August 19, 2024 • 37 mins
We began the program by bringing you four news segments with different guests on the stories we think you need to know about!
Kimberly Palmer, Senior Finance Writer for NerdWallet says as prices seem to be skyrocketing, Americans still continue to party!
Benny Traub, Solutions Architect and Co-Founder of Inspira AI Corp asks would having an AI boss be better than your current human one?
Culinary Historian Sarah Lohman - Author of: “Endangered Eating: America's Vanishing Foods” points out that American food traditions are in danger of being lost. How do we save them?
Christine Rosen, Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute – wrote the book: "The Extinction of Experience: Being Human in a Disembodied World" (coming out in September)
Ask Alexa to play WBZ NewsRadio on #iHeartRadio!
Kimberly Palmer, Senior Finance Writer for NerdWallet says as prices seem to be skyrocketing, Americans still continue to party!
Benny Traub, Solutions Architect and Co-Founder of Inspira AI Corp asks would having an AI boss be better than your current human one?
Culinary Historian Sarah Lohman - Author of: “Endangered Eating: America's Vanishing Foods” points out that American food traditions are in danger of being lost. How do we save them?
Christine Rosen, Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute – wrote the book: "The Extinction of Experience: Being Human in a Disembodied World" (coming out in September)
Ask Alexa to play WBZ NewsRadio on #iHeartRadio!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
It's Night Side with Dan on WBZ Boston Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Thanks very much to Cole. Happy Monday to you and
to all the night side listeners out there. Boy, the
weekend goes by quickly, does it. I'm back behind the
WBZ Iconic microphone here in the eighth to midnight hour.
Delighted to be here, happy that you are there. Rob
Brooks is back in the control room. So all is
right with our world. And we're going to have four
(00:29):
guests this hour. We're gonna learn a lot this hour.
We're gonna talk about some very interesting subjects. Maybe we're
going to have to really drill down on some of
these topics because they're they're they're not necessarily topics we
normally talk about, but I think it as a quartet.
It's an interesting group of topics. So just bear with me,
stay with us. Coming up tonight at nine o'clock, we
(00:51):
will talk about ballot question number two here in Massachusetts,
which is calling for the elimination of the mcast required
for graduation diplomas and for Massachusetts high schools. And then,
of course, at ten o'clock tonight, the Democrats are gathering
in Chicago. Just going to be a wonderful week for
(01:14):
the Democrats. Everyone's going to pat everyone on the back,
and I'm going to share with you Marine Doubts column
from over the weekend suggesting that the Democrats may have
exercised a coup. But we'll get to all of that.
I promise we'll have a we'll have a fun night
going all the way to a minute. I'm going to
start it off tonight with the first of four guests,
Kimberly Palmer. Kimberly, welcome to Nightside.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
How are you, hi, Dan, Thank you so much for
having me. I'm great.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Well, you're a senior finance writer for nerd Wallet. So
first of all, let's explain to everybody what nerd wallet is.
I think most of us know, but give us a
quick little definition of what nerd wallet is.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
Yeah, nerd wallet is a website and an app, and
we are trying to help you make good financial decisions.
So whether you're looking for or a credit card or
a bank account, we can help you find the right one.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
All right, Well, we'll be able to give the nerd
Wallet way in which people can contact nerd Wallet at
the end of our conversation. But we're going to talk
tonight about a subject or an issue that I had
never heard of, And it's called funflation. If you inflation,
not inflation, not deflation, but funflation. So describe for us
(02:25):
what funflation is and how we have come to coin
that term.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
Yeah, Well, funflation basically refers to the fact that we
are willing to pay more money for experiences things that
bring us joy, whether it's a concert ticket, a restaurant
that's fancy, maybe a vacation that we've long dreamed about.
So even though prices are high, none of this is cheap.
(02:51):
We are willing to spend that money because we want
to have that experience. It's worth it to us. And
we're seeing that people are really willing to to spend
money on these expensive things just to get that experience.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Well, a government spends a lot of money, thirty four
trillion dollars. We're in debt at this point, so I
guess most people are saying, Hey, if the government can
do it, I can do it. From a personal finance
point of view, it seems to me that's a little dangerous.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
It can definitely be a little dangerous. You really want
to think about your overall budget. We really like the
rule of thumb the fifty to thirty twenty budgeting approach,
which basically means fifty percent of your cake compey is
going towards needs, thirty percent towards once, and twenty percent
towards any debt payments that you have in savings. And
so these kinds of joyful experiences like a concert ticket
(03:43):
or a vacation come into that thirty percent bucket for once,
and so you just want to make sure that when
you're looking at a rule of thumb for how you're
spending money, you're not going to be buying a concert
ticket that will then be turning into credit card debt
for the next few years of your life. So making
decisions based on what works for your budget is a
really good idea.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
Yeah, fifty thirty twenty, that's one hundred percent. There's no
room in there for taxes. Where do you put taxes?
Speaker 3 (04:11):
Great question, So we're actually talking about take home pay
pay the taxes, yes, and then you can allocate it.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Yeah, that's what I kind of thought. So I just
wanted to clarify that. So in this was a report that,
as I understand you folks, did not do. But another
website called bankrate dot Com actually found that, and I'm
confused by this. It says twenty four percent of Disney
goers and forty five percent of Disney going parents take
(04:41):
on debt for a trip to see Goofy. Twenty four
percent of Disney goers. I assume that's the overall figure,
which might include a lot of either single folks or couples,
but it really goes up when you got to bring
the kids along, So it's forty five percent of Disney
going parents. That's frightening in my opinion.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
Really, it really is scary. These costs add up so quickly.
I mean, I know as a parent myself of three kids,
once you start adding kids to the equation all those
ticket prices, it just has a multiplier effect. So you
can see how this adds up very quickly for family.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
There's a whole guilt thing going on in terms of Disney,
because obviously your kids want to go to Disney, they
want to see Nicky and Minnie and Donald Doc and
all of that, but they have no clue how expensive
those day passes have become. I mean, I can remember
when my kids were young the day passes were expensive,
but they're really expensive now.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
They certainly are. I mean it is quite shocking. I
know my family considered going and then we check those
ticket prices and we thought, oh, we could do a
lot of other things. It's had amount of money. So
it is really hard for families to manage this. And
of course you can do all sorts of tricks, like
take advantage of your hard rewards, for example, to help
(06:01):
subsidize the trip and make it cost less and shop
around for discounts that the end of the day, it's
still expensive, and so you have to decide if that
experience is really worth it to you. For some people
the answer will be yes, it is worth it, and
you'll make sacrifices in other areas to make it possible.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Well, there are some people look at Disney like the
Grateful Dead. People look the grateful Dead. I mean they've
got to go to Disney every year. They got to
see what's new, just like we got to go to
the Every Grateful Dead concert. The problem is, though, is
this what we used to be a nation which tended
to be pretty fruel. You didn't spend beyond your knees.
You you tried to enjoy yourself, but you knew that
(06:40):
your budget was somewhat limited. Have we just basically thrown
a caution to the winter. There a good percentage of
us who was saying, what the hell, it doesn't matter anyway,
Let's just spend and spend and spend, and we'll run
out with the clear we'll run out of money with
the clear bankruptcy. Who knows? I mean, have we basically
lost our minds?
Speaker 3 (07:01):
I think what's really interesting to look at about how
we've changed is that the pandemic, the experience of the pandemic,
really fundamentally changed a lot of people's decisions about how
they spend money because we realized, you know, who knows
if we'll be able to have this opportunity to have
the experience again, We've seen what can happen when everything
(07:22):
shuts down, and it's created this sense of urgency for people.
We don't want to delay the experiences we might have
been willing to do to delay earlier, and so people
are willing to spend enormous amounts of money to make
sure they have that experience. And I think for a
lot of in a lot of cases, you can track
it back to the pandemic and how that changed the
(07:43):
way we spend.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
The other thing is maybe a lot of people figuring
with that we might have a nuclear war in the
next six months. I mean, what what's the diff I
don't think this is a scary trend, I think from
from a responsibility point of view. But I'm a down yea, so.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
It is definitely scary. But I think the big picture
here is that we need to step back and think, Okay,
is this experience and the cost of it still worth
it to us once we consider how much it will
cost ultimately, especially if we're financing it with a credit card,
for example, you have to consider all of that interest
adds up and at some point we'll have to pay
it back. So while we want to embrace the moment
(08:24):
and have all of this fun, we also want to
think about the long term impact.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
All right, Well, Kimberly, that was great. You gave us
a really balanced point of view on this one. I'm
a little imbalanced on this one. I'm in the idea
if I kind of afford it, I'm not going it's
as simple. It's as simple as that. Tell us folks,
how can folks get in touch with you, or can
get in contact with nerdwallet.
Speaker 3 (08:46):
Thank you so much. You can find me in nerd
wallet at nerdwallet dot com and also on Twitter at
nerdwallet and at Kimberly Palmer.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
Kimberly, your great guest. I really appreciate it tonight. You're
clear and to the point, and I love your approach.
Speaker 4 (09:01):
Thank you so much, Kimberly, Thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (09:04):
It was talking with you.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
All Right, we come back. We're going to talk about
would you like to have a human boss or an
artificial intelligent boss. Now, some of you might think that
your boss only has artificial intelligence. That's not what we're
talking about. We're talking about an AI manager as opposed
to a human being. I like human beings, but will
get it all explained Benny Traup. He's a solutions architect
(09:28):
and co founder of Inspire AI Corp. Back on night
Side right after this.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
Now back to Dan Ray live from the Window World
night Side Studios on WBZ News Radio.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
So here's a question. I'm sure we're all asking one another.
Ken an AI manager motivate employees to change their behavior
at work, reinforce positive habits, improve their reliability, and how
would you feel working for an AI boss? Of course,
the question is what is an AI boss to answer
that question is Benny Traub. He's a solution's architect co
(10:04):
founder of Inspire AI Corp. You know, I kind of
like human beings as my boss. Even when I disagree
with him, at least I can have a conversation. Welcome, Benny.
How are you? I great to be with you, Dan,
So tell me explain, you know, in terms that everybody
will understand. When you talk about an AI boss, what
(10:27):
are we talking about realistically?
Speaker 4 (10:29):
Well, I think that's the wrong term. I think a
coach might be a better label, because a conversation.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Boss coach is softer than the boss. But okay, so
I'll go with a coach. I'm gonna I'm gonna start
calling my boss coach. Go ahead.
Speaker 4 (10:46):
Well, you think of a boss as somebody who has
authority to fire you, hire you, give you a raise,
and so on.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
Most bosses do have on betty, go ahead.
Speaker 4 (10:57):
Right, right? And and the A equivalent that we would
we referred to as the AI manager doesn't have that
authority at least not yet. Maybe that's coming, and maybe
that's something we ought to be concerned about. But currently
today they're actually there to help the employees, specifically in
areas that employees might you know, individually benefit from. Consider
(11:22):
that the modern age of AI is likely going to
displace a lot of people, and who's going to retain
their jobs during this transition over the next you know,
five or ten years or however long this transition lasts.
The people that retain their jobs are going to be
those that have adapted really well, that have great attitudes,
(11:44):
people that want to be there, people that perform really well, right,
and the people that don't want to be there probably
won't won't be there. I mean, if there's an AI counterpartner, yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
Betty, that doesn't change whether or not you're working for
a human boss or an AI boss. Correct, I mean
a bad attitude loss, I assume or your AI coach
is going to figure that out at some point in time.
Speaker 4 (12:06):
And say that's it. That's it. And see, that's one
of the benefits of an AI you know, manager, if
you want to call them that is that they can
see basically everything that's going on all of the time,
whereas a human manager has limited range of focus. Right,
they can only see one person at any given time.
They can stand over any you know, one person at
(12:26):
any one time, but nobody let's face it, nobody wants
to be micromanaged. And so what these AI managers can
do is they can observe all the behavior, and they're
getting so good at having conversations coaching conversations that they
can intervene in real time if there's a real time
incident type situation where an employee can improve their performance.
(12:47):
And even more than that, they can intervene when a
habit is emerging that a human manager might not even spot.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
Okay, so just so we understand that. And again, what
happens is whenever I talk to folks like you who
are more techle technically astute than I am. Obviously, if
you work hypothetically, you know in a I don't know,
you know, a factory or or or a doctor's office. Uh,
and there's a boss, the capital, whatever you want to
(13:15):
call them. Uh, you know, they have the power, they
have the authority, and they get to know their employees,
get to know their work habits, who stays late, who doesn't,
who who's given one hundred percent, who's taken long coffee
breaks all of that stuff, who's producing the reports that
are clear and legible, et cetera. So that's what that's
what you know a human manager does. So this isn't
(13:38):
when you say, AI manager, this is some sort of
an algorithm. Correct, This is not a person. This is
not somebody who's looking over a field of you know,
twenty performers in an office. This is something that is programmed.
I assume to be a quote unquote AI coach. Right
(13:58):
or wrong?
Speaker 4 (14:01):
Well, I think you're you're right on the money there.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
See, I want to make sure I understand the too.
Go ahead, Benny.
Speaker 4 (14:07):
Yeah, I mean there's more to it than that. But
under the hood, you're right. It's an algorithm, and it'll
probably always be an algorithm. And you know, there's a
lot of debate over whether AI will obtain consciousness and
all that. But you know, for the sake of our
conversation today, just imagine you show up for work late
one day, okay, and you're brand new on the job.
Say it's your second day on the job. You know,
(14:28):
a human manager would take you aside and say, hey, listen,
it's your second day from the job. I got to
tell you, it's really important for all of our people
to show up on time. Okay, So consider that little Obo,
the human manager observed the person this newbie performing poorly,
the human manager took him aside, treated him fairly, just
had a normal conversation with them, empathetic. You know, hopefully
(14:50):
you didn't, you know, there was nothing wrong, you know,
did something happen on the way here? Is that why
you're late? But he would make the point, Yeah, right,
this is our culture and the AI manager you can
do that exact same thing. You can observe that behavior
in real time. They can take the employee aside, have
a private conversation with them, and just explain the rules
of the road, you know, for the new employee and
then but you wouldn't ever want to do that for
(15:12):
a veteran employee, right, because you don't want to micro
manage people. You don't want to take away their autonomy
and that type of thing. So however, you know, so
you know, somebody like you or me, say you've been
on the job for five or ten years, you would
never micro manage them. And you know, tell them that
it's the proper thing to do is to show up
on time. Obviously, that's the proper thing. That's the proper
thing to do. And they know very well so that.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
That individual just so I understand that that individual would
at some point, maybe later that morning, the morning that
they showed up late, get an email or a mess
or a text message from the artificial intelligent coach. Hey,
notice you can go late today.
Speaker 4 (15:50):
You know, well, there'd be a conversation. It wouldn't be.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
An email, it would be a conversation. What do you
mean a conversation, Well, yes, I have a conversation. I
think of you and me talking.
Speaker 4 (16:00):
Yeah, well it's just like that.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
I don't mean it's like that.
Speaker 4 (16:03):
Well have you I'm not sure if you've had the
experience of having deep conversations with any of the other
chat busts that are out there.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
Like chat conversation with my wife Betty.
Speaker 4 (16:13):
Come on, well we'll get ready, because this is people
are actually having really really deep conversations with these AI
chat bots. And our chat bot is actually will speak
to you in voice. You can talk to him and
voice on your headset that he will.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
Talk back, and they'll say, hey, Benny, you notice second
day and a job. You're a little late today. What's
up with that?
Speaker 4 (16:36):
And then well more with more empathy.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
Well, okay, five everything, Okay, we noticed that you're a
few late this morning.
Speaker 4 (16:45):
You treat people as human beings, right, yeah, you.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
Guys programming just so I understand that, Benya, someone programs it,
you know, and they say, well, you know, first day,
second day, third day, fifth day. Maybe if it's the
third time in the first two weeks, it becomes a
little less empathetic. What you're saying is you can you
can program the AI so that they can they can
be a little more stern, a little more serious, depending
(17:12):
upon well.
Speaker 4 (17:13):
Really, it's quite it's quite common sense based. Like the
very first time there's a confrontation on a particular topic,
it's quite gentle. It's it's more like, you know, is
everything okay with you? You know, I just want to
let you know I saw that we do care about this,
and that's the converse conversation. The second conversation might take
a slightly different tone, like you know, we see this,
(17:35):
we care about it, and you know, we won't tolerate it.
And the third conversation goes another step further.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
You see it.
Speaker 4 (17:42):
No, no, no, no, you see it, we care about it,
we won't tolerate it, and you know, again, if we
can't make changes here, there could be long term contact.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
You having fun with you a little bit here for
for a second. Trust me, I'm having fun and I
want the audience to play along with us. So here's
my question. What percentage of companies? And I don't know
if you can put a figure on this. At this
point have gotten rid of the human bosses, and now I'm.
Speaker 4 (18:12):
Not one of them.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
Not one of them.
Speaker 4 (18:13):
Okay, you know, at most, at most they coexist, okay,
at most, and the current AI managers play a very
small role. In fact, that last sequence I was outlining
to you, where there's this escalating conversations. Every time there's
a repeating incident, it comes to point at some point
where the AI doesn't even confront the user anymore of
(18:35):
the employee. He just sends an email to the boss,
the human boss, and says, hey, I've had three conversations.
Here's the transcripts of the conversations. Here's the dates I
had the conversations. I think it's it's probably best you
take it from here.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
So what percentage of companies? Again, just I don't expect
to give me a precise figure, but what percentage of
companies do you think already using this algorithm in conjunction
with their human bosses?
Speaker 4 (18:58):
Well, I's far less than Okay.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
When when do you think it will hit, you know,
a more recognizable number. That's my last question we talk.
Speaker 4 (19:09):
Yeah, I don't think it'll hit recognizable numbers until companies
are literally forced to adopt the technology. And they won't
be forced to adopt the technology until their competitors start
being able to slash their costs because their productivity is
just so much better. And I think there's going to
come a tipping point here where companies are going to
be forced to adopt AI in every single form AI
(19:32):
Manager and task automation and every other which way you
might imagine robotics. At some point, we're all going to
have to do it.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
Let me tell you something. I get so tired about
dealing with companies where I can't speak with a human being,
and whether or not it's a health insurance company. I
got to tell you, I'm so happy I'm on the
wrong side of fifty Benny Trout, Thank you very much.
How can folks get in touch with you if they
want more information? What's your go to?
Speaker 4 (19:58):
Our website?
Speaker 2 (19:59):
Inspira AI inspired is spelled I N S P I
R A dot AI. Betty, Thank you very much. I
enjoyed the conversation. I hope you didn't feel it was
too bad. Much back and forth, and I want to
always have fun. It's thanks Betty talking to you. When
we get back here at Nightside, we're gonna talk about
a culinary historian, uh, author of Endangered Eating America's Vanishing Foods.
(20:25):
This will be interesting because I don't want any food
to vanish, but I guess some are disappearing before our
own eyes. We're gonna talk here on Nightside with Sarah
Loman on the other side of the news break at
the bottom and the hour. My name is Dan Ray.
This is w b Z in Boston ten thirty and
the Am Dollar. If you can't get us on the radio,
you can always check us out. Just go to WBC
(20:48):
News Radio on the iHeartRadio app. We'll be back right after.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
This Night Side with Dan Ray. I'm Boston's news Radio.
Speaker 2 (20:59):
Well, they said we're talking to sort of different guests tonight,
and we're now going to talk with a culinary historian.
I didn't even know there were culinary historians in existence,
but we have Sarah Loman with that. She's the author
of a book called Endangered Eating America's vanishing foods. Sarah Loman,
Welcome to Night Side.
Speaker 5 (21:19):
Hi Dan, thank you.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
We've all heard about endangered species, endangered animals. I didn't
realize there were in some endangered foods, and one of them,
as I understand that God forbid, are apples.
Speaker 5 (21:34):
Yeah, yes, I mean that's saying thought is what an
inspirement to write this book? Should we talk about saving
pandas but not pasta? But it's true both they foods
and even plants like apples are going extinct. It's believe
we've lost at least seventy five percent of apple varieties.
(21:56):
And currently there are actually teams that people out there
who will hike through the woods, look at old land
maps and try to rediscover long lost orchards to be
able to save some of these varieties that have disappeared
from the market.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
So you're telling me that there are apple orchards. The
picture you've paint is there are apple orchards in the
woods which have gone oh you years.
Speaker 5 (22:18):
Yes, you will never especially in the spring when the
trees are blooming. You'll never look at an apple tree
the same way. Again, it certainly changed for me. I
mean sometimes an apple tree pops up just because someone
threw an apple core out their window and they're grow kippen.
That's the name for an apple tree that grows from
a seed. But sometimes you know, you're looking through the
(22:39):
woods and you say, huh, they're actually about five trees here,
but the whole forest has grown up around it. That's
actually exactly how some historical apples have been rediscovered. One
recently was found in Upstake, New York. It's called the Povishome,
and it happened essentially because someone a cider maker who
is looking for this apple, created a whtu poster. This
(23:01):
is actually a pretty common technique for hunting down lost
apple varieties. You use a description and a picture from
an early nineteenth century source. They published an edible New
Jersey magazine. Someone picked up the magazine and saw it
and realized that they had that apple growing on their property.
When they did a little digging, they realized that the
people who used to own the property, originally own the
property were from Newark, where this apple was from. And
(23:24):
they were able to sort of compare DNA and the
appearance and the appearance of the tree, and also the
fact that there were four or five of these trees
growing in a specific pattern out in the woods. So
you can use all of this evidence to rEFInd these
lost apples.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
Just assure me, please, Sarah, that Macintosh apples my favorite apple,
the greatest apple is not Conway.
Speaker 5 (23:50):
Oh it's doing just fine right now. And you know,
even gold red Delicious is an apple from the nineteenth century.
It's been attributed to one of Johnny appleseeds apple actually,
but there are literally thousands. I mean, when we think
about how many apples we see in the grocery store,
even in a good orchard where you're probably getting those macintoshes,
you know, maybe we see half a dozen varieties, maybe
(24:12):
two dozen at the most.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
Oh yeah, you got gala apples and the crisp apples
and green and what are they the green ones are called?
What are they called? My daughter loves those.
Speaker 5 (24:23):
Yellow delicious different speaking apples.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
What is the one that's it's just green, it's just
a green, It's it's always green. I don't know whatever,
but I'm in. I mean, I am a died in
the wool Macintosh guys. A matter of fact, every time
this time of view and I walk in a grocery store,
no matter when any from August fifteenth on I'm looking
around the vegetable and the fruit area. Where are there
(24:50):
are there? Are there any macintosh? And then when I
finally see yeah, absolutely, So what else? What else is
going away or has gone away? What did people used
to eat that no longer exists?
Speaker 5 (25:04):
Well, hopefully the one thing dealing in the book. We're
not talking about things that have totally disappeared, although that
can happen with things like apples. Are also right about
date palms too. There are some date varieties that the
date industry was brought to the Potella Valley in California
about a century ago, and date trees only have a
pretty small amount of time where you can basically clone them,
(25:27):
where you can take a cutting from them and grow
new trees. So some of those varieties have been lost.
But a lot of the food elements that I talk
about in the book are part of indigenous cultures. And
part of the way that America has tried to colonize
nagenous cultures is by grooving them from land, which then
ulster removes them from native food sources, and even by
(25:49):
replacing some of those foods by giving government supplies too.
So I also focused on places like wild rice, which
comes from the Great Lakes region. I talked about file
powder from the Gulf Coast of Mexico, which is a
part of a lot of different cultural groups down there too.
I talked about the Navajo truro sheep, which is I mean,
(26:11):
it's the sheep variety of the Navajo people. The meat
taste like home and if you're familiar with Navajo weavings,
those weavings come from the rule of these animals.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
I heard that that Navajo churro, it's beef, but it
tastes like chicken. That's what everybody says to me. Oh,
try this food. This tastes like chicken.
Speaker 5 (26:31):
Tastes like chicken.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
Yeah, wait is that And now you said that they
used to harvest wild rice, yeah, the Upper Midwest.
Speaker 5 (26:39):
I'm still new.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
It's just I don't think that is being in the
Upper Midwest. They think of rice as being, you know,
somewhere in Asia or maybe Central America. Wow, I never.
Speaker 5 (26:49):
Realized that, Well, rice is from Asia, but wild rice
is actually a distinct grain from rice. It's more it's
closest relative as corn. So knowing that, I mean, makes
more sense that it's an indigenous grain to North America,
and there's several different varieties. You can actually find it
all over basically east of the Mississippi. But the northern
(27:09):
wild rice, which is the variety that's traditionally harvested that
you find throughout the Great Lakes region, Upper Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota,
and even into the Dakotas a little bit, and it's
the big people that harvest it.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
I got one question for your book. Yes, this long
horned cattle are now categorized as critical. That's hook em
horns right University exactly, hookham horns. They're going to be extinct.
Speaker 5 (27:36):
It's an iconic animal, but it doesn't really have a
place in the way our food system is today. It
is considered one of our oldest livestock breeds. But those wide, wide,
wide horns, they don't get into railway cars. So at
the turn of the nineteenth century, when we stopped slaughtering
animals locally and they were instead rounded up and put
(27:57):
on trains and taken into Chicago, the longhorn didn't into
that system. So they're really really hearty, durable, beautiful animals,
but we don't eat them anymore. So that is what
puts them at risk because the only people that will
you care for them are someone who's just interested in
having an old breed around.
Speaker 4 (28:14):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
Boy, that's it. That is really interesting. When does your
book already out or is it coming out?
Speaker 5 (28:19):
It is No, it's already out. It's in hardcover right
now and audiobook and ebook and you can get it
in paper book on November fifth.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
Endangered Eating America is Vanishing Foods by Sarah Loman. Fascinating.
I never thought of this. You get it on Amazon,
Real Easy and other bookstores. I've really enjoyed the conversation.
I learned a lot from this ten minute conversation, none
of which makes me happy, but we should be aware
of this. The one thing that makes me happy is
(28:48):
the Macintosh. Apple is going to be around for.
Speaker 5 (28:50):
A while, right, And hey, there's a lot of help
in the book too. You know, it's not about things
that are disappearing, it's about the people who are saving them.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
Great, great Sarah. I really enjoyed the conversation, and this
was fun for me, and it was also very instructive.
Speaker 4 (29:02):
Thank you so much, Thanks so much.
Speaker 3 (29:04):
Stand by all right, we get back.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
We're going to finish up with Christine Rosen She's a
senior fellow at the AEI, the American Enterprise Institute. She's
written a book called Extinction of Experience Being Human in
a Disembodied World. I can identify with that and hope
you can as well. Be talking with Christine Rosen right
after this break on Nightside.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
Now back to Dan Way live from the Window World
night Side Studios. I'm WBZ News Radio.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
My guest is Christine Rosen. She's a senior fellow at
the American Enterprise Institute, a great think tank. Wrote a book,
the Extinction of Experience Being Human in the Disembodied World.
Let me tell you, Christine, I feel like I could
have written the book myself. I mean, everything now is virtual.
And earlier this hour we talked with instead of having
(29:57):
a human boss, we're all gonna have AI boss who
are going to send us these little notes that you
relate for work today. That's not a good thing. Please
get your act together. We're going down a bad direction here, Christine,
at least from my perspective. What say you, Christine?
Speaker 5 (30:15):
Well, I couldn't agree more obviously.
Speaker 6 (30:17):
And I think one of the great challenges going forward
is that we've been told and we've experienced ourselves using
a lot of these technologies. Their ease, their convenience, their efficiency,
and what we forget is what we lose when we
replace our human interactions looking each other in the eye,
talking to each other face to face with communicating with
(30:37):
each other on our phones and on our screens. It's
just not the same, and the quality of those interactions
isn't It isn't as deep and isn't as rich.
Speaker 2 (30:45):
You know what, I really don't like my kids. They're adults,
they're in the thirties, but they want text messages. So
they send me a text message if they can write
in about five seconds. You know, dad, what do we
doing this weekend? We have some plans. I'd like to
figure out what your schedule is, so I then stumble
(31:06):
through you know, okay, what do you want to ask
me about? The sentence and the the sentence in a
preposition inappropriately, Well, the questions that we have and they
go on for like fifteen you know what. It takes
me ten minutes to read it, and then I have
to answer it and then back and forth. Pick up
the phone, call me and tell me what you want
(31:27):
to do this weekend. I'll let you know if it
can work, they don't want to do that. What's going on?
I mean, well, well it's my kids. I think it's
all the thirty somethings just they want text messages.
Speaker 6 (31:38):
Well I have I have eighteen year old, so I
can sympathize. I think if you're raised in an environment
where it's very easy to control your interactions with others
by using technology as a mediator, then you start to
become uncomfortable having to listen to someone on the phone,
having to have the patience really to wait for a
return phone call, for example. But what they miss again,
tone of voice, a chuckle or a laugh, or maybe
(32:01):
someone sounds tense. They miss an opportunity to connect at
a human level by using this more efficient technology. Sometimes
it's great, but when it becomes the overwhelming replacement for
our interactions, I think we suffer.
Speaker 2 (32:14):
See I don't even really, I don't even accept the
fact that it's more efficient. The point I was trying
to make before is that I can accomplish in a
thirty second phone call verbally what might take me ten
minutes to interact with messaging back and forth. Plus you
lose your train of thought because someone else messages you.
It just to me is horrific. I mean, I can
(32:34):
remember I've been in the media for a long time.
We used to do stories about how people lived in neighborhoods,
and even going back to like the Kiddy Genevieve story
in New York in nineteen sixty. I wasn't working there.
I was in high school. But the idea about the
neighbors never called police. All they did was without the
window and watch their name of being murdered. And you
(32:55):
live in a city block, you have no idea, or
even you live in a street, you have no idea
who lives next door? Do you anymore?
Speaker 6 (33:01):
Look, I mean most people can name ten celebrities and
they can't name a single neighbor. And that's worrisome, right,
that actually is. You know, it's much easier or easier
to send a text message across the world than it
is to tie your own shoe physically, So we do it.
Speaker 4 (33:14):
It's easier.
Speaker 6 (33:14):
But what do we give up in the skills we
are are we losing in living that way?
Speaker 2 (33:20):
I know they know more about Taylor Swift and Travis
Kelcey in the intimacy or lack thereof, and their relationship
and their travel plans that they do about the woman
who lives across the street who's a widow and is
obviously struggling a little bit, you know, getting her trash
cans out every Wednesday morning or whatever. I just I
think we're losing it. This is particularly in the big cities.
(33:43):
I don't think that this has infected small town America
as much. I don't know if you see that distinction
or not.
Speaker 6 (33:50):
But well, I think the challenge there is that when
people do get together, there's a sense in which they're
face to face interactions then have a second life on line.
So if you look at you know, like a local
school board election, for example, can become quite vicious and
terrible when people have battles about it on a Facebook
group rather than just sitting down together and hashing out
(34:11):
the problems as adults looking at each other in the eye.
Because we have this this willingness to say and do
things when we are behind our screens that we would
never do when we were face to face with others.
Speaker 2 (34:23):
You know, now, again, I might be very biased, he
because for thirty one years I was an on air
television reporter with the CBS station here in Boston, and
from seventeen I've been doing the talk show and we
call the talk show America's North, America's back Porch. And
I fashioned the show to like where I grew up,
and that people would be sitting on the back porch
(34:45):
summertime or maybe even the winter time if they were
able to screen it in, you know, have some weather,
and you know, someone comes along, makes a comment, sits
there for a while, someone else comes on. They talk
about this, They talk about that it was a sense
of commune, the sense of knowing where you were living,
who you were living near. And it's and this is
(35:06):
just it's going away and we're losing it. We're losing
that that fabric of America that really does hold a
neighborhood together fast that I can't wait to read your book.
It's coming out in September. So it's not available now.
Speaker 6 (35:22):
Right, you can, well, you can pre order it on Amazon.
It comes out on September tenth. Yeah, so it is.
It will be available very soon. And it does look
at at all of these issues, and I think you're
absolutely right. Ultimately, my real concern is that we are
able to talk to each other, debate each other, and
really form communities again in a way that will make
us a happier, healthier society.
Speaker 2 (35:43):
Well that's another problem. Now you can't even have a
disagreement with someone who might uh you know, who might
be on the other side of the presidential golf here.
Speaker 1 (35:52):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (35:52):
Oh, you're a bad person because you support him or her.
It's just crazy. Christine rose has Senior fellow at the
American Enterprise Institute, a great organization and a great thing.
Thank The book comes out in September, The Extinction of
Experience Being Human in a Disembodied World. It's September tenth.
Don't worry, folks. They'll either be a presidential debate or
(36:14):
someone will be sentenced from court to prison virtually every
date in September, So just remember September tenth for Christine Rosen.
Thank you, Christine. I really enjoyed it, and I'm a
big fan of the AEI I want you to know that.
Speaker 4 (36:29):
Okay, thank you so much for having me on. You're welcome.
Speaker 2 (36:33):
When we come back, we're going to talk about something
that most of you know a little bit about, but
we're going to learn more about it. It's called the
MCAST graduation requirement. Here in Massachusetts. It is actually going
to be on the ballot this September as Question two,
and we're going to have Mary Tamer, former Boston School
Committee member and also the executive director of Democrats for
(36:56):
Education Reform in Massachusetts. They are opposed to getting rid
of the MCST graduation requirement. We'll explain it all, and
later on sometime either this month or early next month,
we will have the teachers' union representatives on it who
want to get rid of it. We'll explain everything, coming
back right after the nine o'clock news here in a
Monday night edition at nightside
It's Night Side with Dan on WBZ Boston Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Thanks very much to Cole. Happy Monday to you and
to all the night side listeners out there. Boy, the
weekend goes by quickly, does it. I'm back behind the
WBZ Iconic microphone here in the eighth to midnight hour.
Delighted to be here, happy that you are there. Rob
Brooks is back in the control room. So all is
right with our world. And we're going to have four
(00:29):
guests this hour. We're gonna learn a lot this hour.
We're gonna talk about some very interesting subjects. Maybe we're
going to have to really drill down on some of
these topics because they're they're they're not necessarily topics we
normally talk about, but I think it as a quartet.
It's an interesting group of topics. So just bear with me,
stay with us. Coming up tonight at nine o'clock, we
(00:51):
will talk about ballot question number two here in Massachusetts,
which is calling for the elimination of the mcast required
for graduation diplomas and for Massachusetts high schools. And then,
of course, at ten o'clock tonight, the Democrats are gathering
in Chicago. Just going to be a wonderful week for
(01:14):
the Democrats. Everyone's going to pat everyone on the back,
and I'm going to share with you Marine Doubts column
from over the weekend suggesting that the Democrats may have
exercised a coup. But we'll get to all of that.
I promise we'll have a we'll have a fun night
going all the way to a minute. I'm going to
start it off tonight with the first of four guests,
Kimberly Palmer. Kimberly, welcome to Nightside.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
How are you, hi, Dan, Thank you so much for
having me. I'm great.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Well, you're a senior finance writer for nerd Wallet. So
first of all, let's explain to everybody what nerd wallet is.
I think most of us know, but give us a
quick little definition of what nerd wallet is.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
Yeah, nerd wallet is a website and an app, and
we are trying to help you make good financial decisions.
So whether you're looking for or a credit card or
a bank account, we can help you find the right one.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
All right, Well, we'll be able to give the nerd
Wallet way in which people can contact nerd Wallet at
the end of our conversation. But we're going to talk
tonight about a subject or an issue that I had
never heard of, And it's called funflation. If you inflation,
not inflation, not deflation, but funflation. So describe for us
(02:25):
what funflation is and how we have come to coin
that term.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
Yeah, Well, funflation basically refers to the fact that we
are willing to pay more money for experiences things that
bring us joy, whether it's a concert ticket, a restaurant
that's fancy, maybe a vacation that we've long dreamed about.
So even though prices are high, none of this is cheap.
(02:51):
We are willing to spend that money because we want
to have that experience. It's worth it to us. And
we're seeing that people are really willing to to spend
money on these expensive things just to get that experience.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Well, a government spends a lot of money, thirty four
trillion dollars. We're in debt at this point, so I
guess most people are saying, Hey, if the government can
do it, I can do it. From a personal finance
point of view, it seems to me that's a little dangerous.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
It can definitely be a little dangerous. You really want
to think about your overall budget. We really like the
rule of thumb the fifty to thirty twenty budgeting approach,
which basically means fifty percent of your cake compey is
going towards needs, thirty percent towards once, and twenty percent
towards any debt payments that you have in savings. And
so these kinds of joyful experiences like a concert ticket
(03:43):
or a vacation come into that thirty percent bucket for once,
and so you just want to make sure that when
you're looking at a rule of thumb for how you're
spending money, you're not going to be buying a concert
ticket that will then be turning into credit card debt
for the next few years of your life. So making
decisions based on what works for your budget is a
really good idea.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
Yeah, fifty thirty twenty, that's one hundred percent. There's no
room in there for taxes. Where do you put taxes?
Speaker 3 (04:11):
Great question, So we're actually talking about take home pay
pay the taxes, yes, and then you can allocate it.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Yeah, that's what I kind of thought. So I just
wanted to clarify that. So in this was a report that,
as I understand you folks, did not do. But another
website called bankrate dot Com actually found that, and I'm
confused by this. It says twenty four percent of Disney
goers and forty five percent of Disney going parents take
(04:41):
on debt for a trip to see Goofy. Twenty four
percent of Disney goers. I assume that's the overall figure,
which might include a lot of either single folks or couples,
but it really goes up when you got to bring
the kids along, So it's forty five percent of Disney
going parents. That's frightening in my opinion.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
Really, it really is scary. These costs add up so quickly.
I mean, I know as a parent myself of three kids,
once you start adding kids to the equation all those
ticket prices, it just has a multiplier effect. So you
can see how this adds up very quickly for family.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
There's a whole guilt thing going on in terms of Disney,
because obviously your kids want to go to Disney, they
want to see Nicky and Minnie and Donald Doc and
all of that, but they have no clue how expensive
those day passes have become. I mean, I can remember
when my kids were young the day passes were expensive,
but they're really expensive now.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
They certainly are. I mean it is quite shocking. I
know my family considered going and then we check those
ticket prices and we thought, oh, we could do a
lot of other things. It's had amount of money. So
it is really hard for families to manage this. And
of course you can do all sorts of tricks, like
take advantage of your hard rewards, for example, to help
(06:01):
subsidize the trip and make it cost less and shop
around for discounts that the end of the day, it's
still expensive, and so you have to decide if that
experience is really worth it to you. For some people
the answer will be yes, it is worth it, and
you'll make sacrifices in other areas to make it possible.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Well, there are some people look at Disney like the
Grateful Dead. People look the grateful Dead. I mean they've
got to go to Disney every year. They got to
see what's new, just like we got to go to
the Every Grateful Dead concert. The problem is, though, is
this what we used to be a nation which tended
to be pretty fruel. You didn't spend beyond your knees.
You you tried to enjoy yourself, but you knew that
(06:40):
your budget was somewhat limited. Have we just basically thrown
a caution to the winter. There a good percentage of
us who was saying, what the hell, it doesn't matter anyway,
Let's just spend and spend and spend, and we'll run
out with the clear we'll run out of money with
the clear bankruptcy. Who knows? I mean, have we basically
lost our minds?
Speaker 3 (07:01):
I think what's really interesting to look at about how
we've changed is that the pandemic, the experience of the pandemic,
really fundamentally changed a lot of people's decisions about how
they spend money because we realized, you know, who knows
if we'll be able to have this opportunity to have
the experience again, We've seen what can happen when everything
(07:22):
shuts down, and it's created this sense of urgency for people.
We don't want to delay the experiences we might have
been willing to do to delay earlier, and so people
are willing to spend enormous amounts of money to make
sure they have that experience. And I think for a
lot of in a lot of cases, you can track
it back to the pandemic and how that changed the
(07:43):
way we spend.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
The other thing is maybe a lot of people figuring
with that we might have a nuclear war in the
next six months. I mean, what what's the diff I
don't think this is a scary trend, I think from
from a responsibility point of view. But I'm a down yea, so.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
It is definitely scary. But I think the big picture
here is that we need to step back and think, Okay,
is this experience and the cost of it still worth
it to us once we consider how much it will
cost ultimately, especially if we're financing it with a credit card,
for example, you have to consider all of that interest
adds up and at some point we'll have to pay
it back. So while we want to embrace the moment
(08:24):
and have all of this fun, we also want to
think about the long term impact.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
All right, Well, Kimberly, that was great. You gave us
a really balanced point of view on this one. I'm
a little imbalanced on this one. I'm in the idea
if I kind of afford it, I'm not going it's
as simple. It's as simple as that. Tell us folks,
how can folks get in touch with you, or can
get in contact with nerdwallet.
Speaker 3 (08:46):
Thank you so much. You can find me in nerd
wallet at nerdwallet dot com and also on Twitter at
nerdwallet and at Kimberly Palmer.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
Kimberly, your great guest. I really appreciate it tonight. You're
clear and to the point, and I love your approach.
Speaker 4 (09:01):
Thank you so much, Kimberly, Thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (09:04):
It was talking with you.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
All Right, we come back. We're going to talk about
would you like to have a human boss or an
artificial intelligent boss. Now, some of you might think that
your boss only has artificial intelligence. That's not what we're
talking about. We're talking about an AI manager as opposed
to a human being. I like human beings, but will
get it all explained Benny Traup. He's a solutions architect
(09:28):
and co founder of Inspire AI Corp. Back on night
Side right after this.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
Now back to Dan Ray live from the Window World
night Side Studios on WBZ News Radio.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
So here's a question. I'm sure we're all asking one another.
Ken an AI manager motivate employees to change their behavior
at work, reinforce positive habits, improve their reliability, and how
would you feel working for an AI boss? Of course,
the question is what is an AI boss to answer
that question is Benny Traub. He's a solution's architect co
(10:04):
founder of Inspire AI Corp. You know, I kind of
like human beings as my boss. Even when I disagree
with him, at least I can have a conversation. Welcome, Benny.
How are you? I great to be with you, Dan,
So tell me explain, you know, in terms that everybody
will understand. When you talk about an AI boss, what
(10:27):
are we talking about realistically?
Speaker 4 (10:29):
Well, I think that's the wrong term. I think a
coach might be a better label, because a conversation.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Boss coach is softer than the boss. But okay, so
I'll go with a coach. I'm gonna I'm gonna start
calling my boss coach. Go ahead.
Speaker 4 (10:46):
Well, you think of a boss as somebody who has
authority to fire you, hire you, give you a raise,
and so on.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
Most bosses do have on betty, go ahead.
Speaker 4 (10:57):
Right, right? And and the A equivalent that we would
we referred to as the AI manager doesn't have that
authority at least not yet. Maybe that's coming, and maybe
that's something we ought to be concerned about. But currently
today they're actually there to help the employees, specifically in
areas that employees might you know, individually benefit from. Consider
(11:22):
that the modern age of AI is likely going to
displace a lot of people, and who's going to retain
their jobs during this transition over the next you know,
five or ten years or however long this transition lasts.
The people that retain their jobs are going to be
those that have adapted really well, that have great attitudes,
(11:44):
people that want to be there, people that perform really well, right,
and the people that don't want to be there probably
won't won't be there. I mean, if there's an AI counterpartner, yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
Betty, that doesn't change whether or not you're working for
a human boss or an AI boss. Correct, I mean
a bad attitude loss, I assume or your AI coach
is going to figure that out at some point in time.
Speaker 4 (12:06):
And say that's it. That's it. And see, that's one
of the benefits of an AI you know, manager, if
you want to call them that is that they can
see basically everything that's going on all of the time,
whereas a human manager has limited range of focus. Right,
they can only see one person at any given time.
They can stand over any you know, one person at
(12:26):
any one time, but nobody let's face it, nobody wants
to be micromanaged. And so what these AI managers can
do is they can observe all the behavior, and they're
getting so good at having conversations coaching conversations that they
can intervene in real time if there's a real time
incident type situation where an employee can improve their performance.
(12:47):
And even more than that, they can intervene when a
habit is emerging that a human manager might not even spot.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
Okay, so just so we understand that. And again, what
happens is whenever I talk to folks like you who
are more techle technically astute than I am. Obviously, if
you work hypothetically, you know in a I don't know,
you know, a factory or or or a doctor's office. Uh,
and there's a boss, the capital, whatever you want to
(13:15):
call them. Uh, you know, they have the power, they
have the authority, and they get to know their employees,
get to know their work habits, who stays late, who doesn't,
who who's given one hundred percent, who's taken long coffee
breaks all of that stuff, who's producing the reports that
are clear and legible, et cetera. So that's what that's
what you know a human manager does. So this isn't
(13:38):
when you say, AI manager, this is some sort of
an algorithm. Correct, This is not a person. This is
not somebody who's looking over a field of you know,
twenty performers in an office. This is something that is programmed.
I assume to be a quote unquote AI coach. Right
(13:58):
or wrong?
Speaker 4 (14:01):
Well, I think you're you're right on the money there.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
See, I want to make sure I understand the too.
Go ahead, Benny.
Speaker 4 (14:07):
Yeah, I mean there's more to it than that. But
under the hood, you're right. It's an algorithm, and it'll
probably always be an algorithm. And you know, there's a
lot of debate over whether AI will obtain consciousness and
all that. But you know, for the sake of our
conversation today, just imagine you show up for work late
one day, okay, and you're brand new on the job.
Say it's your second day on the job. You know,
(14:28):
a human manager would take you aside and say, hey, listen,
it's your second day from the job. I got to
tell you, it's really important for all of our people
to show up on time. Okay, So consider that little Obo,
the human manager observed the person this newbie performing poorly,
the human manager took him aside, treated him fairly, just
had a normal conversation with them, empathetic. You know, hopefully
(14:50):
you didn't, you know, there was nothing wrong, you know,
did something happen on the way here? Is that why
you're late? But he would make the point, Yeah, right,
this is our culture and the AI manager you can
do that exact same thing. You can observe that behavior
in real time. They can take the employee aside, have
a private conversation with them, and just explain the rules
of the road, you know, for the new employee and
then but you wouldn't ever want to do that for
(15:12):
a veteran employee, right, because you don't want to micro
manage people. You don't want to take away their autonomy
and that type of thing. So however, you know, so
you know, somebody like you or me, say you've been
on the job for five or ten years, you would
never micro manage them. And you know, tell them that
it's the proper thing to do is to show up
on time. Obviously, that's the proper thing. That's the proper
thing to do. And they know very well so that.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
That individual just so I understand that that individual would
at some point, maybe later that morning, the morning that
they showed up late, get an email or a mess
or a text message from the artificial intelligent coach. Hey,
notice you can go late today.
Speaker 4 (15:50):
You know, well, there'd be a conversation. It wouldn't be.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
An email, it would be a conversation. What do you
mean a conversation, Well, yes, I have a conversation. I
think of you and me talking.
Speaker 4 (16:00):
Yeah, well it's just like that.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
I don't mean it's like that.
Speaker 4 (16:03):
Well have you I'm not sure if you've had the
experience of having deep conversations with any of the other
chat busts that are out there.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
Like chat conversation with my wife Betty.
Speaker 4 (16:13):
Come on, well we'll get ready, because this is people
are actually having really really deep conversations with these AI
chat bots. And our chat bot is actually will speak
to you in voice. You can talk to him and
voice on your headset that he will.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
Talk back, and they'll say, hey, Benny, you notice second
day and a job. You're a little late today. What's
up with that?
Speaker 4 (16:36):
And then well more with more empathy.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
Well, okay, five everything, Okay, we noticed that you're a
few late this morning.
Speaker 4 (16:45):
You treat people as human beings, right, yeah, you.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
Guys programming just so I understand that, Benya, someone programs it,
you know, and they say, well, you know, first day,
second day, third day, fifth day. Maybe if it's the
third time in the first two weeks, it becomes a
little less empathetic. What you're saying is you can you
can program the AI so that they can they can
be a little more stern, a little more serious, depending
(17:12):
upon well.
Speaker 4 (17:13):
Really, it's quite it's quite common sense based. Like the
very first time there's a confrontation on a particular topic,
it's quite gentle. It's it's more like, you know, is
everything okay with you? You know, I just want to
let you know I saw that we do care about this,
and that's the converse conversation. The second conversation might take
a slightly different tone, like you know, we see this,
(17:35):
we care about it, and you know, we won't tolerate it.
And the third conversation goes another step further.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
You see it.
Speaker 4 (17:42):
No, no, no, no, you see it, we care about it,
we won't tolerate it, and you know, again, if we
can't make changes here, there could be long term contact.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
You having fun with you a little bit here for
for a second. Trust me, I'm having fun and I
want the audience to play along with us. So here's
my question. What percentage of companies? And I don't know
if you can put a figure on this. At this
point have gotten rid of the human bosses, and now I'm.
Speaker 4 (18:12):
Not one of them.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
Not one of them.
Speaker 4 (18:13):
Okay, you know, at most, at most they coexist, okay,
at most, and the current AI managers play a very
small role. In fact, that last sequence I was outlining
to you, where there's this escalating conversations. Every time there's
a repeating incident, it comes to point at some point
where the AI doesn't even confront the user anymore of
(18:35):
the employee. He just sends an email to the boss,
the human boss, and says, hey, I've had three conversations.
Here's the transcripts of the conversations. Here's the dates I
had the conversations. I think it's it's probably best you
take it from here.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
So what percentage of companies? Again, just I don't expect
to give me a precise figure, but what percentage of
companies do you think already using this algorithm in conjunction
with their human bosses?
Speaker 4 (18:58):
Well, I's far less than Okay.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
When when do you think it will hit, you know,
a more recognizable number. That's my last question we talk.
Speaker 4 (19:09):
Yeah, I don't think it'll hit recognizable numbers until companies
are literally forced to adopt the technology. And they won't
be forced to adopt the technology until their competitors start
being able to slash their costs because their productivity is
just so much better. And I think there's going to
come a tipping point here where companies are going to
be forced to adopt AI in every single form AI
(19:32):
Manager and task automation and every other which way you
might imagine robotics. At some point, we're all going to
have to do it.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
Let me tell you something. I get so tired about
dealing with companies where I can't speak with a human being,
and whether or not it's a health insurance company. I
got to tell you, I'm so happy I'm on the
wrong side of fifty Benny Trout, Thank you very much.
How can folks get in touch with you if they
want more information? What's your go to?
Speaker 4 (19:58):
Our website?
Speaker 2 (19:59):
Inspira AI inspired is spelled I N S P I
R A dot AI. Betty, Thank you very much. I
enjoyed the conversation. I hope you didn't feel it was
too bad. Much back and forth, and I want to
always have fun. It's thanks Betty talking to you. When
we get back here at Nightside, we're gonna talk about
a culinary historian, uh, author of Endangered Eating America's Vanishing Foods.
(20:25):
This will be interesting because I don't want any food
to vanish, but I guess some are disappearing before our
own eyes. We're gonna talk here on Nightside with Sarah
Loman on the other side of the news break at
the bottom and the hour. My name is Dan Ray.
This is w b Z in Boston ten thirty and
the Am Dollar. If you can't get us on the radio,
you can always check us out. Just go to WBC
(20:48):
News Radio on the iHeartRadio app. We'll be back right after.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
This Night Side with Dan Ray. I'm Boston's news Radio.
Speaker 2 (20:59):
Well, they said we're talking to sort of different guests tonight,
and we're now going to talk with a culinary historian.
I didn't even know there were culinary historians in existence,
but we have Sarah Loman with that. She's the author
of a book called Endangered Eating America's vanishing foods. Sarah Loman,
Welcome to Night Side.
Speaker 5 (21:19):
Hi Dan, thank you.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
We've all heard about endangered species, endangered animals. I didn't
realize there were in some endangered foods, and one of them,
as I understand that God forbid, are apples.
Speaker 5 (21:34):
Yeah, yes, I mean that's saying thought is what an
inspirement to write this book? Should we talk about saving
pandas but not pasta? But it's true both they foods
and even plants like apples are going extinct. It's believe
we've lost at least seventy five percent of apple varieties.
(21:56):
And currently there are actually teams that people out there
who will hike through the woods, look at old land
maps and try to rediscover long lost orchards to be
able to save some of these varieties that have disappeared
from the market.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
So you're telling me that there are apple orchards. The
picture you've paint is there are apple orchards in the
woods which have gone oh you years.
Speaker 5 (22:18):
Yes, you will never especially in the spring when the
trees are blooming. You'll never look at an apple tree
the same way. Again, it certainly changed for me. I
mean sometimes an apple tree pops up just because someone
threw an apple core out their window and they're grow kippen.
That's the name for an apple tree that grows from
a seed. But sometimes you know, you're looking through the
(22:39):
woods and you say, huh, they're actually about five trees here,
but the whole forest has grown up around it. That's
actually exactly how some historical apples have been rediscovered. One
recently was found in Upstake, New York. It's called the Povishome,
and it happened essentially because someone a cider maker who
is looking for this apple, created a whtu poster. This
(23:01):
is actually a pretty common technique for hunting down lost
apple varieties. You use a description and a picture from
an early nineteenth century source. They published an edible New
Jersey magazine. Someone picked up the magazine and saw it
and realized that they had that apple growing on their property.
When they did a little digging, they realized that the
people who used to own the property, originally own the
property were from Newark, where this apple was from. And
(23:24):
they were able to sort of compare DNA and the
appearance and the appearance of the tree, and also the
fact that there were four or five of these trees
growing in a specific pattern out in the woods. So
you can use all of this evidence to rEFInd these
lost apples.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
Just assure me, please, Sarah, that Macintosh apples my favorite apple,
the greatest apple is not Conway.
Speaker 5 (23:50):
Oh it's doing just fine right now. And you know,
even gold red Delicious is an apple from the nineteenth century.
It's been attributed to one of Johnny appleseeds apple actually,
but there are literally thousands. I mean, when we think
about how many apples we see in the grocery store,
even in a good orchard where you're probably getting those macintoshes,
you know, maybe we see half a dozen varieties, maybe
(24:12):
two dozen at the most.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
Oh yeah, you got gala apples and the crisp apples
and green and what are they the green ones are called?
What are they called? My daughter loves those.
Speaker 5 (24:23):
Yellow delicious different speaking apples.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
What is the one that's it's just green, it's just
a green, It's it's always green. I don't know whatever,
but I'm in. I mean, I am a died in
the wool Macintosh guys. A matter of fact, every time
this time of view and I walk in a grocery store,
no matter when any from August fifteenth on I'm looking
around the vegetable and the fruit area. Where are there
(24:50):
are there? Are there any macintosh? And then when I
finally see yeah, absolutely, So what else? What else is
going away or has gone away? What did people used
to eat that no longer exists?
Speaker 5 (25:04):
Well, hopefully the one thing dealing in the book. We're
not talking about things that have totally disappeared, although that
can happen with things like apples. Are also right about
date palms too. There are some date varieties that the
date industry was brought to the Potella Valley in California
about a century ago, and date trees only have a
pretty small amount of time where you can basically clone them,
(25:27):
where you can take a cutting from them and grow
new trees. So some of those varieties have been lost.
But a lot of the food elements that I talk
about in the book are part of indigenous cultures. And
part of the way that America has tried to colonize
nagenous cultures is by grooving them from land, which then
ulster removes them from native food sources, and even by
(25:49):
replacing some of those foods by giving government supplies too.
So I also focused on places like wild rice, which
comes from the Great Lakes region. I talked about file
powder from the Gulf Coast of Mexico, which is a
part of a lot of different cultural groups down there too.
I talked about the Navajo truro sheep, which is I mean,
(26:11):
it's the sheep variety of the Navajo people. The meat
taste like home and if you're familiar with Navajo weavings,
those weavings come from the rule of these animals.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
I heard that that Navajo churro, it's beef, but it
tastes like chicken. That's what everybody says to me. Oh,
try this food. This tastes like chicken.
Speaker 5 (26:31):
Tastes like chicken.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
Yeah, wait is that And now you said that they
used to harvest wild rice, yeah, the Upper Midwest.
Speaker 5 (26:39):
I'm still new.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
It's just I don't think that is being in the
Upper Midwest. They think of rice as being, you know,
somewhere in Asia or maybe Central America. Wow, I never.
Speaker 5 (26:49):
Realized that, Well, rice is from Asia, but wild rice
is actually a distinct grain from rice. It's more it's
closest relative as corn. So knowing that, I mean, makes
more sense that it's an indigenous grain to North America,
and there's several different varieties. You can actually find it
all over basically east of the Mississippi. But the northern
(27:09):
wild rice, which is the variety that's traditionally harvested that
you find throughout the Great Lakes region, Upper Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota,
and even into the Dakotas a little bit, and it's
the big people that harvest it.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
I got one question for your book. Yes, this long
horned cattle are now categorized as critical. That's hook em
horns right University exactly, hookham horns. They're going to be extinct.
Speaker 5 (27:36):
It's an iconic animal, but it doesn't really have a
place in the way our food system is today. It
is considered one of our oldest livestock breeds. But those wide, wide,
wide horns, they don't get into railway cars. So at
the turn of the nineteenth century, when we stopped slaughtering
animals locally and they were instead rounded up and put
(27:57):
on trains and taken into Chicago, the longhorn didn't into
that system. So they're really really hearty, durable, beautiful animals,
but we don't eat them anymore. So that is what
puts them at risk because the only people that will
you care for them are someone who's just interested in
having an old breed around.
Speaker 4 (28:14):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
Boy, that's it. That is really interesting. When does your
book already out or is it coming out?
Speaker 5 (28:19):
It is No, it's already out. It's in hardcover right
now and audiobook and ebook and you can get it
in paper book on November fifth.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
Endangered Eating America is Vanishing Foods by Sarah Loman. Fascinating.
I never thought of this. You get it on Amazon,
Real Easy and other bookstores. I've really enjoyed the conversation.
I learned a lot from this ten minute conversation, none
of which makes me happy, but we should be aware
of this. The one thing that makes me happy is
(28:48):
the Macintosh. Apple is going to be around for.
Speaker 5 (28:50):
A while, right, And hey, there's a lot of help
in the book too. You know, it's not about things
that are disappearing, it's about the people who are saving them.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
Great, great Sarah. I really enjoyed the conversation, and this
was fun for me, and it was also very instructive.
Speaker 4 (29:02):
Thank you so much, Thanks so much.
Speaker 3 (29:04):
Stand by all right, we get back.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
We're going to finish up with Christine Rosen She's a
senior fellow at the AEI, the American Enterprise Institute. She's
written a book called Extinction of Experience Being Human in
a Disembodied World. I can identify with that and hope
you can as well. Be talking with Christine Rosen right
after this break on Nightside.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
Now back to Dan Way live from the Window World
night Side Studios. I'm WBZ News Radio.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
My guest is Christine Rosen. She's a senior fellow at
the American Enterprise Institute, a great think tank. Wrote a book,
the Extinction of Experience Being Human in the Disembodied World.
Let me tell you, Christine, I feel like I could
have written the book myself. I mean, everything now is virtual.
And earlier this hour we talked with instead of having
(29:57):
a human boss, we're all gonna have AI boss who
are going to send us these little notes that you
relate for work today. That's not a good thing. Please
get your act together. We're going down a bad direction here, Christine,
at least from my perspective. What say you, Christine?
Speaker 5 (30:15):
Well, I couldn't agree more obviously.
Speaker 6 (30:17):
And I think one of the great challenges going forward
is that we've been told and we've experienced ourselves using
a lot of these technologies. Their ease, their convenience, their efficiency,
and what we forget is what we lose when we
replace our human interactions looking each other in the eye,
talking to each other face to face with communicating with
(30:37):
each other on our phones and on our screens. It's
just not the same, and the quality of those interactions
isn't It isn't as deep and isn't as rich.
Speaker 2 (30:45):
You know what, I really don't like my kids. They're adults,
they're in the thirties, but they want text messages. So
they send me a text message if they can write
in about five seconds. You know, dad, what do we
doing this weekend? We have some plans. I'd like to
figure out what your schedule is, so I then stumble
(31:06):
through you know, okay, what do you want to ask
me about? The sentence and the the sentence in a
preposition inappropriately, Well, the questions that we have and they
go on for like fifteen you know what. It takes
me ten minutes to read it, and then I have
to answer it and then back and forth. Pick up
the phone, call me and tell me what you want
(31:27):
to do this weekend. I'll let you know if it
can work, they don't want to do that. What's going on?
I mean, well, well it's my kids. I think it's
all the thirty somethings just they want text messages.
Speaker 6 (31:38):
Well I have I have eighteen year old, so I
can sympathize. I think if you're raised in an environment
where it's very easy to control your interactions with others
by using technology as a mediator, then you start to
become uncomfortable having to listen to someone on the phone,
having to have the patience really to wait for a
return phone call, for example. But what they miss again,
tone of voice, a chuckle or a laugh, or maybe
(32:01):
someone sounds tense. They miss an opportunity to connect at
a human level by using this more efficient technology. Sometimes
it's great, but when it becomes the overwhelming replacement for
our interactions, I think we suffer.
Speaker 2 (32:14):
See I don't even really, I don't even accept the
fact that it's more efficient. The point I was trying
to make before is that I can accomplish in a
thirty second phone call verbally what might take me ten
minutes to interact with messaging back and forth. Plus you
lose your train of thought because someone else messages you.
It just to me is horrific. I mean, I can
(32:34):
remember I've been in the media for a long time.
We used to do stories about how people lived in neighborhoods,
and even going back to like the Kiddy Genevieve story
in New York in nineteen sixty. I wasn't working there.
I was in high school. But the idea about the
neighbors never called police. All they did was without the
window and watch their name of being murdered. And you
(32:55):
live in a city block, you have no idea, or
even you live in a street, you have no idea
who lives next door? Do you anymore?
Speaker 6 (33:01):
Look, I mean most people can name ten celebrities and
they can't name a single neighbor. And that's worrisome, right,
that actually is. You know, it's much easier or easier
to send a text message across the world than it
is to tie your own shoe physically, So we do it.
Speaker 4 (33:14):
It's easier.
Speaker 6 (33:14):
But what do we give up in the skills we
are are we losing in living that way?
Speaker 2 (33:20):
I know they know more about Taylor Swift and Travis
Kelcey in the intimacy or lack thereof, and their relationship
and their travel plans that they do about the woman
who lives across the street who's a widow and is
obviously struggling a little bit, you know, getting her trash
cans out every Wednesday morning or whatever. I just I
think we're losing it. This is particularly in the big cities.
(33:43):
I don't think that this has infected small town America
as much. I don't know if you see that distinction
or not.
Speaker 6 (33:50):
But well, I think the challenge there is that when
people do get together, there's a sense in which they're
face to face interactions then have a second life on line.
So if you look at you know, like a local
school board election, for example, can become quite vicious and
terrible when people have battles about it on a Facebook
group rather than just sitting down together and hashing out
(34:11):
the problems as adults looking at each other in the eye.
Because we have this this willingness to say and do
things when we are behind our screens that we would
never do when we were face to face with others.
Speaker 2 (34:23):
You know, now, again, I might be very biased, he
because for thirty one years I was an on air
television reporter with the CBS station here in Boston, and
from seventeen I've been doing the talk show and we
call the talk show America's North, America's back Porch. And
I fashioned the show to like where I grew up,
and that people would be sitting on the back porch
(34:45):
summertime or maybe even the winter time if they were
able to screen it in, you know, have some weather,
and you know, someone comes along, makes a comment, sits
there for a while, someone else comes on. They talk
about this, They talk about that it was a sense
of commune, the sense of knowing where you were living,
who you were living near. And it's and this is
(35:06):
just it's going away and we're losing it. We're losing
that that fabric of America that really does hold a
neighborhood together fast that I can't wait to read your book.
It's coming out in September. So it's not available now.
Speaker 6 (35:22):
Right, you can, well, you can pre order it on Amazon.
It comes out on September tenth. Yeah, so it is.
It will be available very soon. And it does look
at at all of these issues, and I think you're
absolutely right. Ultimately, my real concern is that we are
able to talk to each other, debate each other, and
really form communities again in a way that will make
us a happier, healthier society.
Speaker 2 (35:43):
Well that's another problem. Now you can't even have a
disagreement with someone who might uh you know, who might
be on the other side of the presidential golf here.
Speaker 1 (35:52):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (35:52):
Oh, you're a bad person because you support him or her.
It's just crazy. Christine rose has Senior fellow at the
American Enterprise Institute, a great organization and a great thing.
Thank The book comes out in September, The Extinction of
Experience Being Human in a Disembodied World. It's September tenth.
Don't worry, folks. They'll either be a presidential debate or
(36:14):
someone will be sentenced from court to prison virtually every
date in September, So just remember September tenth for Christine Rosen.
Thank you, Christine. I really enjoyed it, and I'm a
big fan of the AEI I want you to know that.
Speaker 4 (36:29):
Okay, thank you so much for having me on. You're welcome.
Speaker 2 (36:33):
When we come back, we're going to talk about something
that most of you know a little bit about, but
we're going to learn more about it. It's called the
MCAST graduation requirement. Here in Massachusetts. It is actually going
to be on the ballot this September as Question two,
and we're going to have Mary Tamer, former Boston School
Committee member and also the executive director of Democrats for
(36:56):
Education Reform in Massachusetts. They are opposed to getting rid
of the MCST graduation requirement. We'll explain it all, and
later on sometime either this month or early next month,
we will have the teachers' union representatives on it who
want to get rid of it. We'll explain everything, coming
back right after the nine o'clock news here in a
Monday night edition at nightside
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