Why Artificial Intelligence Is Incomplete Without Real Intelligence | Asim Kumar

0:30Welcome to this very special edition of the KJ Masterclass Life, the show which ensures that you profit from your time spent here with experts either through their industry insights, information or simply learning from them. And today we have with us a Sime Kumar Veteran Solution Architect, business advisor, lifelong student of the financial markets and human behavior founder of Avigna. So over three decades of experience spanning network and security engineering, IT strategy, financial risk management and business development, a Sime S. built a career on one promise, real intelligence must lead artificial intelligence. So we'll talk about all this, we'll also talk about whether you know, we'll also explore with him whether AI will replace us, how one can move from fear to focus and also about his easier methodology.

1:30Welcome to the show, Sime. Thank you, J. Thanks for the intro. You're welcome. Welcome to the show once again. Sime, so first, you know, to understand itself, you know, AI and all these things, let's understand it in a simple way for the common percentage. Who is more powerful today? Is real intelligence more powerful or is artificial intelligence more powerful today? Yeah, before we get into artificial intelligence, well, of course, real is always real. I mean, there's no substitute for that. That's always going to be there as long as humanity is there. So that is the real intelligence which resides right here on both sides of our heads. So that's not going to go anywhere and it has been time tested. We have had the industry revolution, we had the internet boom, we had the cloud. Now we have the so-called artificial intelligence, which is everybody saying, it's different

2:32this time. I've heard this before. So that was my premise around based on my journey around technology and then eventually in financial markets where I discovered where the human mind is a superpower that we all have, but we don't fully use probably. And then it's where we surrender to fear and greed and all those negative voices. Absolutely. Asim. So let's understand it through your journey. Tell us a bit about your background, your journey so that the audience knows better about you and also about how you came to talking about these things today, especially with your interest in financial markets and all that. Yeah. So like you said it in the end to my background is in network engineering and security engineering and that's how I started back in the mid 90s. Life was great.

3:32And then I had the best of the best industrial credentials, the degrees and life was good. The dot, the 2000 era was there. And then we were like indispensable at one time. And then the dot com came around right after that. And then 2002 where I was seeing the insecurity popping in where my colleagues, even much better than I was at that time were getting laid off every week. And then I was like, wow, being a network engineer, yeah, we have a single point of failure. So that's what we designed systems. But what about my personal life? Like I was the most insecure person at that time when I said, okay, all these credentials, like PhD level and I could be given a pink slip next Monday. So, so that's where I thought, okay, there has to be something else.

4:35As a backup, this one industry, one paycheck is basically the single point of failure. And that's not going to sustain. So that's what drove me into the financial market discovery. And then I've fully got into that. And then around 2007, I was at a point where I thought, that is my green pasture. And I would probably switch careers around that time. And then I was enrolled into a MBA program thinking, okay, let's take it next level while I'm learning on my own. And then I'll have another credential that will make me more indispensable. Bulletproof. So as the R&A would have it, right in the middle of the program, 2008, we had the biggest financial global crisis. And there were my dream God shattered around us. Okay, maybe my acres of diamonds are right here in the tech. May I will probably continue with that as I am delving into financial markets as a side hustle, probably.

5:42So that happened. Then 2010 came in around after the cloud. And then to 2020, the COVID came in and then we had this thing again around the layoffs, but that was global around nothing to do with tech or the industry. It was widespread. That's when I started putting the pieces together about the book that I wrote eventually out of this. But I didn't write the book in 2020. The book came in last year, especially when this AI scare came in, where it was my third time seeing much bigger scale, where my near and dear's were getting laid off again. And they were, they thought they were very secure. And the same thing was happening. It was not new to me, but I was much prepared because of my experience in financial markets, the self discovery around human psychology.

6:42But what it took, or did for me was I said, okay, now I need to put all the compilation together. Let it out as a message. As if I was talking to my 32 year old that, yes, this is nothing new. And then there is a way to build your own personal resilient system. And that's where the book came around, which is called unblocked. So it's a get your mind unblocked from a block mindset. So get away from fear and just focus on building the future regardless of the situation. So that's where the journey started. And that's what I'm kind of sending out the message that AI is not going to replace the real intelligence that we humans possess. So that's where we are.

7:43Absolutely, absolutely. Asim. So we'll talk about your book also unblocked the power of real intelligence in the era of AI. So when real intelligence is so powerful, AI is built on that intelligence. Why is it that is also carry on? Yeah. So AI is another tech right. So in my book, the foundational element that we talk in enterprises, like it's not just the technology. It's the what we call it as a tripod of success, which is the basis of any infrastructure of an enterprise, the people process and technology. So it's like the three-stool, three-legged stool where we have to balance. So any of one of the legs, if supersedes, the stool is going to top of. And that's where the saying comes from, the discovery from McKinsey's and all that.

8:45That 70% of the digital transformation projects fail because the focus is entirely pushing out the technology, not focusing on people and the processes. So that's where we miss the boat. So artificial intelligence is that technology. And I've been from the very beginning, whether it was network security cloud, the use of technology is where people lose sight. They just go with a shiny bullet and then just go after it without fully comprehending it and how to make use of it to the full extent. Absolutely. So I want to understand for the audience, what is it that you are trying to tell with what you are saying, with what you are doing and also through your book? Yes, I've mentioned the tripod of success, right?

9:45For the individual, the solar printers that AI is revolutionizing is, like if there's a saying, we will have the first billion dollar entrepreneur, it will be a single person because of AI. So what I'm telling you on the people side, it's the mindset. When you look at that tripod, the people in an enterprise, if you map it to your individualism, it's your mindset. And the process part is your habits. Habits where in the fast-paced environment that you have to have. So in my case, for my personal discovery, I came up with this acronym called EPDF. It's the energy, patience, discipline and focus. Basically, I learned from the way the financial markets worked. So my mentality was, okay, I'm so good at technology, I can translate that into the financial market, no problem because technical analysis, but I was way way so wrong. So that's where the discovery came in, like the way I am impatient in the technology,

10:52go, go, go, doesn't work in financial markets. It's like, okay, let it run. So be patient. The same thing with discipline, right? So discipline kind of works on both sides, but it was different for me, where I was going after everything I've done, forex, I did, for futures. There was no discipline. I was just going all over the place in the beginning. And then focus again to the point where you have to, yeah, in technology, yes, you have a broad portfolio, but you go deep into it. And same applies to AI, right? AI is going everywhere, but this every every week you're getting a new tool out there. That's where the overwhelm part comes in. So that's where you need to narrow your focus on wherever you are and then build upon that. And then the first of the foundational scale, I would say is the energy management because what I had learned through hard knocks was, yeah, what I thought, I was delusioned, right?

11:59So that delusional effect took a toll on my own personal being like, I gained weight. I was like questioning myself, the self-taughts, the imposter syndrome. These were the two things I didn't even know about. So that's when I went into this human psychology part of it and learned about it, is it okay? So confidence was shattered, right? Okay, why me? And I was just questioning myself right at some point like, okay, it just doesn't make sense. So the energy part came in from there and that built upon the patients and discipline, I'm much calmer now, I'm much relaxed and I'm much focused. So and then as of last year, people were surprised that I wrote a book. So that's how I was known. This guy's an introvert like he doesn't talk much and he came up with the book. Not just, I would say, just look at my family, they got that book as a surprise on Christmas.

13:05So they were like, wow, you wrote a book. So I was at a point I said, if not now, then when I just want to at least come up with my compilation, my experience as a business strategy book and that can translate into your personal strategy as well. So that's what I'm trying to teach people now is build your own personal resilient system. So no matter what comes next, you will be ready and to deal with it. Absolutely. So individuals and companies, what does resilient system here mean? How have you covered that in the book? What have you covered as well? Where does you know, a Vignac come into the picture? Yeah, so what Avigna means is the removal of obstacles from the Sanskrit word, Avigna. So that has been the motto of my company which I started back in 2013 and then finding solutions

14:05and enabling successes, the caption that we go with. Right now we are changing it from fragility to freedom because yes, people are feeling fragile because the insecurity that's popping in, okay, what's going to happen? AI is going to replace me. So we want to move them to the free mindset, right? Okay, so by way of upscaling yourself. So there are a couple of elements in the book. Basically the book is structured in three ways, the alignment, the measurement and the execution. So alignment I already talked about is the people, process and technology, the tripod of success. That's the foundational thing, built in with the EPDF. And then in the measurement, I talk about in business terms like what do we have in business, a product, a service, and then we do business for profit. So those are the three chapters in there that are literally acronyms. The book is all the chapters are acronym based and then they've been expanded

15:08out for an enterprise and as a personal, what is a product? What are the features of a product? What are the features of service? And then what profit really means is the oxygen for value sustainability, not just making money. So given an interest of time, what I will really talk about part of the execution is the work. Work is willingness to obtain real knowledge. So you have to rethink work in that terms. What is real knowledge? Again, coming back to real intelligence, right? So I broke that down into hard work and smart work, not the traditional hard work where we grind, right? As an engineer, you will basically write code, thousands of line of work, that's grind work. Hard, I define it as happy, attitude, rigor, and discipline. So wherever you are, you need to do things happily. Otherwise, no matter where you go next, you will be in the same state. That's

16:11from my learning. So no matter how much floor I can pound, oh, I hate this, I hate my job, you will never find happiness in your next job either. So you'll be the same way. So the attitude needs to change towards work that that's where the willingness comes in and the ownership comes in that, okay, I need to learn it with rigor and discipline. So the discipline ties back to the EPDF again. So the second piece is the smart, not the smart goals one. This is study, master, apply, revise, and track. It's like a continuous learning cycle that you need to get in. So that has been my journey. I have talked to you about earlier credentials and degrees and all that. So I've been a continuous learner myself, but I learned the hard way on the other side on the financial market, which I was totally unaware of, which I was part of myself discovery. So now I'm tying these to

17:16how to rethink work, the basic premises again adaptability. So no matter what comes next, you are the human and human has that power of adaptation from Charles Darwin theory, right? So your intelligence doesn't matter how intelligent hard work or you are, but if you're not adaptable, you're not going to go anywhere. You're not going to survive. So the survival of the fitis is being adaptable is the first attribute needs to have. So that's the work part in there. Absolutely. So for a common person, if they want to understand, where do I get real intelligence? Because most of the learning is happening from artificial intelligence and tools as such, which has actually used real intelligence and we converted into artificial intelligence and we are learning and learning from the machine learning

18:16itself. In that sense, you know, where do I learn something real? Yeah. So it comes down to the upscaling part just like any other tech you will learn with artificial intelligence, especially now, I'll give you my example too on the adaptability and then creating part is so you have to rethink work like I said. And then with the wipe coating now coming in a lot of the software has been very easily developed, which I used I'm a network and security engineer, not a programmer by trade, but I was able to figure it out last year or during my research of all these AI tools and models that I could create a software on my own. So basically, I created a coaching app which is on my and the training on my website using wipe coating. I was not a coder before. So I didn't give it in.

19:19So you have to like I said, use of technology. So AI is there to for use. So if you know upskill yourself to be able to use to your advantage, then becomes that's where the real intelligence comes in is try to put in the context first and then use your judgment. So with the louder the tools, there is an issue with AI, especially in the enterprise, the black box prop, what I call the black box problem. Hey, you give it a prompt. It does its thing, but without doing what's happening in the background. So you did mention in my intro about the easier methodology. So I'll touch upon that. Easier is an infrastructure framework that I came up with back in the when the cloud was emerging. So easier stands for elastic, agile, secure, intelligent, then economical, then risk reducer. So that's the easier

20:25infrastructure from that. That's the foundational things for any technology. So as in there is the security piece which is big for the AI black box problem. Like if you don't know how the system works, how would you ensure it's secure by design? So that's one of the things that I bring into the table is from my background is security has to be in in there, not just added on after the fact. So these are the elements you have to know from a technology standpoint. What are the building blocks of any tech that you should be looking at? So there is an application part of it, right? Like you have people are doing all these the wipe coding and whatever the video generation and all that those are day-to-day type of tools, but at an enterprise level for the business workflows that are being automated using AI and a lot of them are failing because of the same reason I've seen

21:28this before. Like 70 80% of the modernization programs fail because of that because it's not thought through. People are not trained, processes are not tweaked, that goes back to the alignment piece. So you need to start thinking in those frameworks to think ahead. So when you say AI will replace me, I would say somebody who is using the methodology of AI will replace you, not just AI itself. So people are still going to be there. So in my book I talk about the governance architect, that's the future. So you should be able to see from as a manager of technology. Like okay, how does it work and what are the pieces that makes it more useful, productive, profitable? Those are the elements I throw in the book as well, where it would make sense. And once you are,

22:31you have that in your arsenal. So that's how you can be more competitive in the game. Absolutely. One last question I have for you, Asim, is you talk about that AI and artificial intelligence is incomplete without real intelligence. Nowadays a lot of people use artificial intelligence for looking at knowledge gaps. So who will compliment whom? Will AI compliment real intelligence or will real intelligence compliment AI? Because there is a both ways. You know, one is being used as knowledge gap. At the other side, we are looking at AI slots and trying to work around our way through that. Yeah, it's a two ways. So how did AI come in? Somebody trained it. So basically, how did I come up with my coaching app? I wrote the book first. And then I fed that into my application.

23:33I gave it the context and the framework that these are your boundaries. And basically, now we talk about cloning. How do you cloning work? You have to know about me. So I have to feed in that information first that we called the training the LLM, the large language model. And then based on that, AI, what is AI? AI is a multiplier. It's technology. I cannot put 10 things together as fast as a machine can do. So the premise is humans will you will not be able to outperform the machines definitely. But you can provide the context to start with and the judgment that goes along with it. So as a human, you will have to decide whether the output is correct or not. So AI will probably give you something like you might have noticed. It's always going to spit out. And then if you correct it is a great idea. Yeah, I didn't even think about it.

24:34So it's interactive. So the more the human starts thinking, not totally surrendering to it, that and make it work. It's like take AI as your pet. So you teach it how so you ever you want to behave. And that's how it's going to be. So a more intelligent person might train it better than you. That's that's where the competition comes in the real intelligence working against each other. Absolutely. So who is your book for? Unblock the power of real intelligence. So who is that for any entrepreneur, solar panel or technology leader enterprise to basically rethink how to make this technology within an enterprise work. So it's a business strategy book. It works for both enterprise and a new people who want to go like myself. So that's what the book is for.

25:38That's where it starts with the alignment piece around people process technology and that the leadership has to take that ownership. So it's a top down approach. So as a single small business owner, the CEO of that company, the solar printer of the company is the decision maker and that's where it flows down into the culture. So right. And who is your ideal client, anyone who would want to connect with you and get your help on? Well, like I mentioned the fragility to freedom, right? So anybody who's feeling insecure or not sure about how this new tech will impact and where to go from there. So that's where I bring in the blend of those two like a personal resilient system. So that's where I am more focused on is the foundational

26:42piece. And then I have partnerships with some AI certification and then risk management companies now that depending on the need, we can all for that as well. Like AI, I don't teach AI per se. I have partnerships where whether you are a marketing company or HR or healthcare doesn't matter. Right. So we give you the essential basic building blocks and then we'll point you to the focus area like where you need to go deeper. So like yeah, that's where I'm trying to help people out. You are jumping in an ocean, but okay, how do you find your backwaters to sustain yourself, not getting overwhelmed? So helping them build that foundation around EPDF first and then moving on from from their own. Absolutely. There's so much to learn about all this from you. And I'm sure

27:44a lot of people, a lot of you know, people who would want to understand from the individual aspect as well as from the business aspect of super intelligence, real intelligence and artificial intelligence would want to connect with you. What's the best way for them to do so? Yeah, so you probably have my website. That's the first place to go to. And there will be links to my LinkedIn, Insta and email. The website is Avigna LLC.com. It's avigna LLC.com. So visit there. There's about I mentioned the coaching app. There is a training as well based on the book. And then if you want to connect from me there, schedule a call, I'll be happy to walk, walk to people through. So wonderful. With this, it's set up on this very special edition of the KJ Masterclass Life.

28:44Thank you so much indeed for joining us. Thank you, AJ.