As Co-Founder of Cylance, the world’s first AI based cybersecurity prevention solution released to the world in 2015, I know a good hype when I see one. We introduced the cyber world to AI when the masses couldn’t spell the word “AI”. Back then it was painful. We went through countless iterations of how to communicate our value and differentiation in a crowded and noisy market: endpoint protection or antivirus. So you can imagine my love for AI to get its overdue due. But today’s AI hype is at an untenable pitch, and can never be sustained.
After 35 years in technology, I feel like I’ve seen it all. Every day, I wake up to countless newsletters, seemingly infinite X posts (even without closely following Sam and Elon), and AI articles from the likes of Medium and Substack that I couldn’t possibly process peripherally much less absorb (and still get my day job done). But if I’ve learned anything in my decades of driving technology hype, I can tell you this will not last.
I fear the AI hype train may hit the wall at 200mph in one of those moments which harkens back to the “Deja Q” episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation (TNG) where Q drops to the floor of the Starship Enterprise after being ex-communicated from the Continuum, and Guinan stands over him triumphantly stating “How the mighty have fallen.”
From the early days of PC technology, the mainframe and midrange computers, the Internet, the web browser, mobile and cloud, to AI in cybersecurity, I don’t think I have missed any major hype cycle since my birth into the technical. But the hype on this cycle is particularly “extra”, and I think I know why.
For the first time in human history, we have a distant but tangible line of sight to the end of our usefulness, our contribution to the world and our very intellectual existence. For the first time, we have created something that can make decisions without us in the loop.
AI challenges our very survival as a species. We are (essentially) non-essential. These AI existential threats seem omnipresent with little end in sight. For now though, I truly believe we can rest easy when I say, we are nowhere close… we have miles to go before we sleep (assuming of course that we don’t plug in ChatGPT into a systems controller at a nuclear power plant anytime soon).
Before the lights go out for us humans we have to make AI useful to us first. At this point in our evolution, AI needs Humans far more than Humans need AI, so a natural bridge is essential. The bridge is self-awareness and understanding leveraging critical thinking. But to understand ourselves, we need to move past the physical, into the other rich dimensions of self like spiritual, environmental, emotional, intellectual, occupational, social, financial and so many more.
At WethosAI, our stated mission is clear: to Prevent Workforce Extinction. In 2024 we set up the core rebar and concrete to establish that foundation. Ensuring proper measurements and quality steel and concrete, we set out to understand the human being in all its dimensions, professionality (and soon personal) traits and cognitive biases plus so much more. To achieve this Herculean feat, we need a few things from you. First, you have to “want” to be “known” (if you are the kind of person who doesn’t want to know, we probably aren’t for you — yet). Second, you have to be open to self-awareness (this can be hard for those who are happy and content with exactly who they are). Finally, we need you to be interested in others’ differences and their similarities.
When you know yourself and others, you have the ripe and fertile ground of true empowerment and superhuman performance. Consider the entirety of a human being, encompassing all its dimensions, traits, cognitive biases, memories, experiences, and preferences, and you will find a combinatorial number so vast that it greatly surpasses the total number of atoms in the known universe. There is so much more to explore.
Professionality Traits
By engaging with you to better understand your thoughts and behaviors, we can predict how you will respond to external stimuli, as well as how you will think (ideas), relate (emotions), act (taking actions), and organize (structure) your world.
Cognitive Diversity
By measuring your behavioral traits, we have a strong glimpse into your natural tendencies and system 1 thinking patterns (a.k.a. instincts and biases). We learn your unconscious cognitive biases and know you better than you know yourself at times.
Team Collaboration
At WethosAI, you now have the ability to understand and consider every part of the whole. With AI, you can calculate the needs of everyone to achieve a win/win outcome almost every time.
“System 2” (critical) Thinking at “System 1” (instinct) Speeds
We delivered your own personal AI Copilot this year to help you perform your everyday duties and functions beyond just working together well with others. Encouraging a “system 2” level critical thinking process for everyday tasks but at the speed of “system 1” level instincts.
Calendar IQ
How many meetings do you have that are 1) useless, 2) exhausting, 3) counter-productive, 4) ignored, 5) never acted upon, etc. etc.? 50%? 90%? Too many, certainly. What if you could understand the outcome of every meeting before it ever started, or ensure goal achievement at every meeting? Time management and productivity would be a trivial exercise.
We delivered the world’s first intelligent meeting dashboard to give you predictive insights into every potential dynamic you could imagine, ultimately enhancing your level of success.
Our next phase, for 2025, will be to naturally blend the two worlds of Humans and AI together into one powerhouse force of productivity and prescience. In today’s market, AI is framed largely in one way: Generative. Ask the black box of ChatGPT, Claude, or Grok and get a highly intelligent, but not perfect or without hallucination, answer. At least enough of an answer to generate seemingly magical output and help think through and research countless activities for the purposes of planning and action.
However, the potential for AI is far more than just generative. The ability for deep learning systems to predict the label of a dataset before traditional systems can offer up a label is insanely powerful. You can predict the future in this way. That’s what we did at Cylance in cybersecurity. We could literally predict the future to the 99.9999%. That is true power. But predictive AI has taken a back seat (for now) to make room for the magic of the day.
By many accounts, Generative AI is a solution looking for a problem. Generative models have an even more significant existential threat than humans do: originality and uniqueness. There is a limited amount of data to be harvested in the world, and many believe that the potential of learning in AI systems is beginning to reach its peak. This is where AI will ultimately fall, a.k.a. “Q.” AI can only generalize its knowledge based on the vast amounts of data it has been trained on. It cannot take into account the nearly infinite permutations and combinations of individual experiences to produce truly unique and original outputs. As a result, AI will ultimately face challenges due to model collapse, leading to a dramatic drop in its application and much more realistic application of its value.
What all this means is that the very survival of AI requires Humans -their complexity, completeness, and ultimately, their unique and original output crafted from the near-infinite combinations of traits, biases, memories, experiences, preferences, and so much more that make up a human. By leveraging AI fully however, we will soon find out that we are both completely generalized and unique at the same time. In other words, we are pattern driven creatures that can be easily predictable (system 1 instinct), and at the same time be near infinitely unique when every component of ourselves in taken into consideration (system 2 thinking). And that is the beauty of the human brain. The survival of AI will depend on humans, not the other way around. To achieve our ultimate goals of a benevolent AI that works on the behest of humans in a truly nurturing way, we must tap into the uniqueness of the human.
Today, Hard Skills are largely solved with Generative AI. Every skill and project step seems imminently accessible at the prompt. But it’s the Soft Skills that will drive AI even further. In fact, the Soft Skills in humans are what allow them to be successful in a group and empower the organism to thrive.
Understanding how you behave individually has a huge impact on your team. When everyone is aware of their own thinking styles, the way they interact becomes more proactive and natural, rather than reactionary to each other. Instead of trying to fit everyone into a single way of working and thinking, we’re creating an environment where our different styles support and complement each other.
Without visibility into yourself and others that you work with, you live your days in a Sisyphean existence — always destined to repeat your patterns.
At WethosAI, we’ve discovered that effective AI integration follows a simple framework:
Map Your Mind & Train Your Personal AI
Utilize WethosAI to understand your cognitive traits and biases and allow your personal AI to learn from your unique approaches to critical thinking, making decisions, and completing tasks. Through continuous interaction, your Personal AI learns more about your unique behavioral patterns to better tailor the insights it provides.
Enhance Your Impact & Amplify Your Strengths
Leverage your personal AI to boost your natural capabilities, identify areas of development, and enhance your impact. Your AI companion helps you recognize and leverage your strengths while providing suggestions for developing new skills. Through ongoing analysis of your interactions, it offers actionable insights to improve your effectiveness in:
As we think about the future of AI in our lives, it’s clear that the traditional ways we engage with technology are rapidly evolving. Upcoming features like Personalized AI and a more intuitive CalendarIQ are just the start of this transformation. AI is not just reactive but is becoming genuinely connected to our unique traits and biases, and ultimately predictive.
We’re excited about the future where mapping your mind to AI becomes a reality. This will pave the way for a framework that brings your personal AI to life, ultimately leading to a vibrant global AI economy. In 2025, you’ll discover personalized support that aligns with your unique cognitive traits and biases, helping you enhance your skills and reach your fullest (system 2) potential. WethosAI is more than just another productivity tool; we’re crafting a personalized operating system that grows alongside you, emphasizing critical thinking at the core of the Human + AI experience. We look forward to your feedback and joining us on our journey!
Sign up for the Wethos AI Free trial and discover how your personal Wethos Copilot can amplify your unique capabilities.
Sources
The Decision Lab. (n.d.). System 1 and System 2 Thinking. Retrieved January 8, 2025, from https://thedecisionlab.com/reference-guide/philosophy/system-1-and-system-2-thinking