Friends You Wish You Had

In this episode, Adam and Jeff tackle the question that's been haunting them: is there literally any good news about artificial intelligence? Also the great "unplugging" of 2026. We finish the show with a nice long rant about the criminally high cost of health insurance in the US.

0:00 - Intro: Is there any good news about AI?

2:00 - Why AI news is always either doom or hype

6:00 - The Industrial Revolution comparison

12:00 - The wrong bet we're making on AI

17:00 - Medical AI: The one bright spot?

23:00 - Gary V on Gen Alpha unplugging

33:00 - Healthcare costs are crushing families

42:00 - Why American healthcare is uniquely cruel

This is Friends You Wish You Had—the weekly reality check-in for Gen Xers and discriminating millennials navigating the chaos of the mid-2020s.

Should Gen Xers start talking like ChatGPT at work? Are people really starting to sound more like AI? And how do you spot those insanely realistic AI-generated videos flooding your feeds? This week, Adam & Jeff dig into the weird linguistic shift happening in our workplaces and give you a 5-step guide to never get fooled by fake videos again.

2:30 Should Gen Xers talk more like ChatGPT?

13:45 Why AI writing tools might actually help (not hurt) communication

19:00 The fake video problem - Sora, Ring cameras, and getting fooled

21:00 5-step guide to spotting AI-generated videos

32:00 Lessons from a 10-year-old "vibe coder"

42:00 The John Henry story - history repeating itself

In this episode, we dive into:

00:00 - Intro: The Hot Suite Abyss

AI is getting sneakier by the day - and we're not just talking about the tech. This week, Adam tests Apple's new live translation feature (spoiler: it's missing some major languages), while Jeff breaks down why NVIDIA's massive $100 billion OpenAI investment has us seriously worried about another financial bubble. Then your AI survival guides go deep... DEEP into the mind of Matthew McConaughey.

00:00 Apple's AI Translation Test

17:12 NVIDIA's Massive OpenAI Investment

33:17 AI Scheming Research

44:02 Celebrity Private LLMs

56:17 Adam gives Jeff an AI image-gen blowup

We're your Gen X survival guides navigating the AI apocalypse. Because when machines are finding love faster than lonely humans, somebody needs to ask the hard questions.

Subscribe for weekly AI reality checks that cut through the hype.

Welcome to Friends You Wish You Had - the weekly AI podcast for Gen Xers navigating the rise of artificial intelligence.

This Week's Topics:

In this episode your Gen X hosts Adam and Jeff dive into the latest AI developments that are both fascinating and slightly terrifying:

02:19 - ChatGPT solves new math confusion 

07:18 - AI fantasy football assistants 

14:00 - Google AI predicts the future (gambling story) 

22:00 - $7.6M AI sales bonanza 

33:00 - Why AI illiteracy drives adoption 

45:00 - OpenAI enters Hollywood 

55:00 - The movie Iron Eagle, gen X independence vs modern parenting 

60:00 - Prompt of the week: Make Chat GPT GenX

Perfect for anyone trying to navigate AI without losing their sanity. We're your slightly paranoid, somewhat useful survival guides for the AI age.

Adam breaks down AI Avatars for GenX.

Chat GPT tries to explain your job to a five-year-old and winds up ruining it forever.

Wharton Business School nerds try to butter up Chat GPT and wind up find out that it's a total sucker. 

Finally, is Clipse's new joint the GenX album of the year? Speaking of new joints, Jeff saw Spike Lee's latest Highest to Lowest in theaters and reflects on the relationship Gen X used to have with indie movie directors.  

Welcome to Friends You Wish You Had and you're listening to our very first episode. We are Jeff (1971) and Adam (1977). The point of this show is to help GenXers like us survive in the AI era.

This week, we start by discussing our relationship with AI so far, then kick around some ideas about how to dip your aging, fungally suspect toe into the water of AI use.

Next we hear from Jeff's boomer mom, who kicks off a discussion of parenting (our parents) with AI.

Finally, we come to a final answer to question on everyone's mind: are we about to be living in an AI dystopia or a utopia. Stay to the end for the answer (hint, we're all doomed).

On this week's pod:

1.Today we discuss Answer Engine Optimization (AEO), and compare traditional SEO vs AEO.

2. Adam talks about his recent adventures developing marketing applications with Vibe Coding.

3. How much are loneliness and mental illness to blame for exacerbating the hysteria over AI. Two recent high profile articles raise real concerns about how AI tech can people who are already at risk.

Today we tackle the big questions facing lawyers and legal marketers when it comes to AI:

Pt 1. What every lawyer needs to consider about AI right now.

Pt 2. Legal marketers thinking of using AI as part of their video strategy should think about this. 

Pt 3. AI is the villain, and Tom Cruise defeats it... in the final Mission Impossible movie