Episode transcription

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

Anne Trager (00:05)
This is an incredible and incredibly powerful technology and it's new and it's different. But where it goes really comes down to the story we tell right now. If we tell a story that it's going to lead to worse, it's more likely that it's going to lead to worse. If we tell a story that it's going to lead to better, it's more likely that it's going to lead to better. And so it's really important, all of us, recognize at an individual level, at an organizational level, at a community level, at a societal level, this is undecided. And we decide, not technology. We decide where it goes.

This is a quote from Aneesh Raman, LinkedIn's chief economic opportunity officer.

Fabrice Neuman (00:51)
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 (01:00)
And I'm Anne Trager a human potential and performance coach.

Fabrice Neuman (01:03)
This is episode 34 recorded on April 25th, 2026.

Anne Trager (01:08)
Human Pulse is usually never longer than 30 minutes, so let's get started.

Fabrice Neuman (01:12)
So, Anne, in our last episode, we asked what happens when speed becomes the only virtue in AI. We talked about slop, distortion, bad incentives, and the cost of deploying powerful tools without enough thought. I guess so it seems natural to look at the other side, right? Where is technology genuinely helping in ways that are concrete human and worth repeating?

Anne Trager (01:35)
I think that's a really good question, Fabrice, because last time we also imagined what a slow AI movement might look like. And we talked about technology that is good and that's clean and that's fair, rather than just fast at all costs. So it seems appropriate, like you say, to explore that a little bit further. And that's why I brought in that quote earlier. Because I wholeheartedly agree with what Aneesh Raman is saying about how the story we tell will impact the outcome. It's going to shape how we use AI and where it goes. The quote comes from a podcast where the man talks about his new book, which is called Open to Work, which I haven't yet read. And it apparently goes into the evolving relationship between humanity and artificial intelligence.

And he argues that the future of work is not predetermined by technology, but by the choices that we as individuals with agency make. And he encourages us to shift away from this industrial age mindset of efficiency towards a more pro-human approach that prioritizes our unique human capabilities, things like curiosity and creativity.

So immediately, you see how I'm going really high level with this idea. It's like, I thought we were going to talk about really concrete things. And here we're not we're talking about big idea things. Like we're beating around the bush, what's going on here?

Fabrice Neuman (03:06)
Yeah, well, so and we basically we've been having the discussion forever, right? So I guess you already know where I'm going to go with this. Like ⁓ to all the concrete things and positive things that we want to emphasize, I'm going to go say yes, but and you never like when I say that. But basically, I think we can tell our listeners

Anne Trager (03:24)
No, yes, and.

Fabrice Neuman (03:31)
One of the reasons why we've been a little late in publishing this new episode, episode 34, aside from the fact that I was not very good at working on its preparation. Okay. That's my fault. But when we started to talk about it, we wanted to talk about optimistic technologies, right? That's the foundation for this episode. And for whatever reasons, it was hard for me to come up with ideas. I mean, like...

Anne Trager (03:41)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Fabrice Neuman (03:56)
with optimistic ideas. And I think you agree. It's surprisingly hard to find examples that are genuinely helpful, right?

Anne Trager (04:05)
Well that's it. That's the very important choice of words there. Genuinely helpful. I sometimes even, I mean I love my tech and sometimes it doesn't feel helpful at all. But, yes exactly. Exactly. But that's not what we're talking about. I think it's this whole idea of what does that mean, a technology that is generally helpful.

Fabrice Neuman (04:15)
You mean when I hear you, you know, bitch and moan?

Anne Trager (04:28)
So yes, it's hard to find. And I also think there's something about the fact that you and I both took time away for a little bit of vacation. And so we stopped thinking about tech and we stopped being focused on, you know, specifically on tech and how, you know, and how it can be helpful or not to other people. And we were actually focused on things like beautiful architecture and architecture and wonderful gastronomy and these very, very human creations that were made without any AI at all. And actually, many of them were not made with any modern technology. And they came and emerged from the very long and very patient hard work of craftsmanship. And this led me to this real moment of disillusion about this strange AI quote unquote revolution that we are supposedly going through right now because I still don't know to what end we're doing this and this is a real recurring question for me. that's why I kind of always that's why I'm finding it hard to find it helpful. You have your reasons, I have my reasons. But anyway, let's make the effort to not stay in this very abstract world because you saw I went right back to it.

Fabrice Neuman (05:21)
Mm.

Anne Trager (05:45)
with real technology that is actually helping you go for it.

Fabrice Neuman (05:53)
Okay, no pressure here. But I guess there's one example that came up actually ⁓ because there's one piece of tech I'm actually testing now. It's an exoskeleton made by the company Hypershell. On paper, if you will, the idea is wonderful. Basically, it's helping the user walk or run better, faster, easier. So it's a contraption that you put on your legs and around your waist and it has two motors, the waist level and or hip level basically more precisely and ⁓ helps you do this kind of things, even cycling. But for me the most surprising thing is how the company presents it to the world and most notably as a tool for athletes.

Which is weird, right? Because to me, my first reaction to that was athletes are looking for exercising, building muscles, developing capabilities, not being helped to exercise less. Right? And it's like having some technology-driven doping, if you will. But at the same time, to use the same kind of image used by Aneesh Raman you quoted, this thing is pretty new and as far as an exoskeleton design, it's designed for a bigger mass market. So the question remains, what is it going to be used for? We don't know actually. So it's a proposition from this company. And I don't think the company exactly knows what the answer is going to be. ⁓ It reminds me of the Apple Watch. The first Apple Watch.

Anne Trager (07:23)
Mm-mm.

Fabrice Neuman (07:24)
Even Apple or even more so Apple didn't know what it was going to be used for. And then it became after a couple of iterations the Apple Watch we know today. And also to be a bit more complete about this exoskeleton, the high-end version I have also has a fitness mode I discovered a little later, which does the opposite. It doesn't help you, it adds resistance. Well, yeah, but that, so,

Anne Trager (07:47)
No! But that's the whole point, right?

Fabrice Neuman (07:51)
That's the whole point. In that regard, it's a good tool for athletes if you want to build up capabilities, So which means that at least the company thought about two different uses for its device. And so the story is still to be written about what it's going to be used for.

Anne Trager (07:56)
Right, right.

Yeah, so we get back to the story still being written, you know, and I guess it's such an interesting way to like throw it out to the public and say, do something with this and we're seeing that.

Fabrice Neuman (08:12)
Yes, exactly.

Yeah, exactly. And I would say so the optimistic view is like, okay, you don't know what it's for. It doesn't mean that it's bad.

Anne Trager (08:27)
Yeah, absolutely. so there's other technology out there helping people. There's a company which is called G-Tec, G.Tec, and it's been making brain-computer interfaces since 1999.

Okay, not new. And has introduced some really groundbreaking innovations that help people with strokes and multiple sclerosis and Parkinson's disease to recover lost motor function. And that's really cool and very helpful technology. And they've also done a whole bunch of other applications like making that, that help make brain surgery really precise or, or supporting stress reduction in people and

improving brain mapping tools so that we understand a little bit more how our incredible intelligence. that's... I, I... Anyway, incredible intelligence works. No, okay, I'm trying, I'm trying. And of course they have like gaming things that they've gaming tools that they're working on and other art related kinds of things. I mean, a very vast

Fabrice Neuman (09:14)
No, that's not gonna stick. Forget about that.

Anne Trager (09:32)
array of things that they're working on, even exploring EEGs of pigs and alpacas and cows and goats. Okay, so, you know, they just do some really, really cool things. So that's helping people. I also found a few examples of how, like, actual machine learning and AI are helping the planet. So there's a Swiss startup, which is

I don't know how you pronounce it exactly. It's Oxyle. Yeah. And it's tracking the forever chemicals that are contaminating water. And what makes it interesting is that the system is designed to actually destroy those forever chemicals rather than just filtering them out and relocating them. And, you know, it's

Fabrice Neuman (09:56)
say auxile yeah that's O X Y L E

Anne Trager (10:16)
showing some really, really promising results in industrial wastewater. So hey, you know, yay, let's let's support endeavors like that. Yeah.

Fabrice Neuman (10:22)
Hmm. Hmm. Please.

Anne Trager (10:27)
There's a new way to irrigate rice patties and apparently rice patties like traditionally that you flood the patties. We've all seen the pictures of, you know, this flooding and apparently there's a methane problem with this traditional method of irrigating rice patties. And I know, I know, I know you learn these incredible things.

Fabrice Neuman (10:49)
That I never knew about, actually.

Yeah.

Anne Trager (10:54)
and so Google is funding this new n' drip gravity powered drip irrigation system which is reported to be really really effective in saving water so fifty percent less water and increasing yield of five point four percent yield increase and ⁓ eighty percent lower methane emissions versus this traditional

flooding method. So yay, again, yay. You know, this is one of all things. And, and, and there's a whole bunch of other stuff going on as well. So it's not so hard to find it. I mean, there's something called the global fishing watch that is tracking ⁓ fishing vessels, so that we can sort of hope to have a little bit of transparency in that industry. ⁓ There, there are scientists out there who using all kinds of crazy tech to

Fabrice Neuman (11:20)
Yeah.

Anne Trager (11:46)
to track wildlife so that we can preserve some of this wildlife. There's a lot of tech being used for farmers, of course, to make farming, as we see with the rice farming, more efficient and to produce more in ways that are less harmful to the environment. there's Google DeepMind is using some

like really amazing technology to make more accurate weather predictions. So that has real impact immediately for all kinds of things, the flying industry among others, and of course, you know, just population safety overall. So there's a lot of really good technology out there that is, ⁓ that's actually not so hard to find.

Fabrice Neuman (12:34)
Yeah, I think you're right. And these stories also reminded me of some products shown at CES in 2025, for example. We talked about it, I think, already. Like this See - S-E-E Haptic device helping blind people to actually, thanks to haptic feedback sent to their lower back through a belt with micropressure dots pushing in. That's amazing.

Anne Trager (12:56)
And that's incredible.

Who thinks of these things? Who thinks of these things? Incredible.

Fabrice Neuman (12:59)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

And so if you go on their website, you can see like someone trying it for the first time. So they put some kind of quote unquote glasses, but just like cameras, obviously. And so you can see, for example, this guy walking through a door right in the middle of the door. He's blind, right? And he's not touching it. He just walks through the door. That's amazing. ⁓

Anne Trager (13:18)
Mm-hmm.

Mmm. Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Fabrice Neuman (13:24)
There's also the glasses by a company called Nuance that help you hear better. And no, it's not a mistake I made. It's a pair of integrating microphones in the frame and using AI to determine who you are talking to to better enhance the audio you need.

Anne Trager (13:42)
Okay, you know, honestly, I think that's just a brilliant idea. I'm not exactly sure I even need that because if I put my glasses on, I hear better because I'm, I'm short-sighted. And so if I take my glasses off, I'm just totally unaware of the world beyond a few meters away.

Fabrice Neuman (13:54)
⁓

Well, that's the yeah, that's the thing. So, so I had a friend at university who also was like that because basically you put your glasses on and then you're more focused on whatever you have around you. Right. So. Yeah, these are the examples that can help us be optimistic with the use of technology in general, in AI in particular, you know, we were talking about. So what good use can be? Can we take? ⁓

Anne Trager (14:12)
Yeah. Anyway, yes.

Fabrice Neuman (14:26)
with AI and so these are good examples. The real problem I have is the fact that the big headlines in tech press are drowned or even like regular press are drowned by those big companies like OpenAI, Anthropic and of course Google, so thirsty for money and investment that they take almost all the space, which is the traditional trap.

Anne Trager (14:34)
Hmm.

Yeah,

exactly. And so I realized as I was listening to all of these examples and looking for these examples and as we continue this conversation is that whole negativity trap that we've been... It creates this distortion in our thinking as if the good stuff wasn't out there when most of what's being done is actually really good stuff.

Anne Trager (15:10)
I mean, like really, really good stuff. And, and, and it uses AI of all different kinds, not just generative AI. So yes, beware of the distortion. Yes.

Fabrice Neuman (15:18)
Yeah, so, exactly.

And so, and there's also this other discussion around, so the fact that these technologies can augment what people can do. And it has to do that without taking away their jobs. And that's a big discussion as well, right? We know it will take, I mean, change people's jobs.

It will do, obviously. And there's certainly no going back on that end. And it happens every time a disruption occurs. know, so jobs, some jobs disappear and some new jobs And there's an example of that. So there was ⁓ an article in the Wall Street Journal published on April 2nd. And let me read you just the beginning of it, right?

So it's titled the new jobs being created by AI. First of all, right? It's a like a counter argument over all those people saying, so it's going to destroy every job. So here it is. Artificial intelligence has sparked fears it will become a job killer. It's also fueling a crop of new careers.

AI created 640,000 jobs between 2023 and 2025 in the US according to an analysis by LinkedIn of job posting data, including new white collar positions such as head of AI and AI engineer. That tally doesn't include, does not include the huge number of temporary construction jobs tied to building the mammoth data centers AI relies on.

Anne Trager (16:49)
and my mind just went off and all of those jobs it's going to create for people who are going to have to bring water into the areas where the data centers are using up all of the water and okay no sorry I'm going to I'm going off into the

Fabrice Neuman (17:01)
That's another thing that, and I think we're going to talk about it a little later during this episode, but yeah. Still, this article does shed a different light on what AI does on our society than what we usually hear from the big names of AI, right? Because we hear from, know, Dario Amodei, the founder and CEO of Anthropic and Sam Altman from OpenAI. They keep saying that the AI will replace lots of workers.

Anne Trager (17:14)
Mm-hmm.

Fabrice Neuman (17:28)
The thing is, as I was mentioning before, those two guys, for example, they're working on their IPO. They want new, I mean, approval from markets for the development of their technology. they, it's very unfortunate, but it seems that to get money, you have to say aloud that you want to replace humans by machines. And this is how you get money, which is very sad. So this is the...

I think this is one of basis of the pessimistic view because of those big names doing this. ⁓ And so in order to recapture the narrative, we need to remind ourselves all the good things that tech can do, ⁓

Anne Trager (18:01)
Well, and that goes back to, you know, what we were talking at the beginning, then, you know, what is the narrative we want to build around this?

Fabrice Neuman (18:15)
Yeah, yeah.

Absolutely.

So it takes us back to the choices we make so we can decide what we want to use, also would want to add that those big companies have to be part of the positive narrative that we just mentioned. And I don't think they're doing a good job at that. ⁓

They talk about this never ending need for more compute, leading to the construction of more and more data centers that a lot of communities are rebelling against for good reasons. So it seems because the buildings, they consume so much energy and so much water, as you were mentioning. most often than more often than not, it leads to a steep raise in prices of utilities around them and can have a real detrimental impact on the environment. That's too bad, right?

And there's also another thing I wanted to mention. This is the question of trust. We talked about it ⁓ several times here in this podcast, but just one example I heard recently on the Vergecast, the episode of April 10th, 2026. will put a link in the show notes. One of the hosts, listen to that. That's incredibly bad. David Pierce, he used Claude to vibe code an application, you know, as you do.

Anne Trager (19:33)
Of course, as you do. Yes, right, absolutely.

Fabrice Neuman (19:34)
Right. And he asked Claude to compile the code to actually get the app running on his smartphone. Right. And what he got as a result was somebody else's app. That's amazing.

Anne Trager (19:50)
Like, you mean it just poached the app and...

Fabrice Neuman (19:54)
Yeah, exactly. It means that somebody else was using Claude to code their own app. And what David Pierce got was this other people's app, the result. And so he obviously, yeah, exactly. Exactly. And running, right? That's very bad. So obviously he...

Anne Trager (20:08)
installed on his phone. Yikes. Yikes.

Fabrice Neuman (20:16)
understood what happened. And so he told Claude that it wasn't his app and Claude basically answered, sorry, I grabbed this from the wrong URL. Let me try again. And then it worked. Right. And there are numerous examples of that, which means that this is for me, what's relates to the fact that the companies need to help us in the narrative, you know, not by just saying, trust us, but

Anne Trager (20:31)
Okay.

Fabrice Neuman (20:39)
by showing us that we can trust them.

Anne Trager (20:41)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so I was going to say warn you about circling back to the to the negative, but you're right. I mean, how can we get how can we hold these, these large companies accountable to to helping us all make this a positive, you know, good and helpful technology. If we circle back to the opening quote, the idea is that humans are not passive in this at all. So

You know, we might feel like we don't have any impact on these large companies and it is their responsibility, but it is also every single one of our responsibilities to figure out how this is going to work and we'll do it because the choices we make will shape how these technologies are being used. And this is where our agency lies.

So in making those choices every day and in figuring out, you know,

what we're going to do with this. think maybe the right question is what kind of human work do we want technology in the broad sense to support and what kind do we want to hand over to technology? And again, you know, it's not all about becoming more productive and then replacing humans. It's about how can we help humans do what they do best and let the machines do what the machines do best. ⁓ And what is that actually going to look like?

Okay, so let's also circle back to the trip that I mentioned earlier when we were out there not talking about tech and we were talking about enjoying some of the finer things that life has to offer. Because I'm also keenly interested in how technology can actually, if we talk about augmenting humans or helping humans, deepen enjoyment of the human experience.

Fabrice Neuman (22:09)
Mm-hmm.

Yes, indeed. so, yeah, so we can finish on a more down to earth level. And I'm really talking about earthly pleasures, right? here. Like we both learned recently of an apparatus. No, well, so what's weird about it anyway? But so I wanted to talk about an apparatus we discovered recently that lets you taste a bottle of wine without having to finish it by fear of losing the rest of it. Right. And

Anne Trager (22:38)
Not in a weird way.

Fabrice Neuman (22:53)
because you open a bottle of wine and then it can get bad after a couple of days. So there's something called coravin, I guess, because it's in French. ⁓ And it does look a bit like a corkscrew, but it replaces the helix of it by the fine, very, very fine needle that goes through the cork. And so you can pour a tiny,

Anne Trager (23:03)
Mm.

Fabrice Neuman (23:18)
drip from the bottle without opening it. It's so cool. And then there's a small pressure container of argon gas attached to that contraption that replaces the volume taken out of the bottle by inert gas. And then you remove the bottle, sorry, the contraption, the needle, and because it's so the cork just

Anne Trager (23:22)
That's just so cool, okay.

Fabrice Neuman (23:45)
closes back in. Exactly. Exactly. That's amazing. And if you're a restaurant, there are machines called Enomatic that can do the same as what I just described, but for several bottles at the same time, up to eight, I believe. Isn't that a good use of technology? That's amazing.

Anne Trager (23:47)
So your wine will not oxidize like it would if you took the cork out. Yeah, yeah, cool.

I just think that's a fabulous use of technology. Itmeans that you can get really delightful wines by the glass.

Fabrice Neuman (24:12)
Exactly, exactly. And not like the cheap ones because the restaurants don't want to waste a good bottle of wine. So I hope ⁓ lots of restaurants can ⁓ afford to get those contraptions.

Anne Trager (24:27)
Yeah, so basically, first of all, technology is not all about generative AI, thank goodness. And good technology does not always have to save the world. Sometimes it can just simply help us human beings enjoy something beautiful, more thoughtfully, and with less waste.

Fabrice Neuman (24:33)
Yes.

Absolutely. And another optimistic thing around the idea you just mentioned. I wanted to remind people of ⁓ a YouTube channel by Cleo Abrams. Her YouTube channel is called Huge If True and she has a knack for presenting the advances of technology under an optimistic light that I like very much. On top of that, know, she uses science facts.

Instead of, you know, just, ⁓ I thought it could be this or that. Let's not go there. So it's refreshing. It's educational. It's fun. So go there. Don't miss it. And we'll put the link in the show notes.

Anne Trager (25:23)
Well, that's it for episode 34. Thank you all for joining us. Please visit HumanPulsePodcast.com for links and and all of these show notes with all of these links to these incredible optimistic uses of technology.

Fabrice Neuman (25:40)
Absolutely, and thanks for subscribing and reviewing wherever you listen to our podcast. It helps other people find us. You can also share it with one person around you.

Anne Trager (25:49)
see you in more or less two weeks. I say quite optimistically.

Fabrice Neuman (25:55)
There you go. Bye everyone.