AI needn't make you anxious — Sameer Rawjee on writing 'Taking the Anxiety out of AI'

You know that feeling when you study super hard for a test and then none of the questions come up? That frustration, like it was all for nothing? That’s how I felt when I walked out of a podcast with a major bank in Sandton where I had prepared for more than two weeks to deliver my insights on AI. Of course the bank only needed to produce a 20-minute piece — who is realistically going to listen to anything longer than that — but still, the moment just felt like a cliffhanger. 

I sat in an Uber on my way back home that day and emailed someone in publishing on LinkedIn; it turned out we had mutual connections. I then got introduced to an agent. I wrote a book proposal in 30 mins on Gmail, no attachments. Five emails and six weeks later, I signed a book deal with Penguin. I guess I found my way to finish my podcast! 

Look, I’ve been writing for a while. I love writing. I write on many different topics. I thought my first book deal might be on spirituality or philosophy, topics closer to my heart. But I’ve also worked in Silicon Valley for many years, including working at Google’s headquarters. So I have learnt a lot about how to think for the future and make sense of how the world is unfolding with respect to new technologies, business models and cultural evolutions. 

I’m not an AI expert, and who is these days anyway, but it’s also not rocket science to contextualise a new technology and draw patterns from past revolutions and sci-fi films to make sense of what to do next — whether that’s in business, education or your personal life.

I think this space needs more philosophers and anthropologists — people who can understand the technology but also question the deeper meaning behind our humanity. We going to into a future where AI inventors are motivated by so many dichotomous beliefs, some exciting and some scary, that we also need people who can simply question what it means to be human now to join the global conversation too. 

I think that’s what my book does. It asks questions such as: “What does it mean to have a soul? How is your brain different from a computer, and what does it mean to be emotionally intelligent in ways that are different from machines?” These are questions that really matter now. And those who pay attention to them, beyond just the basics of “how to use ChatGPT” or “how to make cash with AI”, will really be able to make advances for the new era. 

I suppose the hardest part of writing this book was to decide whether, and where, I would use AI to write about AI. They say no-one knows you better than yourself. In that case no-one can know AI better than itself. So yes, I did use AI to help write this book, but I also spent over 1,000 hours writing this out of my own head and heart. 

I hope this book will help you reflect on what truly matters now, and I hope that it will help you and your family make big leaps in your thinking. For every threat to our jobs and existence, there are 1,000 more opportunities to be excited about. This is the time to reshape your thinking from what you think you might lose from this revolution, to what you might actually gain.

Wishing you the best this year; let’s continue the conversation on socials.

Taking the Anxiety out of AI: Humans, Jobs and Economies in the Age of Artificial Intelligence by Sameer Rawjee is published by Penguin Random House