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Rob Garlick

Rob Garlick

AI and future of work expert; author of "AI: Anarchy or Abundance?"; former global head of innovation at Citi; Visiting Professor at University of Surrey.

Aug 12, 2026

21:11
The audience changes, the market changes, and now we're seeing people valuing the more human elements, which is hopefully a protection against the negative sides of AI to a point and a more conscious decision to adopt and hopefully drive market forces to create the supply and demand of AI, of practical, ethical, humane utility.
21:43
I think you're somewhat right.
21:45
I don't think it's as simple as that because actually if you look at it, what a lot of consumers want is they want things that are easy and things that are cheap.
21:54
And very often digitization makes things easy and cheap.
21:57
A one-click buy.
22:00
At the same time, at some point we get more conscious about the fact that maybe this is not quite working as we wanted to.
22:06
And so some people have said to me, just for example, that they buy less from Amazon now because they think that Amazon is not necessarily the right thing for local shopkeepers who are moving away from the high street or not the right thing because they're using a lot more machines rather than people, et cetera.

24 MINS LATER

46:02
Maybe that's murderous.
3:53
You know, as how do you see the future in terms of that divergent view? And, you know, which way are we heading? Do you think?
4:05
Well, the book is designed to make sure we bridge away from the bad towards the good.
4:12
I do worry a little, to be honest with you, that the abundance thesis is sort of a little bit like Silicon Valley marketing spin.
4:18
I mean, I think a lot of people believe it, but I'm not sure it's necessarily coming through.
4:22
I am long term optimistic, but short term, actually more worried.
4:27
I think the transition of this will be difficult.
4:30
I do think more joblessness will happen.
9:26
So, Rob, if you were starting back, if you were rewinding the clock and thinking about a career in finance today, what might you do? I'm sure there are many things that you might do differently, but what in particular would you be focused on to help helping yourself prepare for the world of work today?

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