Human Intelligence For An AI World. Hosted by Rob Lauber, former Chief Learning Officer at McDonald's, and powered by getapeptalk.com. In this episode, Rob is joined by Ruth Hunt, crossbench peer and inclusion expert, to explore why emotional intelligence, inclusive leadership, and psychological safety are essential in an AI-driven workplace.
A Human-First Approach
Episode Synopsis
In a world increasingly driven by technology, it's human expertise, not just AI, that will shape the future of work. In this lively conversation, Rob Lauber speaks with Baroness Ruth Hunt, crossbench peer in the UK House of Lords and expert in inclusive leadership, about the critical human skills we can't afford to lose.
Ruth shares insights from her work with C-suite teams, tech companies, and policymakers, highlighting why serendipitous in-person interactions, emotional intelligence, curiosity, and resilience are becoming more essential, not less, in an AI-powered workplace. Together, Rob and Ruth unpack how overreliance on remote work and tech tools can lead to isolation, miscommunication, and missed opportunities for learning and innovation. They also dig into the risks of bias in AI systems, the limits of machine certainty, and the importance of authentic, inclusive design — not just for ethics, but for long-term business success.
With examples from hybrid working, hiring challenges, and policymaking, this episode makes a strong case: human connection is not optional. It's the hidden engine that will determine whether AI becomes a powerful enabler or just another missed opportunity.
Key insights:
- Why "watercooler moments" still matter in a hybrid world
- Emotional intelligence as a survival skill in the AI era
- The hidden dangers of certainty and speed in machine learning
- Building inclusive AI — and why it's a business essential
- How younger generations are losing key communication skills — and what leaders must do about it
Podcast Transcript, Episode 03
Rob Lauber
Artificial intelligence is advancing fast, but it's human expertise that makes the difference. I'm Rob Lauber, a 30-plus-year veteran of the ever-changing world of workplace learning and performance. Join me and my guests for this pep talk series, where we'll unpack how professionals, leaders, and innovators are shaping AI's role in organisations and how they'll blend AI-powered tools with live human experiences.
Let's explore what happens when human expertise meets artificial intelligence. With me today is Baroness Ruth Hunt, and I'll give you a little bit of a bio before we start our conversation. So bear with me, and you can correct me if I'm wrong.
But with over 20 years of experience leading campaigns for the LGBTQ+ communities in the UK and broader Europe. In 2019, Baroness Ruth Hunt became one of the youngest crossbench peers in the House of Lords. Alongside her parliamentary work, Ruth and her partner, Caroline Ellis, are directors of Deeds and Words.
Together, they work with C-suite teams to understand how collective and inclusive leadership can drive organisational effectiveness. Ruth Hunt has spent her career helping organisations build inclusive cultures, create psychologically safe environments and navigate the changing world of work. She's especially strong on themes on inclusion, identity and values, all of which feel incredibly relevant as we think about how AI is shaping the workplace.
So welcome, Ruth, thanks for coming on today.
Baroness Ruth Hunt
Thanks for having me, Rob. It's really good to see you.
Rob Lauber
Yeah, good. I have a few questions and hopefully that'll get our conversation going here. So the first one I'm going to start with is, I know you've worked a lot and closely with leaders and teams across multiple different sectors.
As you think about the world, which is becoming much more tech driven, what do you think are some of the most underrated human skills that are going to become essential as workplaces embrace even more technology?
Baroness Ruth Hunt
It's a really interesting question, Rob. And I Think that sometimes these things are presented as either or options. And there is an inevitability to the increased reliance, enjoyment of using tech in the ways we work.
One of the organisations I've worked with recently, we did a thorough audit of how hybrid working was impacting their ways of working and their effectiveness as an organisation. Because I think, particularly post-COVID, we've got a little bit lost with what an individual's preferences for work and what the organisation needs, right? But I think that they complement, but they're not necessarily the same thing.
And we did all this work and did all these interviews. And what we were finding is people were working from home, relying on AI in a really isolated way, and getting lots done, right? Really being efficient.
But they were missing out on the informal opportunities to learn from those who they would normally be surrounded by. And What we found when we dug underneath is that so much of the magic that happens with innovation in organisations that are successful, that are thriving, relies on those serendipitous moments, those connections we have with people, those seeing things slightly differently. Very junior staff were missing those things.
And we're making mistakes because of it. And No AI system was able to tell them what those unofficial, unwritten cultural rules were about how things were done. And so they were overshooting and getting themselves into trouble.
So it's about that blend, I think, that really helps things keep going.
Rob Lauber
Yeah. And it's a big debate in the workplace today about, you know, how much do I need to be in the office versus how much do I want to work from home? And that balance of productivity versus, you know, here the colloquialism is water cooler conversations, for example, where you're able to build a lot of relationships.
So you see that as sort of continuing to be really essential as workplaces become more tech-driven.
Baroness Ruth Hunt
I think absolutely because I think that we were working with a tech organisation, actually, and so very bright kids, not kids. I'm 45, but I'm a young graduate. Do you know what I mean? Really good at coding, really good engineers, and kind of innovative. And they were like, I just can't just do this from home.
Stop, you know, don't make me come in. And I think what we found is that the companies that were kind of saying you've got to be in two days a week, they're not quite getting it right either. But we found that when we let those tech engineers work from home, say 20 days a month, but then come in for two days for just informal meetings, like don't schedule anything, or can I grab you for five?
Can I just talk to you about this? Can I? And then a day of building trust and relationships, and then the 20 days were working really well.
So it's not necessarily that you need two in five kinds of artificial coming in. No, we're all here working on teams now. You might as well work on teams from home.
But a kind of deliberate effort, say a third of the time to disrupt meant those engineers just felt a little bit less isolated and it stopped things escalating. Because the other thing we see, and this is a feature of chat AI, I think, is that something goes wrong between people. Relationships are complex, right?
People are mysteries. They're not puzzles. They're weird.
They do weird things. They wake up on the wrong side of the bed. They roll their eyes at the wrong moment in the team meeting.
People are getting offended and not resolving stuff. So where you would kind of go, you're right, Rob, do you want another coffee before we carry on? You kind of go, well, god, Rob's really crossing, what's going on here?
And staff are putting complaints in and then putting into the AI. I'd like a conversation without prejudice in the UK. That's what we call it. You know, what a conversation.
So things are escalating really quickly. So There's something about bringing people in a third of the time to go, we are right. We're on the same path here.
You're always going to need a bit of that in the world, I think, to keep it going and keep it keep it moving.
Rob Lauber
Yeah, it's interesting. It plays into that whole emotional intelligence piece as well. Right.
When you think about it, you know, the role that emotional intelligence will play in an AI-driven world, the tendency is to move away from human interaction. Right. And so, how do you think about that piece overall?
Right. I guess, you know, if you use Goldman's Model around self-awareness, social awareness, relationship management, and those kinds of things, what do you think about that in an AI-driven world?
Baroness Ruth Hunt
I think that there's a thing that I'm finding about AI is that it deals in certainty. It doesn't come particularly well with uncertainty. And the reality of human interactions is that we need to be uncertain sometimes and need to be creative.
I think the certainty that comes with machine learning, the kind of yes or no, right or wrong, is describing us in the capacity to be curious. And I think that there's something about experimentation that's really important. That's a really important part of human success.
You know, every every success story has had ahad a list of things that have gone less well. So I think that it's about using it in the right way at the right time. So I'm in the House Of Lords and in the UK, we have a piece of legislation and we tabled amendments.
And inevitably, people are now using AI to draft those amendments. And they're OK, but you're losing something about the depth of the feeling behind something. So technically, they are correct.
But what you're losing is the motive behind it, the heart behind it. And still, even in the most factual of interactions, it's the heart that wins these things. Right.
Democracy still relies on the heart, and bringing your team with you still relies on the heart. I'm not I think creating moments where people can find their way of doing that. I don't think we need to be too rigid about what that looks like for folks.
So my engineers, a lot of them are very neurodiverse. They are very happy working at 4 a.m. in their pyjamas under their desk, and they come up with some genius stuff and like to let them carry on. No one needs to make them come in.
Rob Lauber
Exactly. Don't get in the way. Yeah.
Baroness Ruth Hunt
You do you, mate. And thank you very much. So we kind of have to let people be.
But I think there's something about, OK, you need to come in and be part of the conversation right now. I think if we can keep that balance right, we'll be able to get the most out of everything, I think.
Rob Lauber
Yeah, it's interesting because I see the, youknow, you see anecdotal conversations every once in a while where, you know,people are walking around with their screens. Right. Like, you know, I'm not going to call you.
I'm going to text you. Right. Instead of, you know, the old traditional pick up the phone and let's have a conversation kind of piece.
Do you see that especially for younger generations? Like, how do you think about that or what are you seeing from your perspective in the organisations that you work with in terms of addressing that issue and really getting people to be, you know, I Don't know, more traditional, I guess you would say, in the approach of putting the technology aside for a minute and actually engaging in conversations? Are you seeing that as a challenge?
I guess I would be.
Baroness Ruth Hunt
Yeah, it's a significant challenge. And I think COVID didn't help this. So conversations like this are inclined to be quite converted.
Right. So we kind of come together on something, and Teams and Zoom are full of that.
It's a download. This is what I've done. Anybody.
And I'm the first to say that generally, if I'm in a team meeting with three people, I might be doing something else at the same time. I once sent my corporation tax to the wrong bank account, you know, I've learned my lesson. Right.
You know, kind of, you know, you only do that once, right? Yeah, I only do that once. So you kind of spend all your time kind of.
And so this kind of download starts happening. What we found with the new generation coming in, they certainly don't like a phone call. They don't even like texting.
They send voice notes, and voice notes are the classic. So I was like, oh, so these like answer phones like are we back to the answer phone? But you're just skipping the call bit, like is that what we're doing?
And of course, it requires no response. A voice note requires no response. There's no conversation.
There's no disagreement. There's no divergence. So I think we are de-skilling this generation to cope with dissent,to disagree well, to rupturing and repairing quickly and innovating through that and actually avoiding some of those moments.
And then we find ourselves on social media in 140 characters. Exclaiming, et cetera, et cetera. So and I, you know, I've worked with interns who are absolutely brilliant online in interviews.
And then I bring them in a room with ministers, and they freeze and I can't have that. I can't have that. I can't.
You know, so I'm kind of going, right, guys, we've got to learn how you've got to learn to make eye contact. You've got to learn to listen, to understand, not to respond. You know, come on.
I've got to learn some of these skills. So I think we are letting down the next generation with our over-reliance on these platforms. Yeah.
Rob Lauber
Interesting stuff in terms of. You know, common skills that you wouldn't think, you know, probably 20 years ago, we didn't really have to spend a lot of time building those kinds of skills because people engaged that way all the time. So today it's sort of an emerging skill necessity, especially for new entrants into the workforce and into any sort of employment or environment kind of conversations.
So it's good. I'm going to shift gears a little bit for you because you mentioned it a little bit, and then because of your work, how are you seeing bias sort of emerge in AI or, you know, there's lots of conversations around it, maybe more conversation than maybe evidence per se. But how are you seeing that the notion of bias, you know, emerging inthe AI world in conversations as you're having organisations that you're working with in terms of making sure it's inclusive and at the same time, youknow, to some degree factual, I guess you could say, right, as opposed to skewed one way or another.
What are you seeing there?
Baroness Ruth Hunt
I think that there is a lot of anxiety about it that's not necessarily being properly understood. And I always think about dashboards. People think that dashboards are the most objective data set.
And of course, the decision about what you put on a dashboard is a highly subjective thing, right? Like, you know, what you put on your dashboard in front of your board is a, you know, it's all charts in a gothic way.
Rob Lauber
Right.
Baroness Ruth Hunt
So, yeah, so everybody, everybody's any even in the most kind of operational official way, there is bias built in depending on what you feed it. So there's some lovely, you know, there's some great stories about AI coming up with pictures that are deeply offensive, et cetera, et cetera. But I think what we're not talking about in that context is how we are already playing out our biases all the time.
So inevitably, this thing we're building is going to replicate that. And I think that part of there was a period in my life where everyone talked about unconscious bias, unconscious bias. And andI don't really believe in unconscious bias.
I think we're pretty biased. Our biases are pretty, pretty large. I really like working with people who think like me and are, you know, fast and get my humour and get stuff done without me having to finish my sentences.
Rob Lauber
You know, like I don't you gravitate to harmony. Right.
Baroness Ruth Hunt
So, of course you do. Of course you do. And I Don't think that's inherently a bad thing, particularly when we're just getting through stuff.
It becomes problematic when we start missing stuff. Right. Every failure story across the globe, you know, even 9-11,FBI weren't talking to the CIA and, you know, everything has this kind of like we're only talking to people like us.
That's the risk with AI. Are we only talking to people like us? Are we only replicating dynamics that are about us?
And what's the business model flaw behind that? Because when this expands faster than we can make it work, if certain communities go, this isn't this isn't working for me, this isn't catching what I need it to do. This isn't then you're losing your market.
Right. So there's something about let's not mess this up this time as we design it from the ground up. Let's get those different perspectives.
Not because of a moral imperative,p articularly, although, you know, that's fine. But just from a business imperative, we cannot build something that isn't going to work for everyone. So anyone who's feeding these systems needs to go.
Who's missing? Who's not in this room? Whose perspective are we missing?
Because this isn't going to work for some of those people. And we learned there's a I do some great work with the military who design things to take into the fields that are packed in razors or packed in CDs. And it kind of occurred to them that they should maybe pack things in lipstick because not everybody will need a men's razor and a shaving foam can.
Right. That's not how to carry the wedge of cash anymore. So they kind of went, oh, my God, well, what will women carry?
And I was like, well, I don't think lipstick on the battlefield, boys, but let's go and talk. We're going to ask them what they might carry. Oh, well, they might.
So it doesn't need to be hugely revolutionary. It's just a widening of a perspective to make sure that person doesn't get arrested with a man's shaving foam can when they're in the field. So it's not about making her feel good inside. It's just about good business sense.
Rob Lauber
Yeah, it's interesting because the, you know, sort of the now or future tendency would be, well, I'll just go ask, you know ,a generative AI tool like, you know, out there and say, well, what should a soldier bring to the field? Right. For personal care.
And, you know, I think you're right. You know, how do you know those voices are included in the response you get? And, you know, so again, back to maybe that's a good starting place, but then finding voices, making sure you've got representative voices in the room to sit there and say, well, what's missing from this solution?
Right. Shoot holes in this. What else do we need to be thinking about?
Right. And that's really short of the intersection of what we're trying to explore is figuring out, you know,where that balance needs to be, because it certainly is. Right now, a very shiny object that everyone's talking a lot about, but it could be at the expense of some really important human interaction skills as well.
Baroness Ruth Hunt
Yeah. And I think that it will end up becoming useful for certain things and not as many things as it could be. We are at the moment where future generations will look back and go, guys, well, you know, how did you miss that?
Because it will quickly overtake us. Right .The whole thing about AI is that we will cease to be relevant pretty soon.
It will start. I mean, I'm an English Literature student, Rob. So my fantasies and I've read enough dystopian fiction.
Right. So these things will just go on without us. So what we're putting into the DNA now really matters, because only that way will it really have a sustainable place in our society that makes a difference.
Rob Lauber
Yeah, really interesting. How do you see it? How do you see it influencing policymakers when it comes to communication and style of communication and even authenticity, I guess, would play into that as well?
How do you see that emerging as well from the perspective that you're at?
Baroness Ruth Hunt
I think it's going to be transformative because not no, no one person truly understands how to get a message out to multiple communities. And you can't have 10 people in a room. And this is about, you know, there's a campaign in the UK which is called Eat Five a Day.
And everybody in the country knows you should need to eat five fruit and vegetable a day. That's the that's the slogan. Very Few people eat five a day.
It's been a brilliant marketing campaign. It 's had zero impact on behaviours. Right.
So everybody knows about the campaign, but nobody does anything about it. So there's something about how do you talk to a community that buys food on a weekly basis with their benefits and doesn't have a fridge about what they like?
You just cannot hold all those different options in mind. So this ability to, in effect, scan a huge amount of information and be able to take it forward. And I think that one of the things that I see in enquiries and things like that, we get 2,000 pages of stuff.
Right. You know, really looking into stuff. I like my brain as a way of filtering that.
I like that. I will read 2,000 pages and I know I will kind of by the end of that get the theme. But I will miss stuff because I'm human.
AI will make a huge difference to be able to properly analyse that data as long as I then go back and check it. So it is going to be a game changer about getting those different perspectives in those conclusions. It's not all about suppression at all.
It's going to be quite transformative to many, many people, I think.
Rob Lauber
Yeah, you can think about the volume of legislation, for example, and your ability to call through that with speed and distill it down and then investigate areas where you might have questions. Right. So if you get a summary, a generative summary of what's in that legislation, then it might point you to where you want to learn more within tha,t and you dive into those 30 pages or whatever it might be.
Baroness Ruth Hunt
And the unintended consequences. So inBritain, we spend a lot of time, I'm sure, in the US as well. Second, secondary legislation.
Right. So you change the law that has knock-on effects to 20, and you kind of have to go back and read all those things and find it all. I mean, there'll be a way of doing that.
We'll have to stop doing things on Vela and scrolls like we'll have to kind of up. We still vote in person. You see, we don't even have electronic voting yet in the House of Lords. So there'll be some innovations to do before we get to that stage.
Rob Lauber
Yeah, I think we're still mostly in person as well. I think there are a few you can apply for an exception to. But I think the intent now, post-COVID, is we're back in person doing those things.
Baroness Ruth Hunt
It's interesting, isn't it? So in the UK, the average age of the members of the House of Lords is 75. So, you know, their phone is their phone.
During COVID, we reached a stage where you could vote online, and that was a massive cultural shift. However,when we came back, we took it away and walked—we walked down the corridors, and we voted. And the reason that came back is that people like the conversations they have down the corridors, the informal conversations they have.
They do a lot of good lobbying there. So even though a whole generation of people who were utterly resistant to online voting shifted, we shifted them back again. And that's very inefficient. But it was doing something special for the legislation and the way in which we do politics.
Rob Lauber
Yeah, because that's where it comes down to. It's more than the process. Right.
So, you know, that's a great example of like there's greater value in the human interaction component than there might be in the application of technology. Yeah, super insightful. Anything else you would say from questions I didn't ask you, general reaction to the world of AI and its convergence on how we kind of work together and how we interact together?
Baroness Ruth Hunt
I think, and I'd be interested to know your thoughts on this, Rob, where HR is going, to how they're going to manage this, because all my colleagues and friends are receiving 8000 perfectly crafted statements and application forms that they're using AI to assess the 8000. And then they're interviewing people who can barely speak, like this isn't working. Right.
So I wonder how that will level out, because I'm not sure how sustainable that is.
Rob Lauber
It's following a similar path to what we talked about, where we're in the early stages, there's the exuberance and there's the experimentation. Right. And I think we'll find some things don't work well.
Right. So I've seen, for example, more video-based interviewing happening now, which I think could be, you know, could be a positive thing. Passive interviews, video interviews, right, where you're prompted and ask a few questions and you have to respond on video.
So great. I can sort out that you can speak,you can engage with some technology and I sort of get to know you at least remotely. I still think the danger of that is we have AI sifting through that and deciding whether or not Ruth or Rob are the right person for the job.
And there seems to be something missing there because sometimes, on an equal qualifications level, there might be more to it and/or a spark. I like this person's attitude. I like our engagement.
I really connected with them. They're more like me or they're not at all like me. And that's exactly what I need.
Right. I worry that on the HR side, we may miss some of that and need to learn a few lessons to really figure out what the right balance is there. You know, I see lots of it in my world around workplace learning.
And you see lots of it there as well, where,you know, what are learning and development functions even look like in the future? If you get generative AI and you can ask any question, do you really even need to have a training function? Because I can say, give me the five steps or whatever right now and probably get the answer.
So it's going to be a very interesting piece. And that's like the source of this whole conversation around the dialogue between. So, what are we doing about human interaction?
Because we're spending an awful lot of time and energy right now teaching people how to prompt or understanding the boundaries and limitations of AI and developing agents, I think this will bethe next wave, right, when really the the value of human interaction is still going to be super important, especially if you have a customer facing organisation, you know, the Tesco's or Walmart's or whatever's of the world will still have a huge component of human interaction that's going to be necessary.
And those skills need to be built. People need to learn those things. And you're probably not necessarily going to get that from a chatbot.
Baroness Ruth Hunt
Yeah, I mean, all the training I've done over the last five years, regardless of the topic, has been about helping people have good-quality conversations. I've done a lot of work with fire officers, and fire officers in the UK have high levels of dyslexia amongst those communities. And they don't want to take online courses to learn about their new fire rules.
They want to talk about their worries about what it means if there's cladding or if they can't, the ladder doesn't, they want to talk about it. And that's how they learn. And so I think we'll still have to let people have the space to reflect on stuff, even if they do it online and then turn to someone next to them and have a conversation.
I think there has to still be some built-in mechanisms for that.
Rob Lauber
Absolutely. We're on a journey to figure that out. I appreciate you being part of that journey and helping us along in the conversation today.
So I'm sure our viewers will get a lot of value out of this conversation. And I certainly did. And I really appreciate you taking the time to join us today.
Baroness Ruth Hunt
Thank you, Rob. It's been lovely to spend time with you.
Rob Lauber
Yeah, thank you.
Baroness Ruth Hunt
Baroness Ruth Hunt is a crossbench peer, campaigner, and former Stonewall CEO known for her work on inclusive leadership and culture. As Co-Director of Deeds and Words, she advises leaders on equity, influence, and psychological safety. Ruth blends sharp insight with humour to engage audiences on today’s most complex workplace issues. Book Ruth to speak to your team.
Connect with Ruth
Rob Lauber
Rob Lauber is the host of the Human Intelligence In An AI World podcast. As the former CLO at McDonald's, Yum! Brands, and AT&T, Rob is a workforce development expert with 30+ years' experience. Named CLO of the Year (2013), he led major initiatives like Archways to Opportunity and now advises companies worldwide through XLO Global LLC, as a board leader and respected industry voice. Book Rob to speak to your team.
Connect with Rob
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