What’s in this podcast?
Artificial Intelligence is often positioned as the great democratiser of knowledge. But could it also widen existing inequalities?
In this episode of Hub & Spoken, Jason Foster is joined by Dipi McKernan, Chief Controls Officer at Lloyds Banking Group, to explore the intersection of AI and social mobility.
Drawing on her own journey and extensive work championing socioeconomic diversity, Dipi shares why social mobility remains a significant challenge across financial and professional services, despite growing awareness and progress. Together, Jason and Dipi discuss how AI could create new opportunities by opening access to knowledge, learning, mentoring and career development that were previously out of reach for many.
But they also examine the risks. As AI reshapes the workforce, what happens to entry-level roles that traditionally provide experience and pathways into leadership? Could bias, unequal access to technology, and a lack of diversity among those building AI systems reinforce existing barriers?
This is a thoughtful conversation about the future of work, opportunity, and the responsibility leaders, educators and organisations have to ensure AI helps create a fairer future rather than a more divided one.
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Episode timings
00:00 — Introduction
02:34 — Why social mobility matters
05:44 — The impact of socio-economic diversity
10:42 — Progress and persistent barriers
14:25 — How AI could reshape social mobility
19:26 — Democratising access to knowledge
23:06 — Unequal access and embedded bias
26:26 — Shared responsibility for an inclusive future
32:45 — Practical actions for individuals and leaders
The following interview transcription has been edited for length and clarity.
00:00 — Introduction
Jason Foster:
Hi everyone, welcome back to the show. Today I have the absolute pleasure of inviting onto the show Dipi McKernan, who is the Chief Controls Officer at Lloyds Banking Group.
But importantly for this conversation is a non-executive director, a board member and a trustee of a couple of not-for-profit organisations who support, focus on socio-economic diversity and giving opportunities to those from lower socio-economic backgrounds, because we’re going to be talking about how AI is either an opportunity or a divide, a further divide around social mobility in the UK and in the world.
And I’m really pleased to have Dipi on the show to have this conversation with me. So welcome along. Thank you for being here.
Dipi McKernan:
Hi, Jason. Lovely to meet you. Thank you so much for having me. Really delighted to be here.
Jason Foster:
Great. I gave a very short intro to who you are and your background to help me shape the conversation, but why don’t we get you introduced to the lovely audience to get us going?
Dipi McKernan:
Thank you. So I’ve been in financial services for a very long time now, a number of decades, and I’m the Chief Controls Officer for the Insurance, Investment and Pensions business of Lloyds Banking Group. I’ve worked in lots of different companies, whether that’s Deutsche Bank or the FCA or Barclays or Fidelity or M&G. I’ve been in lots of different, but been around a bit.
But the thing I’m most passionate about is social mobility because it’s my story, my journey. I am a trustee of a charity called Making the Leap that helps young people get into training opportunities, into employment. And also, I’m a non-executive director of a membership body called Progress Together.
Now, that was born a few years ago when a number of financial services institutions, professional services institutions, the government and the City of London got together and built a task force and said, we need to improve the number of people from lower socio-economic backgrounds in senior positions in financial and professional services, because the data shows that there’s very few of us actually in those positions.
So I’ve been doing that for a few years now too.
Jason Foster:
Brilliant. Well, I think clearly when, government and that group of people you talk about step up to put something together to solve a problem that suggests, or to solve something, that suggests there’s something to solve and that there’s a problem. So can we talk about social mobility then and why some of these things are important? Like why is this something that needs solving? Why is it a problem?
What are we looking at? So Or am I just starting with the really basic and top level of what social mobility is and why it matters?
02:34 — Why social mobility matters
Dipi McKernan:
Thank you. We can do that. So social mobility in its very basic form means it covers people that come from working class backgrounds, working and disadvantaged backgrounds. And why is it important to think about that population? Because in my sector, for example, in financial services, few people from those backgrounds actually think of that as a career and even fewer progress up to senior positions.
And that’s important that we remember that most of our customers come from lower socio-economic backgrounds. So we need leaders that have empathy. We also know that there’s a lot of strong connection. between people that come from low socio-economic backgrounds. If you have those in your organisation, you’re more likely to innovate, you’re more likely to be creative, you’ve got a workforce that’s really resilient.
And so it’s about equalising the number of people in organisations like mine.
Jason Foster:
And what, where’s the, what’s the problem there? Why is that hard? Is that hard?
Dipi McKernan:
It is quite hard. It’s hard to attract young people into those organisations because I don’t see anyone at home that looks like that. So they can’t have a conversation around the dining table on, what does financial services mean? What does my career look like? If you can’t see somebody in that position, you’re less likely. to think of it as a career. So that’s why it’s hard.
The other reason that it’s hard is because we know that once we get individuals into organisations, it’s about 25% harder for them to progress up the ranks because there’s unwritten rules around, how you should behave, the conversations you should have. And again, if you don’t have that experience at home, it’s difficult. to have, to fit in, to have the right fit.
And then the third reason it’s hard, which we found through the work that we do in progress together, is that if you do have people like that in the organisation, they don’t want to tell anyone because they think it’s a barrier to their progression.
So I’ve worked in companies where you’ve had the CEO, the Chief Operating Officer, the Chief Investment Officer. that have come from a lower socio-economic background, but they haven’t told anyone. And when you ask people to share that data, they get very defensive and say, well, why do you need to know that? And we have to explain that the reason that’s important is because they’re role models, right?
They’re encouraging people across the industry to do the same. So the data collection piece is also.
Jason Foster:
Why is that on that final point? Is that like a embarrassed? Is it moved on? Like, what’s behind that? Yeah.
Dipi McKernan:
I think it’s both, right? I think it’s both. I think they’ve worked so hard to get to where they need to get to that they don’t want it to be diluted by people saying, oh, right, well, have you had lots of support? Have you and have you not done it based on your capability? So there is something about being embarrassed, but also many of them say, well, it’s none of your business how I got here, right?
I’ve worked really hard, so why do you need to know that? And unlike, yeah, exactly. And unlike some other characteristics where it’s really easy to, other diversity and inclusion characteristics, relatively easy to tell whether somebody.
Jason Foster:
No one else gets asked, so why am I being asked?
05:44 — The impact of socio-economic diversity
Dipi McKernan:
Has come from an ethnic minority background or is a man or a woman or identifies as such, it’s very difficult to identify somebody that comes from a lower socio-economic background. Really tough. So you have to self-identify it.
Jason Foster:
How big an impact can it make, just thinking that through? So because there’s obviously the challenge of, or the opportunity of creating organisations that have broad diversity, where in this instance, we’re talking about low socio-economic background and the benefits that can bring. Then there’s the challenge for the individuals of almost managing their career through the path for various different reasons.
And you touched on a few reasons, sort of, if we get this right, why it’s useful around innovation and broad teams that represent your customers. How big do we know how big the impact is if we get this right, either for organisations or for the economy?
Dipi McKernan:
It’s a good question. And there isn’t, as far as I can tell, there isn’t a study that says, right, if we improve socio-economic diversity, it was in X amount of productivity. We do know that the workforce, and we’ll talk about AI in a minute, but assuming we didn’t have AI. we would know that there would be a skills gap in the workforce. And so acquiring talent from broader pool is really important.
And so that’s logical argument for it. But also, the other reason that is equally as important is that a lot of people that come from lower socio-economic backgrounds spend a lot of time. pretending to be somebody else and spending that energy fitting into the organisation.
And we know anecdotally that if you didn’t spend that time trying to change to fit in, you would be much more productive in your day-to-day because it takes a lot of emotional energy to do that. And so there is. There, we’re starting to do the research in that space, but it’s really difficult to get to get the data to help us, and maybe AI will help us get the answer to that.
Jason Foster:
Maybe. Well, you flagged a challenge with data collection on that in terms of some people aren’t interested in sharing that information and therefore it’s hard to then track, progress over time. And it’s almost sort of, yes, sounds generational as well. You’ve got to allow a whole career to develop in order to know the longer term benefit and impact of these things.
Dipi McKernan:
And I remember when I was at the FCA, we had the Social Mobility Commission come and talk to us. And the other challenge is a lot of young people don’t want to come into careers like this because they feel that they’re selling out. So if and so again, there’s another there’s another challenge in encouraging young people to think of financial and professional services as a career for them.
Jason Foster:
Well, yeah, consider that angle in terms of which industries does this impact most, and does it matter really? Obviously, your focus here is getting people into the into the sector, but I guess a broader objective is just that we don’t have that any divide between those from low and medium and high income brackets and socio-economic groups.
And as long as they’re in productive careers and they’re, motivated and passionate and progressing and feeling fulfilled in their lives in whatever they do, whether that’s financial services or something else, We just need the opportunity to be there.
Dipi McKernan:
That’s true. That is absolutely right. And last few days in particular, there’s been lots of talk in the press about how hard it’s going to be for young people just to get into employment and training. So the broader industries that consider this as an issue, the better, I think, for all of that cohort. So yeah, you’re absolutely right.
Jason Foster:
That’s really interesting. That’s a good point.
It’s really interesting because we talk about skills gap, we talk about being often being difficult to recruit people into jobs, and yet the unemployment rate of 16 to 24, I think that’s recent news that’s come out just today, just quickly scanning the report, is much higher, it’s like over a million. between 16 and 24 who are out of employment, who are chomping at the bit to get work and have worked hard to be successful, at that to that level through exams, through schooling or whatever it might be, and then are unable to, and I don’t think it’s an unwillingness, it’s an unable to get the roles because they don’t exist.
Dipi McKernan:
Yep. And what’s ironic, right, and I was also looking at some research last night, is that’s the cohort that understand AI more than anyone else, right? Because they’ve grown up with it. So there’s an untapped source of talent that we have. On the one side, we say that there’s lots of, there’s unemployment in that sector, but on the other hand, there’s nobody who knows the technology better than that lot.
Jason Foster:
Huh, yes, that is the irony, yeah. Yeah.
Dipi McKernan:
So just seems like an obvious solution, doesn’t it?
10:42 — Progress and persistent barriers
Jason Foster:
Open up the workforce. No, I agree. Where are we making progress with all this? So obviously you’ve been in this, focused on helping with this and supporting this. Where is progress happening and where and or where is it stuck? Have we moved on at all?
Dipi McKernan:
We have moved on. So as I talked about progress together, we were a membership body. We have now over 30% of financial services industry, financial and professional services industry as members. So that’s a huge swathe of a sector that drives the UK economy. Those organisations have said we really want to make a difference and we want to understand what we need to do.
So we have started to see an uptick in people sharing their data, which has been the biggest challenge, right? If you don’t have the data, it’s really hard to understand how you’re making a difference. We’ve also had case studies where there are people that are going into organisations at senior levels with the. with a lowest from a lower socio-economic background.
So there are there are definitely moves in the right direction. There’s definitely more we can do. Because the other thing you have to remember is these organisations are they’re designed to grow and to support the economy. So they have lots of competing priorities. But the language has changed. People talk about socio-economic diversity more than they used to.
I remember when I was about 15 years ago at the FCA, nobody talked about it. And now there is much more of a conversation about it. I think the other thing that we’ve also identified is that it’s a real leveller. So somebody like me can have the same experiences in my childhood as potentially as a young white man that’s growing up in a lower socio-economic background.
And so it’s something that impacts such a wide range of people. And I think senior executives are starting to understand that it is a real. a real opportunity to make a difference to the UK economy. So it is, it’s, we’re definitely starting to increase the narrative. We’re definitely talking more about the stories behind it.
We now just need to start shifting the data, but it’s taken, it’s taken about a decade to get there.
Jason Foster:
Right. these sorts of big changes like this are always so slow and like wading to retreat, because it’s my experience. I’ve seen this in other diversity characteristics. I say, particularly actually in the data sector, there’s a big push for more females in the sector and that’s been going on for a long time and the opportunity gap and all these sorts of things.
And I’ve seen how long it can take. and almost can be two steps, one step forward, two steps back quite often as well. Which I guess on that note, it’s probably worth introducing AI into this conversation now, because whilst, you framed really nicely the the problem statement, why that exists, some of the things, the positive things that have been done, the progress being made, albeit possibly slowly.
So AI enters the world in a way that we’ve not seen technology impact before. And in my mind, there’s some huge opportunity that brings to this conversation. But equally and worryingly, probably quite a big concern and possibly a further divide that opens up when we start thinking about what AI can do to the the impact that we have when we think about social mobility and socio-economic groups.
So I suppose the first big question is in those conversations that you’re having with in the work that you’re doing in the membership group and the not-for-profit. Is that a conversation that’s starting to happen already?
14:25 — How AI could reshape social mobility
Dipi McKernan:
It is definitely. And so I’ve had a, I’ve posted a couple of roundtables recently with senior executives in firms. It’s definitely a topic of conversation and also in the charities as well. So lots of different concerns around the opportunities and concerns, right? So the opportunity we know. that people now have access to information that they didn’t have before.
So, and so you can go into ChatGPT and ask any question you like and you don’t have to pay for that. And everyone has the ability to do that, whether it, and that will support you if you’re looking for a new job or if you’re preparing for an interview or if you want to get promoted or, so it’s being used in the world of work.
It’s been used outside the world of work much more, but it’s definitely being used in the world of work. But organisations are concerned that the rise of AI will mean that there will be less entry level jobs. So we know that it will be able to, AI will be able to automate a lot of activity, like talking to customers, for example, or processing payments, for example.
There’s lots of different things, anticipating fraud. particularly in financial services. And those roles are traditionally ones where young people come in and they learn the basics of the role in financial services, setting them up for future success. Now, those roles won’t be as prevalent in the future as they are now.
So it is a concern and everyone talks about it is the topic that everyone’s talking about, particularly, I imagine it’s because we don’t know everything about it. So we’re exploring collectively, but it is definitely a conversation piece. It’s also about helping charities understand how they can leverage it. And so they don’t have the investment to go through training.
Like my organisation, we’ve spent a lot of money. encouraging our leaders to really embrace AI. I was lucky enough to go to Cambridge Business School last year and go through a programme. So I understand what it means. I’ve got somebody helping me at work. Just again, exploring ideas of things that we could do differently.
But there are, it is definitely something that we’re concerned about. particularly when we talk about the future of work. And you will have seen Jason, the CEO of Next has just spoken about it and how it’s changing the number of applicants they receive for jobs. Large technology firms are talking about how they’re going to reduce their workforce off the back of it. Financial services firms are doing the same.
So yeah, it’s actually going to change the future of work.
Jason Foster:
I think that touched on a few of those, because I think the loss of entry level roles, I think is happening anyway, but AI accelerates that. And we talked about the unemployment figures in the 16-24 bracket, which obviously not all of those are from, low socio-economic background, but still hugely impactful.
So that loss of entry level role is in some ways good for business because it maintains costs and everyone’s focused on cost and control and those sorts of things, but impacts society more broadly because what, how do we, how do we fill the time and give productive earnings for these, for the people that don’t, aren’t able to take those roles.
But I think there’s also something about the, you almost mentioned this, the stripes you earn, the graft you go through, the like dots you join and connect when you’re doing some of these entry-level roles. as you start to then be able to progress and it gives you the foundations and the experience you need to progress into other roles.
So what happens in 10, 15 years time when we haven’t had that sway the people doing those hard yards?
Dipi McKernan:
That’s exactly right. And that’s the conversation that we absolutely had, which was how are you building the leaders of the future? So if you have, if you don’t know how your business runs because you haven’t started at those entry level jobs and you don’t have that 10, 15 years experience. How are you going to anticipate where things could go wrong in the future?
And how are you those leaders, those credible leaders for the rest of the workforce? And we all know, we know the guys that we’ve worked for who we absolutely respect because they started with calling customers or, running processes or doing back office work. And they anticipate where things can go wrong, they anticipate where the future direction and the strategy needs to go.
So they are, they’re definitely the, there’s definitely a gap there that we need to be concerned about.
Jason Foster:
So in that’s the swing to AI being a divider, a worsener for social mobility. On the other side, though, you mentioned about, I don’t use this phrase, it’s almost like democratising knowledge a bit more. So it, I use this example, I’ve used this example before, which is.
I’ve always been fascinated with trying to make music and I’ve tried to learn lots of different musical instruments over the years and I’ve always been a bit useless at all of them. I can get basic level and then I just can’t progress. Same with making music, I’ve always loved the idea of mixing and making songs. Always been terrible, never been able to do it, used all of the tech out there, in previous incarnations.
Now I can because of AI music creation, and we won’t go into whether that’s the right thing to do and the impact it has on that industry. But me as an individual, I’m able to do something I’ve always wanted to do, and I can make music that I love, my friends love, my family love, and I couldn’t do that before.
So it’s opened up knowledge, access, tools to a thing that I’ve always wanted to do, which is, lower the barrier to entry. So I imagine the flip side of those entry level roles is this ability to be able to do something that you couldn’t do before, in a way that social media has possibly as well, teaching kids skills that they wouldn’t normally be able to get access to.
19:26 — Democratising access to knowledge
Dipi McKernan:
And we see that also when you think about education, right? So having access, no longer do you need to pay for a tutor. You can just ask AI the question that you need an answer to, right? So there’s definitely an opportunity to learn new skills easily. There’s definitely an opportunity to acquire more information, but there’s also the opportunity to make better connections.
And, social media has done a great job of doing that too. So there is, there’s definitely, there’s absolutely positives associated with it’s just about making sure that when young people in particular, it’s not just young people, right? It’s people also. who are experienced that when they’re accessing tools like AI, they can, they’ve got the support around them to help them understand what’s right, what’s not right.
So young people, for example, might use AI to code and, but doesn’t necessarily mean that coding is effective. So there are, as, but I think as the models. and the tools advance, become more sophisticated, those bugs will remove themselves.
But I think there is something about, just being able to access all this different information that they wouldn’t have had access to in the past and just learning new stuff, which is fantastic, isn’t it? You no longer need to access to particular mentors or. coaches or tutors, you can just do it yourself, which is fantastic. Absolutely fantastic.
Jason Foster:
So from a from a lower socio-economic perspective, if you can access knowledge without having to pay for it, again, knock on impact to those people that you’re no longer paying. Again, another conversation, possibly another story, but yeah, you’ve you’ve you’ve opened up what used to be only afforded those that could afford it, now no longer necessarily is the case.
Dipi McKernan:
And with no judgement as well. So that’s the other reason it’s so popular because people can ask, well, how do I, how do I start investing in a pension? Or how do I, how do I save more for the future rather than somebody saying to you, why don’t you already have money saved up? Or why haven’t you already, there is no judgement, which is why it’s so popular.
Jason Foster:
Yeah. so that’s, we’ve got maybe 15 all in tennis language on opportunity to divide. I suppose back on the divide side, I, whilst yes, what we’ve just said I think is true about it can democratise access to knowledge and that thing, I do wonder and worry about whether they’re will potentially be a growing unequal access to those tools. So you mentioned about the tools being free. A, today they are.
And what normally happens over technology is they squeeze the free bit and it gets less, or that stays fine, but all of the good news stuff is in paid versions, right? So the paid versions get better answers, smarter, faster, whatever, and the free version opens up a divide and then you have to pay to upgrade.
Now, that might that might create a worsening divide between those that can afford and those that can’t afford the better AI tools.
23:06 — Unequal access and embedded bias
Dipi McKernan:
It definitely will. It definitely will. And then on from a socio-economic perspective, social mobility perspective, so social mobility, is it going to be impacted by AI no more than it’s already impacted? So those biases that already exist will just continue to exist, but in the models. the, access to information will exist, but again, in an automated fashion.
So, and the influence that individuals have will, again, will materialise through AI. So, and what by that is, if you think about how AI is being developed, The vast majority of individuals that are developing it with the technology skills come from professional backgrounds already. So again, there’s less people moving into that sector that come from lower socio-economic backgrounds.
So they don’t have influence on how the tools are being developed. They don’t have influence at the senior levels on how they’re going to invest. It’s really challenging for young people. to, if you’ve got a great idea to get the funding to make that idea into a reality. We know that, private equity-backed funding tends to, again, be focused on people that come from privileged backgrounds.
So there are lots of different reasons why it’s important that people from lower socio-economic backgrounds are involved in the conversation early and have those opportunities like everybody else. because otherwise all you’re doing is just perpetuating the challenges that we have from a social mobility point of view.
Jason Foster:
That’s a good point. I hadn’t quite considered that. So, I guess the, we’re primarily talking about large language models here, the ChatGPTs, the Claude of this world. And yeah, so is that, is that a, that’s a known fact, is it that those organisations aren’t made up of? diverse, broad, and we’re talking about social socio-economic status here.
They aren’t they aren’t building those organisations with that diversity at heart. true.
Dipi McKernan:
77% of tech employees come from professional or managerial backgrounds. And so that and so and then 75% of VC backed founders are, again, that come from professional backgrounds or have come from privileged backgrounds. So again. So..
And we haven’t spoken about education yet, but a lot of people will just go through standard state school education, which again doesn’t teach people how to use AI and isn’t building the engineers for the future. If you want to become an engineer, you have to go to university, you have to do a computer science degree.
Again, that’s only limiting, that’s limiting the number of people that will get into these senior roles or get into the industry that’s making such a difference to everyone’s lives.
26:26 — Shared responsibility for an inclusive future
Jason Foster:
It’s a good point. Your point on education actually moves me on a little bit to how we fix this, if we think of it that way, or certainly improve the status quo and improve the outcomes and opportunity from a social mobility perspective. Whose responsibility is it?
Obviously, I can see there’s a responsibility in education, which is so slow to change anyway and hard to disrupt the curriculum and open up access and those sorts of things. But I’m sure there’s a role to play for them. But yeah, who’s responsible either already or do you think should be responsible for and take a lead role in trying to improve social mobility in the context of AI.
Dipi McKernan:
That’s really hard question, isn’t it? Because there are so many different organisations that really need to join forces.
So if you think, so education, really important, because at the moment, young people are finding ways around education to get improve their knowledge of AI, whether it’s just, using ChatGPT or Claude, whatever it is at home. and they’re using it more for tutoring and planning and, building relationships than they are for work. But so they are working their way around it. So and I love that, right?
I love the fact that people are just being resilient and finding their way around the problem themselves. From an education perspective, there absolutely has to be something here about, we know AI is not going to go away, right? There’s no, there is no now no longer this thing where it’s just going to disappear and things are going to go back to 2016.
I think education has to catch up, whether it’s And it has to start, it really has to start at primary school level, because by the time kids get to secondary school, they’ve already defined the way that they’re going to operate. So there needs to be something. And in order to do that, teachers have to learn about it. And again, that’s the education system really needing to catch up.
Then there has to be, and then it goes all the way through, right? At university level, you’re more likely to get access to that information. but you have to be able to afford to do that and you have to be in the position where you can actually leverage it. Employers have a real opportunity here.
So big industries like mine, we are doing a lot in supporting young people in these kinds of careers, whether it’s through apprenticeship programmes, whether it’s through, just offering our advice and our support.
So I do quite a lot of mentoring generally, just to encourage an awareness of what it can do, but also be very thoughtful about when they are looking at reducing the population of the workforce, what roles are you going to replace that with? And what do those skills look like for the future?
And then similarly, training leaders on AI so we can make the right decisions and we can be quite thoughtful about those decisions. And then there’s a general point around society. So in, we talked quite thoughtfully about the pros and the cons. So there is quite, and the media talks a lot about AI and it’s, sometimes, yeah, exactly, not necessarily the positives, but it is a huge, hugely positive.
It’s giving access to information that people, that people. wouldn’t usually have access to, is driving change. I was thinking about this and I remember watching years ago, Back to the Future, do you remember the original Back to the Future? And they go and they talk and then what the future would look like.
And the future came and went and we said, oh, it’s so boring, nothing, there’s no flying cars, there’s none of this stuff. And now we’re actually moving towards making things different and really exciting. So we have to embrace that, right? And we have to put the guardrails around it. And the other area that’s really important is to think about the regulation around it. So, how are we going to regulate it?
Because we do absolutely need to regulate it. But rather than regulating it tactically, let’s think strategically. What does it look like? what are we actually worried about? And it’s about raising awareness more than anything else.
Jason Foster:
I think those policy makers and government boards and yeah, there’s a role and responsibility. I think your, yeah, the summary is there’s a role for everyone to play in some ways here, but we have to design it in the way we want it to be, don’t we? Otherwise, we sleepwalk into creating a problem.
And in some ways, maybe this is a negative view, is that we’ll probably end up, if we don’t proactively design it the way we want it, is we’ll probably end up creating more of a divide because we tend to take the easy path that just satisfies quite short term thinking. That’s my normal experience of things.
So I guess it’s about designing what we want it to be rather than just allowing it to become something we all go, ah, that’s bad, now that’s a problem to fix.
Dipi McKernan:
And the point around designing it comes right back around to social mobility. So if you’re going to design something that’s going to have an impact on most of society, let’s have the right group of people designing it.
So removing the bias out of it, being very thoughtful on how it can support people from lower socio-economic backgrounds as well as those from higher socio-economic backgrounds. and having the engineers in there that understand and have the lived experience that will make a difference, having the policy makers again that reflects society, having the senior leaders that reflects society.
I think because if you’re not involved in the design process and you can’t innovate, you’re going to get that bias result, which will be very difficult for us to unravel in the future.
Jason Foster:
That’ll be hard to unpick. No, that’s fab. So I think thinking about wrapping up, maybe a summary point here about what can, what’s the almost practical takeaway for people? there’ll be some action for individuals to take and actions for leaders and, people in organisations to take as well.
Have you got any thoughts on what maybe a couple of practical, actions people can take or thoughts they should have or considerations they should have just in their, day-to-day running of life and business?
32:45 — Practical actions for individuals and leaders
Dipi McKernan:
So Jason, I’m going to reply with your advice to me. So many months when we first met, you said to me, just throw yourself in there, learn about it, play with it. And I think that’s exactly the important, the important point, because we talked a lot about young people, but young people also. Look to us for advice and guidance. And if we don’t understand how it works, how can we be helpful to them?
So I would encourage people just to use it, right? Use it and learn what it does and what it can’t do and spend a little bit of time getting into the detail of that. And it is really interesting and it’s fun as well. So I think there’s definitely something that we can take as individuals a responsibility for.
And then where we do have the opportunity to influence, so I’m lucky enough to be able to do that within the organisation I work with and with the roles that I have, influence in the right way. So think about that long term strategic direction we want to take it rather than the tactical or this is what it’s doing for me.
I think both of those things together will be incredibly powerful and it will start to move us in the right direction that we need to take.
Jason Foster:
Love it, really great, really great advice. I’m a I’m a huge. supporter for proactively thinking about and solving problems generally, but particularly in the AI space, I think it would be so easy for us to create a future that we all go, we didn’t want that.
And how do we take responsibility to your point there about creating and designing and. proactively building something that we want and that we are all proud of, which is always easier said than done and forces, push you in directions often that you don’t, want to take things just the way, the system works, if you like.
So I love that you’re investing time, energy and effort into thinking about this broadly, social mobility broadly, but Yeah, you almost can’t have that conversation now without thinking about AI. So yeah, no, it’s been absolutely fascinating to have you on the show and really love talking about this. And it’s such a huge topic and one we shouldn’t stop talking about.
So I really appreciate you coming on the show to just scratch the surface of it a little bit.
Dipi McKernan:
Thank you so much, Jason. Really enjoyed it. Thank you.
Jason Foster:
No problem. And thanks everyone for listening. I hope you enjoyed today’s episode and you take heed of the advice that Dipi’s given on things you can do today to help with the social mobility challenge that we have and the impact of AI. And I look forward to speaking to you again soon.
