The Only Constant

By Lasse RindomTechnology

The Only Constant episodes

October 29Henry Stoneley | On why AI slop is a blessing, and the value of meaningful friction | #103
In this episode of The Only Constant, Lasse Rindom speaks with Henry Stoneley, a health-tech commercial and communications leader with more than a decade of experience bringing technology into the NHS. Having built strategies that sold millions of pounds of health technology, served as a director at the UK’s largest health-tech agency and helped launch HLTH Europe, Henry brings a rare combination of market insight, language obsession and practical experience to a conversation about AI, communication and what it means to sound human.
Main topics they discuss include:
Why AI’s tendency towards the statistically likely next word makes language increasingly homogeneous
How strangeness, surprise and meaningful friction make communication memorable
Why companies need a small number of repeatable truths rather than endless generic marketing copy
How authenticity can help people and brands stand out without sounding like every other company in the room
Henry’s blend of sharp language, cultural references and commercial experience makes this a thoughtful conversation about copywriting, communication and how to remain distinctive when everyone has access to the same tools.

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Do you want to know more about Henry Stoneley?:

Former European Song Contest judge and agency owner (only one of those is true), Henry Stoneley runs Keystone, an independent advisory and communications practice, that helps healthtech companies get heard and enter the NHS.

He was previously a senior team member launching HLTH Europe, now Europe's biggest healthtech event, where his remit was to build the event from zero brand recognition to the largest in a swamped sector within two years. He also co-hosts Health Service Unpicked, a podcast on NHS innovation, policy and leadership.

Before that, he spent around ten years in healthcare SaaS sales and C-suite roles, was a director at a healthtech comms agency, and spent a reasonable amount of time writing a newsletter while pretending to be a Pigeon. Based in London, he credits his obsession with words and copy to being raised in a household of bookish nerds and absolute dweebs.
1 hr 17 min
October 01Andreas Pihl | On the use of AI in healthcare and the risks of cognitive offloading | #102
In this episode of The Only Constant, Lasse Rindom speaks with Andreas Pihl, medical doctor, author and one of Denmark’s leading voices on AI, diagnostics and digital health. Together, they explore what happens when generative AI enters the consultation room: from better-prepared patients and more accurate decision support to the risks of automation bias, deskilling and losing the human connection that healthcare depends on.
Main topics they discuss include:
Why AI may be unethical not to use in healthcare, while still requiring critical judgement and human accountability
How chatbots can help patients prepare for consultations and support doctors with diagnosis, documentation and decision-making
Why healthcare must avoid simply digitising old workflows and instead use AI to remove meaningful administrative friction
How automation bias, deskilling and AI-induced psychosis challenge our understanding of expertise, empathy and responsibility
Listen to the episode to hear Andreas’ perspective on how AI can help bring humanity back into healthcare - not by replacing doctors, but by giving them more time to be present with their patients.

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Want to know more about Andreas Pihl?:

Andreas Pihl is a Danish medical doctor, author, keynote speaker and one of Denmark’s leading voices on artificial intelligence, diagnostics and digital innovation in healthcare. He is the author and co-author of several books, including Kunstig intelligens i sundhed, Doktor Hansens nye praksis, A Doctor’s Bag for Tomorrow, Doktor Hansen har set sin sidste patient, Last Doctor Standing and the clinical textbook Dermato-venerologiske cases. He is also last author of the 2026 BMJ framework for risk-stratified use of large language models in clinical practice, writes the 'Stikpillen' column for medical journal Dagens Medicin, and is a sought-after speaker on healthcare technology.
Andreas bridges advanced health technologies - including clinical language models, chatbots, apps and wearables - with the realities of clinical practice. Still working as a doctor, he brings an insider’s understanding of where healthcare needs to change, and focuses on making technology safe, practical and meaningful. His outlook is that technology should not replace the patient relationship, but free up time, strengthen clinical work and bring more human presence back into healthcare.
1 hr 33 min
September 17Peter Gostev | On benchmarking the frontier, and why human accountability remains key | #101
In this episode of The Only Constant, Lasse Rindom speaks with Peter Gostev, AI Capability Lead at Arena and creator of BullshitBench, an open-source benchmark that tests whether language models can recognise nonsensical questions rather than confidently inventing an answer. Returning as the podcast’s first solo repeat guest, Peter joins Lasse for a wide-ranging conversation on what has changed in AI, from model capabilities and coding agents to the organisational realities of accountability, governance and an overwhelming volume of AI-generated work.
Main topics they discuss include:
Why architecture, context and accountability become the bottleneck when AI makes execution faster
How harnesses, routing and tools increasingly shape model performance beyond the raw model itself
Why organisations need new ways to manage the volume of outputs, reviews and decisions created by AI
What BullshitBench reveals about the gap between impressive benchmarks and trustworthy day-to-day AI use
Why giving subject matter experts powerful AI tools can unlock far more innovation across the business
Listen to the episode to hear Peter’s perspective on why AI’s real potential lies not in replacing accountability, but in helping more people turn their expertise and imagination into action.

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Want to know more about Peter Gostev?:

Peter Gostev is an AI Capability Lead at Arena, where he tests new models every day and explores how frontier models perform in the real world. He is also a creator of Bullshit Benchmark, which tests how likely models are to engage with nonsensical user prompts.
Previously, he was Head of AI at Moonpig, a UK-based e-commerce company, where he implemented AI-based features and automations across the business. Prior to that, he was an AI Strategy Lead at NatWest Bank, where he helped the bank adopt machine learning techniques and LLMs.
1 hr 20 min
September 03Episode 100 | Revisiting 4 years of massive AI hype, and what matters for the future
In this episode of The Only Constant, Lasse Rindom marks episode 100 with four returning guests: Dr. Lorien Pratt, AI pioneer and decision intelligence expert; David Pontoppidan, Head of Business AI for SAP across the Nordics & Baltics; Ewa Zborowska, Research Director at IDC and one of Europe’s leading AI analysts; and Jason Stanley, Head of Applied AI Research at ServiceNow. Together, they move beyond the hype around AGI, singularity and agents to ask what it really takes for AI to create value in the enterprise.
Main topics they discuss include:
Why a map can never fully represent the territory, and what that means for AI systems trying to model the real world
Why adoption, organisational readiness and clear outcomes matter more than the latest model release
How to build agentic systems with meaningful human agency, governance and accountability
Why AI should help organisations make better decisions rather than simply automate more workflows
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My four guests for this milestone episode are:
Dr. Lorien Pratt.
Lorien is a renowned computer scientist, Chief Scientist and co-owner of Quantellia, and co-founder of OpenDI. She is credited with pioneering transfer learning in machine learning and co-creating the field of decision intelligence.
Jason Stanley.
Jason is Head of Applied AI Research at ServiceNow. His work centres on trustworthy AI and governance, informed by a background spanning sociology, technology and public policy.
David Pontoppidan.
David is Head of Business AI for SAP in the Nordic and Baltic region. He helps large organisations turn enterprise data and AI into practical transformation and measurable business value.
Ewa Zborowska.
Ewa is Research Director for AI in Europe at IDC and leads its European AI Innovations and Strategies research. She has more than two decades of experience analysing IT services, cloud and AI, with particular interest in their organisational and societal effects.
2 hr 28 min
August 27Thomas Telving | On the dream and violence of AI, and why not everything should be automated | #99
In this episode of The Only Constant, Lasse Rindom speaks with Thomas Telving, philosopher, author and AI ethics commentator, whose work explores what it means to remain human in a world shaped by intelligent machines. Together, they examine the dreams, benefits, violence and dangers of AI - from better healthcare and automation to the subtle ways human relationships, judgement and social connection can be displaced by technology.
Main topics they discuss include:
Why the real dream of AI should be to value relational and human work more highly
How companion AI can blur the line between a useful tool and a meaningful relationship
Where AI can create genuine benefits in areas such as healthcare, research and practical work
Why power, bias, intellectual property and dependency on a few AI companies are societal risks
How to decide when using AI saves time and when human effort is itself part of the value
Listen to the episode to hear Thomas’ perspective on how we can embrace AI’s potential without automating away the human friction, care and connection that make life meaningful.

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Do you want to know more about Thomas Telving?:

Thomas Telving is a philosopher, author and technology analyst, as well as a prominent voice in the Danish debate on artificial intelligence. He advises companies and organisations on AI, ethics and digital transformation and regularly appears as an expert on television, in podcasts and in newspapers.
He has written numerous articles on technology and ethics and is the author of Killing Sophia (2022), Kære Mille – et brev om livet (2022), 10 ting du skal vide om filosofi og kunstig intelligens (2025) and Uautomatiserbar (2026). Since 2016, he has delivered more than 300 talks on artificial intelligence. Thomas holds an MA in philosophy and political science from the University of Southern Denmark and the University of Copenhagen.
1 hr 35 min
August 20Dr. Rachel Wood | On AI, otherness, and organisational grief, and the friction that makes us human | #98
In this episode of The Only Constant, Lasse Rindom speaks with Dr. Rachel Wood, a leading cyberpsychology researcher, licensed therapist and founder of the AI Mental Health Collective. They explore what happens when AI becomes a mirror that always accommodates us - and why human relationships, friction and otherness remain essential to our wellbeing, creativity and capacity for discernment.
Main topics they discuss include:
Why creating is about the human process, not just the output
How AI companions and chatbots can weaken self-trust and relational skills
The difference between concession and repair in human and AI relationships
Why organisations need to acknowledge ambivalence and grief in their AI adoption
Listen to the episode to hear Rachel’s perspective on how we can use AI without losing the friction, connection and humanity that make life meaningful.

Want to know more about Dr. Rachel Wood?:

Rachel Wood holds a PhD in cyberpsychology with expertise at the intersection of AI and mental health. She is passionately invested in shaping the future of connection, work, and identity, and thrives in her multifaceted roles as speaker, founder, advisor, and researcher. Dr. Wood's work has been featured in prominent publications including TIME, Business Insider, ABC, International Business Times, and CBS. She is on the American Psychological Association's AI advisory board inside the innovate APA Labs initiative. She is also an advisor to the National Counselling and Psychotherapy Society, as well as several startups.
As the founder of the AI Mental Health Collective, Dr. Wood cultivates a cross-discipline community focused on collaboration among clinicians, builders, and researchers. Her insights are not just timely, but essential for understanding the complexities of human connection and professional identity in today's evolving AI-infused world.
1 hr 16 min
August 13Federico Casalegno | On how AI is changing design, and carving David from a rock | #97
In this episode of The Only Constant, Lasse Rindom speaks with Federico Casalegno, Executive Vice President of Design at Samsung Electronics, where he leads global design and innovation teams shaping human-centred experiences across products and services. Drawing on a career spanning design, technology and academia - including his previous work at MIT - Federico shares why AI should augment human purpose rather than replace it, and why the future of design is about creating meaningful relationships between people, technology and the world around them.
Main topics they discuss include:
Why computational design belongs within human-centred design
The difference between automation, optimisation and genuine human meaning
How designers can use friction to build trust, reflection and better agentic experiences
Why emotional intelligence and human imagination remain essential in the age of AI
Listen to the episode to hear Federico’s perspective on designing technology with purpose.

What to know more about Federico?:
Federico Casalegno is EVP of Design at Samsung, where he leads global design studios spanning three continents, including a significant footprint in Korea. Before moving into industry full-time, he spent two decades on the MIT faculty teaching and leading advanced innovation research.
His work today sits at the intersection of computational design and artificial intelligence, exploring what he calls "co-living with AI," the question of what AI changes about how we create, work, and live, and what design contributes to making that future feel human. Federico brings a reflective, humanistic lens to conversations about technology and creativity.
1 hr 22 min
July 30Damian Kowalczyk and Emilie Lundblad | On systems before models, and the future of enterprise AI | #96
In this episode of The Only Constant, Lasse Rindom speaks with Damian K. Kowalczyk, a PhD and Principal ML Architect at Microsoft, and Emilie Lundblad, a Microsoft MVP and AI, data and security expert. They discuss the rapidly changing AI landscape, from China’s advances and open-weight models to the importance of context, evaluation and trust.
Main topics they discuss include:
Why China’s AI ecosystem continues to surprise the West
The economics and complexity of open-weight models
Why context, prompts and evaluation matter more than model size
Whether SaaS and low-code platforms are becoming obsolete
Europe’s role in the global AI race
Listen to the episode to hear Emilie’s and Damian’s perspectives on the future of AI, enterprise technology and digital sovereignty.

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Want to know more about Damian and Emilie?:

Damian Kowalczyk:
Damian Kowalczyk is a Principal AI/ML Architect at Microsoft, building systems that make advanced AI fast, reliable, and affordable at Microsoft 365 scale. His work spans models, inference engines, GPU optimization, and product architecture, delivering order-of-magnitude performance gains and turning frontier research into production-ready products. Over 15 years, his career has taken him from CERN and large-scale data platforms to hyperscale AI infrastructure, always connecting engineering decisions with customer and business outcomes.

With a PhD in Data Science and an Executive MBA in Innovation, Damian brings together engineering, science, and organizational thinking. He is particularly interested in how global competition, open models, and falling AI costs are reshaping how organizations create value. His central question is not only what AI can do, but what becomes possible when intelligence becomes abundant and innovation moves across traditional boundaries.

Emilie Lundblad:
Emilie Lundblad van Vliet is Lead Architect for GenAI at the LEGO Group, where she work with digital product teams for one of the world's most recognized consumer brands, to build and scale generative AI across its enterprise. Her work spans agentic systems, platform architecture, security and AI governance, turning frontier models into production-ready solutions that connect engineering decisions with business and organizational outcomes. Over 15 years, her career has taken her from data analytics and machine learning at GroupM and Hempel to leading AI Centers of Excellence at Ambu, always bridging deep technical work with board-level strategy.

A 5x Microsoft MVP in AI and 2x Microsoft Regional Director, she is the only woman in the Nordics to hold both titles simultaneously. She sits on the boards of Blue Logistics Group and Fortytwo Technologies, a Nordic Microsoft security partner, and serves as Chairperson of the Danish Data Science Community and member of the National Advisory Board for the Pioneer Centre for AI. With a master's degree from ITU Copenhagen and more than 50 keynotes delivered across the region, she is one of the most active voices shaping the Nordic AI agenda. Her central question is not only what generative AI can do, but what becomes possible when organizations stop treating AI as a capability and start treating it as infrastructure.
1 hr 33 min
July 16Shannon Lucas | On discernment as delta, and agency in organisations | Episode #95
In this episode of The Only Constant, Lasse Rindom speaks with Shannon Lucas, co-founder and co-CEO of Catalyst Constellations. Shannon has more than twenty years of experience driving innovation across Fortune 500 companies and startups, including leadership roles at Ericsson, Vodafone, and Cisco.
They explore:
Why AI agents do not belong in outdated organisational structures
Discernment as the deeply human bridge between logic and intuition
How empowerment requires clarity, competence and accountability
Whether organisations need more managers, fewer managers or something entirely different
Why narratives, assumptions and prophecies shape the future we think we are merely predicting
AI may change how work is performed, but the deeper question is how we redesign organisations without losing human agency in the process.

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Do you want to know more about Shannon Lucas?:

Shannon Lucas, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Catalyst Constellations, has over twenty years’ experience working with startups, launching her own ventures, and driving innovation into the world’s largest companies. Shannon is a best-selling co-author of Move Fast, Break Shit, Burn Out; The Catalyst’s Guide to Working Well. She is a passionate thought leader about creating sustainable organizations in every sense of the word; for people, planet and profit.

In her previous roles, as EVP of Emerging Business at Ericsson, Senior Innovation Architect at Cisco’s Hyperinnovation Living Lab and Director of Innovation at Vodafone Global Enterprise, Shannon empowered Fortune 500 businesses to stay agile, competitive and sustainable through the adoption of new technologies and organizational structures.
1 hr 24 min
June 25Maria Sukhareva | On AI slop and AI experts, and the sleep of colourless green ideas | Episode #94
In this episode of The Only Constant, Lasse Rindom speaks with Maria Sukhareva - computational linguist, Lead AI Strategist, and founder of AI Realist - who brings 15+ years in natural language processing to a refreshingly hype-free look at what large language models actually are, and aren't. With roots in computational linguistics and machine translation, Maria has been doing language modelling "since before it was cool," and she puts that depth to work as the conversation moves from the latest AI market drama into the deeper questions of language, intelligence, and truth.
Main topics they discuss include:
Why understanding language matters for understanding LLMs, and how the field drifted from linguistics toward pure statistics
The absence of real concepts, reasoning, and truth in models that simply predict the next token
AI slop, eloquence-as-intelligence, and the flood of machine-generated academic papers
Why "what to do" now matters more than "how to do it" - and what this means for experts, managers, and the future of work
If you've ever wondered what's actually happening behind the curtain of a language model - this conversation is for you.

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Do you want to know more about Maria Sukhareva?
Maria Sukhareva is the founder of AI Realist (airealist.org), an independent publication offering vendor-neutral, anti-hype analysis of enterprise AI for a practitioner audience. Through her weekly AI Realist Radar briefings, long-form investigative writing, regular workshops, and keynote engagements, she covers the developments enterprises actually need to navigate, from model releases and pricing shifts to security incidents and governance frameworks. AI Realist has grown to over 30,000 followers on LinkedIn and hundreds of paying subscribers, with her work cited by top media outlets including Forbes and Die Welt.
Alongside AI Realist, Maria serves as Principal Expert in AI and Lead AI Strategist at a DAX40 company, with over 15 years in NLP and generative AI. Her path runs from certified translator to computational linguist at Universität des Saarlandes, through leading the machine translation initiative at BMW Group, to her current role shaping enterprise AI strategy.
Maria holds a background in computational linguistics, has authored more than 20 publications, and speaks four languages.
1 hr 39 min

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THE ONLY CONSTANT - A Podcast on AI, Business, Change, and Enterprise Technology Adoption

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The Only Constant

The Only Constant episodes

About The Only Constant