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Hi everyone, here is Ricardo Vargas and this is the 5 Minutes Podcast. Today, I would like to discuss a different topic. Recently, I received a comment in one of the webinars that I did with my dear friend Antonio about artificial intelligence and the comment was, I would say, very skeptical, and in some tones, I would say a little bit negative with the way we are talking about that. And the comment is, I'm just reading just for you to know. So it's something like PMI and project managers should be leading the way in shutting down AI. If 80% of project management tasks are going to be taken away, does this mean that the PMP exam is going to be shorter? Who is controlling AI? What are their intentions? Who can you trust? We are all gung ho on accepting these Days without addressing any concerns. Where is your risk register? How many risks do you have listed? Are you even using the PMI mindset and PMI framework? And last, who is paying you to push this agenda? Now, what is my view on that, and why do I want to share this with you? First, absolutely nobody is paying us to push this agenda. I don't receive a single penny from anyone to do that, from PMI, from any other association, from Microsoft, from Google, from OpenAI. Zero. And I can say the same about Antonio. And then you may ask me why we are doing that. So we both have years and years in this field. I've been working with Project Management for 27 years, and honestly, I am very fulfilled professionally and financially. So, I'm not doing this because I believe I will make a little bit more here or there.
Why are we doing this? Because we truly believe that AI is changing and will change project management and several other areas of work in a very sharp way. So when I hear someone saying that project managers and PMI, for example, should be leading the way in shutting down AI, it's hard for me to understand that. First, there is no way anyone can shut down AI. And you know, if I think about Antonio myself, we we are zero. We have absolutely no power to move this needle. You know, 1/1,000,000,000 of a billionth of a billionth of a percent on that PMI is the same. And honestly, and I'm not talking about PMI here. PMI did not ask me to do that, but as a fellow member and as someone involved with PMI for such a long time, what Pierre is doing and PMI are doing is amazing and deserves all of my recognition because what PMI is doing in a very powerful way is to prepare the community to what will happen by training, by creating products, by creating an environment where AI does not scare us. And, of course, on a much smaller scale, it's the same as what Antonio and I are trying to do. We are not trying to sell anything to anyone; we are just working as much as we can to promote this.
For example, just in my case, pretty much everything we get, for example, from the masterclass, I channeled to my online school to provide scholarships to those who are not able to pay. So I'm not doing that for money. I'm doing that because it's what I believe I should be doing. After working in this field for such a long time. And, of course, when this person says where our risk register is, and this. You all know, based on the posts I am in, even people talk about how I am not very optimistic in every single article I have published, and there are more than ten articles I have published. Every single one of them. I talk about the ethical risks, about AI going wrong, about things losing control, and how we prepare for the ethical use of AI. So we are all doing that. But when I see someone saying that the response we as a project manager should be doing to AI is to do all of our effort to shut down AI? Oh, this scares me deeply because this is a root that is just impossible. And it's impossible for me, for Antonio, for PMI, and probably for the president of the US, for the European Union. There is no way you can regulate; you can create boundaries. But the movement today is above and beyond one individual control. So what we need to do, and this is what we are trying to convey in every single talk we need to prepare.
And how do we prepare? We need to train. We need to use. We need to be cautious, but at the same time, we need to see the positive side of that, that this is a new time. And let me tell you, when I did my PMP, I think it was 1998 or 1999, and this is a long, long time ago. At that time, being a good project manager means delivering on time, on budget, respecting the scope you control, and many times avoiding change. And you don't care about the product you are delivering because this is not your responsibility. This is the sponsor's responsibility at that time. So if you are producing a useless product on time and on budget, you are a great project manager. Look how this sounds today. This sounds nonsense today. If you go to the PMBoK seventh edition, one of the basic principles of project management is value. So, we are talking about the project, which should exist because it delivers value. So, did you see the change? So, AI is the same. In the future, I will replace many of the work project managers are doing today. And we, as project managers, will develop new types of work that will be doing where this kind of technology will not be as good as we are. If AI could replace everything in the Project Management arena, it would be able to replace everything in any management position, everything in any CEO position, and everything in any political position.
So, we need to understand that adaptation and being adaptable are the keys. And institutions like PMI, Scrum Alliance, and IPMA are drivers like Antonio and I, with our much smaller influence, are trying to do the same. We are trying to bring to the table the discussion of AI. We are not bringing AI because we want to, you know, kill the profession of project management because this makes no sense. What we want, we want to help with our small influence, a better awareness of our project management Community so they can learn and adapt to the times of change we are living in. And this is the message I want to convey. I really want to thank the person who made this comment because it gives me the opportunity to clarify this and even rethink if what I'm doing is the right thing to do. And I truly believe it's the right thing to do, because the best way for us to prepare for the future is through education and knowledge. When we know how things work, if we know how the challenges take place, we are more ready to take on a very volatile where I don't have control, where Antonio does not have control, where PMI does not have control, that is the future. So think about that, and see you next week with another 5 Minutes Podcast. And I hope to talk more about AI and the Project Management arena. See you there.
