The Only Trait for Success in the AI Era—How to Build It | Carnegie Mellon University Po-Shen Loh

Soon after Chat GPT came out, I started

traveling around the country telling

people, "Oh no, there's this new thing

people are going to need to learn to be

more creative because that's the only

thing that the AI can't do." I don't say

that anymore because now I've seen that

the AI can actually come up with lots

and lots of ideas. Last year, the

International Math Olympiad problems,

four of them were solved by Google's

artificial intelligence. The

International Math Olympiad has six

questions and all six of the questions

are very very original. They are so

original that when the national coaches

meet, they all look at the problems and

they all try to make sure nothing too

similar to those problems has ever

appeared in any contest or anywhere in

the world before. The questions are

supposed to be really original. But

nevertheless, the artificial

intelligence was able to come up with

solutions to four out of six, which is

more than I can do. The creativity in

the AI can probably surpass what we can

do, too. The only unique thing about

human intelligence is that we hopefully

care that humans still exist.

I'm Po Shanlow. I'm a mathematician who

likes to solve real world problems. In

real life, I'm a math professor at

Carnegie Melon University, but I'm also

a social entrepreneur where I've been

running my own educational solution,

which tries to make the world a more

thoughtful place.

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in schools. One of the biggest places

where students are using AI to cheat on

their homework is for their writing.

This unfortunately could make a huge

problem for human civilization because

you just have to think what is that AI

anyway? It's a large language model. How

is that AI so good? It's because it's

good at language. It's good at looking

at the patterns of words that often

appear. If many kids lose this ability,

we'll get many kids who grow up and

aren't able to think logically. All

they're able to do is just take whatever

anyone else gives them. they'll just be

dependent. If you're already grown up

and you already have that skill and

you're using the AI to achieve that task

because that's for your job, great.

Okay, you're using it to do a job. But

if you're in school, why are you doing

that writing? It's not because the

writing you make is going to make money

directly. No, no, that writing is

actually part of your own learning.

Using AI to do your writing homework in

school is like saying, "I'm not going to

run a mile for exercise. I'm going to

drive my car one mile for exercise. How

much exercise you get? You get none.

You're going to grow up and you're not

going to be able to be as physically

fit. Similar thing here with mentally

fit. And just this observation that the

power of the large language model is the

L, the language. That's why we need to

really make sure that all of our kids,

if any, and if you're watching this and

you're students, this is why you need to

be really, really good with language for

the next generation. All of these skills

like reading and writing, communication,

logic, these are all going to be very

important because these are how you

develop a a good way to think. I was

explaining to people the reason why we

do this math is not because eventually

we have to do algebra, but the reason is

because eventually this just makes you

smarter. So you're able to go and think

through situations you haven't seen

before and figure them out. I interview

lots and lots of high school students

who want to work with me. And during the

interview, the way that I interview for

intelligence is I ask them questions,

usually math questions because those are

analytical. And I ask them questions

until it's very clear from their body

language that they have never seen this

question before. Because usually if

you're doing math questions and you've

seen it before, you have a certain look

of confidence in your eyes. But I wait

until it's really clear that they have

never seen this before. And then I want

to see how you think. Actually, because

you've never seen that question before,

the expectation is that you won't solve

it. And so then I start to give hints.

Those hints are usually ideas that they

wouldn't have encountered before in

school. And then I want to see how

quickly can you synthesize these new

hints, these new ways of thinking,

synthesize them into a solution for a

problem we have never seen before.

Actually, that's also creativity.

So that's one particular piece. But

going forward, I think that one of the

skills that people will really need is

that aspect of actually wanting to

create value and delight in other

people. Why do I say this? I say this

because for many, many years, humans

were the top species, the most capable

things on this planet. Soon it will not

be that case. Soon, you're going to have

to work together to survive. The only

way to get other people to want to team

up with you is for you to authentically

and deeply be a person who is motivated

by creating value in the other. If you

are not that way, you are a bad partner

and people will not want to go and team

with you. If they don't team with you,

you will die. You will lose opportunity

because eventually all of these kinds of

jobs you can use AIS to do. Then why

would anyone want to employ you? Why

would anyone want to have you as as

someone on their team? Presumably only

because they somehow felt like you are

going to create some value and they they

like that vibe. They like you. I think

what we really need is to get more and

more people who are figuring out what

the real problem to solve is. But

unfortunately sometimes when kids just

think about problems, they don't realize

that the way that you solve a problem is

through empathy and through relating to

other people. Why? because you can't

solve a problem unless you can visualize

it through their eyes. I do spend a

significant amount of my life working

towards the goal of being better at

simulating the world. I also use AI for

that. I think I'll give one exact

example. I was just in Nashville,

Tennessee last week and I just saw a

really I thought very very talented

singer in one of the bars there. Wow,

she's good. And I just got curious, how

hard is it to be able to get a

performing spot on Broadway in

Nashville. So I asked AI and I was

actually not just interested in AI tell

me about it. I I want to see the links,

you know, tell me more. What is the

background of this particular place here

she's performing at? Right. I I will

make my own conclusions based on

knowing. Oh, oh, oh, I see. So there's

all of these different people who would

want to do this thing, right? So if

you're one of the people who got picked

to do it at this prime time, oh, this

makes logical sense. See, I'm using the

AI to build the logic inside my brain

for understanding country music

performance. And why was I trying to

understand? Honestly, it's because these

days I also work with professional

entertainers. So, I'm also myself always

scouting. The big heart of this is I

wasn't using the AI to write the report

for me. I was using AI to make myself

better at that particular goal. Being

able to simulate the world is the

superpower that makes someone able to be

a successful entrepreneur. Simulating

the world allows you to imagine a

product or imagine a strategy and then

play it forward in your head. What would

happen if I did this?

A long time ago when I started with

education, I was actually just thinking

about how to help people do math

problems. Today when I think back to

that time, I think I was probably a

solution looking for a problem in the

sense that uh somehow I thought it would

be very important for people to be good

at math. But then things that happened

later in my life as I became the

national coach of the US Olympic math

team, I saw situations where there were

so many so clever, so capable people who

were still so depressed. And

furthermore, after they graduated from

high school, they even didn't really

know what to do next because they

thought that the point of life was to

find ways to prove you're better than

other people. That's when I realized we

actually will do much better if we think

about the philosophy to start with,

right? The philosophy in life should not

be how do I outdo everyone else? If you

do that, you will you'll probably never

be satisfied. But if your philosophy in

life is, hey, it is actually addictive

to make a bunch of other people happy.

Oh, now I can do it for five people. Oh,

now I can do it for 500 people. Oh, wow.

Now I can get thousand people to come to

this thing. The more that you do, the

more you want to do. And the fun part is

that correlates also with traditional

success. Then I realized, ah, I should

be trying to push this worldwide. And if

I don't do it, who will? with the things

I've done in my life, I now have an

opportunity to go and say, you know,

I've seen what happens if you go all the

way in pure competition. I've seen what

happens if you go all the way and just

practice problems to do the best on

tests.

Actually, that's not the right target.

And I realized that because of my

background, I would be able to shift

mindsets. Then I said, okay, this is

what I have to do.

I am a math professor at Carnegie Melon

University. Uh the way I teach every

single one of my classes is that I just

go up to the chalkboard with a piece of

chalk and I write today we're going to

do this but I forgot exactly how to do

this. So I need all of you to suggest

ideas and then the whole class

experience becomes one where the

students are suggesting ideas and I'm

giving them feedback on their ideas. And

what I've been working on as a social

entrepreneur to make it possible for

everybody to be able to experience

education in this way is we run an

online program. It's called live.

We found a way to scale up the education

of critical thinking. You see the

limiting factor is to have enough

coaches to lead all of this critical

thinking and brainstorming. And we scale

it up by making a win-win situation by

just observing that uh one of the

greatest ages to learn critical thinking

is when you're 10 to 13 years old. And

it turns out that some of the best

people to lead 10 to 13year-old kids

into the joy of being thoughtful are

high school kids who are about 15 to 18

years old. But what I observed is that

there were plenty of kids who were 15 to

18 years old who were already very

clever academically, especially in math.

their limiting factor in life eventually

was not going to be their science,

technology, engineering or math. It

would be communication skills,

confidence, and the ability to win over

anybody and lead a team. So, I created a

program where we find kind and

mathematically clever high schoolers.

And then I hire professional comedians

and actors to teach them how to be

charismatic and how to be able to win

over anybody because if you can convince

anybody to love math, you can convince

anybody to do anything. And so this this

exchange, they're trained by the actors.

They coach math. Uh while they're

coaching math, we pay for an actor to

watch them for every hour that they're

coaching math. The actor gives them

real-time feedback to help them become

more enthusiastic, emphatic, and a more

winning personality. Win-win situation.

Now, the high schoolers directly

benefit, their life becomes much better.

In return, they're producing all of

these critical thinking classes for kids

all around the country. The architecture

of this is that it just connects people.

We are introducing kind and thoughtful

high school students to middle school

students to help them see, hey, you

could become these great people who are

having fun and also having a very

fulfilling life. But also the way we

execute the whole thing, the high

schoolers all teach in pairs that not

only makes the experience more fun for

the people who are learning math, but it

makes it so that these kind and really

mathematically clever people get to know

each other. because I don't know what

kind of challenges we're going to face

in the future. I think they're going to

be quite big and technology will make it

so that whatever the challenges we face

are, they're big. So, we also need to

have a big network of kind people who

are clever, who know each other, and who

have trust so that if there are some

civilization threatening challenges that

arise, well, then maybe there will be

some people who will stand up, work

together, and do something about it.

This is what I pay attention to as I

travel around the entire country and the

world. I'm actually thinking about the

robustness of human society. Whether or

not if there was some challenge that

faced the world due to technology, are

we as human civilization equipped to

rise up and face that challenge? To me,

it all starts from thoughtfulness.

The work I do is really focused on

building up autonomous human thinking.

That's why the core word I use for the

philosophy is thoughtful. I've watched

over many years as people are becoming

less and less interested in thinking. I

think that actually happened because

people found out that they can entertain

themselves with iPads and this

unfortunately makes people also not have

as much interest in concentrating and

thinking about something. AI could make

that much worse. The fun part of life is

having your own contribution to the life

that you live. Actually, I think that's

why people actually like creativity.

It's fun. People like to draw. People

like to put their own flavor. People

like to wear their own fashion. It

expresses themsel. This expression of

yourself, it would be lost if everything

you do is efficient but just reliant on

the AI which told you how to dress

today. That's why I want more and more

people to discover it's fun to think.

it's fun to have your own twist on

things, your own your own idea that you

inject inside. The other dangerous thing

that happens if people lose the ability

to to think and reason is that it makes

it far easier to deceive people. The

world is so complicated that if you look

at any situation in the world, sometimes

depending on how you tell the story of

what happened, you can say statements

that are all true which make you come up

with a different feeling. I think it's

really important for people to be

critical and to for people to be able to

understand what's really going on

because sometimes when someone's talking

to you, they have an agenda. Like I'll

be frank, I have an agenda. I'm trying

to build a more thoughtful world and I'm

going to be very very upfront with you

on that. Anyone who's watching this

video, I think it's really important

that we have as many people as possible

find out how much fun it is to delight

other people and to have the ability to

think and figure that out. That's my

agenda. But you see, everyone has an

agenda. And if you can't think for

yourself and you just listen to some

authority, what if that agenda is

actually to your detriment? You'll have

no way of knowing. The technology

revolution really made all of us start

to realize how much of an impact bias

has in the sense that whoever makes some

technology tool has some bias. What does

bias really mean? Well, I guess as a

mathematician, the way I would say it is

2 plus two is always four. That's right.

What's the point of life? Oh, I don't

know. Like, there's no clear definition.

What's the point of life? I think the

point of life is is to delight as many

other people as you can, but I know that

you might not necessarily agree, and

it's not a problem. I think it's it's

healthy that we may have different

starting points. The part that becomes

unhealthy is where there is only a very

short menu of options each of which is

followed by a huge number of people.

That's actually where bias comes in

because we just we just mentioned so far

in this in this video a couple of

different uh sources of AI providers,

right? We have we have Claude, we have

OpenAI, there's also Gemini. If you're

in China, there's Deepseek. There are

all of these, but that's relatively few.

If you think about it, that's that would

be sort of like saying, well, the world

has lots of different viewpoints. It has

five of them. Really? No. No. The world

has seven and a half billion different

viewpoints. There are 7 and 12 billion

people. One of the beautiful things

about

I guess humanity is the fact that there

are so many different ideas all out

there. And let's be frank, some of the

ideas are bad. Some of the people are

unfortunately in prison because they

decided to kill someone else. Hopefully

we all understand that this are a bad

idea. But the point is there are lots of

different people who are trying

different kinds of ideas, lots of

different philosophies. And in this

great big marketplace of ideas that is

the world, we see some ideas come out

and the the variety also allows us to

have more creativity perhaps. And when I

look at the different AI tools, well,

it's actually well known that they have

certain biases. This is also why for me

when I try to get the news, I don't only

go to CNN.com. I also go to Fox News. I

tune my social media so that my X is all

tracking Republican uh right-leaning

viewpoints and my Facebook is all

tracking left-leaning viewpoints. And I

look at both of them every day because I

want to see what's going on. And my

expectation is yes, you're going to be

biased. You have a certain view on the

world and you think you're right. And

you're biased, too. You have a way of

thinking of the world. And my job as I

simulate the world is to try to figure

out where do you disagree? Ah, you

disagree perhaps on a few values of how

people should live their life. And then

that causes you to have different ways

of reporting on the story. I think it's

all the more important now that there's

AI out here which sounds like a very

convincing reasonable person. It's even

more important that people look at

things and say, "All right, is that

really the story?" Because I think that

the AI is going to be so good at looking

complete that you may think you have the

entire story on a controversial

situation, but you don't.

I am an optimist, as you can probably

tell from the way I'm talking. I'm

optimistic because I can see that

thoughtful people stick together. I've

been working on my work with this whole

group of high school students and so on

for 3 years and I can just see there are

so many kids who are not kids anymore

who are growing up who are really clever

but so kind and they also know each

other. They make me optimistic about the

future. Not only the ones that I work

with but the fact that if I'm working

with these people that means there are

other people out there too. I'm

basically seeing with my own eyes the

power of what can be done if you bring

together people who have in common this

idea that they actually like people and

they want to make the world brighter.

See, one reason I'm building this whole

community of really kind and clever

people is because I'm also hoping to

eventually build a whole lot of social

entrepreneurs. Social entrepreneur is

someone who makes a conscious decision

to not necessarily become that rich.

You're doing it for a different purpose.

It's not because you want tons of money.

It's because what makes you happy is

seeing lots of delighted people. Social

entrepreneurship is hard. The hard part

is that sometimes at the beginning you

feel this is an important problem that

needs to be solved. Why won't people pay

me to do it? I need a donation or an

investment or something. That's how I

started off. Today when I do my social

entrepreneurship, I think very carefully

how much does that problem actually

cost? You know that if it's a problem,

there's a real cost. In fact, it should

be possible to make money. That word

entrepreneur hopefully also includes

something about sustainability through

business type form. A good social

enterprise should make a net profit on

every single person that they help.

Right? The problem that happens with

social entrepreneurship sometimes is

that people are doing something which

would be nice to solve, but they haven't

found a way to tie that together with

solving a problem that has real monetary

value that you can find someone to pay

for. You should hopefully be able to

figure out how it costs the world

something that the problem is there.

Aha. Now try to figure out who is paying

that cost right now and see if maybe

they would be interested in paying you

for you to go and solve that problem.

You just have to go and hunt around how

can I figure out how the positive that's

created on average is spread apart

across everyone who is playing and then

you also get a little bit too. That's

actually what we do. For example, we

provide all this education since we make

the best after school math classes for

middle school students who want

enrichment in the world. We have lots of

customers. They pay for it. So, we have

the profit. But because I'm a social

entrepreneur, we subsidize students from

different parts of the country and

different parts of the world. How come

nobody else ever thought of putting

professional actors to live coach high

school math stars who are kind while

they live stream math classes to middle

school kids? And that whole thing builds

an ecosystem that builds a more

thoughtful world that can hopefully help

to sustain our human civilization. It's

actually an obvious idea. There are

actors. There are math people. We can

all win. It took 11 years to really

build up to the stage that I am right

now. It took 8 years to come up with

that idea.

You can imagine how many other weird

ideas came about along the way. Anytime

I see any thing in the world or

something I need to do, I try to keep

coming up with a weird new way to do it.

For fun, I like to constantly be

thinking, is there another way? Is there

another way? Is there another way? When

I do this most of the time I come up

with a way and then the next question

becomes all right what could be wrong

with it. So I first generate like this I

want to generate new idea and after the

new ideas there I say now I want to

destroy the new idea. I want to shoot it

down. How could it possibly be wrong?

Because 99% of the ideas that I generate

that are new are fundamentally flawed.

But 1% are good. You have to just be

constantly for its own sake saying could

there be another way of doing this?

Could there be another way of doing

this? So this combination of generate

with excitement, destroy with lots and

lots of effort and then after a while

one diamond appears

then push it.

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