Published 10 March 2025

e504 with Andy, Michael and Michael – stories and discussion on #vibecoding #AI, #biocomputing,  #philosophy, #Digg, #MWC25, #LaserRot and much more.

Michael, Andy and Michael get things started off with a 404 Media story about creating software with AI, specifically focusing on Pieter Levels’ “vibe coding” methodology.  Levels created a flight simulator game using AI and per the article, this free to play game is bringing in a very healthy income from in-game advertising and purchases.

Next up, is a story about a company called Cortical Labs who offer the CL1, which they describe as “the world’s first code deployable biological computer”.  Amazingly, Cortical Labs also offer a biological cloud service.  This reminds Michael R of his experiences in the biocomputing space, and Michael M of the Swiss startup FinalSpark.

Then the team turns to the discussion of whether a large language model can produce philosophical and ethical output sparked by an article entitled “The questions that ChatGPT shouldn’t answer”.  

An article on a new version of Monopoly which features a mobile app to handle the banking tasks gets the three co-hosts energized.

After the Monopoly discussion, the team turns to the reboot of Digg – something that inspired the creation of Dogear Nation, the precursor to the Games At Work podcast.  

Wrapping up this episode is a discussion of exoskeletons, a quick fly over of some of the technology introduced at Mobile World Congress 2025, and a conversation on Warner Brothers DVDs with laser rot showing that even if you have physical media, it is not immune to degradation.

What you would like to “vibe code”?  Have your bots 🤖 drop our bots 🤖 a line at @[email protected] (our home for now) and let us know! 

These show notes were lovingly hand crafted by a real human, and not by a bot.  All rights reserved.  That’s our story and we’re sticking to it.

404 Media article: This Game Created by AI ‘Vibe Coding’ Makes $50,000 a Month. Yours Probably Won’t

fly.Pieter.com 

Wikipedia entry: Vibe coding

slither.io 

Solterra Guardians

MIT’s Scratch

This is… uhh… deeply disturbing, tbh. https://newatlas.com/brain/cortical-bioengineered-intelligence/

More: https://corticallabs.com/cl1.html

New Atlas article: World’s first “Synthetic Biological Intelligence” runs on living human cells

Cortical Labs’ CL1

Games at Work e470: Two Marvelous Mini Brains for biocomputing

Science Alert article: Swiss Startup Connects 16 Human Mini-Brains to Create Low Energy ‘Biocomputer’

FinalSpark Neuroplatform

The Verge article: The questions ChatGPT shouldn’t answer

IMdB: The Good Place

Simon & Schuster book: How to Be Perfect by Michael Schur

The Verge article: A new version of Monopoly replaces cash and math with a mobile app

Wikipedia article: Lizzie Magie

The Guardian article: The secret history of Monopoly: the capitalist board game’s leftwing origins

Games at Work e195: Augmented Audio for Monopoly City Streets and Digg Reader

ABC News article: Monopoly City Streets Launches on Google (2009)

The Verge article: Digg is coming back, thanks to its founder — and Reddit’s

Digg

TechCrunch article: Alas, Digg Reader is shutting down at the end of March (2018)

The Verge article: I wore a one-horsepower exoskeleton to the world’s biggest tech show

Games at Work e241: Smarty Pants for exoskeletons and smart shorts

MIT Technology Review article: These bionic shorts help turn an epic hike into a leisurely stroll (2019)

Wired article: The Weird and Wacky Gadgets We Saw at MWC 2025

Mobile World Congress

catchpad.com 

Wikipedia article: Simon 

JoBlo article: Hundreds of your Warner Bros DVDs probably don’t work anymore; updated with response from WB

Web 11.0 mashup junkie, and co-founder / co-host of the GamesAtWork.biz podcast. My views are my own.

Michael Martine