How does innovation influence markets, technology adoption, and long-term economic thinking?
Many people hear about artificial intelligence, automation, new technology, or economic uncertainty and immediately wonder what it means for their money. But what if innovation is not something to fear, but something that can influence markets, investing, and long-term economic growth?
In this episode of Retire in Texas, Darryl Lyons explores the role innovation has played throughout history, from the Scientific Revolution and Industrial Revolution to the internet age and today’s rise of artificial intelligence. He explains why economic forecasts often miss the impact of innovation, how new technology can bring both opportunities and unintended consequences, and why long-term investors should pay attention without letting fear drive their decisions.
You’ll learn:
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Why innovation has been part of human progress and renewal.
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How the Scientific Revolution, Industrial Revolution, and internet age changed society in ways people could not fully predict at the time.
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Why new technology often creates concern, especially when it challenges tradition or changes daily life.
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How artificial intelligence is already being used in areas like healthcare, aging, travel planning, and personal support.
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Why boundaries and discernment matter when adopting new technology.
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How innovation can influence markets, investing, and long-term economic growth.
AI may feel new, disruptive, and even uncomfortable, but Darryl explains why completely ignoring innovation can leave individuals, families, investors, and even communities behind. Instead of reacting with fear, he encourages listeners to stay curious, understand both the benefits and risks, and remember that long-term investing has often been connected to human creativity, problem-solving, and progress.
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Transcript:
Hey, this is Darryl Lyons, CEO and Co-Founder of PAX Financial Group. And you’re listening to Retire in Texas. This information is general in nature only. It’s not intended to provide specific investment, tax, or legal advice. Visit PAXFinancialGroup.com for more information.
So, the word innovation, originates from the Latin invoteo and really means restoration or renewal. And so, I want to talk about innovation. And really in the context of how, to a certain degree, it renews our society and has for years. And it always bugs me. It drives me nuts.
Economic forecast drives me nuts. And because economic forecasts cannot forecast innovation, it’s just hard. But it exists and it has existed, since the beginning of humanity, when we were called to keep and cultivate the garden. One of the things is understated about, humanity at large is our willingness and desire and innate desire to discover God. And that is a byproduct our, I guess, innovation is a byproduct of our curiosity, and our curiosity is a byproduct of discovering God, which was woven into our DNA.
So, this has happened forever. Going back, I mean, I’ll just go back to the 16th, 17th century. Whose scientific revolution? Galileo, Newton, Copernicus. Just discovering God through the laws of human nature. The stars. Microscope, Newton’s physics, the law of motion. You know, things that we don’t even think about today that just seem not very innovative at all.
But at one point, they were certainly radical, even challenging. Religion at large didn’t break it, but challenged it and challenged our, you know, what we believe to be true. Now, keep in mind that whenever innovation comes around or this idea of renewing or restoration, we have concerns about what it means to our traditions and how it impacts our way of life.
And oftentimes, and rightfully so, the indirect consequences. But there’s nothing stopping this innate desire to innovate, to renew, to discover God in new ways. It’s just going to continue happening. It is healthy for us to take inventory of the indirect consequences and just understand that we have to put boundaries on it. I will get to, that’s one of the major points of this conversation, but I have to set it up by reflecting on the past, starting with the industrial or the scientific revolution, and then moving into the Industrial Revolution, which is another fascinating time period in our lives.
There was a series called Making of America. I think that’s what it was called, like PBS or something. You guys might remember a fascinating series, really highlighting the Industrial Revolution and help me reframe, the Industrial Revolution and really appreciate what it was. And frankly, the challenges that existed, in, you know, going back to the late 18th century, through the early 19th century, just the transformation that took place in European societies, factories, mass production and just sweeping social change, of course, urbanization, the labor movements, just everything that went into that, of course, we think about coal and just this, this funky looking rock, so to speak.
But wow, look at its potential and what it did for transportation powering, ships and locomotives and homes again, you know, this was innovation. This was renewal. This was restoration. This was change. This was scary. There’s indirect consequences. But we can’t again, I’m getting them leading up to AI. We can’t discount it completely. And we especially here’s the thing, because I’m part of the Christian circles, sometimes we really want to stiff arm innovation and protect tradition.
And then what happens is tradition takes off because it’s like I said, it’s natural for us to want to discover God and Christians get can get left behind. And we got to be careful that we don’t collectively. And it happened in China. I’ll never forget, it was the Qing dynasty in China. I say never forget because I did some research on this years ago and, I don’t remember the quote, and I actually looked it up, but this is the closest I could find the quote, because there’s another quote that summarized it better.
But Qing had said that we don’t have a need for these things. And I think he said something like, we don’t have need for these peculiarities, but I couldn’t find that quote. But he was referencing the need for Industrial Revolution to be adopted in China. So, they completely as a society, shift arm in the late 19th century, the Industrial Revolution, and completely got left behind that can’t, that you’ve got to be very careful as a culture that you don’t lean in.
Yes, you can still be cynical, but you don’t lean in. You’ve got to lean in. You’ve got to be a part of the solution, because there’s no stopping this DNA that’s inside of us that desires to discover God. That’s often reframed as innovation, often reframed as restoration. But again, it’s our, this idea of discover who God is, what He’s doing out there.
And I mean, the fact that we discovered radio waves, even if you think about. Did we? It was, this is a philosophical question, but did we, did we create math or discover math? Think about that for just a second. I would suggest you that we discovered something that was already there. Did we create radio waves or discover radio waves?
And here we are, asking ourselves that about AI. But before I jump into AI, let’s talk about another time of innovation. And that was the internet. And at the time, this was weird and peculiar, but today we wouldn’t know it. Like anything different, we’ve got online learning, we’ve got telemedicine, we’ve got all types of payment systems.
Yes, it’s created a lot of indirect consequences, just like somebody created a pool stick and, we think it’s great for, you know, community and games and fun, but then somebody stabs somebody else with a pool stick or wheel or everything else that we create a hammer. There’re just always humans that will mess it up, because it’s another innate thing that we can’t forget.
And a lot of people get this sideways, too, is that humans just generally aren’t good. And now you philosophically, you may have a different opinion here, but when I go to the Word of God, it says no one is good, but God is. So, when we take this innovation to discover God, we inherently independent of God. We end up using it in a wrong, different way.
So that happens. And so how do we put boundaries around that? But the internet has really made in a lot of ways, society function pretty well, but not without of course, consequences. And some of that we see in our youth, which, gosh, I didn’t even think about talking about that. That’s a whole different conversation of how innovation, the indirect consequences usually start out with the most vulnerable people.
And so now we move into I it does this feel more philosophical than financial? Probably. But that’s kind of par for the course generally. I try to weave in principles, core principles that I inherently believe guide our money decisions. And so hang with me as I continue to navigate. Now we’re transitioning into the AI world, which artificial intelligence is here?
The adoption rate’s awesome to see. I’m seeing, I was just on a phone call with a business owner the other day, and he’s just starting to use ChatGPT. Like it’s just happening now. We still don’t understand. I think the understanding of the application is still, we’re still trying to get our head around that. We recognize speed and efficiency and even accuracy are a byproduct of this innovation.
And as an example, like, let’s say you want to travel to Rome and traditional internet searches would give you a list of options, whereas, and that might be described as a chat bot, but what’s described as an AI version of a chat bot would be in like an operator style agent that you might say, I’m going to Rome.
And they would say, okay, let me go and do some searches. This is the best time to go. The weather looks good coming up. Based on. You know what I know about you? You prefer history? Here’s a few places to go. I put a few links in there for you to be able to grab some tickets beforehand because they might book early.
By the way, have you considered going to Istanbul instead? Because a lot of things that you talk about can be found in Istanbul, and it could save you money. And I know last time we talked on your chat, you’re on a budget. That’s the difference. And it includes speed, right. A lot faster way to gather information, but also this conversation, intelligent dialog between a computer.
So that’s artificial intelligence. So, we are here today and it is in a lot of ways, I would make the proclamation scientific revolution, industrial revolution, internet age revolution similar. If you don’t believe me, please start paying attention because it’s happening in real time. And please don’t stiff arm it. I’m hoping that you recognize there are going to be indirect consequences only because inherently we’re not good and we will mess things up.
But there’s no stopping the desire of humans wanting to discover God. And this is the next chapter. And so, what does this look like? I want us to participate in it. I also want us to adopt it. I think there’s some fun involved. Let me give you some examples. Galleri multi cancer detection test.
I think it’s interesting to think about being able to get in front of what, what might be potential cancer. You know, we’ve got this DNA circulating in our blood and there’s these patterns that are in there. Often these chemical patterns are left behind, like, I guess trails from cancer cells, extremely complex, hard for humans to interpret, but not impossible for technology or artificial intelligence to interpret these patterns of potential cancer cells.
Think of it like a slug trail. If you see a slug, they usually got this slimy trail that’s being left behind. And you might say that that leads me to believe that there might be a slug somewhere around here. And so, that’s. But you can’t really interpret that with just human intelligence. So, this idea of adopting artificial intelligence might get in front of cancer so people can get treatment earlier.
And, that type of artificial intelligence adoption, I think is inherently beneficial to a lot of us, especially the people that we love or our own health. Personally. Another example, this one’s interesting. Like it’s kind of cool. You can go to the website like, this is just a okay, hang with me because it’s going to freak you out.
Artificial intelligence companion. Yes, there are already. And again, I don’t freak out about this because you got it. If you assume that people are not good, if you assume people are good, there’s another group of the world that people that make the assumption that people are good. And if you go on that assumption, then you get surprised when people are bad.
I go in the assumption that people are not good. Only God is good. And so, as a result, it should not surprise us when we talk about an artificial intelligence companion, and that teenagers getting misdirected and misguided by using these artificial intelligence companions and even seniors for that matter. But this particular one is interesting. And in the right context and the right boundaries is a companion for a senior that’s lonely but not just lonely, not just for like a social connection, but also for a health connection.
Like something like, hey, good morning. Susan. You slept about seven hours last night. Would you like to start with some stretching exercises? Okay. That might be a good voice to hear in the morning that you otherwise wouldn’t get here. Now, you would prefer your niece to call you and tell you that. But your niece isn’t calling you.
So, this is the backup plan so that you can have somebody that can hold you accountable and maybe get you up in the morning. Moving in the right direction speaks words of encouragement, maybe tracks participation in exercises. Maybe it reminds you to take your blood pressure medication that you oftentimes forget to take, and then it messes with you a little bit or, you know, it might even remind you to call your niece or nephew.
Hey, you haven’t called your niece in a while, and, you know, I have a connection to your phone, and maybe you should call her. Maybe it just gives you some devotional readings. It could track your walking. Have you been sitting for a while? You need to get up and move, so there’s some good to it.
And, of course, check it out. Why don’t you just go check out the website? Like I don’t get any compensation from it, but it’s just something that gives you a pulse of what artificial intelligence can do to enhance the lives of seniors who might be lonely, as we have, as we’ve started to move all around the country and the kids are all scattered now.
But just the cognitive engagement with artificial intelligence is interesting. And then, you know, just as an another example, this will be the last example for artificial intelligence as we lean in to this innovation or this renewal in society. I’m curious about these autofocus glasses. You know, as you get older, your eyes change, right?
And so now you get these arms that extend, the I say newspaper, but your phone or you’re painting the screen to make the font bigger. What about having glasses that automatically focus? Given what you’re trying to look at, it requires a higher level of intelligence and speed to autofocus. So now there’s glasses that, if you can nearsighted or far sighted or both or your eyes are changing.
It adjusts with you and so that it can start, you know, augmenting your viewing experience to be less clunky. So that’s pretty interesting. Of course, the AI enhanced Ray-Ban glasses are totally next level, so if you haven’t had a chance to look at those, I’ve been looking at those lately, but it’s interesting. I don’t want you to just, I don’t want you to turn away from any of this stuff is my bigger point.
This stuff is happening and it’s going to happen with you or without you. And I’d rather happen with you. So you can be a part of the solution and your voice can participate. And also, I want to let you know that this is also going to be an investment thing for those that have investments. You can all day listen to an economist tell you about what the future of the economy is going to look like based on some what we consider linear modeling.
But it doesn’t include the adoption of innovation and how it transforms society. So, your investments, albeit, will be unpredictable in its outcome. As usual, it will absolutely include the adoption of innovation. And that continues to be a part of who we are as society. So, enjoy the investment opportunity, stay invested, participate in the markets. Despite the noise, the dead and the chaos and the geopolitical stuff, people are still investing in technology and change and innovation, and that’s what makes the investment world work.
So, I hope that helps. That’s your insight from my perspective on innovation and how we should lean in, but also think of it as an investment opportunity for your portfolio as always, thank you for listening. And remember, you think different when you think long term. Have a great day.
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