Sick of AI giving you answers with all the flavor of corporate hold music? In this episode of our AI Pro Tips series, Emily Laird cracks open the secret sauce of prompting: ruthless specificity. Forget vague instructions! Think of AI like a rookie line cook: you want steak and fries, not leftovers from the walk-in. From prepping your prompts with c…

Think you’ve got all your project bases covered? Think again. In this episode, Emily Laird calls out the hidden holes in your plans that even your espresso-fueled brain misses. Forget the coddling, AI is here to serve up brutal honesty and a reality check, sniffing out the overlooked people, missing voices, and embarrassing assumptions tucked into …

Think giving your chatbot a name is just for weirdos and sci-fi fans? Think again. In this episode, Emily Laird tosses out the dry tips and goes full Cast Away, explaining why talking to your AI like it’s a grumpy old professor (or a pirate, or Jeffrey the Roomba) isn’t just quirky, it’s the secret to getting answers that don’t suck. Discover why a…

AI isn’t just doing your homework anymore, it’s helping build malware, write fake job offers, and launch cyberattacks faster than you can say “Ctrl+Alt+Delete.” In this episode, host Emily Laird breaks down how generative AI is giving cybercriminals a glow-up, from malware-for-hire and espionage squads to scams slicker than a used car salesman in t…

Generative AI has a dark side, and it’s not just stealing jobs, it’s applying for them. In this episode, host Emily Laird goes underground with OpenAI’s new report on how generative models are powering fake résumés, propaganda machines, and influencer chaos. From North Korean hackers catfishing HR departments to AI-crafted love letters to authorita…

AI isn’t just crashing Miami’s pool parties anymore, it’s moving into the classroom, and no, it’s not just helping kids cheat better. In this episode, hot Emily Laird's hitting the hot, humid hallways of Miami-Dade County Public Schools, where over 100,000 students will be getting cozy with Google’s Gemini chatbot. We’re talking AI-powered tutors, …

Grab your ergonomic chair and emotional support coffee, this one’s about your job, and whether AI already has it. In this episode of Generative AI 101, Emily Laird breaks down why Dario Amodei (Anthropic), Jensen Huang (Nvidia), and Kevin Roose (NYT) are all sounding the alarm—each in their own way—on the AI-job apocalypse. From entry-level extinct…

Lights, camera, algorithm! This week, host Emily Laird hands the director’s chair to Google’s Veo 3, an AI video model that spits out 4K cinematic clips on command, complete with synced sound, consistent characters, and more drama than a Zoom call with your CEO. From TikTok teasers that don’t look like last-minute Canva projects, to cat-produced Su…

Google DeepMind just dropped Veo 3, and it's basically Final Cut Pro with a soul—or at least a solid camera sense. This episode, we're breaking down why this new generative video model isn’t just impressive—it’s unsettlingly good. Think 4K video made from text, audio that doesn’t sound like a Speak & Spell, and cinematic vibes so on point it could …

What happens when OpenAI gives $6.5 billion to the man who made your iPhone hot and your MacBook sleek? You get a screenless, AI-native gadget designed by Jony Ive, aka the guy who convinced us that buttons are for peasants. In this episode, host Emily Laird digs into why OpenAI bought hardware startup io (yes, lowercase), what a “third core device…

Let's break down the U.S. Copyright Office’s spicy third report on AI, ya know, the one that's throwing elbows and reportedly got Perlmutter canned. From training on copyrighted data to market dilution (aka the Merlot of legal arguments), Emily Laird dissects the legal drama that could decide the future of generative models. We’re talking fair use,…

AI-generated Tom Cruise? Button-mashing cyberpunk operas? Welcome to the legal circus. In this episode, Emily Laird breaks down the U.S. Copyright Office’s spicy three-part report series on generative AI: from deepfakes and who actually owns AI-made content, to the billion-dollar question, can your model legally chow down on copyrighted books witho…

So you typed “a cat smoking a pipe in Van Gogh’s style” into your favorite AI tool, cool flex, but don’t try to copyright it. In this episode, host Emily Laird is slicing into the meat of the AI copyright mess: who owns AI-generated content, what the U.S. Copyright Office actually said about it, and why your clever prompt won’t get you a ribbon (or…

Generative AI crashed the copyright party in 2023 and it didn’t wipe its boots at the door. In this episode, we break down the chaotic, caffeinated debate over who owns what when machines start getting “creative.” From the U.S. Copyright Office’s tough love (no human, no copyright) to courtroom showdowns like Thaler v. Perlmutter and the cautious a…

Think AI runs on math and magic? Try 66 billion liters of water. In this episode, host Emily Laird exposes AI’s dirty little secret: data centers are chugging water like it’s spring break in Vegas. From Microsoft draining cities to Google raising eyebrows in Oregon, we break down how training your favorite chatbot might be leaving the planet parche…

AI isn't magic; it's math and metal, and it has a monster appetite for electricity. In this episode, host Emily Laird digs into the eco-footprint of Generative AI, from training models that suck down enough power to juice 120 homes, to chatbot sessions that drain half a liter of water per flirty Q&A. Emily also unpacks why your helpful bot might be…

Ever wonder who’s really winning the Chatbot Arena and whether those wins mean anything at all? In this episode of Generative AI 101, host Emily Laird's blowing the lid off the leaderboard. Turns out, the top bots might’ve had a little… help. Like submitting 27 secret versions and quietly deleting the losers help. We break down The Leaderboard Illu…

Let's crack open the philosophical piñata known as machine consciousness. Can an LLM feel pride? Regret? Existential dread when you close the browser tab? Host Emily Laird explores the messy, mind-melting debate over whether AI might actually feel something—and why Anthropic, the buttoned-up AI lab behind Claude, is tossing around numbers that sugg…

Let's crack open Dario Amodei’s latest essay, The Urgency of Interpretability, and ask the big, slightly terrifying question: do we actually know what our AIs are doing? (Spoiler: not really.) Host Emily Laird, your unofficial AI mechanic, is here to poke at the greasy guts of Amodei's latest thriller. We’ll talk haunted vending machines, rogue cof…

AI therapy apps are popping off, but should you really trust a chatbot with your late-night existential crisis? In this episode, we crack open the weird history of therapy bots (starting with one that was dumber than a Magic 8-Ball), explore how today's AI can spit out legit CBT tips, and unpack why your Tamagotchi probably gave better advice. We’l…

Image generation isn’t magic, it’s a recipe. In this episode, host Emily Laird is stirring up the flavorful world of AI image prompting using keywords and modifiers. From “chalk drawing yoga teacher” vibes to full-blown Rembrandt drama, Emily's breaking down how to fine-tune your prompts like a pixel-powered chef. We’re talking mediums, moods, ligh…

Image prompting isn’t just “describe it and pray”, it’s ordering a gourmet dish at a snobby robot diner. This week on Generative AI 101, Emily Laird returns with a delicious breakdown of how to write image prompts that actually work. Learn the golden trifecta of Subject, Details, and Style. Get tips on word order (yes, it matters), prompt length (t…

AI isn’t just flirting with your job anymore, it’s taking it out to dinner and meeting its parents. In this episode, host Emily Laird digs into the eerie silence on student job boards and the explosion of AI-generated everything, from Studio Ghibli avatars to fully automated sales calls. With OpenAI spinning up a social network and businesses shedd…

GPT-4.1 is here, and it’s not messing around. In this episode, Emily Laird breaks down why this model is smarter, faster, and hungrier than any AI we’ve seen before, able to process 1 million tokens in one go (yes, that’s your codebase and your therapist’s notes). With flavors like Mini, Nano, and Full Spicy (not really called that), GPT-4.1 is doi…

AI isn’t some distant overlord plotting in a lab; it’s already writing your emails, diagnosing your cough, and maybe deciding your loan approval. In this episode, host Emily Laird tears into the 8th Edition of the Stanford AI Index Report to see what’s actually going on. From record-breaking benchmarks to billion-dollar investments, Nobel wins to r…

ChatGPT just got a memory upgrade, and no, it’s not just remembering your favorite pizza toppings. OpenAI’s newest update means the chatbot can now remember entire conversations, across multiple chats, to customize responses more personally and (potentially) creepily. There are now two memory modes: one where you tell it what to remember, and a new…

It’s 2027, and things are getting... spicy. This episode, host Emily Laird breaks down the summer-to-fall chaos from The AI Futures Project—a quarterly update that reads like a Black Mirror writer took over The Economist. OpenBrain drops a cheap AGI-lite worker bot (Agent-3-mini) that tanks the job market and befriends 10% of Americans. Cute? Maybe…

AI’s gone full sci-fi and it’s only January. In this episode, host Emily Laird walks us through the first half of 2027 in the AI Futures Project, where fictional megacorp OpenBrain builds Agent-2 (think: ChatGPT on a CrossFit bender), survives a digital brain heist by China, and counters with Agent-3, a code-writing monster that might also be a pat…

It’s 2026 and AI isn’t just helping out, it’s taking over the whiteboard and your white-collar job. In this episode, host Emily Laird breaks down the AI Futures Project’s bold predictions for 2026: OpenBrain’s Agent-1 is coding faster than the people who made it (with better manners, too), China’s plotting a digital Oceans Eleven to catch up in the…

AI agents have officially stopped playing assistant and started acting like your over-caffeinated junior dev—occasionally brilliant, mostly chaotic, and somehow costing $500 a month. In this episode, host Emily Laird breaks down the AI Futures Project’s vision for 2025, where agentic systems are no longer fanfic but crashing your Slack channel in r…

AI’s not just playing Jeopardy anymore, it’s coming for the Mensa crowd. In this episode, host Emily Laird spirals (productively) over Humanity’s Last Exam, a monster test built to measure whether AI is creeping past human-level intelligence. Spoiler: It is. With OpenAI’s research team clocking in at 26.6% and forecasts showing models might hit 50%…

Google’s Gemini 2.5 just set a new standard on Humanity’s Last Exam and flexed hard in the AI Fight Club, outpacing GPT-4.5 and Grok-3. It reasons, codes, remembers a million tokens of context, and handles text, audio, images, and video like it’s born for chaos. In this episode, we unpack why Gemini 2.5 isn’t just smart, it’s scary good. Connect wi…

Standardized tests are getting torched like marshmallows at a bonfire, and AI's top students are flunking the new final. In this episode, Emily unpacks Humanity’s Last Exam, a brutal, brain-bending test designed to humble even the cockiest language model. Forget multiple choice; we’re talking diagrams, logic puzzles, and cross-disciplinary chaos th…

Mobile AI apps are raking in cash—or at least convincing you that your fern obsession is worth $20 a month. This episode dissects the Andreessen Horowitz Top Gen AI Apps report, revealing why popularity doesn’t equal profit (looking at you, TikTok editors) and why niche apps (hello, dictation and nutrition coaches) are the real hidden gems. We expl…

Forget dark-mode IDEs and midnight debugging crises—AI tools are ushering in a vibecoder revolution. This episode unpacks the surge in agentic IDEs like Cursor (think Jarvis meets Clippy, but actually helpful) and text-to-web platforms (just say, “Airbnb for iguanas,” and poof, it's live). From Bolt’s explosive growth to the surprising overlap betw…

AI video generation isn't awkwardly fumbling anymore—it's making Hollywood sweat. This episode explores the meteoric rise of Gen AI video apps like Hailuo and Kling AI, exploring how specialization (think ultra-precise visuals and deepfake-level features) is reshaping content creation. OpenAI’s hyped release, Sora, faces fierce competition, and AI-…

AI moves fast—one minute you're on top, the next, you're a footnote. In this episode of Generative AI 101, we break down the latest Andreessen Horowitz Top 100 Gen AI Consumer Apps report. Spoiler: ChatGPT is still king, but DeepSeek just crashed the party. We're taking the week to examine the report but this episode focuses on ChatGPT, the Kleenex…

Alibaba’s QwQ-32B-Preview is here, and it’s not just another chatbot—it’s an AI reasoning machine that can handle complex math, coding, and logic like a pro. And the best part? You don’t need a data center the size of a city to run it. In this episode, we break down why this model is a game-changer, how it stacks up against the competition, and whe…

Let's chat Meta's Llama 3.3 70B. This lean, mean AI machine can generate text, write code, and even produce synthetic data—all without needing a supercomputer the size of Texas. It’s faster, cheaper, and packed with innovations like Grouped-Query Attention (think AI on Red Bull). But what’s the catch? We break down its strengths, its limits (sorry,…

Claude 3.7 Sonnet isn’t just another AI—it’s Anthropic’s latest and smartest yet, balancing speed and deep reasoning like a human flipping between Twitter and a textbook. With a massive 200,000-token memory and sharper problem-solving, it’s a powerhouse for coding, research, and crunching complex data. But is it worth the price? And does it actuall…

ChatGPT 4.5 isn’t your typical AI—it’s the Marlon Brando of chatbots, rebellious, intuitive, and full of surprises. In this episode, we break down what makes 4.5 tick, from its refined storytelling skills to its creative genius (and occasional logic stumbles). We’ll also talk about its real-world uses, price tag, and the ethical quirks that come wi…

AI is growing faster than a teenager with a DoorDash addiction, rewriting history, babysitting America’s kids, and maybe taking your job… or part of it. Meanwhile, governments are scrambling to regulate it, cybercriminals are using AI to level up their scams, and data centers are devouring electricity like the first keg at a frat party. Ethics? Con…

AI isn’t just in Silicon Valley—it’s in your bank, your weather app, and maybe even deciding how much you’ll pay for groceries. Meanwhile, governments are scrambling to regulate it, but tech companies are speeding ahead. Also, AI is devouring electricity at an absurd rate, and the world’s biggest firms are scrambling to keep the lights on. Is AI th…

Corporate AI is a battlefield, and February 2025 was full of billion-dollar moves, legal battles, and rejected takeovers. Elon Musk tried (and failed) to buy OpenAI for a cool $97.4 billion, Meta is building humanoid robots that might soon judge your life choices, and AI startups with zero products are somehow raising billions. Meanwhile, copyright…

February 2025 was wild. China launched an AI-powered space race, OpenAI decided to Marie Kondo its model lineup, and Microsoft unveiled a quantum processor that makes your MacBook look like a toaster. Meanwhile, Elon Musk dropped Grok 3—because, of course, he did—and AI just designed a glowing protein in days. Oh, and now you can generate full 3D v…

Elon Musk isn’t just building another chatbot—he’s aiming for Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) that’s smarter than us (but ideally not homicidal... maybe). In this episode, host Emily Laird breaks down xAI’s big ambitions, its “maximally truth-seeking” AI Grok, and Musk’s ongoing beef with OpenAI. Is xAI the future of AI freedom, or just anoth…

xAI’s Colossus isn’t just a supercomputer—it’s a 200,000-GPU monster with a sustainability side hustle and a power bill that could light up a small city. In this episode, host Emily Laird breaks down how Musk’s latest AI gamble is pushing the limits of computing, from its water-recycling ambitions to its unpermitted gas turbines (because rules are …

Meet Grok—Elon Musk’s answer to ChatGPT, but with less polish and more attitude. Built to be “maximally helpful” (or just maximally blunt), this chatbot pulls live data, skips the corporate filter, and isn’t afraid to ruffle some feathers. In this episode, we break down Grok’s evolution, from its rocky start to its AI math wizardry, and whether it’…

Elon Musk’s latest brainchild, xAI, isn’t just another AI startup—it’s a $50 billion cosmic experiment with a punk rock attitude. In this episode, host Emily Laird breaks down Musk’s quest for “maximally curious” AI, the Grok chatbot’s rise, and the Colossus supercomputer that’s flexing more GPUs than a small nation. Is xAI the key to unlocking the…

Traditional SEO is out. If AI can’t find you, it can’t cite you—and if it doesn’t cite you, your content might as well not exist. AI-powered search isn’t just ranking pages; it’s picking the best answers, summarizing them, and skipping the rest. In this episode, we break down Generative Engine Optimization (GEO), showing you how to structure conten…