John Spens Of Thoughtworks On the Future of Artificial Intelligence
An Interview With David Leichner
Time to market and business pressures trumping safety concerns. If a business has to make a decision between its own viability and some vague, potential harm to the public, the likelihood is high that some serious risks will be taken.
As a part of our series about the future of Artificial Intelligence, I had the pleasure of interviewing John Spens.
John Spens is the VP of data and AI for North America at Thoughtworks. He’s been with the company since 2003 holding various roles around analytics and data. John has led a number of organizational transformation programs including the launch of data analytics and agile work practices.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Can you share with us the ‘backstory” of how you decided to pursue this career path in AI?
My interest in AI was first kindled in college, with two of my senior year courses: LISP and Design of Compilers. LISP is somewhat obvious; it was a language designed specifically for AI, but what I found fascinating in the Design of Compilers was the tokenization of programming languages. It really opened my eyes to the challenge of translating natural concepts (like language) into something that can be executed by. Early in my career, I became involved in a data warehousing project, and that started my path on data and analytics, and I became fascinated with the idea of using analytics to gain a deeper understanding of what drives the behaviors of people and how that impacts businesses.
What lessons can others learn from your story?
Those two courses were chosen essentially at random. I had no idea how they would impact my thinking. So, I think the lesson to take away is that keep yourself open to new experiences and new learnings.
Can you tell our readers about the most interesting projects you are working on now?
My team has been working with a number of life sciences companies to accelerate the delivery of new medications and treatments to market. This is a fascinating space, which is ripe for the application of AI. Whether it be enabling drug discovery through Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), enabling In Silico experience, or optimizing clinical trials.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
Picking ONE person is the biggest challenge! I’ve been privileged with so many coaches and mentors in my life. But if I have to point to the greatest lesson I go back to, it had to be my father. He taught by example to never stop learning and be open to taking on new challenges. He had been a hardware engineer most of his life, but in his 50’s he realized that software was where the greatest innovation was. At an age when most people were planning for retirement, he showed tremendous courage and took on the challenge of becoming a developer. As I’ve progressed through my career, I recognize how much courage that decision took, and I constantly remind myself to show the same courage and always look for an opportunity to learn.
What are the 5 things that most excite you about the AI industry? Why?
- Enabling autonomous vehicles and devices. There’s still a long way to go to make driverless cars safe, but there are also so many opportunities to employ driverless vehicles and robots to enable mining, search and rescue, and other dangerous activities. In addition, the fact that we can now land and reuse rockets as a result of AI will have a profound impact on space exploration.
- Accelerating drug discovery and development. Life sciences companies are all investing in AI to develop more sophisticated medications and reduce the time and risk in clinical trials. The opportunities exist to make massive leaps in what have been untreatable diseases.
- AI-assisted software development. Tools like Copilot and Code Whisperer will dramatically reduce the cost/time/risk in building custom solutions, and I anticipate that they will change the buy versus build paradigm that has long existed in the software industry.
- The fact that we’ve hit an inflection point in the development and application of AI. Over the last 18 months AI went from a relatively narrow application to widespread adoption. For the past 2–3 years, many senior executives were disinterested in AI and dismissed it as arcane technology. Those same execs are now asking their tech organizations, “Why aren’t we doing more with AI?” It’s exciting to see it take off.
- But we’re still in its infancy and the power of AI continues to grow at an amazing rate. Especially as quantum computing becomes a reality, what we will be able to achieve will change our society.
What are the 5 things that concern you about the AI industry? Why?
- Our ability to understand/explain the models. When AI is a “black box”, we cannot truly trust it to make critical decisions.
- Time to market and business pressures trumping safety concerns. If a business has to make a decision between its own viability and some vague, potential harm to the public, the likelihood is high that some serious risks will be taken.
- The safety controls around AI solutions (ensuring failsafe). One concern I’ve heard over and over is being overly trusting in AI, and creating instances when AI is making catastrophic decisions with no humans in the loop. Examples are market meltdowns created by algorithmic trading. We need to ensure that a garbage in, garbage out (GIGO) problem doesn’t go unchecked. At Thoughtworks we advise that when building real-world AI-enabled deployments our clients involve human-in-the-loop solutions, where a human decision-maker can choose to overrule the algorithm, in settings where there is a potential for harmful effects on people.
- Intentionally used for unethical purposes. The reality is, controls primarily prevent unintentional harm. Individuals who are seeking to do bad are already reaping the benefits of AI.
- The mantra regarding automation has long been, “automation performs the boring, repetitive tasks, enabling people to focus on more thought-provoking and creative tasks.” But we are now seeing AI capable of making decisions and creating art. At some point, the principle that new jobs will replace the old ones will fail.
As you know, there is an ongoing debate between prominent scientists, (personified as a debate between Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg,) about whether advanced AI poses an existential danger to humanity. What is your position about this?
Any powerful tool can be used as a weapon, and AI is no different. The intentional and even unintentional abuse of AI presents a number of catastrophic threats to humanity. We are already experiencing malicious use of AI to create misinformation, and it is empowering authoritarian governments. And there are so many examples in human history of technologies used for benign purposes that had unexpected consequences.
What can be done to prevent such concerns from materializing? And what can be done to assure the public that there is nothing to be concerned about?
First, I do not believe we should seek to assure the public that AI is safe. People will not — and should not — believe “there’s nothing to see here”. Instead, we continue to advocate for the focus on education to help ensure people understand the potential risks and you can read more in our Responsible Tech Playbook. Awareness will be an important tool in keeping people safe, and also hopefully prevent people from believing the myths about AI. A recent consumer survey on AI that Thoughtworks did suggests that 87% of respondents expect businesses to use technology ethically while they innovate. We therefore need companies to adopt and enforce ethical frameworks for employing AI that provide some level of auditability. This will enable external oversight, via government agencies or professional institutions to prevent misuse or abuse of AI. This won’t prevent malicious actors from doing harm, but it will establish some level of control and trust in public use.
What is your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share a story of how that had relevance to your own life?
In my 30+ years in IT, I’ve learned that “Honesty is the greatest form of respect”. I learned this when I took over a development team many years ago. One of the team members was seeking a promotion, yet his colleagues did not think he had the capabilities needed. However, because this person was such a well-respected and hard-working team member, no one had the heart to provide him with the necessary feedback to advance to the next level. Over time, he became frustrated with his lack of advancement. When I sat him down and explained why he wasn’t ready, while he was disappointed, he greatly appreciated my candor. We’ve remained friends ever since.
I try to always live by this maxim and make sure I prioritize candor and transparency with the people I work with and support in their continued career development and growth.
How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world? Can you share a story?
I’ve had the good fortune to work for a company that invests in enabling social justice, and had the opportunity to participate in work we did to enable Medicines Sans Frontiers (Doctors Without Borders) to more rapidly gather and use data collected from their field hospitals. It was a gratifying and humbling experience, especially when you meet the doctors who do so much good for the world.
You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)
I would look to enable community-based solutions to address food insecurity, homelessness, and other critical social issues. Besides being highly effective, promoting a sense of community in a time when we’ve become both isolated and divided is critical.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
I will take that as a personal challenge to write more! I am one of those individuals who has far too many first drafts tucked away. But for now, you can follow me on LinkedIn. https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-spens-1060821/
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!
About The Interviewer: David Leichner is a veteran of the Israeli high-tech industry with significant experience in the areas of cyber and security, enterprise software and communications. At Cybellum, a leading provider of Product Security Lifecycle Management, David is responsible for creating and executing the marketing strategy and managing the global marketing team that forms the foundation for Cybellum’s product and market penetration. Prior to Cybellum, David was CMO at SQream and VP Sales and Marketing at endpoint protection vendor, Cynet. David is the Chairman of the Friends of Israel and Member of the Board of Trustees of the Jerusalem Technology College. He holds a BA in Information Systems Management and an MBA in International Business from the City University of New York.
