience, especially a younger audience like college students.

Yeah. Because actually they're looking for people to reach out to and they're a little unsure about what they want to do with their life. Yes.

So you can be an inspiration while you ask your questions. Absolutely. And uh, um, another thing I also like with the youth and students is, uh, they don't sugarcoat anything.

They're very open and honest about everything and, uh, because once you get the corporate world, then you start short gooding stuff. So, uh, that's another thing that I like about students. So I love to associate myself with, uh, younger generations to learn more.

I think that's some really good advice. Like students, they haven't been, they don't feel like they have to, they've nothing to lose by giving their opinion. Yeah.

And I think that's actually a really important value which people in the corporate world should keep. Absolutely. Because like, what's the worst that can happen if you can give your opinion and you need to like stay true to yourself?

Yeah, Absolutely. Um, so I learned a lot with the students as well. And this generation students are a lot more outgoing, a lot more, uh, honest about their lives, uh, a little bit, uh, lack of, uh, focus and hope as well.

But uh, I think that comes to the generation. Um, but I agree with you that they're very honest. So I think we've talked about a lot of great points today, Uhhuh.

So thank you, Reed. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me.