Last week, I had the opportunity to attend GradLeaders (formerly MBA Focus) and nSpire AI’s Connections 2025, and I’m still thinking about the incredible conversations and insights. Huge thanks to Amy King and the GradLeaders team for inviting me to moderate a panel discussion on Skills-Based Hiring—and for bringing in such an outstanding keynote speaker.

That speaker was Joshua Jones of QuantHub. He’s one of the most informed voices on AI that I’ve encountered, and he’s using that knowledge to drive innovation in e-learning for students from kindergarten through college.

The Scary Side of AI

One big takeaway from his talk and my interactions throughout the conference? AI can be terrifying.

Not in a “robots take over the world” sci-fi way, but in how it forces us to rethink how we work, learn, and live—and how fast it’s all happening. We’re being pushed to innovate in ways we’ve only dreamed of, and suddenly, the tech is catching up quickly.

That got me thinking. At Connections 2025, I had some fascinating conversations about the unease people feel around AI. So I put together a short series outlining three reasons people are afraid of this new technology.  Number one:

Fear of the Unknown

This isn’t new. People have always feared what they can’t see or fully understand.

Remember the myth that Columbus would sail off the edge of the Earth? Or the doubt that must’ve crossed the minds of even the most brilliant scientists during the Apollo mission to land on the moon? Even with the expertise of the brightest scientists in the world, you have to imagine there was some level of uncertainty when those astronauts left Earth.

That’s where we are now with AI. We don’t know where this is going, no matter how many people tell you where this is going.  Why?  Because so many people are basing their predictions on what their view of the world is today.  And AI doesn’t play by today’s rules.

Can recruiters visualize how their jobs would be different if they could identify and contact every person in the world who could do the job they are seeking to fill?   Would job seekers change their methods of search if there was a bot as good as (or better than!) they are at identifying, applying, and interviewing for openings?

AI is presenting scenarios that have the best and brightest asking, “What are the possibilities?” And as this plays out, even those who embrace the unknown are feeling uneasy, because there’s no historical roadmap for where this tech is taking us.

If not knowing where going is scary, then going there at breakneck speeds must be terrifying. I’ll discuss the speed at which all of this is happening next week for part two of the series.

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