#66 Sandy Carter on AI, Blockchain, and Pioneering in Tech
36:39 Share

Welcome back to the future of UX, where we uncover the trends and innovation shaping the world of user experience design. My name is Patricia Reiners, I'm your host, coming to you from the heart of innovation and UX. And in today's episode, we have the pleasure of welcoming Sandy Carter, the COO of Unstoppable Domains and the founder of Unstoppable Women of Web3 and AI.

Sandy brings a wealth of experience and insights, particularly in the realm of AI and the future of technology. Our conversation today promises a fascinating glimpse into what the future holds.

It touches on the powerful intersection of AI, blockchain and user experience. Whether you're a seasoned expert or maybe you're just curious about technology and what's on the horizon, this episode is for you. So tune in, get comfortable and let's get inspired as we explore the future with one of the most influential figures in tech, Sandy Carter. Prepare to be inspired.

Hi, Sandy. I am so excited that you're here on the Future of UX podcast. So happy that you're here. So welcome, first of all. Hi.

Thank you, Patricia. It's so amazing to be here. Thank you. And I love that we're matching today as well. That's always a good sign, right? This is good karma going forward. I love that. Yeah, both of us are wearing pink for those who are just listening. Amazing color for sure. So before we are diving into the topic of Web3 and AI, Sandy, I would really love you to talk a little bit about yourself and share a bit about your background, how you got into the space.

Yeah, so I am currently the COO of a company called Unstoppable Domains. And Unstoppable is a digital identity platform. What that means is that we enable on chain, so on the blockchain, individuals to have any information about themselves they want, where they own the data, and they own their digital identity, which I think is so powerful. And the story of how I got into the space, Patricia, I think is quite fun. I

I was at Amazon Web Services, a phenomenal company, as you know. And I was working with a lot of regulated accounts and customers. And a lot of them started using blockchain. So, for example, hospitals for their supply chains, financial services for Ledger. Even we saw some folks like in education starting to use the metaverse,

building it on blockchain so that it could do better education and have higher retention. And so that got me really curious. So in addition to researching all of those things for AWS, on my free time, I started doing side projects, looking at how blockchain was used

in many, many cases. And of course, that leads you to Web3 and what's going on in that space. And so I started doing a lot of side projects, going down the rabbit hole on that. And about the same time that I started many of these side projects, our founder and CEO flew up to Seattle. He invited me to dinner, told me his vision for digital identity, and the rest is history. I'm now at Unstoppable.

Awesome. Amazing story. I think it's always so inspiring when people share that they got to where they are through side projects, right? Just like natural curiosity, trying things out and then really venturing into the space. I think super inspiring, especially for women in the space. When you think about the different industries where blockchain could be a good tool to use or a good, yeah, a good work, this could be a good resource.

What kind of industries are coming in your mind? Oh, there are so many, but let me just give you, I'll just give you a few examples. So one I see for healthcare, for example, I had an accident and I,

When they went to get my medical records, my medical records took three days, 72 hours to get my medical records down to Brazil so that I could have surgery. Now, if you think about that, that's really kind of ridiculous, right? So I was waiting for critical surgery for three days to get medical records down. Well, imagine if those medical records had been on blockchain, right?

I own that data. And therefore, I could have almost instantly

provided that information to the doctor and had the surgery right away. I think that's a great use case for it because I think it is in a great industry. I think the medical space is a great industry for this. I was just up in New York and I met with about 100 healthcare startups. They're all looking at this kind of a secure, streamlined way to share medical records among different entities, among different professionals in the space.

but also ensuring that privacy and compliance too. I think about blockchain today used in the whole space of campaigning. Many people are really worried right now about the election. 49% of our population will go through an election this year alone. And many people are worried about

How do I know if I see that video that that's actually the candidate and not some sort of deep fake, right? Like the Pope and his palm and jacket. And so here's another great case where you can use blockchain as a way to identify whether something is fake or not and to verify, do trust verification on if a picture or a video or quote is actually from that person.

I think that's another powerful one, especially applicable today. Real estate, tokenization of ownership of the title, the process of buying and selling property. I think that is a really big deal today as well.

And in fashion, like let's just take fashion. You know, the United States just passed some new laws around proving that like my blouse is sustainable. If I want to say my blouse is sustainable, I have to be able to track it cradle to grave. And one way to do that and share the information is through blockchain. I could go on and on because I think there's so many use cases here, but those are just some of the ones that come to the top of my mind. And

I mean, first of all, thanks for sharing that. I think super interesting. A lot of people who are not so into the Web3 topic still think about NFTs when they hear Web3, right? So I think it's super important to also mention all the opportunities that are right out there. My question for you is, why are not more companies using these opportunities at the moment? What are the blockers?

Well, a lot of blockers are not tech, it's regulation, right? So for example, for healthcare in the United States, we have something called HIPAA and the regulations are really hard and really strong. So you have to, and they're there for a reason, right? So you have to make sure that you adhere to HIPAA.

For the campaign and what's going on with elections, it's really a business model question, to be honest, Patricia. So who pays for the verification? And so there's been a lot of topics on that. So is it the news agency who publishes information? Should they pay to verify that the candidate actually said that or that was actually their picture? Or should it be the candidate? Yeah.

Or should it be another group? I mean, this is, again, it's not technology. It's about the governance and business models, for example.

I think also, you know, for like financial services and some of those areas, I think it's about scalability. And I know that many of the there's so many blockchains out there today. They're all working on scalability and costs. I think those are kind of the two big blockers out there today. I think once we start removing some of those, I think you're going to see a very fast pickup in this particular technology.

Interesting. Definitely looking forward to dive more into these areas. So last year I worked on a Metaverse project. This was also entirely built on the blockchain. NFT has been a huge topic back then. So me as a designer, I'm especially interested in how the design changes with Web3. What kind of implication does this have for designers especially? And with the rise of AI and all the things that are tech-wise important,

came into this world or gained so much popularity this year and last year. What do you think? How is AI changing the Web3 space in general or the tech world in general?

Well, of course, I'm a big fan of AI. So let me just start out by saying that and admitting it right up front. I think that AI has a lot of power. I've been in the AI space since 2013. So you can see I am quite a fan. I think that AI can make Web3 more accessible. So if we think about some of the blockers that

And AI, I mean in a web three, I think some of those could be really accelerated to success with AI so let me give you a couple of examples. One is is fraud, you know, unfortunately, our industry, whenever I tell someone that I'm working in the space they're like, Oh my god crypto.

I thought you were so honest. I thought you were like, you know, really into integrity. And I'm like, I am. But, you know, we've gotten a really bad rap with everything that's happened with FTX and Binance and other areas. But I think AI can really significantly aid Web3 in this space. And we already have companies using it. So like Chainalysis,

who is also one of our partners, has already started using AI and blockchain to identify and prevent illegal activities on the chain. We just did an announcement with POG. POG is a gaming company of the 90s, actually. They have the World POG Federation. They had these collectibles that they did. Over 150 million people collect them over 40 different countries.

So it's really fascinating to see, now they've gone digital, to see how they're using AI to prevent fraud, like someone selling a POG digitally that actually isn't a POG. And so they are also using AI gaming agents to better understand just the gameplay, but also to identify cheating and fraudulent gameplay. I also see that this can help in ease of use.

And a great example there is, you know, Brave. I'm a big fan of Brave and the Brave browser. And, you know, Brave's approach to put users in charge of the experience and then to integrate privacy by default is so very important. And they've been using machine learning and AI for years to match ads with users, but to still preserve privacy.

So I see these two things going hand in hand. And in fact...

My view is that the popularity of AI is pushing forward the power of blockchain. And so I know a lot of people are like, oh, they took all our thunder. They took our sparkly new thing. When in reality, I think AI is actually going to push forward and help us with a lot of the challenges in Web3 and help to make blockchain more powerful. And another question following up on that is,

is with all these AI tools, like thinking about ChatGPT, for example, with all the data that's stored somewhere, we need a solution for that. So how do you see Web3 coming into these problem spaces? So I think the big problem right now with ChatGPT is actually not storage of data because they're pulling from data sources that already exist. It's really about where did the data come from?

And that's something that blockchain is really good at, right? Is ownership, like who owns this? In fact, we just recently had someone tokenize one of their LLMs, the large language learning models. They tokenized it, put the ownership on the chain so that they could track who was using their open source learning model. So I think one area could be that ownership issue. The second one, I'm not sure. I think it's going to be more quantum that's going to fix it.

But it's the consumption, you know, as you're building a learning model and as you're doing the training, it consumes a lot of compute power. Hence why NVIDIA is now a trillion dollar market cap company, right? Because they produce those GPUs that specialize in it. I think there that's quantum is going to come in and help fix that.

And why quantum? Because quantum can accelerate the speed at which things happen. So I see a lot of power in having quantum help with the way you train learning models. I see blockchain with AI more helping in the ownership, in the monetization, in some of the areas that...

that I see blockchain assisting will be much more powerful in the places that it's good, right? Trust verification, transparency of data, you know, that inclusiveness,

So those type of things, accessibility, I think those are the type of things that we're going to see blockchain assist AI in. And then AI will assist blockchain. This is why I believe really strongly, Patricia, that there is a convergence of technology that is upon us right now. And that's why

That's why we feel like, you know, like Alice in Wonderland who said you have to run twice as fast just to stay in place. I think that's why we all feel almost so exhausted right now because it's not just AI. It's not just blockchain. It's blockchain, AI. It's quantum that's coming in. It's also, you know, all the spatial stuff that's coming in, right? Because now we have not just large language learning models, but we have visual models, right? With pictures and video.

And I think all of these technologies are going to converge to produce the next internet, not just one of them. That makes total sense. Could you explain briefly what you mean with quantum? I assume that a lot of the listeners who are more design focused have not heard about it or don't really know what it is.

Okay, so quantum is a new type of computing. Instead of having just zeros and ones, it enables you to leverage and use more than just two bytes. Therefore, it really transforms the way that compute is done today. Primarily, what it's known for is the speed at which it operates and

which makes it very powerful and helpful, but also very concerning, I think, for like crypto algorithms that are like cryptography, not crypto like crypto money, but like cryptography too. Because they believe because of the speed of quantum, that quantum will actually be able to break into many of the cryptography algorithms that we have out there today.

But I think quantum is, it's not here immediately. There are some, I would say, simple examples today, but it will be coming in the future. And I think this is where we're going to get some of the power of that technology. Okay, great. I think amazing explain. I never heard an explanation that's so easy and perfectly understandable. So thank you so much for sharing that. I think super helpful for everyone.

And now I'm really curious to hear your advice, especially for leaders, also for designers, of course, who are maybe leading teams or working in companies, how to prepare for what's ahead of us, the Web3 space, AI. What would you recommend?

So the first thing I tell people is exponential baby, exponential. Everything is growing and moving really fast. So it's not just you, it's all of us who feel this impact constantly.

of the exponential curve that we're seeing with artificial intelligence, even with, you know, look at crypto, what's happening with meme coins and the Bitcoin halving. I mean, everything that's happening out there and it's all happening at once, right? Usually we come, we have one technology that happens, right? It was the internet with Java or it was cloud, but now we've got quantum web three, blockchain, AI, all hitting at once.

So the first thing is, you know, just kind of breathe. Everything is happening exponentially. And if you know that, I think that really helps you to try to frame some of what's happening to you, but also as a leader to frame it for your teams, right? That exponential impact will require new leadership. That means you've got to help manage change, change management is going to become very important.

empathy will become very important, right? So let's say that there is something that is going to impact your entire team. One example from the AI world is there's a manufacturing facility and everybody in the manufacturing facility was asked to wear these jackets that have, I don't know, if you remember Patricia, the mood rings, right?

So they have IoT in them and they're using AI sensors. All the data's in the blockchain. But for the worker, all they're seeing is I have to wear this jacket

that showcases my mood. The company was actually doing it to help them to figure out, okay, instead of just giving a 15 minute break every two hours, maybe we need to give some workers more breaks or some workers, you know, music or different temperature. So the motivation was good, but you know, as a leader, how do you explain that? How can you be empathetic that now I have to wear this jacket?

that's testing my mood out, for example. And I think that as a leader, you also need to understand more about the technology. AI could be just a black box. I think you need to understand a little bit more about what the tech is as well. So for me, I think it's really understanding what's happening,

understanding the exponential basis of it, and then figuring out how, as a leader, how to help your teams with change management, how to help your teams with empathy, understanding what they're going through, they're afraid of AI, and then really trying to understand a bit about the technology. And I'll give you a great example. So I just went to the dentist, Patricia,

And I went to the dentist. They said they were going to do a scan of my teeth. And so they put this new device in my teeth, which I thought, wow, this is really fascinating. So I was talking to the hygienist and she goes, yeah, it's a new device. And what it does is it makes a digital twin of your teeth using AI. And then because we have that digital twin now, we don't need to make moles anymore.

We don't need to take multiple pictures of your teeth because we now have that digital twin. And so now there's so much more we can do. We store it all in the blockchain, so it's safe and secure. But now that's how we're going to do things. So I thought, how fascinating is that? First of all, that the dental hygienist knew the technology that was being used to scan my teeth, right? So that says the next generation needs to be a learning population.

It can also be scary, right? What if your job was you made the best molds of teeth that anybody had and that's how you, you know, you did braces and stuff. Now it's not you, it's a tool. And so there's lots of things happening, lots of change occurring because of all this new technology.

Not that easy to keep up to date, but I think pretty fascinating to hear that a dentist is so up to date and trying out these new technologies. Did you ask how they came up with the idea of using this? Is this very common nowadays or...

So it was fascinating to me because, of course, my dentist is wicked high tech. So you walk in and he's like high tech everywhere. He does everything high tech. So I wasn't surprised that he was using it. I don't know if it's common for everybody, but he told me he had four companies to choose from to create that digital twin of your teeth. And he went through his selection criteria. And then the hygienist, this is another interesting point because

They were using digital twinning and they were using AI to do the digital twin and they were storing on the blockchain. She said, I felt like I was going to get a lot of questions. So she went to her local college, community college here, and she took a class in AI and blockchain and digital twinning so that she could answer questions. Now, what a great hire he made, right? She wasn't asked to do that.

She decided to go do that because she felt her patients were going to be asking questions about it. And so, you know, there's so many lessons in that, how you hire you as a, as an employee, how you learn, how you, how you move, right? There's just so many different questions in that entire thing. Mm-hmm.

Yeah, super fascinating that people are very proactive diving into these new technologies and understanding that this is the future. I think super interesting. And even better if those people are in your team, you inspire them and be a good role model to keep people really inspired when it comes to these new technologies, right? So that's right. Take away the fear and replace it with curiosity and learning.

I love that. I think that's great because currently a lot of people are also very afraid of what's ahead of us. You already mentioned lots of new technologies that are out there. They don't know where to start, what is important. They are maybe scared that they are replaced at some point.

So if you would need to recommend some kind of like a mini roadmap or a mini framework, how people should approach these new technologies, how would that look like? Maybe like three steps or something like that. I mean, I think there's a couple of things. First, I would say that you would need to understand how to learn. And I think in this new space,

I think you really have to experiment and it's something I call play storm. You know, in the past, we've been taught to brainstorm ideas, right? To listen to a lecture, listen to a podcast like that. And I still think that's really good.

But once you listen, I think you have to go get your hands dirty, right? Like you actually have to go out there and use chat GPT. You really need to go set up your own digital identity, maybe using unstoppable. You really have to get your hands dirty. We're in an age right now that you really can't read about it. You really got to go do it. So Patricia, for me, for example, I went to look at the new Apple Vision Pro glasses. I read about them. I watched videos.

But until I went into the Apple store, I put them on and I experienced it, right? I experienced them creating a digital twin of the Apple store. Until I experienced all of that, I really didn't have the same perspective, right?

by just reading and listening to someone else's viewpoint. So I think that's the first thing. The first framework is, you know, learn about it and play storm, get your hands dirty. I think the second one is to think about, you know,

that it's okay to ask questions. Everything is growing exponentially. And one of my favorite quotes says, an expert is not a person who gives you all the right answers. She's the one who asks the right questions. So I think as you're learning, you're never going to learn it all, especially like if you're a hygienist, you're never going to learn it all about tech because your mission is dentistry. But if you have the right questions, then you'll get ahead.

And the third thing that I would say is first principles always matter and they still matter today. And what do I mean by first principles? You know, this was a big saying for Steve Jobs from Warren Buffett. And first principle means don't get confused by the shiny object. You know, what are you going to do with it? How is it going to change people's lives? How is it going to change your job?

So always just remember, it's not just about the tech, it's about the power that the tech can bring to you. How can it help you do your job better? How can it help your company make more profit? How can it help you in your purpose? So always think about first principles, not just the technology, which is very hard for me, Patricia.

Because I'm a geek girl, I love the tech. So sometimes I can get just started down the tech and forget about all the other really cool things that are going on out there that really cause a company to thrive. Yeah, super cool. Thanks for sharing it. I think an amazing framework helps listeners to really go through all the things really step by step. And I'm curious, how did you like the Apple Vision Pro after you tried it?

So I, well, I love technology. So I loved it. I thought the, you know, I was there, I was like in a concert and I was there by the piano in the concert. And I was, you know, I was, yeah.

Like they had a fashion show and I was sitting in the Apple store and the fashion was like walking right behind me. So I absolutely, you know, loved all that, right? If you can see Alicia Keys concert right near you and you can see the fashion walking right past you, it really gave me that sense of,

an internet of senses, right? No longer was I just looking, I was feeling, I was experiencing. It really touched most of my senses.

However, I would say after a while it was heavy. It messed up my hair and I know people laugh about that, but like, let's say that we were doing this interview and we were using the glasses and then I had to take it off and my hair was all messed up. I couldn't continue the rest of the day. It matters, right? There are certain things like that that matter. So I do know that Apple is working on the heaviness of the glasses and other things that, I mean, there's still a little ways away.

But it's never too early to get in there and play and see what the possibilities are. I also had the opportunity to play with some human robots when I was at CES. And, you know, that's another game changer we're really not talking about as much, you know, instead of having a pizza delivery person come, having a robot show up at my house.

deliver my pizza. Maybe I invite them in my house and they set the table for me, right? Like a robot that actually looks like a person. They set the table for me. And then maybe I ask them to do the dishes because I hate doing dishes, Patricia. So maybe I have the robot do the dishes for me. So if you think about that, you know, of course, maybe that's five years away.

But as you start thinking about that as a marketeer, now, who do you market your dishwasher detergent to? Are you now marketing to me? Are you marketing to the company that does the robot?

Who are you marketing drinks to? Is Coca-Cola now marketing to me or are they marketing to the company that does the robot? So there are just so many interests. If you're a construction worker, you got to have enough birth to get in the door for a robot. So there's just so many things that you have to think about and that

That really energizes me as I start to think about how these things will change. But then I always go back to those first principles. Okay, this isn't going to impact me right now. What will impact me right now? What can I do to make myself better with the tech? What can I do to make my company better with the tech?

You know, and how can I approach that? Okay, great examples. And I really like the example with the robot that brings the pizza. I personally would prefer a robot than like a human because you never, I would trust a human much more like being in my home, taking care of everything than like a stranger, right? You wouldn't let like a pizza delivery person in your home and do the dishes, right? That would be very strange. But a robot, maybe, right? It's true.

It's true. I think a couple of people who delivered pizza for me wouldn't even know how to do the dishes, to be honest. But there is like this really cool world where all the stuff you hate to do, like I love cooking. I hate doing the dishes. Like if I could delegate all of the things I don't like doing to a robot, wouldn't that be cool? And so I think there's a lot of

people who are afraid of the tech because it does have some negativity too, right? There's lots of problems that are happening with the tech, but I think there's a lot of possibility as well. Yeah, I agree. And especially for designers, because they are also the people who are designing these interfaces, basically how you communicate with the robot, how he communicates with you, all these back and forth that needs to be seamless.

And it's probably not an interface, but it answers all these questions that you just asked, right? Like what kind of solar is he offering? All these kinds of things that are happening in the background seamlessly. Yeah. Fascinating. Super interesting. Completely agree. I think designers are probably one of the most

important skill sets as we go forward. Because if you think about user interface for Web3, you've got to have really good design. We often tease that we should just fire all the Web3 designers and go and kidnap the Apple designers and bring them in because then we'd have something that was really usable. But in all of these elements, like artificial intelligence,

Web3, digital identity, like designers are going to be kings and queens because that piece of the equation requires not just a chunking through data. It requires creativity that I think is such a special element. You know, a lot of people talk about AI first or tech first, and I think that will be important. But I think the more value thing over the long term will be human first.

I was just looking at, for example, I was looking at an ad and I

It was a brilliant ad by Nike, of course. And they had designed this brilliant saying and picture. And we wanted to test it with a chat GPT. So she and I, we're both tech nerds. We got together and we were testing out, could chat GPT come up with something better? And it couldn't. And we were like, why is that? Well, it's the creativity. It's not just putting the facts together. It's that creation. And I think that's what designers are so great at.

Yeah, exactly. I think this is super important that you're mentioning that because currently a lot of designers are very unsure of how to deal with technology, with AI, how.

Will design be replaced at a certain point? But yeah, I totally agree. Design will be very important. The role might shift a little bit. Of course, like all roles are shifting and changing during time. Yeah, but it's definitely important to keep up to date also with check, with AI, Web3 and know these tools, how to use them, especially in your workflows. So I know that you're giving a lot of talks, keynotes, a lot of podcasts.

What are the perfect resources, especially for designers or tech leaders that you would recommend to check out? It can be anything. Also your keynotes or your resources.

Yeah, I mean, one of the things to go check out about Web3 technology, I founded a group, Patricia, called Unstoppable Women of Web3 and AI. And we offer free education and free cert on that site. It's unstoppablewow3.com. You can go out there and you can get education on blockchain, digital identity, Web3 overall. We have Spanish, we have French. So there's some really good tools out there.

I also just did a keynote at South by Southwest. I spent a lot of time on it, looking at the human elements that would be impacted by tech and the new tech, what I thought was the really hottest pieces of new tech.

I was one of only 17 keynoters there. And so I would love for people to watch that. It's about an hour long, but it goes through all the human elements and the tech elements too. So we did a little bit of it here, but there I actually like showed a robot. And so it's really cool. I think that would be really interesting. If your listeners and viewers want to get their own digital identity,

which I think can lead to the next phase. You can actually design your own profile, which I think your designers would love. And you can go to unstoppabledomains.com and grab that digital identity too. And if you have questions for me, I'm a Sandy underscore Carter on Twitter or just Sandy Carter on LinkedIn. I'm Sandy underscore Carter founder on Instagram. You can find me about every social platform and I'm pretty responsive on all of those as well.

That's true. I also reached out on LinkedIn, I think, and you responded within like a couple of hours, which is very rare. Usually people need that time. So I really love that. So cool.

Sandy, thank you so much for your time. I feel like we could continue to talk for the whole day. I really enjoyed our conversation. Thank you so much for your time and sharing all these insights with us. I really appreciate that. Thank you so much. And thank you, Patricia. I'll talk soon.

you