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Cavendish Professionals recently brought together members of Prague’s technology community for Tech Talk: The AI Debate Nobody Can Ignore, examining how artificial intelligence is reshaping organisations, professional roles and the future of work. Moving beyond AI’s technical capabilities, the evening focused on the opportunities it presents, the questions it raises around skills and decision-making, and how to keep people at the centre of technological change.
Why a debate?
Rather than a traditional panel, we chose a debate format, with speakers going head-to-head on three of the important questions shaping the future of AI:
- Will AI strengthen Big Tech monopolies or drive open innovation?
- How is AI reshaping education, critical thinking and decision-making?
- Will AI create more economic inequality than opportunity in the workplace?
Speakers challenged each other’s assumptions and defended their positions in front of the audience. After hearing both sides of each motion, attendees voted using green cards for and red cards against, giving them an active role in the discussion. The votes helped shape the Q&A, where attendees could push further on the issues that had divided opinion. The evening concluded with a live mentoring session, giving attendees the opportunity to put their own career questions to experienced technology professionals.
Speaker Insights
The debate brought together a line-up of speakers from across the Prague tech community: Dana Hague, David Chodur, Michal Kubišta, Kateřina Lesch, Dimi Bespalov and Kristýna Jahnová, alongside Adrian Duffy and Zahn van Zonneveld from the Cavendish Professionals team. Each brought a different perspective to the discussion, with three contributions standing out.
1. AI, education and critical thinking
Dana Hague, Adjunct Professor at the University of New York in Prague, highlighted the importance of human connection in learning and critical thinking. Her perspective raised questions about how increasing reliance on AI could influence the way people develop their knowledge, challenge ideas and make decisions.
2. Separating AI capability from hype
David Chodur, Lead Engineer at Alma Career Czechia, brought an engineering perspective to the debate, drawing on his experience working with machine learning. His contribution highlighted the importance of separating genuine AI capabilities from the hype surrounding them. For technology professionals, this means understanding how AI works in practice, recognising its limitations and assessing where it can deliver meaningful value.
3. AI and opportunity
Michal Kubišta, AI Lead at Valka.AI, argued the continuing importance of foundational software engineering knowledge in an AI-enabled development environment. As AI tools become increasingly capable of generating code, developers still need to understand software architecture, design principles and engineering fundamentals to assess outputs, provide the right context and make informed decisions. His perspective reinforces an important distinction: AI can support software development, but engineers still need the knowledge to evaluate what it produces and build systems that remain maintainable over time.
