Ghost in the Machine

Andrew DeGood spent thirty minutes trying to sell Liz Short on the optimist case for AI. By the end she conceded most of it.

Five futures, all inside ten years. Biotech that crosses the "one year and one day" line where life expectancy improves faster than you age. Energy that goes near-free as fusion catches up and AI rewrites the grid. Knowledge becoming a commodity once an expert lives in everyone's pocket. The smartphone retiring in favor of smart glasses with AR overlays and continuous context. And the answer to the loneliness epidemic that nobody is comfortable talking about until they have an aging parent who is alone.

Andrew closes on why optimism is not naive. If you only talk about the doom, you build the doom. Episode 4 is Liz's turn to push back.

Andrew DeGood and Liz Short take on the question even Claude struggles to answer. Is AI a tool or an organism? Thirty minutes on autonomous agents, consciousness, Ready Player Two, the great filter, simulation theory, and why a more balanced government might be the guardrail AI actually needs.

Andrew comes in as the optimist who builds AI products for a living. Liz takes the skeptic seat with the harder questions, the ones about who gets left behind. In episode one they get into what most people are not saying. The 24 month question every leader should be asking before they buy another tool. Why AI in 2026 is the Model T of computing. What happens to call centers in the Philippines, dating in a full-AI generation, and the executive team that keeps shooting itself in the foot during rollouts. Plus the term Liz coined live that Andrew refused to let slide: AI washing.

Two voices. One question. Where is this actually headed?

Ghost in the Machine is a weekly conversation about artificial intelligence, hosted by Andrew DeGood and Liz Short. Andrew builds AI products for a living and comes in as the optimist. Liz asks the harder questions, the ones about who benefits, who loses, and what we owe the people who didn't sign up for any of this.

Every week, they sit down with a guest who actually knows what they're talking about. Researchers, founders, operators, critics. The people building the future and the people thinking hard about its consequences.

No hype cycles. No doom loops. Just real conversations about real implications, in thirty minutes a week.

Live every Thursday on LinkedIn and YouTube. On every podcast platform after.

The AI conversation, without the noise. New episodes start Thursday May 14th. Subscribe now.