Two days before what was meant to be the world’s biggest drone race, a thunderstorm tore through much of what His Excellency Omar Sultan Al Olama and his team had built. He was in his twenties. He walked into his boss’s office ready to call it off and was sent back out with three words of instruction: figure it out. I’ll let him tell you what he did with that night, because the lesson has shaped every assignment he has taken since.

Minister Al Olama became the first Minister of Artificial Intelligence of any government in the world, and I am honored that he has joined our AI Ethics Council. His story starts somewhere most people would not expect. He grew up in a young nation, in a home with a father who served in the army and a mother who was a school principal, parents who put their savings into education and made sure their children met every new technology early. He still remembers pouring water on the sand so his father’s car would not sink outside their house.

He explains how the AI in your social media feed has been studying you for years, why the advantage in this new era belongs to speed of learning rather than years lived, and why he believes the people in business suits may feel the disruption before anyone else. We even find a few friendly places to disagree, which is where the best conversations live.

The part I keep returning to is his equation. For the last century and a half, progress was energy plus something: energy plus wheels, energy plus a bulb. The next era, he says, will be intelligence plus everything. If good people step up to build it, this technology will carry their values. Someone listening could be the one to write that next equation.

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Prefer to watch? The full episode is on YouTube.