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The capabilities and ethics of digital twins, J&J's GenAI pivot, AI in investment decision-making, and more

May 19, 2025

“The mind is everything. What you think, you become.” — Gautama Buddha

Humans + AI at the center

The newsletter - along with the podcast - is now renamed Humans + AI! For now exactly the same format. But we will evolve it soon to be more useful for you.

Digital twins of human expertise will play a massive role in the future of work. To learn more about the edge of these capabilities and the surrounding ethics listen to this week’s fascinating podcast conversation with Carl Wocke.

After running a session on AI for the board of a large health insurer last week, this week I’m giving the opening keynote on Creating the Future of Government at the excellent BiiG 2025 Conference.

Lots of development work on various fronts happening in the background, announcements coming soon.

Be well!

Ross

 

📖In this issue

  • Framework: AI in Investment Decision-Making

  • Lessons from Johnson & Johnson’s GenAI ‘pivot’

  • Confidence in use of GenAI shapes our critical thinking

  • AI initiatives are progressing slower than expected, but that’s to be expected

  • Podcast: Carl Wocke on cloning human expertise, the ethics of digital twins, AI employment agencies, and communities of AI experts

💡Framework: AI in Investment Decision-Making

Capital can be invested wisely, or wasted. The quality of our investment decisions will drive our future prosperity. Most investment decisions should be Humans + AI - using human judgment combined with and augmented by AI capabilities.

Here is an outline of some of the ways these responsibilities can be allocated, as a preliminary stimulus for workshopping and development in a specific investment or organizational context.

🧠🤖Humans + AI

Lessons from Johnson & Johnson’s GenAI ‘pivot’

Johnson & Johnson's divergent-convergent strategy is highly instructive. In their “thousand flowers” strategy J&J seeded 900+ GenAI use cases. Using clear metrics they found that 10–15% of these drove 80% of the value, and pivoted to focusing on fewer scalable, high-impact use cases.

Confidence in use of GenAI shapes our critical thinking

Those with more confidence in GenAI use less critical thinking. Those with more self-confidence in using the models think better. Some intriguing and instructive findings from research by Microsoft and Carnegie Mellon.

AI initiatives are progressing slower than expected, but that’s to be expected

AI initiatives are progressing slower than anticipated, according to IBM's just-released CEO survey. But saying this means AI is failing is misunderstanding the nature of the AI adoption journey.

🎙️This week’s podcast episode

Carl Wocke on cloning human expertise, the ethics of digital twins, AI employment agencies, and communities of AI experts  

Why you should listen

The rise of digital twins of human expertise will be one of the most important factors shaping work and business. We dive deep into the issues in this fascinating conversation.

Thanks for reading!

Ross Dawson and team