May 22, 2025 • 58 mins
Ask Nigel Rawlins a question or send feedback, click the link to text me.
In this Wisepreneurs Podcast episode, host Nigel Rawlins speaks with Czech publisher and technologist Tomáš Baránek about the enduring value of curated publishing in a world saturated by fast content and generative AI. Tomáš shares how his team at Melvil Publishing selects nonfiction titles with long-term value, from authors like Yuval Noah Harari and David Grann, and why translating a book well is just as much a craft as writing it.
They unpack the risks of over-relying on AI for writing, thinking, and decision-making, and how misinformation and loss of cognitive depth are very real challenges. Tomáš, now studying machine learning in his 50s, gives honest reflections on critical thinking, resisting digital overwhelm, and why slow, intentional reading still matters.
The conversation aligns with three Wisepreneurs categories:
• AI-Augmented Work – The limits of automation in creative publishing
• Cognitive Vitality & Longevity – The role of learning, deep reading, and continuing education
• Resilient Transitions & Support – Navigating knowledge work and reinvention in midlife and beyond
Topics Covered:
•Curated nonfiction publishing in Czechia
•Why Melvil limits its annual titles to focus on quality
•The dangers of AI hallucinations and misinformation
•The challenge of maintaining cognitive engagement in an automated world
•Going back to university at 53 to study machine learning
•Why book translation is about cultural resonance, not just language
Books Mentioned:
•Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari
•Nexus by Yuval Noah Harari
•The Wager by David Grann
•End of Procrastination by Petr Ludwig
•The Dawn of Everything by David Graeber and David Wengrow
Tools & Topics:
•Readwise, Roam Research, Logseq
•GPT models and AI assistants
•Translation workflows, agents, and AI hallucinations
Where to Find Tomáš:
•LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomasbaranek/
•BlueSky Profile https://bsky.app/profile/tombarys.bsky.social
•Melvil
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Nigel Rawlins (00:00):
Welcome to the Wisepreneurs podcast.
I'm Nigel Rawlins.
Today I'm thrilled to welcomeback Tomáš Baránek, Czech
publisher, entrepreneur, andlife hacker for his second
appearance.
In a world where AI churn outcontent faster than we can
blink, Tomáš takes a differentpath.
Curating top-tier nonfiction,meticulously translated from
(00:21):
English to Czech, to spark deeplearning.
We dive into why print booksstill hold unmatched value, how
technology can enhance ratherthan replace creative work, and
why critical thinking and deepreading are vital for
resilience.
If you are a professional over60, building a solo business or
aspiring to thought leadership,this episode is for you.
(00:46):
Thomas, welcome to theWisepreneurs Podcast.
This is the second time you'vebeen a guest on the Wisepreneurs
podcast.
The first one was episode 41last year in April.
Welcome back, so Thomas, can youtell us something about yourself
and where you're from?
Tomáš Baránek (01:04):
Yeah.
Thank you Nigel, for having me,the second time.
I'm happy to be here.
Yeah, I am, um, entrepreneur.
Uh, I am a book publisher.
I am father of three kids andhusband.
And, yeah, I am a life hacker,writing about ways how to
(01:26):
improve your life and usetechnology during this process.
And that's.
Mostly it.
Nigel Rawlins (01:35):
Well, that's an awful lot because you are a
rather young person, aren't you?
Tomáš Baránek (01:40):
Oh, I'm not, I feel like but I'm, fifty-three
in three months.
So, yeah.
I, I hope I can tell it's stillyoung
Nigel Rawlins (01:50):
enough.
I think that's young.
53 is a good age, I think.
Okay, so let's talk aboutpublishing.
Now, we did talk about it inepisode 41, but I want to talk
to you again about it because itseems quite fascinating.
You haven't got a big populationin the Czech Republic.
So tell us a little bit aboutpublishing again in, in your
(02:13):
area, and then we'll talk aboutwhat you've actually published,
which I think is veryfascinating.
Tomáš Baránek (02:20):
Yeah, thanks.
It's a great question, becausepopulation of the Czech Republic
is actually, uh, 10 millionpeople.
Maybe a bit more, plus a lot ofUkrainians now because we help
them to settle, uh, temporarily.
And, uh, yeah.
(02:40):
So our population is not sohuge, but we have huge book
market because the book culturehere is very, very deeply and
rooted in in our history.
And, we have, I don't know,16,000 of new books per year.
(03:01):
Or several thousands ofpublishers.
Including the one book ones.
So it means there is a hugecompetition, and a lot of, um,
cooperation.
Uh, by the way, our publishingcompany is, is like a middle,
uh, sized, we have 25 people asa inside staff.
(03:25):
But, it's not the biggest, butwe publish books from nonfiction
area that are published incirculation around in hundreds
of thousands.
Yeah, for example, End ofProcrastination, from Petr
Ludwig.
Uh, it had nearly 2000 copiessold from the publishing date.
(03:47):
So, uh, we can deliver books toour readers in a big circulation
because we can explain what'swhat's important.
And that is the, the main point.
We publish just, uh, I don'tknow, from, it depends, from 12
to 20 books per year.
(04:07):
But we really try and we tryhard to choose or to create
books that are really importantthat, that prepare people for
the future.
So, uh, for example,translations of books that we,
buy licence for are from the themost interesting thinkers or
(04:32):
writers from the whole world.
So for example, Harare orKahneman or, um, and many
others.
So, if you choose, if you choosewell, uh, and if you don't push
too much.
Yeah, in a sense of, of manytitles that you publish per year
(04:52):
you can deliver a greatexperience, great knowledge to a
big number of readers that canpay attention to you.
When you publish hundreds ofbooks per year, which is, it's
common.
Yeah.
You know, big publishers dothis.
You can't rely on their affinityto you.
(05:14):
They, they will not wait for thenext book that you publish.
They, they just see you areflooding the market, uh, and
waiting what will grow bit morethan other.
So we don't do that.
So we really do our research.
We check for authors andexperts, as soon as possible,
(05:37):
uh, proactively, uh, I don'tlike the word, but we search for
authors that could even write abook because they, for example,
publish great things on socialmedia.
Yeah.
So, we ask them, we persuadethem to, to publish books, or
book and sometimes it works.
(05:58):
But maybe I talk more about ourcompany than about the, the
Czech market.
Nigel Rawlins (06:03):
That's okay.
I think it's fabulous.
'cause you know, we, we don'talways think about the books
that we see, but from the soundsof, if you are only publishing
15 a year or up to 15 or 20maybe, and you've got a
reputation for the type of booksthat you are choosing.
Do you find, um, we, we willtalk about some of those books
(06:23):
in a moment, are, do you findthat you can almost have people
subscribing to every book thatyou send out because you're
fitting their particular niche?
Tomáš Baránek (06:33):
Yeah.
That, that's something we evenconsider creating some
subscription.
Yeah.
Entire.
But it wouldn't work probablybecause some people, some
readers want it.
They, they tell us, okay,Melville, we read all your
books.
I buy all your books because,you are like cur curating uh
(06:57):
book choice for me.
So create some subscription andI will just pay for it once a
year and then deliver.
But the, the problem is thatbooks are not magazines.
We can't predict easily what wewould publish in the future,
what price it would have, and soon.
(07:17):
So, it could end not very wellpredicting our revenue and the
budget of this project.
So not sure if it could work,but yes uh, people can rely on
us as in this society whereeveryone is pushing information
(07:38):
to you in every mean, in allmeans, uh, uh, it's hard to find
re reliable sources.
And I think publishers should goback to what their job is about.
Actually, um, and, uh, startbeing reliable again as they
(07:59):
were when choosing titles andwhen being the point where you
can ask for a topic or problemyou, you want to solve or you
are coping with and you got theanswer.
It's like any other service.
Your doctor should work likethat.
(08:19):
Or your therapist.
You just ask him her and you gotanswers that are good for you
that don't damage you.
But the market says somethingelse.
Many creators, not just bookcreators, but content creators
just flood the market.
So we want to be like the oldfashioned curator of information
(08:44):
in information age in AI era forreaders who want deeper
information, more concise, andstill very informative in this
world.
Nigel Rawlins (08:58):
So I heard a couple of things there.
Curation was one word.
You know, you are cur curatingalmost an education for your
people, uh, for your readers.
Um, and you're looking for togive them depth of knowledge.
But what you're doing is you arelicensing the book and then you
are translating it into theCzech language.
(09:19):
Don't the Czech people readEnglish or do they prefer to
read Czech?
Tomáš Baránek (09:23):
Yeah.
They, they do, they do, butstill, there is a slight, I
don't know how to call it, butthere is slight barrier that you
have, nearly always when youdon't read in your native
language that you talk mostlythrough the day.
So book as a medium itself is,is, uh, not easy to consume.
(09:48):
Even I I if you read it in yourlanguage.
So, the slight barrier stillmakes a huge difference.
When you are tired and you wantto just sit into your couch and
relax with a book, it's not sorelaxing when you read it in, in
your second language.
(10:09):
So that's, that's the point.
People are really understandingEnglish on a basic level.
Really great here, very well.
Czech language is Slaviclanguage.
It's not similar to English, soit's not easy to learn.
It would be easier to learnRussian, but sorry, we will not
(10:33):
again.
But, uh, English is okay for ourreaders.
They usually say, okay, myfavorite author, which I read
newsletters from, who I followon social media is publishing
her or his book in English now.
But I will wait, for yourtranslation.
(10:55):
And by the way, it can take halfa year or even Yeah, several
months, or more than half ayear.
But still they wait for itbecause, and that's the reason
why we have to do our work well.
We are nearing the topic of AIand automated translation now
(11:17):
because if you want to enjoyreading it in Czech, the
translation has to be reallyperfect.
It has to be even better than ifyou read it in English.
It's not about changing thecontent.
Absolutely not.
But it's about fluidity ofreading, or it's, no, not the
word, but it's about how howflawless or how well it is
(11:41):
compatible with reading habitsand so on.
So we have to push really hardto make it easily readable in
Czech and still keeping all theemotion of original text.
And that is the point.
We haven't found a way to use AItranslation, uh, at least not
(12:04):
directly or fully at this point,because, I don't know if it is
only in Czech, but Czech is veryrich language.
It has a lot of synonyms forevery word.
You use a bit different word, ithas a bit different meaning too.
Even you could consider it as itis the same, but it is not.
(12:26):
So, you always have to choosewhat word is better in this
context, in this book, in thecontext of other books that we
publish, in context of theterminology of the field.
So, there are many variablesthat go into this process, and
yes, it's about context.
As you know, we know that AI'sneed context to work properly in
(12:50):
some useful way.
So, you still can't, can't pourinto whole cultural context.
Yeah.
It's impossible.
So we are not yet there and weare happy about it actually.
Uh, we like how people translatewhat they put into translation.
(13:14):
So, that's it.
Readers in Czech read in Czechand it's still not changing too
much.
But we publish Czech audio bookstoo, which are narrated by some
Czech, um, actors and it soundsreally real.
They are real people.
(13:34):
There are some small mistakes intheir speech and so on, and it's
very similar to reading humanmade translation.
And we still think that there issomething that attracts readers
to paper books, to to humanvoices, that actually shows that
(13:55):
the paper book market and theaudio market is growing.
And, the paper book market isnot diminishing, not just in the
Czech Republic, but in theworld.
Audio books are growing a bit,but mostly, they eat ebook
market a bit.
Yeah.
Not the paper market.
So I think that's interesting.
(14:17):
It means that there is somethingin, in the book itself, as in
the medium.
And then in the format, in thepaper and the way how you
consume it.
Because when you take paperbook, you usually sit somewhere
else than you sit when you haveyour phone or tablet opened.
(14:40):
It's not computer.
It's different mindset and thatis what people, in my opinion,
what people.
strive for.
They need this in their lives,so that's hope for our business
too.
Yeah,
Nigel Rawlins (14:56):
I'm a big reader of Kindle,
Tomáš Baránek (14:58):
I know.
Nigel Rawlins (14:59):
and the reason is that I, I do take notes and feed
them in through, Readwise, intomy note taking app.
And I've been with Roam for fiveyears and I've just shifted to
Logseq.
Tomáš Baránek (15:12):
Mm-hmm.
Nigel Rawlins (15:12):
is very simple.
I'm, I'm not too sure how I'mgoing to go with it.
It, it is very simple, but Ilike to grab those notes and
then use them.
What you've just said is quitefascinating.
'cause publishing is a business.
I mean, a book that's purchasedby somebody is bought for a
reason.
And you mentioned earlier thatit solves a problem.
(15:34):
It might be the problem theywanna think more about a
particular topic or, or get somedepth of knowledge.
Now, I saw on LinkedIn, now youare always writing in Czech on
LinkedIn, but there's a, abutton there that says
translate.
And one of the books youmentioned was the Wager.
This was a while back, and Iread that book, I got it on my
(15:54):
Kindle to read.
I thought it was the mostamazing book that I'd ever read.
Maybe you'd like to saysomething about why you chose
that one for your Czech readers.
Tell us something
Tomáš Baránek (16:06):
Yeah.
Nigel Rawlins (16:07):
particular book and then I want to talk to you
about, Yuval's book..
Book that, and then we'll talkabout AI and stuff like that.
Tomáš Baránek (16:15):
Sure.
It's book from David Grann,purely a historical book, about,
big and, yeah, somehow definingvoyage.
Nigel Rawlins (16:27):
1741.
So we're talking about oldsailing ships.
Tomáš Baránek (16:32):
Yeah.
It's, very old sailing ships.
For me the book is maybe moreabout other aspects.
Even the book is reallyterrifying or, or maybe it's
story that you can't just putoff and you you have to, you
have to read it until the endwithout stopping because the
(16:54):
conditions in which sailorslived and what things they had
to do to survive.
And it's, it's really verystrong book.
But for me it's very interestingthat even in these, centuries,
during history that we consider,I don't know, maybe I'm, I'm,
(17:16):
I'm a bit stupid, but when Ilook at the history, I sometimes
see or think that people werenot so clever like we are.
I'm sorry for that, but I knowthat's not true.
But somehow, some bias that wehave looking at, I don't know,
maybe black and white picturesor drawings, I don't know, the
(17:39):
world was colorful.
And was maybe even more mindfulin some way than than ours is.
So when you read this book, andI haven't read it, I, I listened
to it in the audio version,narrated by a great actor, and
it sound sounded really like Ican't stop.
(18:01):
So, I saw that we haven't madesome big progress yet, as a
society in many ways.
Uh, it seems like, for example,the media manipulation, and the
way how sailors that returnedfrom these voy voyages after
(18:22):
really excruciating, terrible,experiences.
How they tried to improve theway, how were perceived their
trip and what they did there.
Then not just society, but mediaand governments tried to use
this information.
(18:43):
And, it's so similar to what wedo now.
The kind of propaganda or mediamanipulation, and they had no
internet or social media.
They just used books.
So, so sailors returned from thetrip and to improve their image,
they just wrote a book, likediary or, or journal.
(19:07):
Yeah, they, they rewrote orrepublished their journal, but
sure, it was a bit biased or, oreven, uh, deliberatively, uh,
improved, to serve purpose of,of improving their image, even
save their lives, in someprocess later.
So, uh, it's something that wesee now and we saw it probably
(19:29):
then.
So David Grann made a great workshowing us that this is
something that was always withus.
Then we have to be criticallythinking every day
Nigel Rawlins (19:43):
I was very fascinated by it.
The hardship that those sailorswent through, but also the
intelligence of those sailors.
That they actually could write.
We, we assumed that because theydidn't go to university or they
weren't educated.
None of them would've probablygone to school and they would've
probably gone to see at a youngage.
And yet they were still able towrite detailed things.
(20:05):
But the, the reason we know thatthey had to write this stuff
cause it was potentially amutiny.
And in those days, because theywere part of the British Navy,
they could be hung, hanged bythe neck.
So it was pretty horrific.
But what I don't get is whywould the Czech people be
interested in this?
Tomáš Baránek (20:25):
Okay, sorry I forgot to answer this question.
Most of our books are likenon-fiction books.
We started with productivitybooks and economics and, uh,
psychology and how to make yourlife better.
But then we found that you can'tlearn, and you can't improve
(20:45):
your future if you don'tunderstand the past.
It's nothing new.
But from the perspective ofpublisher, we saw the gap here,
and because Vit Sebor, likeshistory and he, even was a
editor in chief of some magazineon history.
(21:06):
We hired an historian, MarekVlha who is a really great
editor too.
And he's now editor of in Chiefof all books that we publish.
But his view on history is verycompatible with the view of how
we want to help our readersshape their future.
(21:30):
So, we started the set of bookson historical topics.
The main rule for choosing booksis interesting and well written
and sourced to entertain ourreaders, so we want to bring
history and historical topics toour readers that could be a bit
(21:57):
like I was, uh, you know, uh,blindsided or see the world
just, uh, through lens of, yeah,I don't know, productivity,
effectiveness and these allbuzzwords that you can listen
everywhere.
And it's enlightening in someway because when you look into
(22:18):
the past you really find otherprisms, how you can consider
what you are doing, where youare going in, in your life.
So it works.
So we chose not just Wager andWager is a very special book
because it's about sea and orocean, and we don't have ocean.
(22:40):
We have just lakes here.
We are in the center of Europe.
So it's something distant enoughand something we want.
There is many jokes and memesand feelings about we don't have
sea.
I understand that, uh, yeah, itwas your intention to bring me
(23:03):
here so we, uh, somehow canmaterialize, ocean and see
through our imagination.
So, we guessed and we were rightthat it would work.
So Wager is booked like that.
And by the way, there will bethe, I hope there will be a
(23:25):
movie, Wager with LeonardoDiCaprio and I hope it will be
in cinemas and theaters, nextyear.
I don't remember the lastinformation about this.
So, it could help the bookitself too, but I still think
the book is much better because,uh, or not better, but it helps
(23:46):
to use your imagination, whichis very nice process itself
because, it helps you to, tothrive, uh, not just consume.
And we publish other books onhistory, by the way, The Dawn of
Everything.
There are many books that arevery influential and we
(24:08):
published a book from YuvalHarari, Nexus, but we already
published book in Czech yearsago from Harari, Sapiens, which
is probably his most known book,and it is huge bestseller.
Many million of copies sold.
(24:28):
And he's probably the mostinfluential living historian,
uh, at this moment.
And even there are some criticsthat are sometimes
substantiated.
We have chosen to publish thebook again, uh, because the
previous publisher, uh, whichpublished in Czech, lost their
(24:50):
rights, lost their license.
So we bought it, we had thehighest bid here.
And, bought both licenses forNexus and Sapians too.
And it'll be published again inthree months.
What's interesting that, forexample, this book about
history, Sapiens, is notpublished republished, it's not
(25:11):
printed for, I dunno, severalyears already.
But you can still buy it fortwice or three times higher
price than, than is normal bookprice.
Because people want it.
You can go to library.
We have a great network oflibraries here too.
(25:32):
But if you want to own it, youhave to pay a lot.
So that's another signal thatpeople still want to read
popular books on history here.
And we want to deliver the bookor these books to our readers
too, because now, as youprobably know, the history is
(25:53):
somehow repeating, or it atleast seems like that.
In our region, Russians areclosing and we already lived
through these nightmares.
So I think history is even moreimportant now after the peaceful
period in Europe that has ended.
(26:15):
So that's it.
Nigel Rawlins (26:18):
Okay, so Nexus, Yuval, Noah Harri.
Have you published that one oryou're about to publish that
one?
Tomáš Baránek (26:25):
Yeah.
It has been published.
We have the same cover and it'sreally beautiful.
It has been published the lastweek.
It seems like it's one of thebiggest book launches in our
country.
And the book is about history ofInformation networks from Stone
Age until the AI.
(26:46):
I have thousands of notes fromthe book, yeah, I read it for
two months, but it is not soheavy book to read.
It's, it's much easier.
But if you are a heavy notetaker, as I am, you have a
problem with this book becausethere is so many disturbing or
interesting, or just funnyideas, uh, that I found or, or
(27:11):
connected with my ideas.
So that I couldn't help myselfand I had to do these notes.
So this is something that I readand we published it uh just in
time, I think there is stilltime to think about how to
implement AIs in our lives andbeing aware of its drawbacks and
(27:33):
even risks.
Nigel Rawlins (27:35):
Well, it's 500 pages nearly, isn't it?
So your editor or yourtranslators had to do quite a
bit of work on that.
Obviously editing it and, andkeeping the gist of it.
But obviously you knew that'cause of sapiens there was the
interest.
But did, did you choose thisparticular book because of the
(27:59):
issue that you wanted to have AIdiscussed in your country?
Tomáš Baránek (28:03):
It's not just about our country.
I think somehow even this istranslation from English, we
know that if we publish book inCzech, we influence mostly Czech
readers.
But, uh, if you help theparticular book and author to be
very known, and if you translateit well, you can have bigger
(28:26):
influence even on, on the worldevents.
Because, there are some booksthat are so terribly translated
in Czech, but I think it's notjust Czech, uh, situation.
I heard about translations fromEnglish into Polish or other
other languages, German, and ifit is not well translated, it
(28:49):
loses the momentum and the bookis like buried.
And, the author is kind of,yeah, dead for the country, not
always, but it can happen.
So we consider ourresponsibility to publish it in
the best shape, in the best waywe can to support the idea.
(29:10):
And the idea behind this book issome things that worries us and
me too, uh, personally, and itis if we don't understand how
AIs work, or not just AIs butinformation networks.
In general, we can have bigproblem with humanity as a
(29:36):
whole.
We can even not survive, becausewe can live in a much worse
world.
So, why is that?
I studied informatics and I lovecomputers.
I'm geek, so I have a lot ofthings here that, that I could
show, gadgets and some e-readersand some, some electronics and
(30:00):
which I test, review, writeabout, and I like it.
I'm skeptical, but still, uh, Ilike it.
But as for AI, I'm, I'm probablythe most skeptical from all
these areas that I talk about,because first there is something
that we think that it is, but itis not.
(30:24):
There is some magical thinkingin our view of AI, especially
chats, Chat, GPT and other.
I think it's mostly about theinterface, how one blogger
wrote, until OpenAI publishedthe chat interface, there were
LLMs, there were models and theywere really good.
(30:46):
Like the first one, which weknew 3.5, it was nearly there,
almost, uh, yeah, on the levelthat we know now, but, no one
knew this and you couldn't useit, and was missing something.
And now we have the way tocommunicate with it, how to talk
(31:08):
with it and how to be yeah,bosses.
We can say something and ittries to fulfill our needs.
And this is the problem.
These algorithms are based onfulfilling our needs and they do
it instead of being truthful.
And it's not something thatcreators of these algorithms can
(31:32):
easily change, because first,machine learning is based on
huge data and the data isbiased.
That's the first problem.
The second problem is that youcan't take data that are in
these models as something thatis put there as a database of
facts.
It's just a soup, like when youcut vegetables for your soup,
(31:55):
and until it's very, very smallpieces.
And then it's recreated againwhen you ask for something, the
problem is, it doesn't knowanything.
It just recombines at somelevel, on some probability
principles, what it already had,but sometimes the randomness
(32:18):
seems like very creative andimpressive, and, it's still just
a probability model.
And I, I am afraid, and here I'mback to the book, Nexus, that if
we don't understand what happensinside and we consider these
things, uh, like they arethinking, feeling, or just
(32:41):
simply truthful, or reliable.
We can give them more power thanthey deserve, and it means, for
example, the agents, yeah, andnow we are in the hype of agents
used everywhere.
Agent is something that you putinto, for example, your phone or
your company backend software orCRM or something.
(33:06):
And it should do something foryou automatically or semi
automatically.
The problem is that yes, you canask this agent to do something
on a, on a regular level, butthese agents are still just
following these randomprobability models.
So If they find something thatis similar to what you wanted,
(33:30):
they answer right?
It can work.
But then some situation thatthey couldn't predict that was
not in training data, occurs.
Then they just create someanswer or action.
And that's a problem, that wasnot predicted.
And, you can just miss it, ifyou don't see what's happening
(33:52):
inside, it can start doing somethings that can hurt your
company.
I'm talking about hallucinationon agents level, and you can't
frame it easily.
It, it's a huge problem.
It's still not solved, but weall are using it everywhere and
this is just one of theproblems.
When you imagine that this kindof agent will be uncontrolled
(34:17):
using some framework, it can doharm to company, but then later
it can do harm to big company.
For example, the company thatinsures for example, that
electricity flows into yourhome, and so on.
And we saw politicians askingGPTs to create some, some
(34:37):
outlines of their politics.
And, then we don't seepoliticians asking this.
It's even worse.
They consult decisions, but thenthey decide, okay, it's great.
So let's make it automatic.
Yeah.
Let's make these decisionswithout we being there and so
on.
So it's still like we are in astone age, not in the AI age,
(35:01):
uh, in our thinking about AIs.
So we have to learn about, wehave to go inside and see what
happens.
But Harari is more aboutsomething like what I said, but
in a fantastic way.
It creates the context, theunderstanding of historical use
and understanding of informationnetworks.
(35:23):
He says that information has norelevance.
What's relevant is theconnection.
And even the truth is not soimportant because many, many
societies were kept togetherjust by lie or, but by story
that was not true in a way thatsome of us want to understand
what is true.
So, he really concentrates onhow we can be less naive in in
(35:48):
understanding that people don'tneed to know true.
They just want to align withsome stories and be part of some
information networks.
And these information networkscan be created by AIs or in very
short time, it can happen on ahuge scale.
So we can face much biggerproblems we can imagine.
(36:10):
And still we are not in an AGIera where these AIs are somehow
self-aware or self-conscious, orconscious.
It's another step closer to somedystopia, but it's not here.
And still we can destroyeverything just by not
understanding what we use andwhat it can do to us.
Nigel Rawlins (36:34):
Well what I'm seeing now is the use of Chat
GPT by people who, who don'thave a lot of knowledge say,
kids at school, universitystudents who haven't got a great
deal of depth of knowledge andthey're using it, I'm even
hearing cheating by using it.
So you could go throughuniversity using Chat GPT and
(36:54):
not really know anything.
You've used Chat GPT to getyourself through if there's no
way to check that, which meansyou're gonna have some people
graduating who don't know how todo anything, potentially.
I was a primary and elementaryschool teacher many, many years
ago.
When we went to teacher'scollege, we had three teaching
(37:15):
rounds a year where you'd spentprobably 12 weeks out in the
schools per year and then youhad in classes.
So, you know, it was prettyobvious at the end of three
years whether we were any goodat teaching.
And then you took a few moreyears to get experienced.
In Australia they've changednursing to where you go to
university to become a nurse.
Whereas in the past you learntin the hospital.
(37:37):
So the nature of nursing inAustralia has changed quite
significantly.
So what we're talking aboutthere is relying on Chat GPT to
do the thinking for us and notdoing the hard work of actually
having to learn and think andwrite for ourselves.
We are losing something.
Now obviously the group I workwith are my age and older, and
(38:00):
you're in your fifties, soyou've had a, a lot of learning
through your life and you'veread lots of books and you think
about things.
I guess if you are using AI,you've got a sense of whether
it's, um, giving you usefulknowledge that you can use.
But I'm also hearing because I,I work in marketing and SEO and
(38:23):
all that sort of stuff, peoplejust churning out articles using
ChatGPT, now they might begetting really good at the way
they prompt to get somereasonable articles out there.
But if you are flooding themarket with masses of this
information, you're losing it.
Plus most of us are gonna giveup reading it anyway.
And that comes back to it.
(38:43):
If you've got a book, a realbook in your hand, you know
you've got something that youcan't be swamped with.
That's the thing I worriedabout, is we are giving up
thinking and thinking forourselves.
Tomáš Baránek (38:54):
That's great question and huge question I
introduce myself as a geek andtechnology enthusiast.
So I'm really not against newtechnology or against AI in
general.
I actually study machinelearning on university again,
maybe we'll talk about later,but, and by the way, why I
(39:15):
studied this, because I want tolook inside the black box and I
already can see something.
I'm really bad student and Ihaven't made the last exam
because I would need two days,not just 50 minutes for it.
Yeah.
But I would do it, but slowly.
Nigel Rawlins (39:36):
We should, we should explain that you've
actually gone back to universityat 53.
Tomáš Baránek (39:41):
Yeah.
Nigel Rawlins (39:41):
Tell us about that.
Tomáš Baránek (39:42):
I suggest this to everyone.
It's like, yeah, going back intime, it's my alma mater.
So, I can compare how it wasthen and how it looks now there,
and my students, which are,yeah, 18 to 22.
(40:05):
How they changed.
And that's fun because we havesome project to work on.
I'm going just for a lecture persemester.
I don't have more time to, to gothere.
And even this is very hard.
I don't have to go there.
You just pay for being there asa regular student.
If they have spots for you thenyou can go there.
(40:28):
If not, you can't go there.
But there is still somecapacity.
So I'm the only, uh, 50 plusthere.
But, I don't have to finishexams.
I'm just going there forunderstanding the terminology,
the math behind the algorithms,but not into each detail,
because I know where to find itif I need it.
(40:51):
Yeah.
And because I code, I, I'm a, ahobby programmer.
I can even do some simplemachine learning, algorithms and
try it on our publishing data,by the way.
It's interesting and impressive,but still it's like you see,
wow, that's so stupid.
The feeling that I had when theGPT started, I was impressed
(41:14):
too.
I was like, it's magic, and theyreally found something.
And they deliberately spreadinformation about not
understanding what happensinside.
And, we are afraid it can haveconsciousness.
And so they should be morecareful, but not with the
consciousness, more with leakingdata and so on, which is by the
(41:38):
way, not solvable this moment.
So, back to the question.
I use Chat GPTs, I pay forClaude and Chat GPT and some
specialized tools to help mecode.
But it always depends what levelcontent you want to generate
comparing to what's the outputneeds?
(41:59):
If I don't use it for writing,for example, my articles on my
blog, I love having bad, badwording in my articles.
I like writing them.
I like creating, yeah, terriblestuff.
Because I can look at it andthen I read it and I can improve
(42:21):
it, but I don't want anyone tellme how to write it.
But sometimes I use it forchecking.
So I just ask, okay, have Iforgot something important here?
And yes, this is the task thesegenerators can do pretty well,
because it's machine ofgenerating following response
(42:42):
from the context you put into.
So it can really find, forexample, you missed the URL for
what you promised on thebeginning of the article.
So I use it for such a technicalthing, but not for writing,
because my writing has to be my,even with the flaws it has.
So if you are bad writer, butstill you have something you
(43:04):
want to say, it can help youcreate the content to be
readable for general reader.
And if you just want to saysomething, for example you are
expert in some area and you wantto share it, you can try or you
can use it sometimes, or everytime, for for generating the
content that you curate, thatthe ideas are yours.
(43:28):
But still, the wording, in theway it can be read can be
improved by these machines.
So, It's probably okay, but Ithink I'm better than the
machine in writing, including myflaws, so it can't surprise me.
Then there are some other areasthat I use it.
I talked about coding.
(43:49):
When I use it too much, forexample, you just press the tap
key and it finishes the wholefunction that you started to
write.
I don't enjoy coding then.
I want to think about, I don'tknow why, but, I like it because
probably it's my hobbies.
I don't want to just finish thework.
Sometimes I use it because Iwrite in Closure script, but I
(44:13):
don't know too much JavaScript,but sometimes I need to use it.
So, because I don't want tolearn JavaScript, I just ask,
okay, write it for me.
And then I check it if it isokay, if it doesn't use any
harmful techniques or so,because by the way, it can be a
problem, for example, Deep Seekcan inject some code into your
(44:36):
code.
And if you don't understand whatthe code is, it can work until
it doesn't.
Until someone decides your codestop working and so on.
There are some threats that thiscan be misused this way.
So, I try always to understandwhat's inside the black box in
many areas.
So, life is hard for mesometimes, but yes, when you use
(45:00):
it often it feels like, I don'tknow, I just start feeling dumb.
Maybe my senses of dumbness aresomehow anxiety based.
I don't know, maybe I just amafraid because I'm anxious.
I'm just afraid of being dumbhere.
So I, I see the triggers toosoon.
Maybe it's normal that sometimesyou ask people and they answer
(45:23):
and you are not dumb.
You just don't know.
But this is another problem withAI.
You don't have to think it hassome information for you.
The problem is that you have tocheck it always.
And the problem ofhallucinations is not solved.
And it seems like it doesn'tchange at all from the 3.5.
(45:44):
Even they promised, they needmoney to invest so they say,
okay, it's much better, andthere is several steps thinking
and so on.
And that's funny because it, itis still not in, in the version
of 4.5, it's still not able togive you answer that's on
Wikipedia.
(46:05):
It still hallucinates somethingthat's not true.
Even if you ask something thatit was trained on.
But the algorithm can't have thesame data.
It's not Google search.
It has to create new connectionsand that's great.
It can be creative, but, this isa drawback too.
It can't keep the data in theinput form, in the training data
(46:31):
form.
It's not the same.
So you can't consider thissomething that's reliable.
When you want to ask aboutfacts, sometimes it is, maybe
mostly it is, but sometimes itis not.
And the less you understand thetopic you are asking about, the
(46:51):
area you are asking about, thebigger chance you will be fooled
that you will get wrong answerand without noticing, that's the
problem.
And the more you are expert insome area, the more you will see
how full of flaws are theanswers.
(47:12):
And so you, you can check it foryourself.
Yeah.
Just ask about some things thatyou understand well and you can
see how it is close to the trueor the consensus.
And then imagine this is thesame in other areas that you
don't understand and that youask the most.
(47:32):
So really this is something tobe careful about.
Nigel Rawlins (47:36):
Yeah, I totally agree with that.
'cause what you're saying is ifyou haven't got that depth of
knowledge, you have no ideawhether it's realistic or not.
And, and especially if you arean expert in area and you go
outside your expert area, youcan easily be fooled as well.
And this is the biggest danger.
I mean, the scariest thing Ithink you're talking about too
(47:58):
is because it is so fast, it canbe used to spread misinformation
everywhere straight away becauseit can feed into the social
media, it can send stuff tojournalists to dominate their
thinking in a certain way.
I think we're seeing quite a lotof ideology across the world,
(48:20):
especially if you spend too muchtime on, X or Twitter as it used
to be known.
And you can imagine, AI feedinginto that all the time as bots,
which are there now.
So it could dominate your feed,it can manipulate the algorithms
there and show you certainthings.
Yeah, look, I agree.
That's why I think reading isreally important.
(48:43):
Taking your own notes, maybeusing your own notes to feed
your writing.
I like to work with AI.
I use a lot, and I've gotta behonest, I, I use Grok as well,
and I'm finding it quite smart.
I'm finding it at a higher level
Tomáš Baránek (48:59):
Yeah.
Nigel Rawlins (49:00):
than chatGPT even, but I haven't been using
Claude for quite a while either.
But yeah, I'm very mindful thatyou can get overwhelmed with
this, but I do aim to work withan older audience my age and
probably your age and on too.
They do have what we callcrystallized intelligence.
They've got a lifetime ofworking in a particular area.
(49:21):
I'm talking about professionalsin some sort of area.
They have a good sense ofknowledge, but what I think Chat
GPT or some of the AI can do ishelp them do a bit more,
especially if they do need tospread the word about what
they're doing.
So there is some benefits, Ithink, but you know, my concern
is for is for the younger ones.
Tomáš Baránek (49:43):
Yeah, I think it's like when we had our first
calculator.
I remember, I just had some veryold calculator with these red
wired numbers in eighties orsomething.
My father brought it fromsomewhere and the battery, nine
volts, lasted, I don't know, onehour of use, it was terrible.
(50:05):
It was Texas instrument, it wasbeautiful, and I remember having
it in my hands as a, I don'tknow, eighth grade, seventh
grade.
I thought, okay, so now I wineverything.
I can do my homework faster andso on.
I don't want to be like theperson that says don't use
(50:26):
something because you will bestupid.
My parents told me, okay, don'tlook at TV.
And I hope I'm not so stupid asmaybe I could be better, but
still not sure if it was becauseof TV that I'm sometimes stupid.
So, it's just tool and weunderestimate kids, in many
(50:46):
ways.
For example, smartphone use,there is very interesting study
from people from MaastrichtUniversity, that goes against
results of some studies that sayeverything got worse when kids
started started to usesmartphones.
Yeah, their mental health issuesstarted with this and so on.
(51:11):
This study I'm talking about,they try to do it really
properly and to forget aboutbiases that you have because as
a parent you want someexplanation and you don't want
to feel like you made thismistake with your kids.
So, it's easy to just show theculprit is smartphone here and
(51:32):
it's not you, and just to switchit off or something.
It doesn't solve mental issues,health issue problems in young
generation.
There is more to it.
There is more about theircontrol of their lives that they
lost probably in last decades,because we are completely
controlling their free time andeverything.
(51:53):
So all these gadgets and, uh,smartphones are just another way
how they spend their time mostlywith their friends.
And the study shown that thereis no difference between kids
that used the smartphones andthey which did not.
(52:14):
And by the way, there was veryinteresting moment, that kids
can stop using it by themselves,especially when they feel they
want to connect in real life.
Yeah.
And they do it.
They actually do it.
So it's not like they are justalways watching these
smartphones.
(52:35):
They are connecting even.
It is just something we don't,like, we want them to run or to
do other things, but they do it,maybe not so often.
So I would like to say, it's notabout it's all crap and it will
make world worse.
If you feel you are over usingit and you feel like you are
(52:59):
cheating your mind, cheatingyour efforts, you can just stop
doing it and do it the old way,but then you have to do some
work which the system created tobe very tedious.
And it's not somethinghuman-like, because even before
AI there were not human-likebureaucracy things, which,
(53:24):
Harari talks about too.
Bureaucrats not always badbecause it can connect people
with the government.
But, when it grows too much andloses its spirit, it doesn't
work.
And it's the same, it's alwaysabout the level of implementing
these tools and being, truthfulto yourself in, in this.
(53:45):
So I really try not to use ChatGPT for things that I can think
myself.
For example, I try always tomake it a bit harder for me,
sometimes I know I need itquickly.
It's not about publishingsomething that I want to be
authentic.
So yes, I ask for, for some kindof help.
(54:09):
And there is, for example, onevery funny use, uh, one of my
colleagues has some businesspartner of us which is really
terrible in communication.
She's like really toxic.
Yeah.
But we have to cooperate withthe different company and we
(54:29):
rely on the service they do.
So my colleague found a way notto be triggered by her constant
rude words.
She just asks GPT to rewrite herreaction to be more acceptable.
And uh then she found that eventhe person I'm talking about,
(54:51):
she started probably to use ChatGPT too to answer more politely
because maybe someone told heror she's just lazy to think
about her rudeness.
So she showed me the exchangewas like between two very polite
people that tell each other verynot polite things and it was
(55:14):
much less stressful than it wasbefore.
Yeah.
So it can help.
Yeah.
But you have to contain it insome area and say, okay, here,
it's okay.
But I warn you, be careful not,for example, using this with
your wife.
So that's it.
Nigel Rawlins (55:35):
Yes.
Be real, I think.
Fantastic.
We're probably coming to the endhere.
I was just gonna say with, withyour calculator.
We used to use slide rules whenI was in high school doing
mathematics and things likethat.
So, you know, it's just thedifferent generations and the
technology.
I was analog.
I'm digital now, but we've gotpeople my age who are still very
(55:56):
analog and a frightened of thissort of stuff.
But I think our conversationtoday is explaining, yes, you've
got a brain, it's important tostill use it, you know, don't
fall for all the technology.
You've still gotta thinkcritically about these things.
Now, Thomas, how do people findout more about you?
Tomáš Baránek (56:15):
Oh, they can find me on Blue Sky now.
I migrated from X Platform,Twitter, or via my website, or
my blog
Nigel Rawlins (56:27):
I'll put them in the show notes.
Tomáš Baránek (56:29):
Yeah, because I don't know how to spell
Nigel Rawlins (56:33):
them.
You're on LinkedIn as well?
That's right.
'cause I, I see you, you all thetime on LinkedIn.
I keep an eye out for you, andthe, the beaut thing about all
of this, even though you writein the Czech language you're
still able to press translateand it will tell us what you're
writing about.
And that's, that's how I cameacross your book, The wager.
I thought, oh, what's that book?
And that was just a fascinatingstory.
(56:54):
So Thomas, thank you for talkingabout publishing.
I'm hoping people can hear intowhat you are saying.
There's a whole lot of thingswe're talking about business in
there and marketing and thinkingcritically as well.
So thank you Thomas.
Tomáš Baránek (57:08):
Thank you, Nigel.
It was great.
Welcome to the Wisepreneurs podcast.
I'm Nigel Rawlins.
Today I'm thrilled to welcomeback Tomáš Baránek, Czech
publisher, entrepreneur, andlife hacker for his second
appearance.
In a world where AI churn outcontent faster than we can
blink, Tomáš takes a differentpath.
Curating top-tier nonfiction,meticulously translated from
(00:21):
English to Czech, to spark deeplearning.
We dive into why print booksstill hold unmatched value, how
technology can enhance ratherthan replace creative work, and
why critical thinking and deepreading are vital for
resilience.
If you are a professional over60, building a solo business or
aspiring to thought leadership,this episode is for you.
(00:46):
Thomas, welcome to theWisepreneurs Podcast.
This is the second time you'vebeen a guest on the Wisepreneurs
podcast.
The first one was episode 41last year in April.
Welcome back, so Thomas, can youtell us something about yourself
and where you're from?
Tomáš Baránek (01:04):
Yeah.
Thank you Nigel, for having me,the second time.
I'm happy to be here.
Yeah, I am, um, entrepreneur.
Uh, I am a book publisher.
I am father of three kids andhusband.
And, yeah, I am a life hacker,writing about ways how to
(01:26):
improve your life and usetechnology during this process.
And that's.
Mostly it.
Nigel Rawlins (01:35):
Well, that's an awful lot because you are a
rather young person, aren't you?
Tomáš Baránek (01:40):
Oh, I'm not, I feel like but I'm, fifty-three
in three months.
So, yeah.
I, I hope I can tell it's stillyoung
Nigel Rawlins (01:50):
enough.
I think that's young.
53 is a good age, I think.
Okay, so let's talk aboutpublishing.
Now, we did talk about it inepisode 41, but I want to talk
to you again about it because itseems quite fascinating.
You haven't got a big populationin the Czech Republic.
So tell us a little bit aboutpublishing again in, in your
(02:13):
area, and then we'll talk aboutwhat you've actually published,
which I think is veryfascinating.
Tomáš Baránek (02:20):
Yeah, thanks.
It's a great question, becausepopulation of the Czech Republic
is actually, uh, 10 millionpeople.
Maybe a bit more, plus a lot ofUkrainians now because we help
them to settle, uh, temporarily.
And, uh, yeah.
(02:40):
So our population is not sohuge, but we have huge book
market because the book culturehere is very, very deeply and
rooted in in our history.
And, we have, I don't know,16,000 of new books per year.
(03:01):
Or several thousands ofpublishers.
Including the one book ones.
So it means there is a hugecompetition, and a lot of, um,
cooperation.
Uh, by the way, our publishingcompany is, is like a middle,
uh, sized, we have 25 people asa inside staff.
(03:25):
But, it's not the biggest, butwe publish books from nonfiction
area that are published incirculation around in hundreds
of thousands.
Yeah, for example, End ofProcrastination, from Petr
Ludwig.
Uh, it had nearly 2000 copiessold from the publishing date.
(03:47):
So, uh, we can deliver books toour readers in a big circulation
because we can explain what'swhat's important.
And that is the, the main point.
We publish just, uh, I don'tknow, from, it depends, from 12
to 20 books per year.
(04:07):
But we really try and we tryhard to choose or to create
books that are really importantthat, that prepare people for
the future.
So, uh, for example,translations of books that we,
buy licence for are from the themost interesting thinkers or
(04:32):
writers from the whole world.
So for example, Harare orKahneman or, um, and many
others.
So, if you choose, if you choosewell, uh, and if you don't push
too much.
Yeah, in a sense of, of manytitles that you publish per year
(04:52):
you can deliver a greatexperience, great knowledge to a
big number of readers that canpay attention to you.
When you publish hundreds ofbooks per year, which is, it's
common.
Yeah.
You know, big publishers dothis.
You can't rely on their affinityto you.
(05:14):
They, they will not wait for thenext book that you publish.
They, they just see you areflooding the market, uh, and
waiting what will grow bit morethan other.
So we don't do that.
So we really do our research.
We check for authors andexperts, as soon as possible,
(05:37):
uh, proactively, uh, I don'tlike the word, but we search for
authors that could even write abook because they, for example,
publish great things on socialmedia.
Yeah.
So, we ask them, we persuadethem to, to publish books, or
book and sometimes it works.
(05:58):
But maybe I talk more about ourcompany than about the, the
Czech market.
Nigel Rawlins (06:03):
That's okay.
I think it's fabulous.
'cause you know, we, we don'talways think about the books
that we see, but from the soundsof, if you are only publishing
15 a year or up to 15 or 20maybe, and you've got a
reputation for the type of booksthat you are choosing.
Do you find, um, we, we willtalk about some of those books
(06:23):
in a moment, are, do you findthat you can almost have people
subscribing to every book thatyou send out because you're
fitting their particular niche?
Tomáš Baránek (06:33):
Yeah.
That, that's something we evenconsider creating some
subscription.
Yeah.
Entire.
But it wouldn't work probablybecause some people, some
readers want it.
They, they tell us, okay,Melville, we read all your
books.
I buy all your books because,you are like cur curating uh
(06:57):
book choice for me.
So create some subscription andI will just pay for it once a
year and then deliver.
But the, the problem is thatbooks are not magazines.
We can't predict easily what wewould publish in the future,
what price it would have, and soon.
(07:17):
So, it could end not very wellpredicting our revenue and the
budget of this project.
So not sure if it could work,but yes uh, people can rely on
us as in this society whereeveryone is pushing information
(07:38):
to you in every mean, in allmeans, uh, uh, it's hard to find
re reliable sources.
And I think publishers should goback to what their job is about.
Actually, um, and, uh, startbeing reliable again as they
(07:59):
were when choosing titles andwhen being the point where you
can ask for a topic or problemyou, you want to solve or you
are coping with and you got theanswer.
It's like any other service.
Your doctor should work likethat.
(08:19):
Or your therapist.
You just ask him her and you gotanswers that are good for you
that don't damage you.
But the market says somethingelse.
Many creators, not just bookcreators, but content creators
just flood the market.
So we want to be like the oldfashioned curator of information
(08:44):
in information age in AI era forreaders who want deeper
information, more concise, andstill very informative in this
world.
Nigel Rawlins (08:58):
So I heard a couple of things there.
Curation was one word.
You know, you are cur curatingalmost an education for your
people, uh, for your readers.
Um, and you're looking for togive them depth of knowledge.
But what you're doing is you arelicensing the book and then you
are translating it into theCzech language.
(09:19):
Don't the Czech people readEnglish or do they prefer to
read Czech?
Tomáš Baránek (09:23):
Yeah.
They, they do, they do, butstill, there is a slight, I
don't know how to call it, butthere is slight barrier that you
have, nearly always when youdon't read in your native
language that you talk mostlythrough the day.
So book as a medium itself is,is, uh, not easy to consume.
(09:48):
Even I I if you read it in yourlanguage.
So, the slight barrier stillmakes a huge difference.
When you are tired and you wantto just sit into your couch and
relax with a book, it's not sorelaxing when you read it in, in
your second language.
(10:09):
So that's, that's the point.
People are really understandingEnglish on a basic level.
Really great here, very well.
Czech language is Slaviclanguage.
It's not similar to English, soit's not easy to learn.
It would be easier to learnRussian, but sorry, we will not
(10:33):
again.
But, uh, English is okay for ourreaders.
They usually say, okay, myfavorite author, which I read
newsletters from, who I followon social media is publishing
her or his book in English now.
But I will wait, for yourtranslation.
(10:55):
And by the way, it can take halfa year or even Yeah, several
months, or more than half ayear.
But still they wait for itbecause, and that's the reason
why we have to do our work well.
We are nearing the topic of AIand automated translation now
(11:17):
because if you want to enjoyreading it in Czech, the
translation has to be reallyperfect.
It has to be even better than ifyou read it in English.
It's not about changing thecontent.
Absolutely not.
But it's about fluidity ofreading, or it's, no, not the
word, but it's about how howflawless or how well it is
(11:41):
compatible with reading habitsand so on.
So we have to push really hardto make it easily readable in
Czech and still keeping all theemotion of original text.
And that is the point.
We haven't found a way to use AItranslation, uh, at least not
(12:04):
directly or fully at this point,because, I don't know if it is
only in Czech, but Czech is veryrich language.
It has a lot of synonyms forevery word.
You use a bit different word, ithas a bit different meaning too.
Even you could consider it as itis the same, but it is not.
(12:26):
So, you always have to choosewhat word is better in this
context, in this book, in thecontext of other books that we
publish, in context of theterminology of the field.
So, there are many variablesthat go into this process, and
yes, it's about context.
As you know, we know that AI'sneed context to work properly in
(12:50):
some useful way.
So, you still can't, can't pourinto whole cultural context.
Yeah.
It's impossible.
So we are not yet there and weare happy about it actually.
Uh, we like how people translatewhat they put into translation.
(13:14):
So, that's it.
Readers in Czech read in Czechand it's still not changing too
much.
But we publish Czech audio bookstoo, which are narrated by some
Czech, um, actors and it soundsreally real.
They are real people.
(13:34):
There are some small mistakes intheir speech and so on, and it's
very similar to reading humanmade translation.
And we still think that there issomething that attracts readers
to paper books, to to humanvoices, that actually shows that
(13:55):
the paper book market and theaudio market is growing.
And, the paper book market isnot diminishing, not just in the
Czech Republic, but in theworld.
Audio books are growing a bit,but mostly, they eat ebook
market a bit.
Yeah.
Not the paper market.
So I think that's interesting.
(14:17):
It means that there is somethingin, in the book itself, as in
the medium.
And then in the format, in thepaper and the way how you
consume it.
Because when you take paperbook, you usually sit somewhere
else than you sit when you haveyour phone or tablet opened.
(14:40):
It's not computer.
It's different mindset and thatis what people, in my opinion,
what people.
strive for.
They need this in their lives,so that's hope for our business
too.
Yeah,
Nigel Rawlins (14:56):
I'm a big reader of Kindle,
Tomáš Baránek (14:58):
I know.
Nigel Rawlins (14:59):
and the reason is that I, I do take notes and feed
them in through, Readwise, intomy note taking app.
And I've been with Roam for fiveyears and I've just shifted to
Logseq.
Tomáš Baránek (15:12):
Mm-hmm.
Nigel Rawlins (15:12):
is very simple.
I'm, I'm not too sure how I'mgoing to go with it.
It, it is very simple, but Ilike to grab those notes and
then use them.
What you've just said is quitefascinating.
'cause publishing is a business.
I mean, a book that's purchasedby somebody is bought for a
reason.
And you mentioned earlier thatit solves a problem.
(15:34):
It might be the problem theywanna think more about a
particular topic or, or get somedepth of knowledge.
Now, I saw on LinkedIn, now youare always writing in Czech on
LinkedIn, but there's a, abutton there that says
translate.
And one of the books youmentioned was the Wager.
This was a while back, and Iread that book, I got it on my
(15:54):
Kindle to read.
I thought it was the mostamazing book that I'd ever read.
Maybe you'd like to saysomething about why you chose
that one for your Czech readers.
Tell us something
Tomáš Baránek (16:06):
Yeah.
Nigel Rawlins (16:07):
particular book and then I want to talk to you
about, Yuval's book..
Book that, and then we'll talkabout AI and stuff like that.
Tomáš Baránek (16:15):
Sure.
It's book from David Grann,purely a historical book, about,
big and, yeah, somehow definingvoyage.
Nigel Rawlins (16:27):
1741.
So we're talking about oldsailing ships.
Tomáš Baránek (16:32):
Yeah.
It's, very old sailing ships.
For me the book is maybe moreabout other aspects.
Even the book is reallyterrifying or, or maybe it's
story that you can't just putoff and you you have to, you
have to read it until the endwithout stopping because the
(16:54):
conditions in which sailorslived and what things they had
to do to survive.
And it's, it's really verystrong book.
But for me it's very interestingthat even in these, centuries,
during history that we consider,I don't know, maybe I'm, I'm,
(17:16):
I'm a bit stupid, but when Ilook at the history, I sometimes
see or think that people werenot so clever like we are.
I'm sorry for that, but I knowthat's not true.
But somehow, some bias that wehave looking at, I don't know,
maybe black and white picturesor drawings, I don't know, the
(17:39):
world was colorful.
And was maybe even more mindfulin some way than than ours is.
So when you read this book, andI haven't read it, I, I listened
to it in the audio version,narrated by a great actor, and
it sound sounded really like Ican't stop.
(18:01):
So, I saw that we haven't madesome big progress yet, as a
society in many ways.
Uh, it seems like, for example,the media manipulation, and the
way how sailors that returnedfrom these voy voyages after
(18:22):
really excruciating, terrible,experiences.
How they tried to improve theway, how were perceived their
trip and what they did there.
Then not just society, but mediaand governments tried to use
this information.
(18:43):
And, it's so similar to what wedo now.
The kind of propaganda or mediamanipulation, and they had no
internet or social media.
They just used books.
So, so sailors returned from thetrip and to improve their image,
they just wrote a book, likediary or, or journal.
(19:07):
Yeah, they, they rewrote orrepublished their journal, but
sure, it was a bit biased or, oreven, uh, deliberatively, uh,
improved, to serve purpose of,of improving their image, even
save their lives, in someprocess later.
So, uh, it's something that wesee now and we saw it probably
(19:29):
then.
So David Grann made a great workshowing us that this is
something that was always withus.
Then we have to be criticallythinking every day
Nigel Rawlins (19:43):
I was very fascinated by it.
The hardship that those sailorswent through, but also the
intelligence of those sailors.
That they actually could write.
We, we assumed that because theydidn't go to university or they
weren't educated.
None of them would've probablygone to school and they would've
probably gone to see at a youngage.
And yet they were still able towrite detailed things.
(20:05):
But the, the reason we know thatthey had to write this stuff
cause it was potentially amutiny.
And in those days, because theywere part of the British Navy,
they could be hung, hanged bythe neck.
So it was pretty horrific.
But what I don't get is whywould the Czech people be
interested in this?
Tomáš Baránek (20:25):
Okay, sorry I forgot to answer this question.
Most of our books are likenon-fiction books.
We started with productivitybooks and economics and, uh,
psychology and how to make yourlife better.
But then we found that you can'tlearn, and you can't improve
(20:45):
your future if you don'tunderstand the past.
It's nothing new.
But from the perspective ofpublisher, we saw the gap here,
and because Vit Sebor, likeshistory and he, even was a
editor in chief of some magazineon history.
(21:06):
We hired an historian, MarekVlha who is a really great
editor too.
And he's now editor of in Chiefof all books that we publish.
But his view on history is verycompatible with the view of how
we want to help our readersshape their future.
(21:30):
So, we started the set of bookson historical topics.
The main rule for choosing booksis interesting and well written
and sourced to entertain ourreaders, so we want to bring
history and historical topics toour readers that could be a bit
(21:57):
like I was, uh, you know, uh,blindsided or see the world
just, uh, through lens of, yeah,I don't know, productivity,
effectiveness and these allbuzzwords that you can listen
everywhere.
And it's enlightening in someway because when you look into
(22:18):
the past you really find otherprisms, how you can consider
what you are doing, where youare going in, in your life.
So it works.
So we chose not just Wager andWager is a very special book
because it's about sea and orocean, and we don't have ocean.
(22:40):
We have just lakes here.
We are in the center of Europe.
So it's something distant enoughand something we want.
There is many jokes and memesand feelings about we don't have
sea.
I understand that, uh, yeah, itwas your intention to bring me
(23:03):
here so we, uh, somehow canmaterialize, ocean and see
through our imagination.
So, we guessed and we were rightthat it would work.
So Wager is booked like that.
And by the way, there will bethe, I hope there will be a
(23:25):
movie, Wager with LeonardoDiCaprio and I hope it will be
in cinemas and theaters, nextyear.
I don't remember the lastinformation about this.
So, it could help the bookitself too, but I still think
the book is much better because,uh, or not better, but it helps
(23:46):
to use your imagination, whichis very nice process itself
because, it helps you to, tothrive, uh, not just consume.
And we publish other books onhistory, by the way, The Dawn of
Everything.
There are many books that arevery influential and we
(24:08):
published a book from YuvalHarari, Nexus, but we already
published book in Czech yearsago from Harari, Sapiens, which
is probably his most known book,and it is huge bestseller.
Many million of copies sold.
(24:28):
And he's probably the mostinfluential living historian,
uh, at this moment.
And even there are some criticsthat are sometimes
substantiated.
We have chosen to publish thebook again, uh, because the
previous publisher, uh, whichpublished in Czech, lost their
(24:50):
rights, lost their license.
So we bought it, we had thehighest bid here.
And, bought both licenses forNexus and Sapians too.
And it'll be published again inthree months.
What's interesting that, forexample, this book about
history, Sapiens, is notpublished republished, it's not
(25:11):
printed for, I dunno, severalyears already.
But you can still buy it fortwice or three times higher
price than, than is normal bookprice.
Because people want it.
You can go to library.
We have a great network oflibraries here too.
(25:32):
But if you want to own it, youhave to pay a lot.
So that's another signal thatpeople still want to read
popular books on history here.
And we want to deliver the bookor these books to our readers
too, because now, as youprobably know, the history is
(25:53):
somehow repeating, or it atleast seems like that.
In our region, Russians areclosing and we already lived
through these nightmares.
So I think history is even moreimportant now after the peaceful
period in Europe that has ended.
(26:15):
So that's it.
Nigel Rawlins (26:18):
Okay, so Nexus, Yuval, Noah Harri.
Have you published that one oryou're about to publish that
one?
Tomáš Baránek (26:25):
Yeah.
It has been published.
We have the same cover and it'sreally beautiful.
It has been published the lastweek.
It seems like it's one of thebiggest book launches in our
country.
And the book is about history ofInformation networks from Stone
Age until the AI.
(26:46):
I have thousands of notes fromthe book, yeah, I read it for
two months, but it is not soheavy book to read.
It's, it's much easier.
But if you are a heavy notetaker, as I am, you have a
problem with this book becausethere is so many disturbing or
interesting, or just funnyideas, uh, that I found or, or
(27:11):
connected with my ideas.
So that I couldn't help myselfand I had to do these notes.
So this is something that I readand we published it uh just in
time, I think there is stilltime to think about how to
implement AIs in our lives andbeing aware of its drawbacks and
(27:33):
even risks.
Nigel Rawlins (27:35):
Well, it's 500 pages nearly, isn't it?
So your editor or yourtranslators had to do quite a
bit of work on that.
Obviously editing it and, andkeeping the gist of it.
But obviously you knew that'cause of sapiens there was the
interest.
But did, did you choose thisparticular book because of the
(27:59):
issue that you wanted to have AIdiscussed in your country?
Tomáš Baránek (28:03):
It's not just about our country.
I think somehow even this istranslation from English, we
know that if we publish book inCzech, we influence mostly Czech
readers.
But, uh, if you help theparticular book and author to be
very known, and if you translateit well, you can have bigger
(28:26):
influence even on, on the worldevents.
Because, there are some booksthat are so terribly translated
in Czech, but I think it's notjust Czech, uh, situation.
I heard about translations fromEnglish into Polish or other
other languages, German, and ifit is not well translated, it
(28:49):
loses the momentum and the bookis like buried.
And, the author is kind of,yeah, dead for the country, not
always, but it can happen.
So we consider ourresponsibility to publish it in
the best shape, in the best waywe can to support the idea.
(29:10):
And the idea behind this book issome things that worries us and
me too, uh, personally, and itis if we don't understand how
AIs work, or not just AIs butinformation networks.
In general, we can have bigproblem with humanity as a
(29:36):
whole.
We can even not survive, becausewe can live in a much worse
world.
So, why is that?
I studied informatics and I lovecomputers.
I'm geek, so I have a lot ofthings here that, that I could
show, gadgets and some e-readersand some, some electronics and
(30:00):
which I test, review, writeabout, and I like it.
I'm skeptical, but still, uh, Ilike it.
But as for AI, I'm, I'm probablythe most skeptical from all
these areas that I talk about,because first there is something
that we think that it is, but itis not.
(30:24):
There is some magical thinkingin our view of AI, especially
chats, Chat, GPT and other.
I think it's mostly about theinterface, how one blogger
wrote, until OpenAI publishedthe chat interface, there were
LLMs, there were models and theywere really good.
(30:46):
Like the first one, which weknew 3.5, it was nearly there,
almost, uh, yeah, on the levelthat we know now, but, no one
knew this and you couldn't useit, and was missing something.
And now we have the way tocommunicate with it, how to talk
(31:08):
with it and how to be yeah,bosses.
We can say something and ittries to fulfill our needs.
And this is the problem.
These algorithms are based onfulfilling our needs and they do
it instead of being truthful.
And it's not something thatcreators of these algorithms can
(31:32):
easily change, because first,machine learning is based on
huge data and the data isbiased.
That's the first problem.
The second problem is that youcan't take data that are in
these models as something thatis put there as a database of
facts.
It's just a soup, like when youcut vegetables for your soup,
(31:55):
and until it's very, very smallpieces.
And then it's recreated againwhen you ask for something, the
problem is, it doesn't knowanything.
It just recombines at somelevel, on some probability
principles, what it already had,but sometimes the randomness
(32:18):
seems like very creative andimpressive, and, it's still just
a probability model.
And I, I am afraid, and here I'mback to the book, Nexus, that if
we don't understand what happensinside and we consider these
things, uh, like they arethinking, feeling, or just
(32:41):
simply truthful, or reliable.
We can give them more power thanthey deserve, and it means, for
example, the agents, yeah, andnow we are in the hype of agents
used everywhere.
Agent is something that you putinto, for example, your phone or
your company backend software orCRM or something.
(33:06):
And it should do something foryou automatically or semi
automatically.
The problem is that yes, you canask this agent to do something
on a, on a regular level, butthese agents are still just
following these randomprobability models.
So If they find something thatis similar to what you wanted,
(33:30):
they answer right?
It can work.
But then some situation thatthey couldn't predict that was
not in training data, occurs.
Then they just create someanswer or action.
And that's a problem, that wasnot predicted.
And, you can just miss it, ifyou don't see what's happening
(33:52):
inside, it can start doing somethings that can hurt your
company.
I'm talking about hallucinationon agents level, and you can't
frame it easily.
It, it's a huge problem.
It's still not solved, but weall are using it everywhere and
this is just one of theproblems.
When you imagine that this kindof agent will be uncontrolled
(34:17):
using some framework, it can doharm to company, but then later
it can do harm to big company.
For example, the company thatinsures for example, that
electricity flows into yourhome, and so on.
And we saw politicians askingGPTs to create some, some
(34:37):
outlines of their politics.
And, then we don't seepoliticians asking this.
It's even worse.
They consult decisions, but thenthey decide, okay, it's great.
So let's make it automatic.
Yeah.
Let's make these decisionswithout we being there and so
on.
So it's still like we are in astone age, not in the AI age,
(35:01):
uh, in our thinking about AIs.
So we have to learn about, wehave to go inside and see what
happens.
But Harari is more aboutsomething like what I said, but
in a fantastic way.
It creates the context, theunderstanding of historical use
and understanding of informationnetworks.
(35:23):
He says that information has norelevance.
What's relevant is theconnection.
And even the truth is not soimportant because many, many
societies were kept togetherjust by lie or, but by story
that was not true in a way thatsome of us want to understand
what is true.
So, he really concentrates onhow we can be less naive in in
(35:48):
understanding that people don'tneed to know true.
They just want to align withsome stories and be part of some
information networks.
And these information networkscan be created by AIs or in very
short time, it can happen on ahuge scale.
So we can face much biggerproblems we can imagine.
(36:10):
And still we are not in an AGIera where these AIs are somehow
self-aware or self-conscious, orconscious.
It's another step closer to somedystopia, but it's not here.
And still we can destroyeverything just by not
understanding what we use andwhat it can do to us.
Nigel Rawlins (36:34):
Well what I'm seeing now is the use of Chat
GPT by people who, who don'thave a lot of knowledge say,
kids at school, universitystudents who haven't got a great
deal of depth of knowledge andthey're using it, I'm even
hearing cheating by using it.
So you could go throughuniversity using Chat GPT and
(36:54):
not really know anything.
You've used Chat GPT to getyourself through if there's no
way to check that, which meansyou're gonna have some people
graduating who don't know how todo anything, potentially.
I was a primary and elementaryschool teacher many, many years
ago.
When we went to teacher'scollege, we had three teaching
(37:15):
rounds a year where you'd spentprobably 12 weeks out in the
schools per year and then youhad in classes.
So, you know, it was prettyobvious at the end of three
years whether we were any goodat teaching.
And then you took a few moreyears to get experienced.
In Australia they've changednursing to where you go to
university to become a nurse.
Whereas in the past you learntin the hospital.
(37:37):
So the nature of nursing inAustralia has changed quite
significantly.
So what we're talking aboutthere is relying on Chat GPT to
do the thinking for us and notdoing the hard work of actually
having to learn and think andwrite for ourselves.
We are losing something.
Now obviously the group I workwith are my age and older, and
(38:00):
you're in your fifties, soyou've had a, a lot of learning
through your life and you'veread lots of books and you think
about things.
I guess if you are using AI,you've got a sense of whether
it's, um, giving you usefulknowledge that you can use.
But I'm also hearing because I,I work in marketing and SEO and
(38:23):
all that sort of stuff, peoplejust churning out articles using
ChatGPT, now they might begetting really good at the way
they prompt to get somereasonable articles out there.
But if you are flooding themarket with masses of this
information, you're losing it.
Plus most of us are gonna giveup reading it anyway.
And that comes back to it.
(38:43):
If you've got a book, a realbook in your hand, you know
you've got something that youcan't be swamped with.
That's the thing I worriedabout, is we are giving up
thinking and thinking forourselves.
Tomáš Baránek (38:54):
That's great question and huge question I
introduce myself as a geek andtechnology enthusiast.
So I'm really not against newtechnology or against AI in
general.
I actually study machinelearning on university again,
maybe we'll talk about later,but, and by the way, why I
(39:15):
studied this, because I want tolook inside the black box and I
already can see something.
I'm really bad student and Ihaven't made the last exam
because I would need two days,not just 50 minutes for it.
Yeah.
But I would do it, but slowly.
Nigel Rawlins (39:36):
We should, we should explain that you've
actually gone back to universityat 53.
Tomáš Baránek (39:41):
Yeah.
Nigel Rawlins (39:41):
Tell us about that.
Tomáš Baránek (39:42):
I suggest this to everyone.
It's like, yeah, going back intime, it's my alma mater.
So, I can compare how it wasthen and how it looks now there,
and my students, which are,yeah, 18 to 22.
(40:05):
How they changed.
And that's fun because we havesome project to work on.
I'm going just for a lecture persemester.
I don't have more time to, to gothere.
And even this is very hard.
I don't have to go there.
You just pay for being there asa regular student.
If they have spots for you thenyou can go there.
(40:28):
If not, you can't go there.
But there is still somecapacity.
So I'm the only, uh, 50 plusthere.
But, I don't have to finishexams.
I'm just going there forunderstanding the terminology,
the math behind the algorithms,but not into each detail,
because I know where to find itif I need it.
(40:51):
Yeah.
And because I code, I, I'm a, ahobby programmer.
I can even do some simplemachine learning, algorithms and
try it on our publishing data,by the way.
It's interesting and impressive,but still it's like you see,
wow, that's so stupid.
The feeling that I had when theGPT started, I was impressed
(41:14):
too.
I was like, it's magic, and theyreally found something.
And they deliberately spreadinformation about not
understanding what happensinside.
And, we are afraid it can haveconsciousness.
And so they should be morecareful, but not with the
consciousness, more with leakingdata and so on, which is by the
(41:38):
way, not solvable this moment.
So, back to the question.
I use Chat GPTs, I pay forClaude and Chat GPT and some
specialized tools to help mecode.
But it always depends what levelcontent you want to generate
comparing to what's the outputneeds?
(41:59):
If I don't use it for writing,for example, my articles on my
blog, I love having bad, badwording in my articles.
I like writing them.
I like creating, yeah, terriblestuff.
Because I can look at it andthen I read it and I can improve
(42:21):
it, but I don't want anyone tellme how to write it.
But sometimes I use it forchecking.
So I just ask, okay, have Iforgot something important here?
And yes, this is the task thesegenerators can do pretty well,
because it's machine ofgenerating following response
(42:42):
from the context you put into.
So it can really find, forexample, you missed the URL for
what you promised on thebeginning of the article.
So I use it for such a technicalthing, but not for writing,
because my writing has to be my,even with the flaws it has.
So if you are bad writer, butstill you have something you
(43:04):
want to say, it can help youcreate the content to be
readable for general reader.
And if you just want to saysomething, for example you are
expert in some area and you wantto share it, you can try or you
can use it sometimes, or everytime, for for generating the
content that you curate, thatthe ideas are yours.
(43:28):
But still, the wording, in theway it can be read can be
improved by these machines.
So, It's probably okay, but Ithink I'm better than the
machine in writing, including myflaws, so it can't surprise me.
Then there are some other areasthat I use it.
I talked about coding.
(43:49):
When I use it too much, forexample, you just press the tap
key and it finishes the wholefunction that you started to
write.
I don't enjoy coding then.
I want to think about, I don'tknow why, but, I like it because
probably it's my hobbies.
I don't want to just finish thework.
Sometimes I use it because Iwrite in Closure script, but I
(44:13):
don't know too much JavaScript,but sometimes I need to use it.
So, because I don't want tolearn JavaScript, I just ask,
okay, write it for me.
And then I check it if it isokay, if it doesn't use any
harmful techniques or so,because by the way, it can be a
problem, for example, Deep Seekcan inject some code into your
(44:36):
code.
And if you don't understand whatthe code is, it can work until
it doesn't.
Until someone decides your codestop working and so on.
There are some threats that thiscan be misused this way.
So, I try always to understandwhat's inside the black box in
many areas.
So, life is hard for mesometimes, but yes, when you use
(45:00):
it often it feels like, I don'tknow, I just start feeling dumb.
Maybe my senses of dumbness aresomehow anxiety based.
I don't know, maybe I just amafraid because I'm anxious.
I'm just afraid of being dumbhere.
So I, I see the triggers toosoon.
Maybe it's normal that sometimesyou ask people and they answer
(45:23):
and you are not dumb.
You just don't know.
But this is another problem withAI.
You don't have to think it hassome information for you.
The problem is that you have tocheck it always.
And the problem ofhallucinations is not solved.
And it seems like it doesn'tchange at all from the 3.5.
(45:44):
Even they promised, they needmoney to invest so they say,
okay, it's much better, andthere is several steps thinking
and so on.
And that's funny because it, itis still not in, in the version
of 4.5, it's still not able togive you answer that's on
Wikipedia.
(46:05):
It still hallucinates somethingthat's not true.
Even if you ask something thatit was trained on.
But the algorithm can't have thesame data.
It's not Google search.
It has to create new connectionsand that's great.
It can be creative, but, this isa drawback too.
It can't keep the data in theinput form, in the training data
(46:31):
form.
It's not the same.
So you can't consider thissomething that's reliable.
When you want to ask aboutfacts, sometimes it is, maybe
mostly it is, but sometimes itis not.
And the less you understand thetopic you are asking about, the
(46:51):
area you are asking about, thebigger chance you will be fooled
that you will get wrong answerand without noticing, that's the
problem.
And the more you are expert insome area, the more you will see
how full of flaws are theanswers.
(47:12):
And so you, you can check it foryourself.
Yeah.
Just ask about some things thatyou understand well and you can
see how it is close to the trueor the consensus.
And then imagine this is thesame in other areas that you
don't understand and that youask the most.
(47:32):
So really this is something tobe careful about.
Nigel Rawlins (47:36):
Yeah, I totally agree with that.
'cause what you're saying is ifyou haven't got that depth of
knowledge, you have no ideawhether it's realistic or not.
And, and especially if you arean expert in area and you go
outside your expert area, youcan easily be fooled as well.
And this is the biggest danger.
I mean, the scariest thing Ithink you're talking about too
(47:58):
is because it is so fast, it canbe used to spread misinformation
everywhere straight away becauseit can feed into the social
media, it can send stuff tojournalists to dominate their
thinking in a certain way.
I think we're seeing quite a lotof ideology across the world,
(48:20):
especially if you spend too muchtime on, X or Twitter as it used
to be known.
And you can imagine, AI feedinginto that all the time as bots,
which are there now.
So it could dominate your feed,it can manipulate the algorithms
there and show you certainthings.
Yeah, look, I agree.
That's why I think reading isreally important.
(48:43):
Taking your own notes, maybeusing your own notes to feed
your writing.
I like to work with AI.
I use a lot, and I've gotta behonest, I, I use Grok as well,
and I'm finding it quite smart.
I'm finding it at a higher level
Tomáš Baránek (48:59):
Yeah.
Nigel Rawlins (49:00):
than chatGPT even, but I haven't been using
Claude for quite a while either.
But yeah, I'm very mindful thatyou can get overwhelmed with
this, but I do aim to work withan older audience my age and
probably your age and on too.
They do have what we callcrystallized intelligence.
They've got a lifetime ofworking in a particular area.
(49:21):
I'm talking about professionalsin some sort of area.
They have a good sense ofknowledge, but what I think Chat
GPT or some of the AI can do ishelp them do a bit more,
especially if they do need tospread the word about what
they're doing.
So there is some benefits, Ithink, but you know, my concern
is for is for the younger ones.
Tomáš Baránek (49:43):
Yeah, I think it's like when we had our first
calculator.
I remember, I just had some veryold calculator with these red
wired numbers in eighties orsomething.
My father brought it fromsomewhere and the battery, nine
volts, lasted, I don't know, onehour of use, it was terrible.
(50:05):
It was Texas instrument, it wasbeautiful, and I remember having
it in my hands as a, I don'tknow, eighth grade, seventh
grade.
I thought, okay, so now I wineverything.
I can do my homework faster andso on.
I don't want to be like theperson that says don't use
(50:26):
something because you will bestupid.
My parents told me, okay, don'tlook at TV.
And I hope I'm not so stupid asmaybe I could be better, but
still not sure if it was becauseof TV that I'm sometimes stupid.
So, it's just tool and weunderestimate kids, in many
(50:46):
ways.
For example, smartphone use,there is very interesting study
from people from MaastrichtUniversity, that goes against
results of some studies that sayeverything got worse when kids
started started to usesmartphones.
Yeah, their mental health issuesstarted with this and so on.
(51:11):
This study I'm talking about,they try to do it really
properly and to forget aboutbiases that you have because as
a parent you want someexplanation and you don't want
to feel like you made thismistake with your kids.
So, it's easy to just show theculprit is smartphone here and
(51:32):
it's not you, and just to switchit off or something.
It doesn't solve mental issues,health issue problems in young
generation.
There is more to it.
There is more about theircontrol of their lives that they
lost probably in last decades,because we are completely
controlling their free time andeverything.
(51:53):
So all these gadgets and, uh,smartphones are just another way
how they spend their time mostlywith their friends.
And the study shown that thereis no difference between kids
that used the smartphones andthey which did not.
(52:14):
And by the way, there was veryinteresting moment, that kids
can stop using it by themselves,especially when they feel they
want to connect in real life.
Yeah.
And they do it.
They actually do it.
So it's not like they are justalways watching these
smartphones.
(52:35):
They are connecting even.
It is just something we don't,like, we want them to run or to
do other things, but they do it,maybe not so often.
So I would like to say, it's notabout it's all crap and it will
make world worse.
If you feel you are over usingit and you feel like you are
(52:59):
cheating your mind, cheatingyour efforts, you can just stop
doing it and do it the old way,but then you have to do some
work which the system created tobe very tedious.
And it's not somethinghuman-like, because even before
AI there were not human-likebureaucracy things, which,
(53:24):
Harari talks about too.
Bureaucrats not always badbecause it can connect people
with the government.
But, when it grows too much andloses its spirit, it doesn't
work.
And it's the same, it's alwaysabout the level of implementing
these tools and being, truthfulto yourself in, in this.
(53:45):
So I really try not to use ChatGPT for things that I can think
myself.
For example, I try always tomake it a bit harder for me,
sometimes I know I need itquickly.
It's not about publishingsomething that I want to be
authentic.
So yes, I ask for, for some kindof help.
(54:09):
And there is, for example, onevery funny use, uh, one of my
colleagues has some businesspartner of us which is really
terrible in communication.
She's like really toxic.
Yeah.
But we have to cooperate withthe different company and we
(54:29):
rely on the service they do.
So my colleague found a way notto be triggered by her constant
rude words.
She just asks GPT to rewrite herreaction to be more acceptable.
And uh then she found that eventhe person I'm talking about,
(54:51):
she started probably to use ChatGPT too to answer more politely
because maybe someone told heror she's just lazy to think
about her rudeness.
So she showed me the exchangewas like between two very polite
people that tell each other verynot polite things and it was
(55:14):
much less stressful than it wasbefore.
Yeah.
So it can help.
Yeah.
But you have to contain it insome area and say, okay, here,
it's okay.
But I warn you, be careful not,for example, using this with
your wife.
So that's it.
Nigel Rawlins (55:35):
Yes.
Be real, I think.
Fantastic.
We're probably coming to the endhere.
I was just gonna say with, withyour calculator.
We used to use slide rules whenI was in high school doing
mathematics and things likethat.
So, you know, it's just thedifferent generations and the
technology.
I was analog.
I'm digital now, but we've gotpeople my age who are still very
(55:56):
analog and a frightened of thissort of stuff.
But I think our conversationtoday is explaining, yes, you've
got a brain, it's important tostill use it, you know, don't
fall for all the technology.
You've still gotta thinkcritically about these things.
Now, Thomas, how do people findout more about you?
Tomáš Baránek (56:15):
Oh, they can find me on Blue Sky now.
I migrated from X Platform,Twitter, or via my website, or
my blog
Nigel Rawlins (56:27):
I'll put them in the show notes.
Tomáš Baránek (56:29):
Yeah, because I don't know how to spell
Nigel Rawlins (56:33):
them.
You're on LinkedIn as well?
That's right.
'cause I, I see you, you all thetime on LinkedIn.
I keep an eye out for you, andthe, the beaut thing about all
of this, even though you writein the Czech language you're
still able to press translateand it will tell us what you're
writing about.
And that's, that's how I cameacross your book, The wager.
I thought, oh, what's that book?
And that was just a fascinatingstory.
(56:54):
So Thomas, thank you for talkingabout publishing.
I'm hoping people can hear intowhat you are saying.
There's a whole lot of thingswe're talking about business in
there and marketing and thinkingcritically as well.
So thank you Thomas.
Tomáš Baránek (57:08):
Thank you, Nigel.
It was great.
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