TED TALKS
Why banning AI is giving ‘don’t use calculators’ energy
When people hear “How do you compete with AI?”, most assume it means against AI, not with it.
But HubSpot co-founder Dharmesh Shah argues that mindset matters more than we think.
In a recent TEDx talk, he shared how AI is changing the way we work, build, and think, and why banning it is like refusing to use spellcheck.
Shah got early access to OpenAI’s tools two years before ChatGPT was launched and saw the shift coming.
From coding with APIs to watching his teenage son build entire fantasy worlds using AI, he sees the future as one where natural language becomes the next big programming language.
He also broke down how AI tools like GPT actually work, without getting too technical.
In short, they’re trained on public data, predict one word at a time based on what’s likely to come next, and have billions of “knobs” (parameters) adjusted during training to get better at doing this.
The result is a highly capable tool that can now write text, generate code, and even act on instructions across multiple steps.
That said, large language models still come with limits.
Their training data is outdated, they don’t know internal systems, and sometimes they just make things up.
Dharmesh suggests taking a careful but curious approach, learning by doing, and using small experiments to build confidence and value.
Worth remembering:
LLMs like GPT work by predicting the next word, trained on internet-scale data, but they’re still prone to error.
Shah encourages small, safe experiments over outright bans, especially in work environments.
The future of AI use is moving from simple interaction (like chat) to autonomous action (AI agents completing tasks).
Your intern has a PhD
The biggest shift, he says, is moving from interaction to action.
Tools are no longer just helpful companions; they’re becoming agents that can carry out multi-step tasks.
The most effective teams of the future are likely a mix of humans and AI working side-by-side.
“AI won’t take your job. Someone using AI will. But ideally, AI takes your job, and gives you a better one.”
Dharmesh walked so Gen-AI could run in Reeboks and code entire games.