The Human Code
The Human Code" podcast unravels the intricate blend of technology, leadership, and personal growth, featuring insights from visionary leaders and innovators shaping the future. Host Don Finley dives deep into the human stories behind technological advancements, inspiring listeners at the crossroads of humanity and tech.
The Human Code
Maxwell and the Future Workplace: Nils Bunde Speaks
Exploring the Intersection of Humanity and AI with Nils Bunde
In this episode of The Human Code, host Don Finley is joined by Nils Bunde, CEO and co-founder of AskRadar.ai, to discuss the intersection of technology and humanity. With over 25 years of experience in technology, Nils delves into how AI can drive cultural change in organizations and the ethical implications of real-time sentiment analysis. The conversation explores his early interest in technology, the evolution of human-AI interaction, and the potential of AI to enhance the human experience. They also address the future of AI, its application in improving workplace culture, and the dual nature of technology in assisting and recording human interaction.
00:00 Introduction to The Human Code
00:49 Meet Nils Bunde: Bridging AI and Business
01:46 The Genesis of Nils' Tech Journey
05:09 AI in the Workplace: Ethical Implications and Future Prospects
06:07 Maxwell: Revolutionizing Employee Listening
12:42 The Evolution of Language and AI
17:09 The Human Experience and AI
25:53 Final Thoughts and Advice
26:56 Closing Remarks and Sponsor Message
Mentioned during the episode Turing test
Sponsored by FINdustries
Hosted by Don Finley
Welcome to The Human Code, the podcast where technology meets humanity, and the future is shaped by the leaders and innovators of today. I'm your host, Don Finley, inviting you on a journey through the fascinating world of tech, leadership, and personal growth. Here, we delve into the stories of visionary minds, Who are not only driving technological advancement, but also embodying the personal journeys and insights that inspire us all. Each episode, we explore the intersections where human ingenuity meets the cutting edge of technology, unpacking the experiences, challenges, and triumphs that define our era. So, whether you are a tech enthusiast, an inspiring entrepreneur, or simply curious about the human narratives behind the digital revolution, you're in the right place. Welcome to The Human Code. Today we have Nils Bunde. CEO and co-founder of ask radar.ai, joining us on the human code. With over 25 years in technology and innovation. Nils has been at the forefront of bridging AI with business to foster meaningful human connections in this episode, Nils shares his insights into how AI can do more than just support operational goals. It can drive cultural change within organizations. We'll dive into the future of human AI interaction, the ethical implications of real time sentiment analysis. And what it means to truly harness technology for a better workplace experience. I'm sitting here with my friend Nils Bunde. And Nils, it's always been a pleasure like talking to you and like running through the last few years of getting to know you as well and the different projects that we've been working on independently. But you've always been a good person to turn to when I've either needed advice or wanted to hear what's going on. And I guess the first question that I have to ask of you is, what got you interested in the intersection of humanity and technology?
Nils Bunde:that's a great question. I think that for me, the technology in itself if I went way back, it would be a seventh grade and a neighbor of mine who literally was my neighbor next door, he got a Mac 2e, and so we actually played with that and we figured out how to interact with the computer to create games, very basic games. and a lot of it was the if then statement, like if, you know, and so I think that for me, it was the beginning of the recognition of how technology can impact your life in that case for fun. and then certainly, fast forward through college, starting to get in with the Mac, and all that stuff. And my background being in design, and moving forward through all of that. The way that technology can help human beings be much more efficient and actually much more creative. so on the design side, if you have the ability to create something really quickly, initially, I always sketch like by hand. This is fast. I mean, you probably recognize being with your creative endeavors and your art. It's the fastest thing to do currently is to just literally with your hand, do something. But then it's translated into the computer, and I think The ability for us to interact with the computer or with the technology, is really rapidly, really amazingly helping us become more efficient as human beings through art, through business, I think when the internet came along, it was like, there was a guy who, I was talking with that years ago. He was just like, nobody's ever going to read the newspaper on a computer. But now the accessibility anywhere you are, if you're sitting at the airport, you don't need to go find a newsstand. You just pull it up on your phone. So that's always been a real interesting dynamic for me. And now with human plus AI, especially, with Sharon, who is just an astounding technologist and AI expert, that was one of the first things that she was really intrigued with that we were talking about, and she's, 40 years in, in AI. And that's when she was saying, humans plus AI is just, more. and so. Human Intelligence plus Artificial Intelligence.
Don Finley:And I think, we were talking pre show about companies being more aware of the value proposition on the AI that they're implementing. And I can say from like where we've been is in that augmented AI space around allowing, the human to interact with the AI to accomplish something that the human's responsible for. and that's, a really impressive space, but I love what you're talking about as far as like how we're interacting with the machine, There's definitely been a transition from, going, I won't touch this on a screen. I'm not interested to it, especially news and then books as well, there's that. but there's also, I'd say, I don't know about you, but a little bit of nostalgia when I like pick up the newspaper, Like it's nice to step away from a screen for a little bit.
Nils Bunde:will admit I still, I do get the paper on the weekends. then I actually try, at least on one day, not to actually look at a computer or a screen or my phone. Now I'd never really actually achieve that, but for a great deal of time, because we're always sitting here working on a computer.
Don Finley:I think you're hitting on a really sweet spot of the space that we're in of we're now seeing how people are interacting with AI. we're seeing how like the models are coming out with voice as well and understanding that and like changing how we're able to interact with the computer. but then additionally, we were also talking about tool usage, Or like the creation. And so now instead of having to like type on a keyboard, tap on a phone, in order to do something like there's the opportunity, it feels to have more advanced Siri. a more, yeah, where do you see this space heading or what's the golden city on the hill kind of moment for you? Yeah.
Nils Bunde:a really good. So one of the scary things, of course, is the security of your data and what it is you're saying. for instance, even Alexa, everybody knows Alexa is listening all the time. And so what's happening with that data? And nobody, certainly there are, terms and conditions and all that with privacy policies. But your data is somewhere and whatever you're saying is somewhere. and so do we even at a certain point care, what is privacy basically? so for instance, what I'm working on now, which is Maxwell and Maxwell is a sentiment analysis tool for companies. It's employee listening. And guess what? All the leaders and managers of all the companies right now are listening to their employees, hopefully in a good way and a proactive way so that they can provide their employees with the right tools and the right support. so the problem is like with surveying and all that stuff, it's very manual. It's very human. So with us, I'm like, how could we take that burden off of human beings, but still give human beings the benefit for the human interaction. You want to know how well your employees are doing. You want to know the company culture well, you also don't want it to be invasive. one of the funny things was when I was going through all that stuff, And figuring out if Maxwell was really a viable idea was, I was working with Sharon on it and it was like, how do we know that people actually need this? And so asking companies or, individuals at companies, how do you find out about your company culture, about your employees? They're the most valuable asset, as it were, that you have. Oh, we do surveys. And then I ask employees, what do you think of surveys? I hate them. And they said, they're biased. They're not anonymous, even if they are. So that was this disconnected, human to human interaction. It's flawed. And it's always been flawed. And so with Maxwell, we're actually taking that a step further now, where it's just employee listening. In the background, and certainly the company can and should, disclose that they're listening to the conversations, but guess what? They already are. Like companies already listened to Slack channels and Teams channels, and they're going in there and they're finding nuggets of information. So in this case, We're utilizing AI for the betterment of human listening, so you can actually create a better company culture so that your people want to stay. Because one of the biggest, expenses is attrition. If somebody says, I hate this place, but nobody ever heard it and they leave, that's expensive. And apathy is expensive. And so for us, utilizing AI is a tool to help the human experience. What a win,
Don Finley:that is fantastic to hear. Cause you're hitting on the point, We're talking about the human and the AI, that association and what you're doing with Maxwell is, a ripe opportunity because not only, and I'm having to go back to the times when I had to fill out surveys, but there is either you write a novel or you write just enough to fulfill the obligation. And you probably are doing this with, 80 other things that you need to get done that week. And so it never really takes the priority, plus the amount of time that it would take to actually go through the surveys, produce the results, means that your timeliness of getting the information together is done once a year. and that means that your feedback loop is also, once a year. Oh, yep, exactly. and you're not asking questions that are relevant. to, what is actually happening. Whereas Maxwell is in a position that, hey, it can get the information in near real time. but also and I don't know if this is a capability, but like you, you're sitting Right. there and saying Hey, depending on how this person answers, ask follow up questions, try to see if you can pull something out or, get a diagnosis from The individual. So that's.
Nils Bunde:thing with Maxwell, I think it was a really great analogy I hadn't thought of. This is not me. I didn't come up with this, but Maxwell is the canary in the coal mine, will tell you there's an issue before it becomes an issue. And that, I think, is where, like surveys, they're outdated because they take so many weeks or months to analyze the data and then finally give a report to the board or to the leadership. And certainly I don't think surveys are going to go away, but surveys themselves, even if they're AI enhanced, are They're still interacting with the employee. here employee, do this, So it costs the company a lot of time and money because of the company, employee's time, all these different factors. and it's basically, it is, it's a warped sense of reality. And like only about 60 or 70 percent of employees actually take part in surveys. So you're still even warping it further. And I think that for us to be able to build a very simple tool that is the canary in the coal mine that will tell you, Hey, your team may be having some issues. Now it's not going to say that the issue is Don is a horrible person. it's not going to do that. It's just going
Don Finley:you'd hard program that in.
Nils Bunde:that's right. That's right. But I think the ability to utilize technology to help human beings be more human. that I think is phenomenal. And I think also the foibles of human beings, like how do you get over some of those? so like what Sharon's working on is perfect because it's working on a pain of human, what's another word for foible? there's plagiarism, if there's whatever it is, Then that's going to catch it. And there are tools out there, but how do you really figure it out? And I think, so there's two sides to there's human nature for the good, and there's human nature mitigating the bad. And so AI can really help do that on both sides. It can really increase, human interaction and it can increase the human experience in a great way. And it can also. Help to mitigate the people, and I think that's where, Goldman Sachs has built their own AI system from the ground up. And they're like, cause financial, And I'm sure you're probably familiar with them. I read that article. I'm like, wow. Like they got the pre, pre, pre, preview. And the guy who's the CTO, I think, or chief officer or whatever, he's actually a friend of Sharon's. so I was like, okay, so what's the deal? And she's I'm not going to tell you, But it's the complexity of that system has to take into account the complexity of the human experience, and that's amazing.
Don Finley:that's a very good point, we're dealing with technology now that is, is able to infer some sort of like association, everything that we've ever done with computers before was very deterministic around, we expect it. we knew that we could have an expected result, Now we're moving into the world of probabilistic kind of like interactions. And it's both from the standpoint of like how the human's interacting with the AI. It's no longer click a button, hit a key kind of approach. There's now understanding the nuances of both the human, experience, the language that. we end up using, the local dialects and local words. Like we have a word in Philly, it's John. J A W N. okay. It means It's a noun, it's a verb, it's just as versatile as the F word, right? yeah. So basically if somebody says Hey, hand me that, wrench and you go, Oh, that John over there. and, or saying Hey, I'm going to that John later. Like it, it has, it often has a noun type of aspect to it, but it has, it's used as a verb. It's, and so this is just local kind of like Philadelphia stuff, but like the AI is going to have to understand that kind of like interaction and what that ends up meaning
Nils Bunde:Oh, yeah.
Don Finley:based on, other social clues, but it's going to change how it ends up like handling that paradigm between the human and the machine.
Nils Bunde:yeah.
Don Finley:type of space.
Nils Bunde:and so the complexity of the human brain, And we have all these, the language barriers and the language, the opportunities and evolves over time. So, I wonder how it is that over time, the AI will be able to keep up with human language evolving. like Shakespearean English, virtually unrecognizable to us. And yet, that was only, what, four or five hundred years ago? And dialect, even a hundred years ago, the dialect was different. and even, my whole family is from Norway, a couple generations back. And my dad spoke Norwegian. But, he went to the university in Oslo. And so he went to see cousins out in the country and they laughed at him because of his dialect.
Don Finley:Yeah.
Nils Bunde:But today, that Norwegian doesn't even exist anymore, the one out in the country, because it's become so homogenized so quickly. So how is it that the AI is going to keep up with that? I don't know.
Don Finley:Oh God. I got two scenarios playing out here, One, kind of like the combination, man, Sharon's getting a lot of airtime on this one. Sharon Boulding, go back, listen to her episode. she's been on, we'll bring her back on to talk about the, what she's working on now. but basically there's two ways to look at this. One, if we're interacting with the AI and the AI is like acting as a point of data collection on us, right? there's a way to hold that language in posterity, Right. to make sure that it doesn't lose its luster or that the certain aspects of it that we fully enjoy or not represented in. other languages still makes it into the essence of human expression and experience. then there's the other side of it. It's saying as language changes, I don't know if you've seen, what generation are we at right now? What's the youngest generation? Is it Gen A?
Nils Bunde:Oh, younger one, right? So there's millennial Gen Z and then did they
Don Finley:whatever that whatever do we just we're just gonna loop around.
Nils Bunde:Or Gen ZZ, Gen ZA. I don't know.
Don Finley:We'll figure it out. We'll go to hieroglyphics in a second. It's good. They're gonna be an emoji but either way there's a whole set of language That they have. And this is the first time in my life that I've experienced this of like words being created and having no clue because I'm that distant from that
Nils Bunde:Yeah. Oh yeah, it's true.
Don Finley:And yeah, and so like we're seeing the evolution of the language happening. And I think that this could be advantageous that the language either evolves at a quicker pace Because of it or it ends up, I hope, maybe not stagnating
Nils Bunde:So do you think that AI could actually get to the point where instead of being, of the moment and like of today and then in the past, it could take all that information and see, Okay, all these different patterns of language and how generation after generation creates their own types of words that then the next, the previous generation is I have no idea what you're talking about. What's Riz? charisma. Okay, I just learned that one. and it's probably already out of date. But the
Don Finley:by the time you and I catch up with it. Yeah. we're outta date.
Nils Bunde:It's way out of
Don Finley:Yeah. It's
Nils Bunde:Yeah. And so could the AI figure out predictably, this is where the language is going to go and inform the language.
Don Finley:I would say yes, but I think I have a different sort of like seed moment that comes about. one of the areas that I've been really interested about is how we are gonna interact with ai and a lot of. we've been talking about that, but at the same time, like we see like character. ai is coming out with like full blown girlfriend type experience that you could have with. Porn always leads technology innovation or at least adoption. So yeah, that's cool. Fantastic that we're seeing that, but I think that's going to hit us just the same way that like smartphones do in regards to how we actually are interacting with it over time. And just you may want to take off a day from looking at your phone. We may end up wanting to take a day away from AI interaction as well. But I also see this as being like a real positive. When I'm scrolling Facebook, the algorithm is there to make sure that I am staying hooked. And so it feeds me content that hits me in an emotional way. The biggest emotions that you can hit upon, fear, fear, and anger are the ones that really hook people in. But if you know that's happening, you can be aware of how you're interacting with it. I'm laying a lot of groundwork probably To say two sentences on this, but in the same token, like you could use the interaction with AI and have the AI have an understanding of where the human. experience is. We already have models that are looking at people's emotional states and can pick up on tonality and tone. And in fact, for Omni, the advanced has that capability. I don't think it's been fully rolled out. but like there is a field of study that is just looking at what's the emotional interaction that I'm having with this human, which means that the AI can then adapt its style
Nils Bunde:To
Don Finley:to be walking you through an emotional experience because humans mimic very effectively. if you ever have a fight with your wife. You end up going down the path of or there's a, a thing that you can do around Hey, if somebody is really heated, you get really heated too. And then you walk them back Down. to calmness.
Nils Bunde:yeah.
Don Finley:Whereas like the AI is in a perfect position to help you process in that
Nils Bunde:Oh yeah.
Don Finley:And just over at the University of Penn, there's a Dr. Martin Seligman who is doing positive psychology and his research going back to I think it was the late seventies, early eighties around metacognition. So the words that we use and how we talk about ideas. actually is a prediction of how we actually are behaving inside of our own mind. So if you face a difficult situation and you talk about it as in this is a situation that occurred, that moment sucked,
Nils Bunde:huh.
Don Finley:but it doesn't have wide and it was very localized to this. These people who talk about bad things in that way tend to be more resilient. Whereas when a good thing happens, Yeah. good things happen for me all the time, not just in this, but. everywhere. And it's always happening. And I have a good internal focus on that. Those people tend to be happier as well. It got to the point where they could predict who was going to win the presidential election based on the nominee's acceptance speech.
Nils Bunde:wow.
Don Finley:So much so that all acceptance speeches now are written with the understanding that this is the behavior that we end up like, conveying. So I think AI can play, can build upon that knowledge, that wisdom that we've created to be a good counterparty. to the human experience and maybe language won't be shaped based on that like riz that like the street kind of streets not the Right, word but the younger generation creating this yeah Colloquial. to now that the interaction can be based upon hey i care about your mental health in this that it might change the dynamic of the language that is used
Nils Bunde:which goes back to the base human experience. The emotion, and I think that's the experience of being human is emotion. And certainly, there's this different senses, but all the different senses elicit an emotion. That's fascinating. I hadn't thought of it that way. That's really cool.
Don Finley:Yeah. So I think utilized in a way that is actually, helpful to humanity. We'll see how language changes and you can see this in certain pockets of place, like different industries have different languages that they end up using, Like you have your own terminology, a whole slew of acronyms, depending on where it's at.
Nils Bunde:yeah.
Don Finley:Also, I don't think we've had this conversation, but I went down like this really deep spiritual path after being like staunchly agnostic slash atheist for like a good part of my life. But I had some experiences and it was, Interesting to see the language usage in that community versus in the corporate community of how different things are viewed, but also how they just talked about themselves. One's not right. One's not wrong. One might be more helpful for where you're at, but I think that's how we could possibly see language shifting in
Nils Bunde:Oh, yeah. this is quite the rabbit hole to go down. I think it's a fun one because Everything that we do as human beings, okay, so it's emotion, it's also communication. And so you're communicating emotion. How do you do that most effectively for the betterment of your human experience, my human experience? my hope is that we are all doing the best we can. For the betterment of humanity? Don't know all the time. I think there's a lot of, things going on out there that would maybe, make us think twice about that, but my hope is that overall everybody's trying to, go along to get, to improve the lot that we're in while we're here, And we're only here for a very short period of time. And that's the other thing, like technology has been here not forever, but like 40, 50 years ago, AI existed. nobody. Very few people knew that, right? But the idea goes all the way back to the 1940s or probably earlier than
Don Finley:You're familiar with Alan Turing, right? And the Turing test.
Nils Bunde:Yes.
Don Finley:Okay. I'll link to it in the description. I don't want to spend too much time on it, explaining what it is, but we have been passing the Turing test since the 1960s. Yeah. but what ends up happening is we do it in very like narrow spaces, And then we extend upon that. But for that space, I think we're hitting the same kind of barrier with AGI, where it's almost going to be like, I don't know exactly how to describe what AGI will be, but I'll know it when I see it type of approach, Where we're going to continue to pass metrics, we'll pass milestones. but going back to your point, The kind of like concept we've been in this dance with technology ever since we rolled the first wheel, we started the first Fire. and the kind of amazing thing is you really can't walk back from the adoption of technology, Like we couldn't go back 50 years because we wouldn't be able to support. feeding people the water needs of the heat, the population that we have. And I think we're going to see that same kind of balance that comes about with AI in like the AI has its own resourcing needs, Right. And we were discussing power, water, everything. yeah.
Nils Bunde:definitely. Yeah,
Don Finley:And then additionally the human needs of this too. So it's a, it's an interesting world that we're jumping into and it just feels different from the standpoint of this isn't just, like e commerce coming about.
Nils Bunde:this is exponentially more complex. I think it's going to have an, an extraordinary impact. Yeah. E commerce. Wow. Who would have ever thought you could buy one thing from China and it's going to be here tomorrow or whatever that is. but interestingly enough, I think on the e commerce side, Sears and Roebuck did that. They were basically e commerce or buy mail and you could buy a house. And they'd ship everything to you and you'd build it. And that was over a hundred years ago.
Don Finley:Yep.
Nils Bunde:the technology has, that helped improve somebody's life. And in terms of e commerce, it's, improving commerce, which is just ubiquitous today. I am very fascinated by what it is we're going to do with AI for the betterment of humanity, my hope. For the betterment of humanity over time to improve the human experience. that to me is, how do we improve the human experience? And there's a bajillion different ways. That's a technical term, by the way. Bajillion. Um,
Don Finley:Yeah.
Nils Bunde:for that to play out, I think.
Don Finley:I love it. Nils, thank you so much for being on. The last question that I have for you is as we're in this time of change, what advice do you have for anybody who's looking to get their feet Grounded right now?
Nils Bunde:Grounded where?
Don Finley:Good question.
Nils Bunde:but for me, I would say in terms of being grounded, is always be a critical thinker. Always give yourself some time to yourself. I'm actually an introvert, so I do like to have time alone. but also the ability then to see outside of yourself. So that's, as woo as it might sound, I'm like, it's really just about taking care of yourself and taking care of others so that you feel grounded in the community that you're in because the community you're in is connected to the next community, to the next community, and to the next community. and I'm hopeful that we can always be creating the better experience for human beings and not the worst. Yeah.
Don Finley:No, as I gotta say, that is sage wisdom. It always comes back to our community and our human connection. thank you so much there.
Nils Bunde:Yeah. You bet. Thank you.
Don Finley:Thank you for tuning into The Human Code, sponsored by FINdustries, where we harness AI to elevate your business. By improving operational efficiency and accelerating growth, we turn opportunities into reality. Let FINdustries be your guide to AI mastery, making success inevitable. Explore how at FINdustries. co.
