Lasse Rindom: Lying Robots, Chaotic Code, and Other AI Issues – Episode 24

Lasse Rindom Lasse Rindom both consults with enterprises on AI projects and talks with business and technology experts about their thoughts and discoveries. In both his consulting practice and his podcast conversations, Lasse has discovered both tremendous opportunities and potentially pitfalls when adopting enterprise-scale AI solutions. We talked about: his work as an AI leader at Basico, the origins of his AI-focused podcast, The Only Constant the unexpected opportunities that arise from the new ability to work with unstructured content that AI affords his quest for use cases that will help identify new governance structures and operational frameworks some examples of AI workflows that enable new business capabilities, like the ability for non-coders to query an agent that can write SQL queries for them his candor in his consulting practive about the possible pitfalls of AI tech, in particular the consequences of LLM hallucinations how current LLMs fall short of natural language, acting more like "chaotic code" the unfortunately common belief that generative AI can be applied one way that he is addressing the "lying robot" problem: using multiple AI agents to correct each other (instead of fine-tuning the models) the current strategic AI deficit in the market, resulting in consultants pushing untested engineering solutions the differences between how enterprises and SMBs consume tech solutions the importance of holistic thinking and staying focused on core problems as you explore AI solutions Lasse's bio Lasse Rindom is AI Lead at Basico and a leading expert on AI and automation. He has previously been global technology manager at facility management giant ISS and CDO of Baker Tilly Denmark. Lasse is a frequent debater on LinkedIn, a Gartner Peer Community ambassador and is host of the podcast “The Only Constant” in which he has deep discussions with global thought leaders on what AI and technology means for us as humans and as businesses. Connect with Lasse online LinkedIn Video Here’s the video version of our conversation: https://youtu.be/_fdAweq3Wuw Podcast intro transcript This is the Content and AI podcast, episode number 24. I generally focus these interviews on content practices, but I'll zoom out now and then to explore the broader strategy and technology landscape. Today I'm talking with Lasse Rindom, a thoughtful and knowledgeable consultant who works with enterprises on big AI projects. He's also a podcaster who talks with business leaders around the world about AI and tech. In his conversations and consulting work, he has discovered a world of lying robots, chaotic code, and strategic deficits. Interview transcript Larry: Hi, everyone. Welcome to episode number 24 of the content and AI podcast. I'm really delighted today to welcome to the show, Lasse Rindom. I'll have him pronounce his name correctly in just a minute. I don't speak Danish, apologies. But Lasse is the AI lead at Basico, a Danish consultancy that works with big enterprises in Denmark and other places, I'm assuming as well. But welcome to the show, Lasse, to tell the folks a little bit more about what you're doing there at Basico. Lasse: Hi, Larry, and thank you for having me on the show today. I'm really thrilled to be here. So my name is Lasse, Lasse Rindom. That's how you say it in Danish so people could know that. I always say it's okay to say Lasse. Everyone knows that, that's dog. Lasse: I am the a AI leader at Basico, which means I'm defining our go-to-market strategy and our products in the AI space, and we focus very much on the back office function. So that's your legal, facility management, finance, HR payroll and finance IT systems. So I'm defining how we want to approach the AI market in that space and primarily in Denmark. Prior to that, I've had stints at an analyst firm, very short stint, and I've been a chief digital officer and head of digital at an SMB and an SMB consultancy. Plus, I have also previously been very heavy in the automation space, especially around RPA, where I built the framework and the technical setup for ISS globally some years back. So I come from an automation background, but actually my major is in history. So I'm not necessarily the tech guy born, but I think I cover a lot of ground. I have a lot of long lines and I try to make sense of everything I know all the time. Larry: And you just mentioned that you're a history major and you're always trying to make sense of things, which leads to how I first discovered you is through your podcast called The Only Constant. And I just love the evocative name that like we're in an age where the only constant is constant change. Can you tell me a little bit about where the podcast came from and how it fits in your practice now? Lasse: So where it came from was basically two things or three things maybe. I wanted to do a podcast for a while. That's one thing. I think that was something I had as an aspiration. And the second thing is that I think the market needs an explorer room, some place where we can explore because we don't know what's going on right now. Lasse: The thing with the generative AI explosion last year, especially last year since November 2022, is that no one really knew what this was. We didn't have it before. It's something that took everyone by surprise. Even Gardner, even the big GSIs, everyone was taken by surprise by this. This means there's no one who can really explain what it does. Lasse: Everything at time, you've heard someone try to explain it. If you go back and look at podcasts a year ago until now and people explaining what it does and how it works, you'll see that they've been corrected so quickly. So everything gets dated very quickly if you do an explain podcast. Lasse: But if you do an explore, where you explore, what are the business problems, the things you should focus on instead and what are the big picture things, the ethics things and all those things? Then you might get to something that has a little bit more longevity and that's what I'm trying to aim for with my podcast. So it's explore more than explain it, I say. Lasse: And thirdly, I've had over the years, I have become sort of a LinkedInfluencer. Is that what we call it, LinkedInfluencer? I call it that. I've gotten to know a lot of people, especially in the automation space and also in the tech and business space in general. I've had a lot of coffee chats with these guys and I thought, "Why not turn these coffee chats that are really engaging and interesting into a format that other people could listen into?" Lasse: I think that was primarily where I thought I can get my content from there and get my good people from there. So that's why I wanted to do it, turn that into something that I could share with other people. Larry: Nice. And you've had some really great people on, and you're doing this in practice where you're working with big leaders in big enterprises in Denmark. What are emerging as some of the top level concerns of folks? And I love that so much of our world in the content world is about generative AI, around generating content and working with/in content workflows. Larry: You're at sort of another level trying to figure out how to help with what a lot of people would regard as mundane back office stuff, the HR and all that. But even there, you're finding a lot of opportunities for AI, right? Lasse: Well, the funny thing is that there's a lot of opportunities there, but they're not the typical opportunities you'd expect I think. People have been approaching this for a year as a chatbot feature, basically something that can generate stuff because that's what amazed us. But as Kurt Cagle said on my podcast, "This is a machine that lies." He was actually very fascinated by that. We've made a machine that lies. I think that's awesome saying just go back 500 years and say, "Hey, someday we'll make a machine that lies." And people are like, "What?" We have that now. But it makes it also very difficult to work with in almost any area. Lasse: It's also difficult in the typical ones we thought immediately, marketing or customer service because you can't have something that can be jailbreaked away or that can be lying or can be bland. That's not what you want. You want something that's cutting edge when you connect with your customers, right? And in back office you need accuracy. It just needs to work. Lasse: As you said, it's very transactional, it needs to work all the time, it needs to have no hiccups. This is something that just makes the business do what it does best by supporting it to do what it does best. So if you have an AI that messes that up or lies or something, then you're having problems there as well. Lasse: So where does this really fit? I don't know, maybe just telling short stories to your kids or something that's where it works out of the box or as an assistant where you can sort of chat with it and get ideas from it. That's also a thing where I think the chatbot works, if you use it in concert with yourself and your own ideas, you use it as a sparring partner you have at hand all the time. Lasse: But I think that what's emerging right now is that people are realizing that this is not just about playing canvas generation, but also about restructuring, interpreting, translating things into structures that we didn't have before. So basically taking something unstructured, getting some data from it, and then creating something structured that we can analyze on top of. Lasse: This means that we're also doing something we haven't been able to do for years in technology. We've never been able to work with unstructured data, but suddenly we have a means to do that. I think that's what people will realize over the next couple of years that this is actually something that's very,