In Conversation with: Albert Chun on the Future of Work in the Age of AI and Automation (Part 1 of 2)
Guest Post with Albert Chun, Director of AI Operations at Invisible Technologies
It was one of those connections that makes you believe in fate. As I was preparing a talk on AI's impact on education, I had been reaching out to folks who had made the leap from other professions to AI-related careers, and especially teachers.
When Albert’s response landed in my inbox, it was like a new hope – any reference to Star Wars being purely casual! Not only had he been the founding teacher at multiple schools that went on to be the best in their respective states, but he had also transitioned into AI and is now blazing a path in AI education. This conversation flowed so naturally, it felt like we had known each other for years. I hope you enjoy it.
Here we go—it is my pleasure to introduce the first of a series of guest posts on Honest AI. This series of ‘In Conversation with’ is designed to shed light on AI’s implications on society and the potential it holds for the future of work and education. It also highlights the need to bridge the divide between technological innovation and education, policy, and the future of the workforce.
I could not be more thrilled to kick off this series with none other than Albert Chun, the director of AI Operations at Invisible Technologies. I first came across Albert on LinkedIn, where he writes about AI developments, how to learn AI, and their implications for society. I reached out to find out more about his story and career so far, and I’m so glad I did! Albert is a fantastic human being and has so much to teach us.
Here is the first part of a two-part interview. Please do let me know what you think in the comments and message me if you’d like to feature in the next ‘In Conversation with’, or have a recommendation for our next guest.
Transcript edited for brevity.
Background
“I’m a product of my upbringing – I certainly had choices to make, and I tried to make the best choice with what I knew.”
“I grew up in a rough part of town in East Oakland, California, where your future career would be a teacher, cop, or blue collar worker at the liquor store or laundromat. I chose to be a teacher. I became one of the founding teachers of a charter schools in Richmond, a city in western California and suburb of San Francisco. In our first year, we became the leading school in the city. In our second, we were the top school in the district. There, I taught everything from math, history, science, and PE, and after three years, became a principal. By that point, it was the leading school in the county.”
“From there, I moved to a public school that was the leading middle school in the country at the time and started a robotics program for students, as well as an e-commerce business. My wife and I joined a think tank in New York City on writing educational policies. We actually then moved to New York (at first, without a job!) and I landed one while we were driving through Nebraska. I’ve always been happy to lean into risk. My parents flew over the Pacific, right, with no language and no contacts – that taught me that you can always figure it out.”
“In New York, I worked for a nonprofit that helps turn around failing schools. I was working in the South Bronx and turned one school around. We were a little late to another school. When that had to close, we started two new schools in the South Bronx – both public schools. In hindsight, I realized that THIS was entrepreneurship. I just didn’t have a language for it yet. A lot of my coworkers had gone to Harvard, so I decided to apply. I got in, and everything from there on in expanded my field of vision. I feel very fortunate to see how things lined up the way that they did.”
“After that, I started a fintech startup for kids that failed their last year of school and then a future-of-work startup to help upskill people into better paid, more fulfilling work. Ultimately, that idea failed as we couldn’t figure out how to monetize it. And so, I cut my teeth at a tech company building their customer success function.”
Pivoting from education to technology
“At the first tech company I joined, we had a lot of inbound sales, so I did a lot of new business. I did the same at a more mature tech company at a later revenue stage and built their customer success team pretty much from scratch. My focus was on how we operationalized workflows from the back office. That’s when I got introduced to Invisible – where I work now. They are outcome-driven, charging for results rather than hours. The incentives feel much more aligned.”
“When I first joined Invisible, they mentioned that they were also training AI models. As with every pivot I’ve had so far in my life, I knew close to nothing. So, I picked up the first AI book on the lowest rung of the ladder and focused on consuming as much content about AI as possible. I owe a lot to our VP of Engineering, Adam, who told me that it’s okay not to know a thing about AI – despite applying for an AI company. I thought, okay – if he’s the smartest guy in the room in most rooms that he’s in, and he’s telling me it’s okay, then maybe it is.”
“I ended up reading everything I could click into, half the books on the MBA course, and courses at Stanford, even though a lot went over my head. It got into the actual, nitty-gritty work that I did not do or didn’t know how to do. Back then, I was just building fluency around AI, playing it over and over again in my mind, and reading as much as I could. And, I knew that the best way for kids to learn is to teach. And so I started asking myself how I turn this into a lesson for a peer. How do I walk someone else through the process? When I started writing more about LinkedIn on AI, I realized that was helping me distill my learning and crystallize it. To see what was resonating and what wasn’t was also very powerful.”
Subscribe to Honest AI and stay tuned the second part of this interview on Albert Chun’s views on the future of work in the AI.