The Futurist

This outwardly simple proclamation coloured an hour-long conversation with Joseph Bradley, CEO of Tonomus, the technological arm of Saudi Arabia’s futuristic NEOM development.

Tonomus describes itself as a hub for “visionary catalysts,” and is tasked with the perhaps enviable job of driving the technology behind one of the world’s most exciting projects. Thus, when we meet, the expectation is for Bradley to be filled with the similar refrain from which we have come to expect of futurists.

For decades at this stage, leaders have glibly told students of the future that all they need is to “learn to code,” filling universities and campuses with students ardently coding. Instead, Bradley says, they need to “learn to think.”

“You’ve got to follow your passion. I’m not saying that STEM subjects are wrong, but I am telling all these kids who are humanities majors and passionate about their subject that instead they need to be studying technology is just wrong,” he says.

“[Humanities majors] are going to have the last laugh, because their ability to shape questions and think of the world differently, that’s going to make careers. All of a sudden, the search bar will become the greatest equaliser the world has ever seen.”

For context, our conversation took place just as headlines became awash with stories of how jobs, and the global economic system at large, stands on a precipice of disruption as a result of ChatGPT and other artificial intelligence (AI) technologies.

While Bradley doesn’t completely dismiss the impact of AI, noting that, for instance, “the whole educational system is going to be challenged,” he also doesn’t buy into the doomsaying.

“We always fear what we don’t understand… The reason that the single biggest equaliser in the history of mankind is typing into this search bar is because then if you can think it, you can execute it. That is extremely disruptive,” he says.

Indeed, while some have raised alarm bells over what AI might mean for some professions, Bradley believes that instead the technology is likely to “unleash a whole new wealth of opportunity.” Using the iPhone as an example, he says the invention of the smartphone was not just about the phone itself but the applications themselves that spawned adjacent industries.

“People like to say, ‘Oh AI is going to impact jobs.’ Stop with that. You need to find a way to enclose the productivity gap,” he explains.

As AI becomes more so integrated into technological products used by everyday consumers, it is going to “raise the level of participation to something that’s never been seen before, and that is something very profound. But, make no mistake about it, it is a redistribution, and that is what people are scared of.”

“Overall, it’s a net positive, but make no mistake it is a redistribution.”

Human centricity

At Tonomus, Bradley is engaged in driving “a strong positive viewpoint of the world.”
However, while technology has clearly been beneficial in advancing the global human experience, not all products have as clearly been a net positive – particularly when issues of trust and digital security are concerned.

In order to counter these very real problems, Tonomus has sought to “create new connections with people in a very human-centred approach.” Bradley takes this sentiment even further, noting that Tonomus’s core belief structure is “human-centric.”

Explaining what this means, however, is more complex, and involves solving what Bradley refers to as the “happiness paradigm.” “Machines can optimise for efficiency, but they cannot optimise for happiness, and the efficient answer isn’t always the right answer for humans,” he says.

In Bradley’s world, AI is a crucial tool in answering the happiness paradigm and embracing human centricity. But doing so requires having an open conversation about the use of AI, rather than “pushing it underground.”

“I would say that a more enlightened point of view would be to keep the conversation open, inclusive, where it belongs, and allow people the ability to give input, because that is where fundamentally humans have to stay in the centre and control the conversation,” he explains.

While Bradley declined to name any companies or products that had failed to keep humans at the centre of the conversation, he has an advice for technology and business leaders out there.

“Consumers are an uncompromising and brutal judge on whether or not they are being satisfied. They will instantly tell you, they will vote with their dollars… If you have no trust, you get no data. No data means no value. It’s that simple. If you violate that trust, you can put a big X on getting any data and you can put a big X on trying to create value,” he says.

A project for the world

There was a time when the construction industry buzzword of the day was smart cities, with developers everywhere promising to inject technology into city life for nebulous and, as yet, ephemeral gains. This trend was defined by “real time information,” Bradley explains, but was shattered by the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, which has instead taught society that “real time is simply too late.”

“What we need to talk about is not telling you what is happening, but what will happen, and what to do then … The first thing is to make the system more proactive and predictive, or rather cognitive. Ultimately this means we want to reduce friction in your life, we want to allow you to get more time back in your life,” Bradley says.

At this stage, our conversation unsurprisingly turns to the exciting developments Saudi Arabia is undertaking at the gigantic NEOM development. Bradley, a man whose own profile describes him as an “applied futurist, author, cognitive city developer,” is in his element here.

“NEOM is [being] built in Saudi Arabia as a project for the world. But, if you want it to be for the world, you need to create products and solve problems and solutions that export, and that’s the goal of Tonomus, the technology subsidiary of NEOM,” Bradley says.

However, these lofty ambitions require significant investment and work, something which Saudi Arabia has not shied away from so far. Specifically, Tonomus is building a futuristic network of hyperscale data centres for mobile technology powered by renewable energy using a common data architecture.

“That foundation is critically important because you want to have an environment of digital air. What I mean by that is when you walk into a building, you don’t worry about if there’s oxygen, you just breath in what you need to. Well, if you want to create an environment that fosters AI, you don’t need to worry about what to do. You have connectivity,” Bradley explains.

NEOM represents a paradigm shift in the design, technology, and thought process that goes behind building a city, but ultimately, for Bradley, the project remains about putting humans first.

“The true definition of a cognitive city gets back to being human-centric … We’re not wed to this notion of just adding software and tech to something for software and tech’s sake, instead we are asking the question, ‘does it actually remove friction?’”

A ‘brutal’ future

Bradley remains focused on employees as the drivers of change in organisations. Indeed, at one stage, he argues that leaders need to focus on taking care of employees if they are chasing business success.

“It’s very simple. You take care of your employees, your employees take care of your customers, and your customers drive financials,” he says.

However, in order for employees to be successful in this, the use of technology will be crucial, Bradley explains.

Simply put, customers will “determine what’s right, and what’s wrong, in the blink of an eye. If you don’t have it ingrained in your system, if you don’t have employees empowered, and if they don’t understand what’s happening and AI isn’t giving the right information, it’s going to be brutal,” he says.

Our conversation doesn’t quite end there. With our time ending shortly, Bradley uses the last of our time to speak not about technology, nor the importance of AI to the future of the world, but instead on the importance of culture.

“We have taken it very seriously about our culture, about how we innovate, and ensuring that we take care of our employees. They take care of your customers and they take care of your financials, not the other way around,” he says.