Episode transcription

(Be aware this transcription was done by AI and might contain some mistakes)

Fabrice Neuman (00:05)
Hi everyone and welcome to the Human Pulse Podcast where we talk about living well with technology. I'm Fabrice Neuman, a tech consultant for small businesses.

Anne Trager (00:13)
And I'm Anne Trager, a human potential and performance coach.

Fabrice Neuman (00:17)
This is episode 28 recorded on December 7th, 2025.

Anne Trager (00:21)
Human pulse is usually never longer than 30 minutes, so let's get started. So, Fabrice, we are in the aftermath of Thanksgiving, and I've been thinking a lot about things that we take for granted. In all of our talk about tech and living well with tech and AI, I think there's a lot that we do take for granted, like having a really good internet connection. Now, I am very grateful.
For my fast internet connection and also for you, Fabrice, who make sure that it is fast and that it is on and working and all of that all of the time. And when it's not, you know, listens to me moan about it and does something about it. So I am extraordinarily grateful about that. I just want to say that.

Fabrice Neuman (01:04)
You're very welcome.

Anne Trager (01:07)
And when I think about that, I also think about how much that internet connection enables in my life. It enables me to make a living from home. Yay, this is amazing. It enables my entertainment. It enables connections with family and friends and people I don't even know. It enables so much. So I am particularly grateful for that. And I'm thinking about this because today I ran across an article about Guyana, is launching… the school district.is launching an online program to deliver high school courses to rural Amazonian regions. So really, really far from my day-to-day experience. And I thought it was really interesting because...

You know, I take for granted that people can have an easy education, an education really easily and go to school when actually, of course, that's just ridiculous. There are people all over the world who don't have access to that or don't have access to it easily. And so this country is using the wealth that they've gotten from oil to actually provide a lot of... education and free education to people in very remote areas and that's amazing and for me that is a very fine example of living well with technology. when you hear about solutions like that, mean what does it make you think about as a tech person? Do you think about the infrastructure or the software or the people or what?

Fabrice Neuman (02:28)
Well, so digital school, I guess the first thing that comes to mind is my, you know, the French part of me.

Anne Trager (02:37)
Oh dear, ⁓ no. Are you going to complain about something? ⁓

Fabrice Neuman (02:50)
So it's the negative part, Yes, I am. so what I see first is how late the school system can be regarding the use of tech, you know, so not too long ago, it was like six or seven years ago, our daughter was in middle school, right? And in some whatever technology classes, there were still mentions of floppy disks in the description of the computer. I think you remember how mad it drove me. There was these many time photocopied documents.

Anne Trager (03:01)
Hahaha

Fabrice Neuman (03:12)
So first of all, paper documents. and almost un-unlegible because of, you know, how many times they were photocopied. so with the description of a PC tower with floppy disks and whatever, you know, parallel ones.

Anne Trager (03:23)
Was this for history class?

Fabrice Neuman (03:36)
Well, it should have been, that's for sure. And I also remember, you know, the installation of so-called smart boards, you know, smart whiteboards where, you know, that were only used as basically video projectors because the teachers were not accompanied or trained to use them at their full potential. So that was the negative part. There are also positive things. I think you'd agree that the thing is, tech moves faster than anything else in general, and education in particular. So we complain a lot about how education doesn't change that And so there are new tools to be integrated, and they are integrated, and then newer tools appear. And so we say, so what about this one? And so it's not used in schools.

Anne Trager (04:12)
this speaks to something before you go on, speaks to something that's happening quite generally right now, which is that there's so much change and the pace of change is really quickening, which means that it is hard to, you know, we as human beings, take a little bit of time to change and adapt.

Fabrice Neuman (04:15)
Yep.

Anne Trager (04:40)
And then when we adapt, well, something else new comes along. And so there's, there's this sense of, of constant movement forward and never actually riddled. really settling in something. And I don't know how helpful that is in education either.

Fabrice Neuman (04:44)
Yeah, it probably doesn't help. And so it's part also that it makes those new tools a little scary. And we're going to talk about that a little later on. But I also think that thanks to or because of AI, depending on where you start your reflection, there's a lot of thinking about education. And I think it's a good thing. And it leads, for example, to thinking about reversed education or sometimes called flipped classroom where basically it means that students learn the theory at home with all the digital tools that we have at our disposal, you know the videos and even like Gen. AI chatbots and stuff like that. And then when students go back to class, they put this theory to the test to make sure that they understood and integrated and assimilated their knowledge.

That's probably one good answer to the never-ending talks about how bad LLMs are in education because they make students lazy and what have you. Because you hear a lot of, I guess basically teachers saying, so we cannot now, we don't know whether students did the work themselves or asked ChattGPT to do it for them.

And I think the only solution to that is stop asking students to actually write at Because obviously, they're going to use chat GPT, and I think they should. But then they need to show that they can also do things themselves. And the only way to do that is in classrooms without the help of any other tools.

Anne Trager (06:10)
Yeah.

Well, so I think that's a really interesting idea and I think that there are a lot of people in education who are grabbing onto these ideas and these tools and trying to figure out how to use them in a really creative way as you you suggest in these flipped classrooms and maybe we'll get back to what I believe profoundly is the real importance of school which is getting along with other people and how you get together and do things with other people.

Fabrice Neuman (06:26)
Yes.

Yes.

Anne Trager (06:46)
It's not so much about memorizing the history of France. No offense France, I get it, I get it, but it's about actually having discussions about what that means for people and with other people. Anyway, so I like the idea of the flipped classroom a lot. But I want to go back to this idea of taking things for granted because I'm a little hard-headed and I'm very settled on this idea today.

Fabrice Neuman (06:50)
Yeah. ⁓

Anne Trager (07:09)
In order to do all of this, we take for granted that there is a fast connection that will enable us to have those online tools. And that's all that we want really is it like that infrastructure behind it, like everything that needs to happen for that to be available is completely invisible to us. We take it for granted.

Fabrice Neuman (07:29)
Yeah, that's very true.

Anne Trager (07:34)
So for a lot of students in Guyana or other parts of the world, a stable internet connection plus a laptop is literally the difference between no school and school is on. But it's also like it's not something you can take for granted. doesn't, it's easy for some of us to have that, but it's not easy and it's not necessarily available around the world for all of those kids. So in any case, we have the same tech and we have this, and we have very, very different relationships to it.

So if we're looking at this relationship to tech, you know.

in this way and what we take for granted, what does that change about the way we live well with technology? Does that change anything with the way we're looking at it?

Fabrice Neuman (08:10)
So I think basically what you're saying is that living well with technology for us is the fact that we don't need to think about it on a daily basis, So we only think about it and we grumble about it when it doesn't work. ⁓ But in the example of a classroom, we take for granted that we have it, but there are parts of the world that are still in need of just like the simplest connection.

Anne Trager (08:22)
Exactly.

Fabrice Neuman (08:35)
And so if we want to talk about education, it's a real difficulty then to create this kind of online classrooms. And it reminded me of a company from Switzerland called BeeKee, B-E-E-K-E-E. I'll put the link in the show notes. And they introduced the CES in Las Vegas in 2025, so almost a year ago, something called the BeeKee Box.

and it's a classroom in a box basically. And so it's like a mini server with online classes stored locally. And so it creates a Wi-Fi network. And so you can access in the classroom locally to some quote unquote online courses.

Anne Trager (09:13)
Hmm.

Fabrice Neuman (09:29)
Then when the box is connected, it can actually be updated or you can have, if you have... on so quote unquote online tests, exams, and then they can send the exams and then get the result and stuff like that. But it still works when it's not connected with some local ways to access the courses. So that's one way to do it, which still uses technology and the advantages of technology to help education in remote classrooms.

Anne Trager (09:52)
Interesting, interesting. Yeah, people are so creative when it comes to finding solutions when we sit down and put our minds to it. That's fantastic. Okay, and I'm going to go back to my taking things for granted. So yes, the better our tech works, the less that we think about what's behind it. Actually, the more we take for granted what is behind it.

Fabrice Neuman (09:59)
Absolutely.

Anne Trager (10:13)
Right? I mean, the fiber network, the laptop, the cloud backups, all of that. I don't think about the protocols and the servers. I have you to think about those. Thank you very much. Again, thank you very much. I just expect my Zoom call to work and to connect. mean, literally, that's all that I want. And when it doesn't, I do grumble like everybody else, okay? So.

That makes me wonder, do we actually need to understand the technology that supports our lives and learning right now, or is it just enough that it We recently had a conversation, you and I, with somebody else who was saying, yes, young people, they know so much about technology, to which I responded, well, actually, they don't. They're very much at ease using technology, but they don't really have a clue how it works. And that's OK.

Fabrice Neuman (10:55)
Hmm.

Anne Trager (10:56)
And at the same time, it's still really helpful to have a little bit of knowledge about how it works in a completely different domain. Recently, we changed cars and I kept in the new car having like these really, you know, rapid starts and the car would just take off and I just couldn't get the gas pedal right, okay? Until you told me, wait, that gas pedal is designed a little bit differently on the, in the previous car, it was, you know, from the heel.

that you would get the acceleration and in this one it's from the toe, you know, and I'm like, ⁓ okay. And that's all I needed to know. It was a little bit of information about how it worked technically that enabled me to adjust more quickly. you know, none of this stuff ultimately is, what can we say, natural to us. mean, I wasn't just gonna pick that up by driving it necessarily. I mean, I would eventually have figured it out.
But it would have taken a lot longer. So it makes me wonder about how much we really need to know. mean, do you ever wish that the people you work with, as you help them with their technology, that they understood more of what's going on?

Fabrice Neuman (12:00)
Boy, do I ever. ⁓ Because as you said, so it's all good when it works, but when it doesn't, you know, if you don't know just a little bit about how it works, then you don't know what to do and to react properly. I see that all the time. So I will happily admit that, of course, it's good for my business because so you know, there are a lot of people in need of my services because they don't understand when it doesn't work. And so they call me for sometimes admit the simplest things. But okay, so this is also how I built my business. But still, I wish that people would know a bit more for it. You know, I hear so often people not knowing the difference between Google and Chrome, or between Wi-Fi and the internet, or between a file and a folder even, you know. And I consider those things to be very basic. And still they can be very complex for I mean, lately I train seniors here in Toulouse and I did an hour and 15 minutes on files and folders.

Anne Trager (13:00)
Well, it is extraordinarily complex. mean, let's just face it. These are abstract ideas, you know?

Fabrice Neuman (13:06)
Well, files and folders, they're not so abstract because you can easily explain them, well, easily quote unquote, with paper folders that you can insert into one another and stuff like that, and then put that in archiving boxes and then put that in in the closet or something. this is why sometimes I have to admit that it can be disheartening because I have to repeat that several times and people still don't make the difference. So and it's disheartening because I know that as soon as they grasp a bit more of a concept then it helps and they can react properly. I mean another example that comes to mind is that at some point one of my clients called me because there was a problem with the internet connection and their first reaction was to restart the server. Right? And it has nothing to do with it and it didn't need to be restarted. It was totally unrelated to the server, I would add, obviously, but he didn't know. You know?

Anne Trager (14:04)
Yeah, yeah.

Well, so welcome to the service industry. You have to meet your clients where they are. And it's often really not where we thought they would be. So there's something about having, you know, trust in the infrastructure and all the stuff that's behind there, a kind of healthy trust that it's going to work.

Fabrice Neuman (14:09)
Exactly. Exactly.

Yeah.

Anne Trager (14:25)
And there's total dependence on something we don't really understand at all. That's what you're saying. You'd rather we have a little bit of understanding of the infrastructure, which is the foundation of trust, rather than being totally dependent on something we don't understand at all. Is that accurate?

Fabrice Neuman (14:36)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, absolutely. So for me, for example, I don't know exactly how just like electricity works and how it's transported to our home, for example. But I know enough for for me to trust it. I have a few notions in that and that's enough. And I do think it's same thing with tech in the way we think about it, like, you know, so computers. Right. Another example, I don't think people need to know anything about DNS records.

And I don't think you do, for example, know what that means. But you don't need to know a little bit, but you don't need to know how that works to display a website on your screen. Right. I need to know what it is, because if I want to make, you know, to change the way a website is hosted, then I need to go into those records. OK, so but you don't need to know that to go to Amazon.com, for example.

Anne Trager (15:10)
A little bit but I don't need to know.

Fabrice Neuman (15:30)
So but I do think that knowing just a little bit more can help people stay calm when something happens because otherwise, so you get frustrated and you do things like you don't know, so you do things and then you can break more things than, you know, help.

Anne Trager (15:35)
Mmm, yeah, yeah.
OK, I totally agree. I mean, knowing a little bit about electricity and electrical installations when I was setting up the Christmas decorations came in handy so that I didn't have some sort of fire hazard by putting the tinsel too close to the lights. You know? mean, OK.

Fabrice Neuman (16:04)
All right, Yeah, absolutely.

Anne Trager (16:12)
And I actually only am thinking about it now as it be calling upon some knowledge that I do have. But that said, we do live with technology and we have lived with technology for a long time that we don't understand. You know, I don't really understand how my car engine works. Maybe I would drive better or the car would last longer if I did understand it, but I don't need to. Okay. And it works. I don't understand how the electricity grid stabilizes itself.

Fabrice Neuman (16:13)
Yes.

Anne Trager (16:34)
I'm fascinated by the idea and maybe one day we'll spend some time learning about it, but I don't need to know it in order to turn the lights on. Fabulous. Okay. So what about all these AI tools and these connected platforms? Do you feel as a tech specialist, do you feel that we need a different kind of understanding for AI than for say the washing machine?

Fabrice Neuman (16:55)
Well, so first of all, I'd say that in some respects, technology has to adapt to humans and not the opposite. This is for me what progress is in the technology field. The example coming to mind is the fact that computers before, you know, today at the beginning were just like lines of text and of text and a keyboard. And it was hard to understand and to grasp what to do with it. Or you had to program anything you wanted the computer to do. And fast forward to today, and you have the graphical interfaces. And now you have AI chatbots. So you can talk to your device, and it quote unquote understands you. And this is another step forward, a better and easier interface. It's not graphic it's more natural interface between you and your device Still I do think that for example as far as the AI chatbots are concerned If you understand that the chatbots we have today It might change it is going to change but they are just statistical machines, right? They they compute to try and guess with mathematical operations what word comes after the previous one and that's it. That's what they are. And so then if you know that and you keep that in mind, you can avoid falling into the trap of giving them, the chat bots, any independent purpose. So they imitate in the same way for me that the graphical interface try to imitate the way we use a desk and papers and papers we would put on top of each other's. These are the windows we have on our computers, right? So if you keep that in mind as far as how chatbots are working, then you can keep in mind the fact that they don't think like us because they don't think at all. And I think it's really, really important to keep that in mind.

Anne Trager (18:40)
Mm, mm, mm.

Hmm.

So what you're saying is that it's important for us to understand enough about those tools in order to keep using them as tools and to not, I don't know, start making deep life decisions based on what the chatbot has said after a five minute conversation. And there are always going to be different kinds of users of technology in general.

Fabrice Neuman (19:01)
Yes.

Yeah, absolutely.

Mm-hmm.

Anne Trager (19:18)
There will always be just make it work kind of users. mean, this is kind of me. I don't want any explanations. I, I know I get a little interested in these things about how they work, but not really that much. I really just want the Wi-Fi and the apps to never crash on me. I, I, I don't care. I want to turn off, turn back on if it, if it's not working. Um, and just so it works. Okay. So that's one kind.

Fabrice Neuman (19:23)
Hmm

Yeah, yeah, well, so that's what I was saying about the fact that technology has to adapt to a certain extent to the user and not the opposite, obviously, yes.

Anne Trager (19:47)
Yeah.

Exactly.

Okay. And then there are the tinkering nerds. Okay. I think this is more like you. Okay. Maybe you don't read the manual, but you definitely understand or will at some point read about how it works. And then you'll try the beta, the beta edition and you'll dig into the settings and you'll know exactly where to change that. That's you totally. Okay. Like that's the other extreme. Okay. I think there are also

Fabrice Neuman (20:02)
Mm-hmm.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Anne Trager (20:16)
I was looking for a name and I found that the skeptical ostrich. Okay. I might be a little bit like that as well. That, know, these are people who don't really want to change. Okay. And they'll keep using the same old. I mean, I think you recently had a client who had like one of those, windows computers that they had to change because it wasn't going to update anymore or something like that. I mean, that's a perfect example of somebody who doesn't want to change same old, as long as it works, you just keep using it. Okay. So.

Anne Trager (20:43)
And then avoiding any kind of novelty until they actually can't avoid any kind of novelty anymore. So

Fabrice Neuman (20:50)
Yeah, well, which is which is what also technology drives us to do because we all know there's also this way for tech companies to push us towards new stuff for good and bad reasons, right? So good reasons because new features are helping us do some more things like, I mean, AI, you know, it's new, it's a new tool and it's amazing, right?

Anne Trager (21:02)
Mmm

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Fabrice Neuman (21:15)
And sometimes we are also somewhat gently pushed to change our computers because, well, this software will not be updated anymore. And if you want the new software, need to change your PC or phone or whatever because basically it's just...

Anne Trager (21:30)
Well, so you're saying that these tech companies know about the ostrich people, okay? And they have all these really cool ways of getting the ostrich to move on. Okay, anyway.

Fabrice Neuman (21:39)
That's very true. I mean, so we could all use our devices longer than we on average do because we are also all victims of, well, I would say fashion and ⁓ we want the latest bells and whistles glitter for sure.

Anne Trager (21:59)
Okay, well so are there any other kinds of users?

Fabrice Neuman (22:02)
Well, I was thinking about that and for me this is kind of a wish list, one item wish list, which is the, I would like to add the, I know enough to be calm user. You know, and the one that doesn't tell me as a reflex, you know, right away, you know, I talk about something and then right away the sentence I hear is that, ⁓ I don't have that feature.

Anne Trager (22:09)
Okay.

Hehehehehe

Fabrice Neuman (22:26)
And it's just in plain sight in the middle of the screen. the reflex have that so many times where it's right in the middle of their screen and say, tap here or click here. I don't have that. Please look again.

Anne Trager (22:40)
Okay, and I'm going to stand up for these people who just really don't want to know the just make it work kind of people. I'm going to stand up for us. And I know that it would change your life and make it a lot easier for you. However, I think it's absolutely fine not to understand everything.

Fabrice Neuman (22:47)
Yeah.

Well, sorry, I need to interrupt that because there's a difference between not understand and also just not even trying.

Anne Trager (23:03)
Okay, I will give you that. I will give you that. Okay. But we all have limited cognitive bandwidth. Okay. If I tried to understand every tool that I use, I'd never get any other work done. I mean, because I get really interested in this stuff. you know, I actually find the, need to understand the tool first is a fabulous, fabulous way to procrastinate instead of just doing it, you know, doing what I have to do with the tool.

I mean, really, I do this. So anyway, there is a balance to find of knowing just enough and not knowing anything at all. But let's face it, this idea of abstraction is a feature of technology. And behind that abstraction is a complexity that I don't need to know all of the details of. I really just want to focus on recording this podcast.

Fabrice Neuman (23:44)
Mm-hmm.

Anne Trager (23:48)
with a fabulous tool that allows us to do it without thinking about it. Yay. Okay. And, and, you know, coaching clients and talking with people and so on and so forth. That's what I want to do. I don't want to be caught up in the tech, because that's who I am. But there is, as we've said, this cost of not understanding and then, which is a little bit more than just getting annoyed when it doesn't work or making it, making a mistake when it doesn't work. It's actually not using it in an optimal way or allowing the tech like you have said with your story to nudge me in directions that I don't really choose. Maybe I don't want to change my phone every year or whatever it is. So you actually have to use more bandwidth to say no. I suppose that with AI this would mean

Fabrice Neuman (24:20)
Mm-hmm.

Anne Trager (24:34)
over trusting the outputs or letting AI sort of change my style or change how I'm thinking without me noticing. So I what good enough understanding actually looks like for an everyday user.

Fabrice Neuman (24:50)
Well, so first of all, in order to be more positive that I've been since the beginning of this episode, I also think that we talk a lot about the things that we don't know about or we don't understand. And then we forget that we understood so many things to get to the point we are at. For example, recording this podcast, you don't need to know exactly how it works, but you do know that you have a microphone that's better than

than just a microphone on your headset or the computer you have because it will give a crisper sound. You do know about lighting, that it's better, the image is better if you have good light, right? And it's now so integrated that you don't think about it, but you didn't know that before, like a few years back or something like that. So we also, I think it's very important to think back to what to the things about the things we didn't know before. that once again, we take for granted, but taking things for granted means that we learned. And so it's also a way for me to tell people you didn't know that before and now you do. So which means that you can learn and so you can go a little further. Right? And as far as the... ⁓

Anne Trager (25:51)
Hmm.

Hmm. Hmm.

Fabrice Neuman (26:04)
The good enough understanding that goes with it because with every new tool then if you want to use them properly I think so you need to Learn a bit about them, but it's it doesn't have to be difficult I guess the one thing is just like it's and it's with AI as it was with every other tech tools we we have which is like trial and error which means like You need to try them and compare them. So and keep an open mind. So it does require a bit of time.

And sometimes I think this is what we lack the most, which is ⁓ just taking the time. It doesn't mean months or even weeks. It's just like, try a few times and you'll get a better knowledge and a better grasp on what a particular tool can or cannot do. And I think something changed in recent years

Anne Trager (26:34)
Mm.

Fabrice Neuman (26:51)
We started to talk about chatbots like three years ago with chat GPT being announced for public use in November 2022. And it was such a change that it was very scary for everybody. But then we started to use them. so after three years, I think it's getting more and more integrated in our daily life. And so we know more about how it works. And there's one thing that's different with AI than with every other tool, tools that we had before, which is we can ask it how to use it. I think that's the first time it ever happened. We can ask a chat bot, what can I do with you? Right? And that also changes it a lot. so we just have to, and this is one way to better understand it.

Anne Trager (27:25)
Hmph. Hmph.

Hmm. Hmm.

Fabrice Neuman (27:39)
And this is a tool that will help us understand itself, which is incredible.

Anne Trager (27:43)
Okay, so if we circle back to our main theme, is what do we need, what kind of understanding do we need to live well with technology, whatever it is, it sounds like there's acknowledging, first of all, that we all learn all the time, takes a little bit of time, so to give ourselves the grace of that time to learn what we need to learn and then to decide to what level we're going to learn it.

Fabrice Neuman (27:59)
Mm-hmm.

Yes.

Anne Trager (28:07)
based on what our needs are. And I think we can also add to that a few questions, okay, to be intentional about our use. So what is this technology really doing for me? Okay. I'm really clear about what the car does for me. I'm pretty clear about what the dishwasher does for me. I am not so clear as everybody knows who's been listening from the beginning about what the automatic robot vacuum cleaner does for me.

Go back to episode number one, guys, okay, if you haven't listened to that one. But anyway, I think it's a really good question to ask no matter what. And then the second question I would ask is, you know, what do I think it's optimized for? Like not from my point of view, but from the people who made it. Okay. And this is, this is kind of important. mean, like what is, what is Meta optimizing for? Okay. I don't think it's for my self-interest. think it is for, you know,

Fabrice Neuman (28:32)
Yep.

Mm.

Anne Trager (28:57)
Meta's interest. So, you know, being aware of that and thinking about what's happening behind the scenes a little bit can, can perhaps influence our decisions about how we use it. And then, you know, how can I, I mean, the third question is more, do I know how to step back from it to turn it off or to correct it when it doesn't serve me? And this is, you know,

Deciding to take the bicycle instead of the car when I can, if I can, and some people can't. Or walking instead of taking the car or not using AI in a particular situation. And can I actually step back from it and not use it? What happens when I do and how does that change things? Those are my thoughts about how we can think about using these tools really.

Fabrice Neuman (29:21)
Hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Anne Trager (29:41)
intentionally.

Fabrice Neuman (29:42)
And the last thing you mentioned makes me think of social media. And there's such a pressure for us to use all the social media platforms that exist and TikTok and Snapchat and whatever. And we don't need to use them. I don't and it's OK.

Anne Trager (30:00)
Mm-hmm.

Fabrice Neuman (30:04)
And I think there's also lot of pressure that we can fight against a bit and then just decide for ourselves what we want to use. So I think these are very good pieces of advice. And on that note, that's it for episode 28. Thank you all for joining us. You can visit humanpulsepodcast.com for links and all of our past episodes.

Anne Trager (30:23)
Thank you for subscribing and reviewing this podcast wherever you listen to your podcast. It really does help other people to find us. Thank you also for sharing it with one person around you.

Fabrice Neuman (30:33)
and we'll see you in two weeks.

Anne Trager (30:35)
Bye everyone.