Podcast Episodes

Episode 47: Hell is Other People's AI Hype, December 9 2024

Episode 47

It’s been a long year in the AI hype mines. And no matter how many claims Emily and Alex debunk, there's always a backlog of Fresh AI Hell. This week, another whirlwind attempt to clear it, with plen…

Published on 10 months, 2 weeks ago

Episode 46: AGI Funny Business (Model), with Brian Merchant, December 2 2024

Episode 46

Once upon a time, artificial general intelligence was the only business plan OpenAI seemed to have. Tech journalist Brian Merchant joins Emily and Alex for a time warp to the beginning of the current…

Published on 11 months ago

Episode 45: Billionaires, Influencers, and Ed Tech (feat. Adrienne Williams), November 18 2024

Episode 45

From Bill Gates to Mark Zuckerberg, billionaires with no education expertise keep using their big names and big dollars to hype LLMs for classrooms. Promising ‘comprehensive AI tutors', or just ‘educ…

Published on 11 months, 3 weeks ago

Episode 44: OpenAI's Ridiculous 'Reasoning', October 28 2024

Episode 44

The company behind ChatGPT is back with bombastic claim that their new o1 model is capable of so-called "complex reasoning." Ever-faithful, Alex and Emily tear it apart. Plus the flaws in a tech publ…

Published on 1 year ago

Episode 43: AI Companies Gamble with Everyone's Planet (feat. Paris Marx), October 21 2024

Episode 43

Technology journalist Paris Marx joins Alex and Emily for a conversation about the environmental harms of the giant data centers and other water- and energy-hungry infrastructure at the heart of LLMs…

Published on 1 year ago

Episode 42: Stop Trying to Make 'AI Scientist' Happen, September 30 2024

Episode 42

Can “AI” do your science for you? Should it be your co-author? Or, as one company asks, boldly and breathlessly, “Can we automate the entire process of research itself?”

Major scientific journals have…

Published on 1 year, 1 month ago

Episode 41: Sweating into AI Fall, September 9 2024

Episode 41

Did your summer feel like an unending barrage of terrible ideas for how to use “AI”? You’re not alone. It's time for Emily and Alex to clear out the poison, purge some backlog, and take another journ…

Published on 1 year, 1 month ago

Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000, Episode 40: Elders Need Care, Not 'AI' Surveillance (feat. Clara Berridge), August 19 2024

Episode 40

Dr. Clara Berridge joins Alex and Emily to talk about the many 'uses' for generative AI in elder care -- from "companionship," to "coaching" like medication reminders and other encouragements toward …

Published on 1 year, 2 months ago

Episode 39: Newsrooms Pivot to Bullshit (feat. Sam Cole), Aug 5 2024

Episode 39

The Washington Post is going all in on AI -- surely this won't be a repeat of any past, disastrous newsroom pivots! 404 Media journalist Samantha Cole joins to talk journalism, LLMs, and why syntheti…

Published on 1 year, 2 months ago

Episode 38: Deflating Zoom's 'Digital Twin,' July 29 2024

Episode 38

Could this meeting have been an e-mail that you didn't even have to read? Emily and Alex are tearing into the lofty ambitions of Zoom CEO Eric Yuan, who claims the future is a LLM-powered 'digital tw…

Published on 1 year, 3 months ago