In the first episode of The Shadow Balance Podcast, I read the introduction, conclusion and explain the epigraphs of the book. You can listen to the episode here.
00:00:00 – Opening
This is episode one of The Shadow Balance and my name is Amanda Holtstrom. During my first episode, I’m going to give you a short introduction to the book and the podcast so that you can know what to expect.
00:00:18 – Why I wrote the book
So let’s kick things off with a quick introduction to why I wrote it.
In the fall of 2025 and early 2026, I really focused on learning about the business implications of AI.The costs and risks I learned about, they seem to be hidden behind a lot of marketing hype.
Getting real information about the risks, the costs, and the barriers to realizing the benefits to AI was really difficult. I read hundreds and hundreds of pages of reports to get one kind of meaningful implication. This prompted me to think there would be value in providing A synthesized, kind of boiled down view of these implications.
The book started off with a heavy design constraint to provide an introduction to a topic, the implications of AI on that topic, and what someone could do to manage those implications that would take about 5 minutes to read.
As a result, we have the Shadow Balance, the technology leader’s guide to the hidden costs and risks of AI.
00:01:27 – Why a podcast?
As I was writing, I had some friends admit that they’d never read my book, but they might listen to it. And so as part of my proofreading, I read it aloud and assembled those audio files into the short series of podcasts that you’re listening to right now.
00:01:44 – What’s in this episode?
In this episode, I’m going to read you the introduction and the conclusion, and I’m also going to explain the three epigraphs.
Here’s the introduction to The Shadow Balance.
The people selling artificial intelligence, AI, to businesses are flooding channels with claims about the benefits of AI. The light they’re shining on these benefits has cast the risks, costs, and barriers to adoption into the shadows.
And if you’re like the other leaders that I know, you’re expected to adopt AI quickly, not leaving much time to fully consider how AI might impact your business. I wrote this book to bring those risks and costs as well as the barriers to realizing the benefits into the light. I picture you reading this book prior to creating your AI adoption plan, prior to making business cases to leadership, and to defend yourself against the claims of some highly enthusiastic management consultants.
My goal was to synthesize the costs and risks into a format that you could read in an evening. While still coming away with the terms and concepts, that would allow you to ask critical questions while keeping the dramatic benefits that AI promises in mind.
I wrote this book for the leader who needs to understand what AI is going to mean for their business and wants to adopt it financially and ethically. That leader wants to know what the AI marketing machine is keeping in the shadows and doesn’t have a lot of time to invest.
This book is for you if you are leading in one of these three areas:
- Software development. So you could be a product leader who builds software and you’re evaluating and integrating AI into your product or products.
- Information technology. You’re an IM/IS/IT leader who manages one or more software products or platforms on behalf of an organization and your vendors are introducing AI into their software.
- Innovation. You’re a leader responsible for innovating and you want to leverage AI with your proprietary data to serve your organization’s purpose.
So for those people, I have a list of things that I’m doing consciously to ensure that this content is accessible and quick to consume.
- First of all, I’m using generic language. I use high-level, simple, vendor-agnostic terms instead of the more traditional technical and specific language that is usually used to describe functions and concepts.
- I repeat definitions. Whenever a technical term is needed, I’ve tried to define it. And as each section was written to stand alone, sometimes you’ll find definitions are repeated.
- And finally, I use AI broadly. I recognize that artificial intelligence includes a vast collection of discrete types of technologies, which have very different capabilities and applications. However, instead of using the specific terms to refer to these different capabilities, I’m using AI generically to emphasize the breadth of the technology’s implications.
A result of these choices is that experts will be annoyed by sections of this book. Cloud operations experts are going to dismiss the brevity of the infrastructure sections and responsible AI advocates will be equally annoyed by the lack of details in the ethical considerations sections. With that said, it’s my hope that the cloud operations expert finds useful perspective in the ethics sections and that the ethics expert will gain an appreciation for how AI incurs infrastructure costs.
Choosing to release the book with complete sections, but 3/4 of the topics missing may seem unusual. But this is the incremental and iterative approach that I’ve always used when delivering software, and I thought I’d try it with a book.
I hope you find this first set of topics useful, and even if you don’t, that you’ll let me know. I value feedback early and often and your suggestions and ideas will help me very much with the next iteration.
00:05:45 – Conclusion
And now on to the conclusion. It may seem strange for me to read the conclusion of my book in this first episode, but I always try to begin with the end in mind. I thought I’d read you the conclusion so that you could have an idea about where you might end up.
My book and podcast was designed to help you become familiar with the implications of AI adoption and make informed decisions before investing.
Now it’s your turn.
Take what you’ve learned about the costs, risks, and barriers to AI and use it when challenging outlandish claims, questioning enthusiastic vendors, and to spotlight the financial and ethical impacts of AI.
I hope it inspires you to make more informed, balanced decisions. Good luck. It’s a very exciting time.
And I hope those who are thinking broadly, fiscally, responsibly, and ethically are the ones who win the day.
00:06:44 – Epigraphs
Now I’m going to give a concise explanation for the epigraphs that I chose for this book.
At the beginning of the book, you’ll find 2 quotes. The first one is from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. And it’s how Earth is described, mostly harmless. And that’s after a revision. I feel that AI as a tool and as a transformative technology could be perceived as mostly harmless. But we shouldn’t forget that any tool, any technology can, with the wrong application, cause harm.
The second quote is from a book series I love called The Expanse. and it says, doors and corners, kid. That’s where they get you. I explained this to my daughter and she said, oh, it’s like a jump scare. They’re going to jump out at you from the doors and the corners. And that’s really the purpose, I think, behind this book, is to make you aware of the potential for jump scares as you’re adopting AI and so that you can manage it and be prepared for them as they emerge.
The final epigraph also comes from The Expanse. It says, there are always people who are wary of change, and that’s a good thing. Change should be watched, moderated, and questioned. But that conservative view shouldn’t reign in progress or put a damper on hope. And that’s really the spirit with which I wrote and compiled this work. I think we’re in a time of massive change and I think it’s going to produce many benefits and also some catastrophes. And I think the more informed people can be about the broader implications, the better decisions they’re going to make.
00:08:40 – Signing Off
This has been episode one of The Shadow Balance podcast. Thank you so much for listening to this introduction.
I hope you find something useful in the following episodes. This episode of The Shadow Balance is complete.