S2E4: Anthony Baker - Using AI and machine learning to reduce uncertainty

Introduction

0:00Carla, I'm really uncertain at the minute. Can you help me? Yes, I can. I have a solution for you. You know what it's called? No, what is it? Designing for a new level of uncertainty. An amazing title that describes exactly what the content will be. I know. So, yeah, we're part of Repotify to interview lots of designers around the world, talk about how we can navigate this completely new level of craziness in the world.

0:32Cool, I guess I'll probably subscribe and listen to that as well. Yeah, definitely enjoy Season 2 of Design Untangled.

0:45I'm Chris Mears. And I'm Carla Lindarte. We're two UX designers. And we hate jargon. So, we're here to help you untangle the world of design. Cut through the crap and talk about what really matters. Yes, solving people's problems. Welcome to Design Untangled.

1:07Hello, everyone, and welcome to Design Untangled with me, Chris Mears and Carla Lindarte.

Guest Introduction

1:13And we've got another special guest today, which is Anthony Baker, who's Executive Technology Director at RGA. How are you doing, Anthony? Hey, Chris. Hey, Carla. I'm doing really well. Thank you. Joining you guys from Tokyo, Japan. It's a pleasure to be part of the show. And thank you so much for having me. I'm really keen to, you know, have a good chat. Yeah, awesome. And I think probably a good place to start with that is just a bit about your background, really. So, you weren't originally in Japan, starting in Costa Rica.

1:46So, it'd be good to hear about just how you ended up there, really.

Anthony's Background

1:49Yeah. So, I'm half Costa Rican, half British. My dad is British. My mom is Costa Rican. But I was born and raised in Costa Rica. And interestingly enough, my background or my original background is actually in arts. So, I went to an arts conservatory. I studied painting and literature and dramatic arts. And then towards my graduation, I focused more on literature and dramatic arts, which led me to start my career in acting.

2:22So, in Costa Rica, I made a career of acting in theaters and TV and documentaries and radio and all that kind of stuff for about 10 years, which is probably not what you would expect from a technology guy. And then the thing was that my dad was self-taught in electronics. So, I always had this, you know, curiosity about technology and I didn't own a computer throughout all my primary and secondary education, but I had this idea that I wanted to be an inventor.

2:57So, when I got to the point of choosing, you know, the university and tried to choose my academic kind of like path, I realized that, you know, being an inventor was a really hard thing to do. I went for the second best option, which was, you know, computer sciences and basically be an inventor in the virtual world. I started computer sciences, which was really funny because all the people, all the colleagues or the classmates that I had at the point were like, why is this guy from the TV like coming to study computer sciences?

3:29That's not normal. So, I had to convince them that I was good enough. So, I started my technical career in fintech. I joined a bank and I was part of an experimental program to bring young talent or young graduates to work with very old technology. So, I was working with software that was older than me in a bank trying to modernize the way that banks did all day, kind of like account management and opening accounts and transactions and all that kind of stuff. And the culture is just like super weird, right?

4:02It's very tight and, you know, it's a lot of hierarchy and, you know, the whole point is like you have to spend your entire career to, you know, get to the top positions. And I was lucky enough that I had some friends that joined this kind of like crazy digital agency outpost in Costa Rica working with an American company called Schematic. So, it's now called Possible. They, you know, they joined other companies and stuff like that. But at the time, Schematic was the company that made the visual effects for Minority Report.

4:35And all the guys that were writing the Flash Bible books, they were working at Schematic. And talking with my friends, they were like, oh, yeah, we play all the time. And we play hockey and we have a gaming room and then we work and play all the time. And the culture is super cool and super relaxed. And I was like, oh, that sounds like my dream job. So, I tried hard. I went through a few interviews and I landed a job with them. And it was all on emerging experimental technologies.

5:06This was like, I don't know, let me see, like 15 years ago or something like that, more than that. And it was all about like interactive TV and interactive applications and, you know, all the new technologies for web and apps and, you know, multi-touch technologies and connecting with sensors back when IoT was not a thing, back when it was really hard to do this kind of stuff. And that kind of like gave me a taste of what it would be to have an international career. Now, the really cool thing about this is that from day one, I worked really, really closely with designers, UX, and overall just creative people.

5:45Even the technology guys, although they were like super dedicated engineers and really pro, it was all about the creativity, right? It was all about how do you use your skills or your tools to actually create something that is unexpected, that is delightful. Going back to your background, then you then moved to the UK and then you moved to Japan after that.

Moving to Japan

6:09So how was that transition from obviously Costa Rica, working with a lot of American clients and, you know, UK, which is, you know, different, but slightly similar culture to move to, you know, Japan, which is completely different. How was that transition? Yeah, you're spot on. I mean, we moved, I moved with my wife to UK and we really wanted to live in UK and literally I landed on a Wednesday and Thursday I was already working for RGA.

6:40So I joined RGA London when I moved there and this was back in 2011. And the really cool thing is that RGA London was just starting. So there was a bunch of really, really, you know, amazing people and we were kind of like the underdog. So there was a lot of opportunity to just like take UX and design and technology craft into the next stage. And we were doing a lot of like really experimental kind of like experiences. But to your point, the culture wasn't that different, right?

7:11We were already quite used to working with American clients, you know, and international clients. So when we landed in UK, it felt like, oh, yeah, of course, London, big city, you know, the tube, you know, tons of like amazing clients did a ton of work for Nike and Google over there, the BBC, you know, really experimental, really big scale projects. I think that that was the main thing. The scale of the projects was quite different and we were at the forefront of creating digital experiences, right? A lot for retail, but also for the web.

7:43But the culture itself, you know, although a lot more cosmopolitan, I would say like Europe has that thing where you're working with people from so many different countries from Europe or from the world itself. It felt a lot more diverse, but at the same time, it didn't feel that different, right? So long story short, fast forward six years or five years, more around that, I did a trip to Japan just for holidays and I traveled all around Japan. And it was super weird because we really loved London.

8:16We were like kind of like itching to move to a new place, but we couldn't find anything that was or any city that was as exciting or as big as London. But as soon as we landed in Tokyo, three days in and I look back to my wife and we were kind of like we could live here, right? Because it's different enough that feels like a different planet, but it's at the same time very comfortable, very safe. Yeah. And we kind of like felt that we, you know, we could live in Japan for sure.

8:48Now, at that time, that was kind of like a little bit of a dream, but I went back to London and two months later, I was back in Japan working for a few clients here with RGA. So I kind of like realized that that dream was actually quite possible.

9:05So, yeah, a year later, it took me a year and a bit to find the opportunity. We opened the RGA Tokyo office and then we came here. And yes, the culture is very, very, very different. The business culture in particular, it's quite different. Japan is a country that is super advanced in infrastructure, in, you know, transportation. Customer service is one of the best in the world, but digitally, they're not that advanced. And there is a culture of consensus.

9:36So it's less about taking bold risk and be the first. And it's more about just like, you know, doing things that work, avoiding risk, you know, transforming things little by little. You know, things are slow. Talent is a bit different also because most people here, the expectation is that you will study, you will graduate, and you will find a job right out of uni. And the whole point is that you don't know how to do your job. You join a company so you can get trained. And then the expectation, a little bit like Costa Rica back in the day, is that you will spend most of your life or a very long time working for that company and learning everything about that company.

10:17I'm just interested to see how some of those cultural challenges or differences impact the design work you can do. So you mentioned it's kind of consensus and not much risk taking. Have you found any good ways to break that pattern and encourage companies and clients to take more risks? Yeah, I think that, I mean, there's so many things and variables. But one of the things that we have found is that this idea of progressing prototyping, right, the idea that instead of spending weeks or months talking about an idea and trying to find as much data to back up the idea, but it's all based on speculation, right?

10:56And they will kind of like do all this huge process to try just to get to the perfect plan and then execute it. What I found that it's not very spread out or is not as common here is prototyping practice. The idea that you will take a concept and actually make something that is, you know, real, that people can experience, that people can get in their hands and actually see how it feels as soon as possible.

11:27So you can actually validate the ideas and the concepts with prototypes that work instead of using PowerPoint presentations, right? And I think that that's, you know, I think that it happens worldwide, but in Japan, it's, you know, quite new. So for us, what we have been doing and what I have observed to work really well, it's trying to get clients involved in the process of bringing a concept to life into a tangible experience as soon as you can. And then use that to validate with stakeholders and customers and do user testing and then use that as a way to improve the idea, to remove risk.

12:04Because I, as I was saying before, risk is the number one thing that they want to avoid. That's really interesting because, you know, it's basically how design is being used to kind of, you know, as you said, speculate and come up with different options. And, you know, before you actually develop something, you wrote on the Guardian about artificial intelligence and machine learning and how these could help enable creativity.

12:34So obviously, apart from prototyping, et cetera, or how do you actually use IA and machine learning to help clients and obviously designers as well take advantage of this technology? Yeah, definitely. I think that it's a super interesting topic and there's a lot of misconceptions, I think. And sometimes there is a lot of, you know, overhype, I would say. The reality is that the way that I see it, it's identifying the tools that are powered by machine learning or AI that can allow you to do your job in a better way or to try many more variations.

13:11It's a really good way to get close to AI. So, for example, you know, we have seen a lot of GPT-3, right? The open AI kind of like natural language processor and generator. And talking with my colleagues from copywriting, a lot of the times they are scared and they are kind of like against it because they feel that, you know, it's a technology that is trying to take their jobs. Or there is all this discourse about like AI not being able to be creative and all this kind of stuff. But for me, it's more about like, well, if you have a tool that you can use to generate hundreds of variations of what is the brand identity and what is the brand message in different contexts,

13:50even if those are not perfect, they should help you to create variation and inspire you and like find different ways of looking at messaging and communications, right? Same for design, right? Instead of seeing it as a threat to your profession, it's more about like, how can you use prototyping or design AI tools that allow you to create a lot more variations in different contexts or using different inputs? So you can use that as an inspiration to create better work, right?

14:22And I think that that's the core thing that for me is interesting. Have you seen like obviously going through a global pandemic and, you know, lockdowns and clients changing slightly what they're actually looking for? Have you seen that these technologies actually helped clients or how actually can help AI and machine learning help clients with the uncertainty that these times are actually bringing? Yeah, definitely. I mean, you know, AI has been applied in many different ways, right?

14:55From like predicting behavior and contact and social distancing and all this kind of stuff to, you know, deep scientific research. But it's very important to just one acknowledge that, you know, COVID and the pandemic has been the catalyzer of digital transformation for a lot of Japanese companies, right? Before COVID, like doing remote work or doing teleworking, as they call it here, or like doing video calls and not being in the office was not a common practice, was actually thrown upon, right?

15:31So the whole point of like companies had to very rapidly start putting together all the infrastructure and the tools and the processes to allow people to work from their homes and remotely and change the way that the perception, the way of working was expected to be, has been a massive catalyzer of digital transformation in Japan. So if you take that into consideration, then a lot of AI tools, a lot of collaborative designing tools, a lot of, you know, chatbot or natural language processing or recommendation engines and all these things that are based on machine learning algorithms or use machine learning to a certain extent are becoming the tools that allow scale, right?

16:17And this is very important because when you have to use collaborative online technologies or remote working or, you know, being able to give support to their customers at a large scale on digital technologies, that's where machine learning and a lot of these AI platforms are really making the difference. Because they are enabling companies because they are enabling companies to jump quicker to an online digital kind of like way of working and business models, which wouldn't be possible without tools like this.

16:51Take, for example, simple things like, you know, the automated chatbots for customer support, right? Take, for example, some of the collaborative design tools, right, like Figma and other tools and Protopi that allow people to work collaboratively in real time, although they are not in the same place. These are the key things that are really, really pushing forward a lot of the transformation that we are seeing in Japan. I just had a quick question around technology.

Design and Technology

17:20To what extent do you think in terms of design process that technology actually drives that or should design be kind of the driver for finding new technology to essentially create new designs? So I suppose what I mean by that, are you starting from the point of saying, right, we can now do this stuff with machine learning that enables us to design these kind of experiences? Or is it more the other way around where we say we need to design this kind of experience?

17:52What kind of technology can help us do that? Or do we even need to build that kind of technology? Yeah, that's a very good question. And I think that people will have different opinions based on different contexts and scenarios. In my opinion, it's a synergetic kind of like process, right? You might as well start with exactly what you pointed out, right? Like we want to design this kind of experience to tap into an existing behavior and we want to elevate that behavior. And therefore, we want to create this kind of new experience or new way of doing things.

18:26Therefore, what is the technology that can allow us to do that? And you might follow that path. But what you will realize is that as soon as you're starting to try different technologies and connect different technologies to make that experience a reality, the way that the technology can be used and leveraged, either by using existing things or creating new technology, will then start producing feedback to the experience itself and the design itself, right? So if you have a very kind of like unflexible process, chances are that you'll have problems when the experience that you intended to design is actually not feasible or it ends up being kind of like half broken because the technology was not able to do that kind of experience.

19:15And the opposite is the same. If you start with, well, we have this technology, we have these things that we can use, and then you design the experience around that, you will be limited to a certain extent in, you know, the imagination, the possibilities. What I find that is the best option is this idea of like it's a symbiosis, it's a synergy between design and technology where you are coming up with ideas of the possibilities from both sides. And then you're trying to bring a design and then you're trying to bring a design to life or bring a technology to life that will then inform the next iteration of that design or that technology.

19:49And I think that that's why, you know, lean experience innovation, which is the idea of like cut the waste, bring that concept to life, try it out and learn from it so you can improve it and pivot, right? And moving to different directions is key, but that is impossible if you don't have both design and technology being part of that process. That is so true. I mean, based on my experience as well, once you have only designers working on their own, obviously great ideas can come up and a lot of the empathy and the kind of customer understanding or user understanding of the products will come.

20:28But once technology comes in, it's like, you know, it's so good to have the both, you know, both forces together, as you said. So that's really, really interesting. Going back a little bit on the COVID topic, I wanted to ask you, I mean, I think you briefly mentioned it before, but how clients' needs have actually changed? Because you're saying, obviously, in Japan, there's been like an accelerator for all, you know, different ways of working that it wouldn't have happened before in Japan or would have taken longer.

21:00But in terms of like client needs and types of projects, have you seen any trends or any specific, you know, needs that you didn't see before the pandemic? I would say that there is, let me think, I think that there is two or three different growing trends in the type of work that we have seen. One is definitely the optimization or digitalization of internal tools and platforms, right? That's definitely a big one.

21:30For a lot of Japanese clients, a lot of the requests are, how can we embrace technology to make us more effective, right? And that's ways of working, collaboration, but it's also optimizing the business model, optimizing how do you get data, how do you understand the consumer behavior? And I think that it's particularly centered around the customer behavior, and that might be internal or external. The second one, it's obviously, you know, social platforms are taking the world by storm. Now, the interesting thing in Japan is that you have Line, which is kind of like the social platform for Japan.

22:05It has, I think, like 90% penetration across all age groups, right? So in Japan, it's very homogeneous in the sense that you can bet that anyone from 12 years old to 60 years old will be using Line. But Line is a very different kind of like platform if you compare it to WeChat or TikTok or Instagram and Facebook and all this kind of stuff. And with a lot of globalization and a lot of like input from, you know, global economies and online communities and, you know, probably has to do with language education and education in general, people are being a lot more exposed to social behaviors on social platforms.

22:42So definitely a lot of the requests and type of work from brands is how do we innovate in the social platforms space, especially when you're starting to see social e-commerce, when you're starting to see real-time communities, when you're starting to see, you know, kind of like loyalty services and programs being developed on social platforms, WeChat is a perfect example of, you know, you pretty much can do anything that you can think of on WeChat, right?

23:15That's an SNS platform. So I think that definitely that's something that we're seeing, like Japanese clients are realizing the power of these social platforms, especially looking at examples from WeChat and Instagram. So that's a big one that we are seeing. And it has to do a lot with trends, with very lean, kind of like seamless experiences, because it's a kind of like an audience that has very limited attention span and is used to very seamless kind of like user journeys. And the third one would be how brands can own their own kind of like digital wall garden, right?

23:53So I think that for a lot of brands, you know, having kind of like fair enough website was good enough. A lot of brands in Japan have gone to marketplaces like Rakuten or Amazon or things like that. And what they are realizing is that in these platforms, they have very little control over their brand identity and their brand currency. So a lot of these companies are coming to us and, you know, in general, they are starting to think, how can they develop digital experiences that allow their brands to have a direct relationship with their customers, right?

24:31So a lot of like DTC, kind of like initiatives, right? And how to add value to those experiences, which is really interesting because it's moving away from traditional marketing and the one-off campaign and just activations into how do we create services that add value in a constant kind of like way, right? To create loyalty and to own the information and the understanding of their customers. Well, that's really, really interesting, Anthony. We're going to wrap up now because, of course, unfortunately, we don't have much time now, but it's been great talking to you.

25:04And we always ask our guests to give us or to give our audience some indication of resources, books, podcasts, or something interesting that you think is going to help designers, especially navigate these times, you know, of like high uncertainty. Are there any recommendations or resources that you can think of? Yeah, totally. So one podcast that I really like and that will give you a lot of insights from Japan, it's called Disrupting Japan.

25:37And you will be able to get a lot of insights from Japanese startups, a lot of initiatives, really interesting people. The other one that I love, it's a podcast. It's actually not from Japan. It's actually from Dr. Laurie Santos. And it's called The Happiness Lab. And, you know, it's a super, super cool podcast about, you know, the psychology of our brains and, you know, happiness in general, which I really, really recommend. In terms of technology and things that are really, really interesting in terms of like new business models.

26:12And, you know, it's a reflection of the trends. I would say check out the platformet.info blog. It's a super, super good one about like platform business models and this idea that companies are not producing value anymore, but just connecting a lot of people, which is kind of like the business model for Airbnb and Uber and this kind of stuff, which is super, super interesting. Cool. Awesome. Well, it's been great talking to you today.

26:43Very, very interesting background you got. It's been great to hear about it. And we'll be watching some of your TV shows after this, I think. Thank you very much, Chris and Carla, for having me. And that's been a pleasure. And yeah, looking forward to, you know, hear the show and hear more about you guys in the future. Search and subscribe to Design Untangled using your favorite podcast app and leave us a review. Follow us on the web at designuntangled.co.uk or on Twitter at Design Untangled.