Jans Aasman

Hybrid AI architectures get more complex every day. For Jans Aasman, large language models and generative AI are just the newest additions to his toolkit.

Jans has been building advanced hybrid AI systems for more than 15 years, using knowledge graphs, symbolic logic, and machine learning - and now LLMs and gen AI - to build advanced AI systems for Fortune 500 companies.

We talked about:

his knowledge graph and neuro-symbolic work as the CEO of Franz

the crucial role of a visionary knowledge graph champion in KG adoption in enterprises

the two types of KG champions he has encountered: the magic-seeking, forward-looking technologist and the more pragmatic IT leader trying to better organize their operation

the AI architectural patterns and themes he has seen emerge over the past 25 years: logic, reasoning, event-based KGs, machine learning, and of course gen AI and LLMs

how gen AI lets him do things he couldn't have imagined five years ago

the enduring importance of enterprise taxonomies, especially in RAG architectures which business entities need to be understood to answer complex business questions

his approach to neuro-symbolic AI, seeing it as a "fluid interplay between a knowledge graph, symbolic logic, machine learning, and generative AI"

the power of "magic predicates"

a common combination of AI technologies and human interactions that can improve medical diagnosis and care decisions

his strong belief in keeping humans in the loop in AI systems

his observation that technology and business leaders seeing the need for "a symbolic approach next to generative AI"

his take on the development of reasoning capabilities of LLMs

how the code-generation capabilities of LLMs are more beneficial to senior programmers and may even impede the work of less experiences coders

Jans' bio

Jans Aasman is a Ph.D. psychologist and expert in Cognitive Science - as well as CEO of Franz Inc., an early innovator in Artificial Intelligence and provider of Knowledge Graph Solutions based on AllegroGraph. As both a scientist and CEO, Dr. Aasman continues to break ground in the areas of Artificial Intelligence and Knowledge Graphs as he works hand-in-hand with numerous Fortune 500 organizations as well as government entities worldwide.

Connect with Jans online

LinkedIn

email: ja at franz dot com

Video

Here’s the video version of our conversation:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZBZxC8S1Uk

Podcast intro transcript

This is the Knowledge Graph Insights podcast, episode number 20. The mix of technologies in hybrid artificial intelligence systems just keeps getting more interesting. This might seem like a new phenomenon, but long before our LinkedIn feeds were clogged with posts about retrieval augmented generation and neuro-symbolic architectures, Jans Aasman was building AI systems that combined knowledge graphs, symbolic logic, and machine learning. Large language models and generative AI are just the newest technologies in his AI toolkit.

Interview transcript

Larry:

Hi, everyone. Welcome to episode number 20 of the Knowledge Graph Insights podcast. I am really delighted today to welcome to the show Jans Aasmann. Jans is, he originally started out as a psychologist and he got into cognitive science. For the past 20 years, he's run a company called Franz, where he's the CEO doing neuro-symbolic AI, so welcome, Jans. Tell the folks a little bit more about what you're doing these days.

Jans:

We help companies build knowledge graphs, but with the special angle that we now offer neuro-symbolic AI so that we, in a very fluid way, mix traditional symbolic logic and the traditional machine learning with the new generative AI. We do this in every possible combination that you could think of.

Larry:

Who?

Jans:

These applications might be in healthcare or in call centers or in publishing. It's many, many, many different domains it supplies.

Larry: