"A Beginner's Guide to AI" makes the complex world of Artificial Intelligence accessible to all. Each episode asks someone working with AI about what they do and how AI can help you. Ideal for novices, tech enthusiasts, and the simply curious, this podcast transforms AI learning into an engaging, digestible journey. Join us as we take the first steps into AI 🚀
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Dietmar Fischer discusses the challenge of defining "AI beginner" due to varied skill levels, from basic ChatGPT users to those building repeatable workflows. He introduces a four-level AI maturity framework (Novice, Experimenter, Practitioner, Expert) from Section AI/Prof. G AI. The episode emphasizes that true business value comes from developing AI practitioners and experts who can spread capabilities and build automations, rather than just having individual users.
Ross Barnes discusses how the real AI bottleneck in companies isn't about tools, but rather a leadership, workflow, and people challenge, especially when some teams adopt AI quickly while others resist. He introduces his IKIG AI framework, which helps organizations identify tasks to remain human-centric or be augmented by AI, emphasizing the need for leadership curiosity, responsible adoption with human-in-the-loop systems, and developing AI muscle memory.
The word “robot” sounds modern, metallic, and futuristic. But its origin is older, stranger, and much more human. In this episode of A Beginner’s Guide to AI , we trace the word back to Karel Čapek’s 1920 play R.U.R. , short for Rossum’s Universal Robots , and the Czech word robota , meaning forced labour, hard work, or drudgery. That origin changes everything. Robots were never only about machines. They were always about work. Who does it? Who controls it? Who benefits from it? And what happens...
Michael Housman discusses how leaders can future-proof their businesses with AI, stressing that true transformation begins with people, not just technology. The conversation covers practical steps for AI adoption, using small wins like the Pet Lab case study to unlock productivity. Housman highlights the importance of AI literacy and executive sponsorship to overcome organizational resistance, showing how AI can serve as a strategic thought partner and enable unbiased decision-making, particularly in slow-moving industries.
Most of us already collect health data every day through smartphones, smartwatches, rings, apps, lab reports, and medical visits. But collecting data is not the same as understanding it. In this episode of Beginner’s Guide to AI , Dietmar Fischer speaks with Dr. Earl J. Campazzi Jr. , author of Better Health with AI: Your Roadmap to Results , about how artificial intelligence can help us make better use of personal health data. 📧💌📧 Tune in to get my thoughts and all episodes, don't forget to ...
The episode dives into how AI memory is evolving beyond simple context windows, highlighting working, episodic, semantic, and procedural memory types that enable AI agents to remember projects, policies, user preferences, and workflows. This structured approach helps AI assistants provide continuous, context-aware support for businesses. However, it also introduces risks, making memory governance, privacy controls, and clear design paramount for useful and safe AI implementation.
🤖🧠⚠️ What if the biggest AI risk is not that machines become evil, but that they become powerful, strategic, and completely indifferent? In this episode of A Beginner’s Guide to AI , we explore the worldview of Eliezer Yudkowsky, one of the most intense and influential voices in the AI safety debate. Yudkowsky does not warn us about Hollywood robots or dramatic machine rebellion. His concern is much sharper: humanity may build artificial intelligence smarter than humans before we know how to c...
What can a silent film from 1927 teach us about artificial intelligence, deepfakes, and the future of business trust? In this episode of A Beginner’s Guide to AI , we look at Fritz Lang’s legendary film Metropolis and use it as a surprisingly sharp lens for understanding modern AI. The robot Maria is not dangerous because she is made of metal. She is dangerous because she borrows a trusted human face. And that is exactly why today’s AI-generated voices, synthetic avatars, and deepfake videos mat...
Humayun Sheikh on the Agentic Web, Trust, and the Agentic Economy Humayun Sheikh joins Dietmar Fischer to explain what happens when AI stops recommending and starts doing. We explore the Agentic Web, a new layer where personal AI agents and verified brand agents collaborate to complete tasks like booking travel, coordinating meetings, and shopping with trust built in. You will learn what makes a real AI agent, why autonomy matters, and how multi-agent systems unlock an agentic economy. We also t...
🧠🤖 Stop Using AI Just for Content. Start Using It for Discovery Most businesses still treat AI like a faster writing assistant: useful for summaries, captions, reports, and endless slightly polished LinkedIn posts. But Google DeepMind points to something much bigger. From AlphaGo’s historic victory over Lee Sedol to AlphaFold’s breakthrough in protein structure prediction, DeepMind shows us that AI is becoming a tool for discovery, not just automation. 💡💡💡 Don't forget to go to Nebius, as t...
AI agents are rapidly becoming one of the most influential technologies inside modern organizations — often without leaders even realizing the shift. In this episode, Dietmar Fischer sits down with MIT Sloan podcast host Sam Ransbotham to uncover why AI agents and agentic AI systems are spreading through enterprises at remarkable speed. Based on a global study of 2,100 executives across 116 countries, Sam shares how AI agents improve productivity, increase job satisfaction, and fundamentally res...
What happens to leadership when AI can analyze faster, structure better, and answer almost anything in seconds? In this episode of Beginner’s Guide to AI , Dietmar Fischer speaks with Sally Bendersky , engineer, executive coach, leadership expert, and founder of New Leadership, about why AI makes human leadership more important, not less. Sally argues that AI is a phenomenal assistant. It can recognize patterns, organize information, support better questions, and help leaders think more deeply. ...
AI search is changing how customers discover, evaluate and choose brands. In this episode of Beginner’s Guide to AI , Dietmar Fischer speaks with Joseph Levi , CEO of Noise Media , about Generative Engine Optimization , AI brand visibility and why appearing in ChatGPT, Gemini or Perplexity answers may soon matter as much as ranking on Google. Joseph explains why GEO is not just another marketing abbreviation. It marks a shift from an internet read mainly by humans to an internet increasingly int...
Stop Thinking of AI as a Content Machine, Start Seeing It as a Bargain Machine AI is not just changing how businesses write content, automate tasks, or analyse data. It is changing how markets work. In this episode of A Beginner’s Guide to AI , we connect artificial intelligence with the Coase Theorem, the classic economic idea that explains how people bargain over resources when transaction costs are low. This episode looks at AI transaction costs, algorithmic pricing, smart contracts, platform...
In this episode of Beginner’s Guide to AI, we sit down with Alex Kihm, founder of POMA AI, to explore how enterprises can finally make sense of their data. AI search is broken, RAG often fails, and corporate documents are notoriously hard for LLMs to interpret. Alex explains how POMA AI’s patented method reconstructs structure inside unstructured data, enabling powerful, accurate enterprise search. You’ll hear how his journey from engineering to legal tech to big-data econometrics led to a break...
AGI Is Not Just a Better Chatbot Artificial general intelligence, or AGI, may be one of the most important ideas in artificial intelligence, but it is also one of the easiest to misunderstand. In this episode of A Beginner’s Guide to AI, we look at what AGI really means, why it is different from today’s narrow AI tools, and why business leaders, founders, marketers, and executives should care before the hype takes over completely. Today’s AI can already write emails, generate images, summarise r...
AI can write, generate images, suggest chess moves, edit photos, draft campaigns, and produce more content than most teams can handle. So what is left for humans? In this episode of A Beginner’s Guide to AI , we look at why human creativity still matters in the age of AI and why faster output is not the same as better work. AI-generated content can help businesses move quickly, but it can also make brands sound generic, polished, and strangely lifeless if humans stop guiding the process. Using c...
AI feels human. That’s the problem. In this episode of A Beginner’s Guide to AI , Dietmar Fischer breaks down one of the most misunderstood aspects of artificial intelligence: why we treat AI like a person and why that creates real business risks. You’ll discover how anthropomorphism shapes the way we interact with AI, why human-like responses increase trust, and how companies unintentionally push users into overestimating AI capabilities. This episode goes beyond the hype and focuses on what re...
Why AI safety is the floor, not the ceiling, and how to pivot with power In this episode of Beginner’s Guide to AI, Dietmar Fischer talks with AI policy and trust & safety leader Erica Shoemate about designing and protecting systems that center around people. This is not the usual Terminator question. It is the practical, urgent one: how do we ensure AI serves the most vulnerable, what does true operational security look like, and why is no technology ever truly neutral. 🌍🛰️ Erica also sha...
Ever wished you could clone yourself to get more done? Julian Goldie actually did it — and built a content empire out of it. In this episode of A Beginner’s Guide to AI , host Dietmar Fischer talks with Julian about how he uses AI to create five videos a day , automate workflows, and still keep a personal, human touch that builds real trust with his audience. Julian reveals how he turned his initial fear of AI into a full-scale growth engine for his business, transforming his SEO agency into a m...
🎙️ He Taught AI How to Have Manners — Meet David Petrou of Continua AI What if your next group chat had an extra participant — one that listens, understands the social context, remembers what you said last week, and even knows when to stay quiet? In today’s episode, host Dietmar Fischer sits down with David Petrou , founder and CEO of Continua AI , to explore the emerging world of Social AI — intelligent agents designed not just to talk, but to collaborate inside group chats. David, formerly at...
What happens when AI does not just advise you, but lives inside your brain In this episode of Beginner’s Guide to AI, Dietmar Fischer talks with science fiction author Richard Anderson about Ophelia, a sentient AI implant that connects to a vast data sphere and changes the balance of power through information. This is not the usual Terminator question. It is the quieter, more realistic one: who controls knowledge, who controls rules, and what happens when AI becomes the “high ground.” 🌍🛰️ Rich...
Artificial Intelligence isn’t just reshaping technology — it is reshaping leadership. In this episode, former Google strategist Louisa Loran joins Dietmar Fischer to explore how leaders can adapt, evolve, and thrive in an age defined by rapid AI acceleration. Louisa shares her journey across Moët Hennessy, Maersk, and Google, revealing why the biggest barrier to meaningful AI adoption isn’t technology but leadership behavior, culture, and the willingness to unlearn. She explains why strategy mus...
In this episode of Beginner’s Guide to AI, Dietmar Fischer talks with Peter McAllister about AI risk, AI safety, AI sentience, regulation, and the strange overlap between science fiction and current reality. Peter is the author of The Code: If Your AI Loses its Mind, Can it Take Meds? , a near-future novel about an AI on the moon that begins dismantling it with catastrophic consequences. Peter describes the book as a story about Gene, an AI developed for asteroid-belt mining tests, whose instabi...
In this episode of A Beginner’s Guide to AI , host Dietmar Fischer talks with Roman Chernin from Nebius , about how AI democratization is reshaping the enterprise world. Roman reveals what it really takes to move from prototype LLMs to reliable, scalable AI platforms - and why most companies don’t need to train their own models to harness AI’s potential. 📧💌📧 Tune in to get my thoughts and all episodes - don’t forget to subscribe to our Newsletter: beginnersguide.nl 📧💌📧 From his early ye...
🚀 The Hidden Cost of AI: Losing Meaning, Not Jobs AI is not just automating work. It is challenging the very foundation of human identity. In this episode, Derek Rydall breaks down why the biggest risk of AI is not unemployment, but a global meaning crisis. As intelligence becomes cheap and abundant, the real question becomes: what are humans for? You’ll learn why purpose is becoming the ultimate competitive advantage, how attention is being hijacked by algorithms, and what it takes to stay rel...
🎙️ Machine Ethics Podcast x Beginner's Guide to AI AI is everywhere. But almost nobody agrees on what it actually is. In this episode, Ben Byford from the Machine Ethics Podcast and Dietmar Fischer explore why AI feels intelligent while fundamentally being something very different. From AI misconceptions to generative AI risks, this conversation breaks down the gap between perception and reality and why it matters for business leaders, marketers, and decision-makers. You’ll learn why AI literac...
What does the Catholic Church actually think about artificial intelligence? A lot more than you might expect. In this episode of A Beginner’s Guide to AI , Prof. GepHardT explores the Vatican’s surprisingly sharp position on AI ethics, human dignity, deepfakes, truth, and the growing risk of letting machines replace judgment rather than support it. This is not a sermon against technology, and it is not a blessing over every shiny new model either. It is a serious look at AI as a human tool that ...
Artificial intelligence can generate answers fast, but can it generate knowledge you can trust? In this episode of Beginner’s Guide to AI , Dietmar Fischer talks with Jonathan Fraine and Raja Amelung about why human knowledge still matters in the age of LLMs. Together they explore Wikipedia, Wikimedia, AI hallucinations, trust in AI, free knowledge, and the future of reliable information online. This is not another generic AI hype conversation. It is a grounded discussion about what happens when...
AI is no longer just a chatbot that helps you write emails faster. In this episode of Beginner’s Guide to AI, Dietmar Fischer sits down with Ethan Ouyang to explore how agentic AI is changing the way businesses are built, managed, and scaled. Ethan is publicly identified with ATOMS, and the platform’s official site is atoms.dev , where it is described as a multi-agent AI workflow for building products without code. This conversation goes far beyond simple prompting. Ethan explains how AI agents ...
