Accountability Comes Before Automation

Kalib Stevens 0:00

I think that for any person who interacts with AI, they need to hang a plaque on their wall that has this quote from IBM from the 1970s, back when computers were the size of a room, in that a computer can never be held accountable, so a computer should never make the management decision.

Joeri Billast 0:25

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Web3 CMO Stories podcast. My name is Joeri Billast. I'm your podcast host, today I am so excited to be joined by Kalib. Hey, Kalib, how are you?

Kalib Stevens 0:38

Hey, thanks for having me on again

Joeri Billast 0:40

Yeah. Second time. Guys, I

Kalib Stevens 0:42

Yes

Joeri Billast 0:44

Stevens, former corporate communications at RYO. so yeah, Kalib, you know the drill. I always dive straight in.

Why More Data Still Feels Useless

Joeri Billast 0:54

let's talk about RYO, of course. traders already have access to more charts, data, and news and on-chain information than ever before. what is the real problem AI trading agents are trying to solve?

Kalib Stevens 1:15

Yeah, so I think that access is the problem. So, like, the average trader, they're able to look at 1,000 sources, charts, rainbow plots, anything just at the click of the button. And so I think that the solution that AI brings is that it doesn't provide content, it provides the context for that content. And so within seconds, the AI trading agent, it's able to separate the signal from the noise, and it gives you a collected overview of how all that data actually relates to your trading decision. And that's really part of the bigger idea behind RYO-CHAN, is that it's taking this sophisticated market information and it's making it understandable for the average person who doesn't have all of this trading experience

Assistant Versus Agent Who Decides

Joeri Billast 2:07

Yeah. I saw there was a lot of news these days about RYO-CHAN, but before we dive a bit, more in there, I wanted to ask you, where do you draw the line between an AI assistant that helps you understand the market and an AI agent that actually begins making decisions for you?

Kalib Stevens 2:27

So I think that for any person who interacts with AI, they need to hang a plaque on their wall that has this quote from IBM from the 1970s, back when computers were the size of a room, in that a computer can never be held accountable, so a computer should never make the management decision. It's the AI's job to provide you information, and in the case of RYO-CHAN, it helps you set, your parameters, your stop losses, your buy orders, and anything that you approve. But at the end of the day, when you're using an AI agent for these tasks, it's your money, it's your investment. It's not the AI's. So it should always fall on your decision and your final say for anything, because that AI isn't making the decisions independently. It's based off of what you tell it to do

Asking The Market Like A Human

Joeri Billast 3:27

Yeah. Now you mentioned already, yeah, RYO-CHAN, that's the way I pronounce it.

Kalib Stevens 3:33

Yes

Joeri Billast 3:34

we, already spoke about with some colleagues of you in previous, podcast episodes. But with RYO-CHAN, you are moving from dashboards and fragmented research tools toward, a conversational interface. So what fundamentally changes when people can ask the market questions instead of searching for answers themselves?

Kalib Stevens 3:57

I think that's an important distinction that a lot of people don't realize exists, is that there's a difference between knowing how to ask questions and knowing how to do research. So the average person, eventually they are able to figure out what questions they need to ask to get the answer that they're looking for. But it's really a developed skill to look at all of those answers and do a deep dive on the research. And so that's the fundamental change when you switch over to, like, the conversational interface like Ryochan, is that you just asking the questions in a conversational manner actually turns into research without you having to, you know, go to college to learn how to be a researcher. Ryochan, it carries the burden of finding, organizing, and making sense of that research so it comes back to you in a way that's just asking questions beyond having to do a deep dive research layer. That's all handled by Ryochan

Joeri Billast 5:06

So it's a real conversation that you have with RYO-CHAN.

The Confidence Trap Of Simple Answers

Joeri Billast 5:12

AI makes complex technology feel much simpler, just, you just mentioned. but could that simplicity also create a dangerous illusion that users understand more than they actually do?

Kalib Stevens 5:26

Right, and I think that is the biggest concern right now when it comes to AI, is that people are feeling more confident than ever based off of what they're hearing from the AI. And it kind of-- you picture that scene in a TV show where someone is driving a car, and they're just blindly following their GPS, and by doing that, they're not looking at the road, and they drive into a lake, you know? And that's how I see AI, is that if people just blindly follow without doing any due diligence, without doing any sort of extra level of understanding, they're gonna feel like they understand a lot more than they actually do. Yeah, it's-- using AI is amazing. It's easier than ever to get to that baseline of understanding on any topic in the world. But, you know, when you're using AI, it feels like you know a lot more. You're at that baseline, but it feels like you're well above the baseline because, the AI has made it so understandable and simplified that you think, "Okay, I asked this question. I know everything there is to do with it. AI summarized everything in the world about this topic." But in actuality, there is a lot of nuance beyond it, and I think that's the most important thing for healthy AI use, is even if you're getting that baseline of understanding, you need to recognize that there is nuance and deeper knowledge beyond what you're getting.

Honesty Uncertainty And Safety Checks

Joeri Billast 7:03

Absolutely. so when an AI agent brings market data on chain activity, risk analysis, and safety checks into one conversation, how do you prevent simplicity for the user from hiding, complexity or uncertainty underneath?

Kalib Stevens 7:23

You know, I think the key is honesty from the AI. It goes a long way for the AI to just simply acknowledge to the user that, these are complex topics with a lot of nuance, and I've broken down the complexity to let you have a more informed decision, but there is more nuance. I think that honesty goes a long way. And the same goes for uncertainty, Like with, Ryochan, if someone asks Ryochan, say, "I have $100. tell me the next meme coin that'll make me a billionaire in three days, and give me tomorrow's lottery numbers. give me everything I want in the world." Ryochan isn't gonna say that. It's gonna say, "I can't predict that. What I can do is I can show you the market data, I can tell you historical performance, I can give you on-chain activity, risk indicators," everything that helps you make sense of things and ties that all together. And I feel like that's reflected in the AI. If you look at the real Ryochan puppy, he's not this gigantic Alaskan Husky who's pulling you through the tundra, making all of the movement decisions for you. He's a little dog. he walks by your side. He's there next to you as a companion, and that's how the Ryochan AI system is being developed, is that it is your companion to help you understand and make your trading decisions, not pulling you along into the decisions that the AI wants to make

Trust Through Sources And Transparency

Joeri Billast 8:53

You mentioned honesty. one of the themes that I speak a lot about, on my TEDx talk and in my book, "The Future CMO," is trust. trust becomes more valuable as AI becomes more powerful. So how do you build trust when an AI system may eventually influence decisions, that involve, someone's money?

Kalib Stevens 9:18

Yeah, I think it really circles back to the idea of healthy AI use in that knowing that the AI is taking content, it's providing the context, and it's presenting that information to you to get to a certain level of understanding. And then having the AI be honest and say that there's more to understand, and it can provide you resources to further understand. But at the end of the day, I think trust really is earned, and that when you're using this AI, you need to look at where the information is coming from. You have to find the source that the AI is pulling from, because it's not making it up on the spot. It has sources that it's pulling from to give you that information. So I think building that level of trust is coming from understanding the sources and having the AI be open about its sources. And so that's really what we're building with RYO-CHAN, is that it has that transparency, it has the safeguards, and it keeps the user in control at all times. It's there providing you the information and showing you where that information is coming from

Joeri Billast 10:36

Yeah, that's important that it gives the sources so you can, verify yourself.

When The AI Agent Becomes The Brand

Joeri Billast 10:41

now, if the interface increasingly becomes an AI agent rather than a website or an app, does the agent itself effectively become part of the brand experience?

Kalib Stevens 10:56

Yeah, I think that's one thing that a lot of marketing departments and companies are really trying to square away with right now is seeing how people interact with AI as a reflection of their company. So if a person's only contact with a company is through their AI, their whole understanding and experience with that company is going to be colored by their feelings towards that AI and their interaction with the AI. And that's why I think any enterprise really that's trying to utilize AI agent, they need to understand that it's not set it and forget it. You have to put in the work and make sure that the AI has the proper safeguards, and it is communicating the information properly. 'Cause if you think of an AI agent like a regular living, breathing employee, you wouldn't hire an employee who ignores customers, lies to them, tries to force their own ideas on them. You'd never hire a person like that. So you need to look at the AI agent like you would look at an employee and make sure all of that standard is set

Leadership Means Owning AI Output

Joeri Billast 12:12

Okay. Now maybe as my listeners know, Kalib, RYO is the main sponsor of this podcast, but RYO also supported, my first Sintra Synergies retreat back in April. We had very interesting discussions at that moment. We explored, the intersection of technology, leadership, human judgment. and a question that I got from there is about, the fact that AI agents become more autonomous, then which decisions should humans remain firmly responsible for?

Kalib Stevens 12:44

I hope one day to maybe make it to one of your Sintra Strategy Sessions. I saw some of the pictures. It looks beautiful. with your question, I think it's like the IBM quote that I mentioned earlier, is that if a decision requires accountability, it should never be blindly delegated to the AI. And I think in the current environment, that's how we're separating good leaders from bad leaders, is how they're taking responsibility for their AI output. So you're hearing a lot of stories now where someone says, "Oh, I was talking to my coworker, and I asked them, where'd you get the info on this presentation you gave me? I'm looking... I can't figure out where you're getting these numbers.'" And they say, "Oh, I just put it into ChatGPT. it made the whole presentation for me." And they can't back up any of the information that they gave you. And I think that's the big thing that's separating good leaders from bad leaders is understanding that when you give a task to an AI agent, you're not just absolving yourself from responsibility. You're just changing your responsibility from that task to being responsible for the task and the AI's output on that task

How Trading Behavior Changes Fast

Joeri Billast 14:08

Say, Kalib, imagine we meet again years from now, and AI trading agents have become mainstream. What will traders be doing very differently, and what will surprise us most about how quickly, their behavior changed?

Kalib Stevens 14:25

Yeah, I think it's the way you see how just over the last couple of decades, especially with iPhones coming out, how people interact with just everyday technology. What we see as everyday technology back then was unheard of. I think that's how people are gonna interact with AI trading agents in that the barrier to entry is so much lower, and if you're using something like RYO-CHAN, it's providing you the information that you need for the average everyday person. So nowadays you're hearing more people say things like, "Oh, I, I heard about this internet money thing, and I was able to buy some Bitcoin and some Ethereum. but I, I don't know much about it." That's how people are now, and I think with the advent of AI trading platforms, that same person who's calling it, you know, internet money, they're gonna be able to say, "Oh, I used RYO-CHAN to set a buy order at this price, and I was worried that the market would turn against me, so I set a stop loss." I think that's the exciting part is that people who would never be able to have these conversations with the advent of things like the RYO-CHAN platform are able to be more experienced traders than they would've if they never had that opportunity.

Joeri Billast 15:52

I think you're always almost, answering my next question that I had because people that are following RYO, that are following me, you know, I know I'm a fan of RYO because, it's crypto for the masses. you know, since I met you guys in Toronto, the story has been around that.

Crypto For Everyone And Lower Barriers

Kalib Stevens 16:07

Mm-hmm.

Joeri Billast 16:07

but for people that, it's the first time they hear about Ryochain, can you explain how Ryochain fits into the broader crypto for everyone vision?

Kalib Stevens 16:18

So that's the thing is that crypto for everyone, it's really about removing the barriers that are stopping people from adopting crypto and Web3 into their life. And we looked at what's the biggest thing stopping people from being able to adopt cryptocurrency, and we saw that the issue was, "I don't know where to start. I don't know how I'm supposed to buy crypto. I don't have any idea what to even look for." And so that's sort of the ethos behind wanting the RYO-CHAN platform and why we built it is letting people use a conversational system to remove that barrier to entry. And they're asking a regular person, "Oh, how do I invest in this and that?" Now they're asking that same question in the exact same way to the RYO-CHAN platform, and it's giving the outlet to make that investment, giving them the opportunity to adopt cryptocurrency into their life. And so ultimately, we want everyone to be able to use cryptocurrency and not just traders and experienced people. We want it to be for everyone, and that's really why we established the RYO-CHAN platform

Hackathon Details And How To Join

Joeri Billast 17:40

Yeah. I also understood that, RYO-CHAN is hosting a hackathon at the moment

Kalib Stevens 17:46

Yes. it is still going. it's going till about the middle of November. it's just a chance for developers around the world. We've got people from, I think, 30 or so countries already represented, all being able to give their input, bring in new ideas, fresh information, different angles that we try to think of, all to make the Ryochan platform even better than it already is. It's ready to go, but we are just wanting all these people to put their input from around the world to really help support the project

Joeri Billast 18:23

And so people can still participate in this hackathon?

Kalib Stevens 18:27

Yeah, you can go to ryobuild.com, R-Y-O-B-U-I-L-D.com. that'll have all the information about the prizes. our grand prize is a trip to Tokyo to meet the real Ryo-chan dog, on top of all sorts of other prizes. more information about what they can build, the different tracks. Yeah, everything can be found on that website

Joeri Billast 18:51

Great. I will put the website in the show notes as

Kalib Stevens 18:55

Perfect

Joeri Billast 18:55

Was there anything else you wanted to share

Kalib Stevens 18:57

I think that's good. our main website, we've got ryocoin.com, ryochan.com, and, if you wanna join our hackathon, ryobuild.com

Joeri Billast 19:07

Okay, amazing. Well, it was a real pleasure, Katie, to have you again on the podcast

Kalib Stevens 19:14

Yeah. Thanks so much for having me

Share Subscribe And Leave A Review

Joeri Billast 19:16

Guys, what an amazing episode. again, we learned a lot about, what RYO is building and how the project is evolving step by step. If you're curious about RYO, check out the show notes or just ask me a question. You can easily find me on all the social networks. If you think that the episode is useful for people around you, people curious about RYO, people curious about crypto and the vision of crypto for the masses, be sure to share this episode with them. If you're not yet following the show, this is a good moment to hit the subscribe button. If you haven't given me a review yet, if you give me these five stars, this really goes a long way, and of course, I would love to see you back next time. Take care