Thank you for joining my session. I'm very happy to to be here today. I'm talking to you from Romania.So from Europe, from Romania right now, it's around noon noon in here. So, yeah, I I think it's pretty pretty early for for some of you from what I've seen into, into the calendar. So, yeah, I hope I make it worth your while. So a little bit about myself. I am a technical lead for Signet Health. I am passionate about technology. When I have an idea that I feel that it's worth sharing or, you know, maybe something that I would have liked at some point to, know, to have someone, you know, teach me about creating a presentation or, writing some, some thoughts on, on medium. And when I'm not in front of my computer, I like to be outside in nature, do all sorts of crazy stuff like hiking and cycling and climbing something.

So, yeah, I really like to disconnect into, into nature. But today is about, you know, taking a step back. And I want to take you a bit back to the fifteenth century Florence, the heart of the Renaissance, a time, you know, when painters and engineers and philosopher was breaking from the past and trying to really find what was possible. And we are having here into the picture Michelangelo's creation of Adam, you know, and beyond the religious, meaning. What this actually captures is possibility. You know? The moment before something world changing begins. And today, we stand at a new kind of, renaissance where the canvas is digital, the tools are intelligent, and, of course, AI, it's already part part of everything. And the right question isn't is AI going to write more code because AI is already writing a lot of code. Right?

And most probably is going to improve over time. So no news in here. The right question, that I want to invite you today to think about is how do we respond to to these changes? How do we respond to to this evolution that we we are having? And, yeah, the first renaissance shattered intellectual stagnation. Right? Today, we are the ones that are going to to lead this. Right? Developers, builders, engineers. And this seems this one seems like it's freeing us from repetition, unlocking time for deeper work, better ideas, maybe bolder solutions, now that we are having the time to actually focus on this kind of, matters. Of course, it's disruptive. It's uncomfortable. We don't like it. Right? Because it's shaking our, area of control.

But like before, we need to adapt because if we resist, we are going to, just, stay behind, and this is not, how how things are actually, evolving, usually. Yeah. We need to go outside the comfort zone. And, yeah, we've all wondered, right, at some point, if I can handle functions, fix bugs, even process for request, what's left for us? And the fear is good if we look at it as a signal, a signal for us to, redefine our roles and redefine the value that we are bringing. Instead of being viewing it as a thread, we should see it as an invitation to ask better questions. Right? For example, what do I understand about AI that no model is going to grasp?

What do I understand about the world that, no model is going to grasp without new? You know? Context, the human part of things, systems. What is it that is making me actually valuable in this new setup? And this era demands not just skill or speed, but perspective and judgment. And this is not built as another discussion about AI hype or about which tool is the best. Right? It's about reframing for a little bit. And the best way to reframe is not, you know, running like a lunatic trying to outperform the tools and trying to, you know, have control over who is going to take your job, you know, as we are seeing a lot of, a lot of posts, a lot of opinions on the Internet. Right? Because things are very clear in this perspective. AI is going to produce more code than we can. Okay? So we need to stop obsessing on that. That was a strong core for you know, a strong, characteristic for us.

But now it's time to shift the focus and look at the things that AI cannot do, like make smart decisions. You know? Spot the problem before the pull request. Address the ethical considerations. Right? Ask some tough questions that others might avoid. You know, many thing people I see think that they are going to get ahead by working harder. But the truth is that we are going to advance only if we start thinking better and look at the decisions and the choices that we we are make making and start to improve on that side. Because and I strongly believe this, our value as developers, right, as builders, engineers, doesn't come from how many tickets we close, but the real value actually comes from how do we influence the discussion even before the first line of code is written. And, yeah, I'm amazed that, you know, I still hear people that, okay, are thinking in terms of how many commits, they created that day, and that company is still evaluating that, in that, manner.

But I think that step by step, we are going to evolve towards changing this, this trend. And, of course, we discuss a lot about the human advantage. Right? But we need to look a bit of how we are actually, improving or working with our this mind that we are having. Right? Because it's not enough to just have, an amazing, mind, you know, in this ecosystem that we are having in here and that it works wonders, but more like we need to work towards improving this because at the same time, machine starts reasoning for us. And what do we do if we look, like, very objectively? We are basically, focusing more on speed and results and prioritize these processes instead of deep thought. And this way, our ability to think critically is fading. Yeah. We are losing this this thing that we think that it's so important. And, actually, that is, is helping us in the, you know, in this era of, automating so much because tech is created by our brains and better thinking leads to better building.

And, of course, we need to be aware that we are living in a time where, you know, knowledge is no longer just a way to you know, something that we store, right, something that we memorize, and then we have knowledge. Right now, the value of knowledge went from possession to interpretation. So we need to understand that true knowledge at this moment lies in context and connection, asking, you know, why something matters, how it fits into the big picture, what, connect you know, connection does it have to other areas, what implications does it have. So we are moving towards this, perspective that is more dynamic rather than, you know, just a static static, archive when it comes to to our knowledge. And I saw this, very nice podcast a while a while ago, where Adam Grant, was saying that people who succeed today aren't the ones who collect the most facts. They're the ones who connect to the dots.

So we need to go past what we already know and train our minds in order to figure things, out as soon as possible. Because in a world that keeps changing, flexibility and curiosity are the new fluency. And why is it curiosity that important? Just think about the kids, you know, kids around two, three years, when they are asking you all these questions, like, why is the sun like this? And, why does it train? And how does it train? You know? How is this impossible? And so on. This kind of curiosity is what leads us to, exploration, innovation, search for the meaning behind the, you know, what is already known and easily generated. And consider this. Instead of, you know, just counting on on what you already know, just think, what is worth learning right now?

And in here, we can think in the context of, you know, doing some brain dynamic gymnastics. We can think, okay, maybe some system thinking, which enables us to design behaviors rather than just features. Right? We discuss a lot about the feature that we're building. Or prompt engineering, of course, it's an entire discussion about this, right, on how to do it good and actually effective, when it comes to to working with AI. And then we have mental models and, you know, having knowledge from more domains than just the one that we're working with. So not only understanding how tech works, but also how the world works because we are creating tech that is going out there into the world and people and people use it. So why is it that important to, you know, to improve our judgment in 02/2025? Because this is a human skill, yeah, that deals with complex situations.

Knowing when past patterns, you know, that, AI is usually using might not apply. So being able to determine this and understand when you should rely on intuition, on the experiences that you had on your, basically, on your, you know, even feeling instead of just the logic. Because as machines improve at providing the answers, our role shifts from interpretation to actually, from possession as we were discussing before in the terms of knowledge to actually, interpreting the answers that AI is, is giving as, as responsible as possible. And, of course, when it comes to training our minds, right, we were discussing about mental models, right, before. And I think, of course, we are not going to go very deep into into the topic. But what I want to underline is that this series of books, this was for me actually the door to, to this kind of this kind of information. Right?

Because by reading these books, I understood how important it is for us to use our minds and actually constantly look at things. Why why we are making decisions? How we are making decisions? What questions should we, ask? You know, stripping down the assumptions that we we are having and actually working with the, you know, the first principles of, of thinking. Asking, okay. What happens next after I do a certain action or, you know, I'm maybe delivering a feature or, trying to shape a behavior? What happens next? And then next and then next. And thinking also in terms of, okay, what could draw could go wrong? Like, not just reacting to some outcomes, but more like, trying to anticipate the consequences that our, you know, our work is going to is going to have into the future.

So I strongly recommend this, these books. And of course, I have another session on the, on the topic that goes more into, into, into details. But this is a great starting point for, for for people that want to, to understand this. Then we were discussing about system thinking. Right? And what system thinking represents is a way of understanding problems beyond the simple cause and effect. You know, linear thinking says that a causes b, but in real life, a causes b, then it moves back to, a, then it goes to c and then to d and then back to b and so on. This is system thinking. Understanding that we are working with complex systems, right, with systems that might have all sorts of, influences. Yeah. All the connections, that they are having might impact, each other in a in a certain way.

And you can think, you know, just as an example, we can think about how, cities often try to reduce traffic by building more roads. Right? But we can see that traffic goes wrong. Basically, instead of thinking, okay, we need more space, where cars to be able to drive, we should think in terms of, okay, so we are having problems with, with the traffic. It's not a linear thing. It's not I'm creating more roads so traffic will be okay. Maybe it's better to understand that the problem is not exactly where it's invisible, you know, the cause of the problem. And maybe we should think, okay, what causes that people actually use that much, their own car in the first place?

We need to understand that human behavior, urban design, even, you know, transportation, all are connected. And it's not only about going from a to b, but more like trying to understand the context and actually solve the problem and not just some symptoms of the problems that might get it worse. So system thinking helps us zoom out, see the patterns, design with resilience in mind. Because when you build something, a feature, a model, a platform, it doesn't matter. Launch isn't the end. It's the beginning. What you create shapes behavior. Right? And in the end, you are the judgment layer. Right? Even if you're using AI. You are the context. You are the pause that asks, okay. Is this right? And your role is something essential into all this process. Because, you know, if there's one thing that, we know for sure is that tech will never never stand still.

So how do we actually stay ahead when the ground is always, shifting? You might ask me. And the answer is simple. It's not an easy one, but it's simple to answer to this. Right? Learn system design, learn the business, learn architecture, learn system thinking, stay curious as we are discussing, and flexible. Work on your critical thinking, and also try to look from different perspective even when you are hearing, you know, all sorts of opinions around you. Try to understand both of the opinions that you agree with and why you agree with them and also the ones that you don't agree with. Try to understand why you don't agree with them. What is it that is, is behind those? And, of course, don't get misled by the hype.

It's not our first rodeo, with, you know, all sorts of new technologies and and so on. Of course, the impact as we were discussing before, it's different. But let's try to to build a worldview that doesn't break the next time that, the stack is going to change. So let's let's keep ourselves, you know, in the in the roles that we are having and, without fear and without, you know, rejecting change, more like trying to build upon this, this wave that, we are on right now.