Ever wish the internet could just... go back? This week Josh and Will grab their nostalgia goggles and time travel through tech history, picking the "precedented" gadgets and platforms they'd resurrect if they could — from stubborn T9 texting defenses to a full-throated case for bringing back MySpace's Top 8. Along the way they get honest about what we actually lost when the internet got corporatized: ownership, no ads, and a little bit of chaos.--

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Ever had a leader say "I don't know why we're not innovating more" and then hand you 4,000 more things to do in the same breath? Josh and Will have both lived that disconnect, and on Episode 256 they crack it open — not as another AI hype episode, but as a real conversation about what actually fosters innovation in a time-crunched world.We define innovation using a simple formula (novelty × value × adoption), debunk the myth that "faster" automatically means "winning," and lay out the real ingredients of a culture where AI experimentation can thrive: clarity on value, safety to fail, dedicated time, and recognition when it works.

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Can AI actually replace human podcast hosts? We put that question to the test — literally. This week, Josh and Will feed their own past episode notes into Google's NotebookLM and let it generate AI-hosted podcast episodes in their place, complete with two AI voices debating back and forth. No script, no prompt for a co-host — it just happened.We break down what NotebookLM got shockingly right (the voices, the pacing, the production polish), what it quietly made up (facts that were never in our notes), and why that "Frankenstein statistic" problem should make you think twice before trusting an AI-generated podcast as a primary source. Along the way we get into how LLMs actually predict content instead of retrieving it, why AI podcasts can't replicate the community and personality that keeps people coming back, and we settle it once and for all: are Josh and Will hanging up the mics?

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What happens when you put two guys who've been "using the crap out of AI" for years in a room and ask them to actually define why? Sparked by a story from a company retreat where 50 employees and a whiteboard hammered out an AI mission statement in real time, Josh and Will steal the exercise and do it live on the show — landing on a statement about humans, efficiency, and excellence that changes how they'll use AI going forward.

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Anthropic dropped Fable 5 — a consumer version of their secretive, powerful Mythos model — and three days later, it was gone. Josh and Will break down exactly what happened, why the US government stepped in, and what this means for everyone building with AI right now.We dig into the cybersecurity concerns behind Mythos, why jailbreaking Fable 5 spooked governments worldwide, and whether Anthropic's pushback holds water. Plus: if AI's equivalent of the cell phone went from "bag phone" to "supercomputer in your pocket" in 53 years — what does 5 years of AI feel like at this pace?

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"One in five teenagers has an AI girlfriend." That's the headline that's been ripping through the internet — and it's also not quite what the research says. Josh and Will dig into where this viral stat actually comes from, why the real numbers are messier than the headline, and whether parents should actually be worried.From Clippy jokes and AOL Instant Messenger nostalgia to a genuinely unsettling hypothetical about a 12-year-old learning to "relate" through an AI that's really just a mirror of themselves, this one goes deep. We dig into the UK research and Common Sense Media studies behind the stat, why people give their AI tools human names, and what's actually different about this generation's relationship with chatbots versus the bots we grew up with.

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What happens when two guys who built a Topia world "without a lot of planning" invite an actual Topia expert to fix it live on camera? You get this episode.Josh and Will welcome Sam, a Customer Success pro at Topia with four years of platform expertise, for a live world makeover of the HiTech Podcast's own virtual space. From setting proper world boundaries and using the alignment tool, to landmark zones, animated assets, interactive games, embedded polls, and a full event management system — Sam walks them through everything they did wrong (gently) and everything Topia can actually do. The result? A world that went from "not bad" to genuinely impressive in under an hour. Say hi to Gregory the butterfly while you're at it.Whether you're an educator dreaming of virtual office hours, an event planner looking beyond Zoom, or just someone who wants to build a cool interactive space online — this episode is packed with practical tips you can use right now.

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What if your laptop could run its own AI agents — no subscriptions, no data handed off to big tech — all from a chip the size of your palm? That's what Nvidia's RTX Spark is promising, and Josh and Will think it might be the biggest shift in how we use AI since... well, the personal computer.In episode 250, Josh and Will break down what the RTX Spark actually is, why it matters for everyday AI users (not just the hardcore tech crowd), and what "personal computing AI" could mean for privacy, accessibility, and the future of tools like Claude and OpenAI. They also get into the Linus Tech Tips video that sparked the conversation, why Windows is already building toward this, and what open-source tools are doing to get ahead of the curve.

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What if a cat could run your business and make you $300,000? Meet Felix Craft — an AI agent built to operate an entire company solo. We stumbled down this rabbit hole and it got philosophical fast.In this episode, Josh and Will break down the Felix Craft story: an AI "CEO" agent making real money with zero humans involved. But that's just the launch pad. From there, we get into the bigger questions — can AI really replace human workers at scale? What does AGI actually mean? And what does it look like when someone builds a company designed to eliminate themselves from it entirely?Spoiler: we think work is about more than efficiency. It's about culture, creativity, and showing up for each other — and no AI agent is changing that anytime soon.

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We said some things in episode 244. Dr. Justin Harbin had notes.The doctor is back, and this time he's setting the record straight on our hot takes about tech, Gen Z, and the Horvath Senate testimony. Justin — educator, researcher, and our resident academic conscience — breaks down what Will and Josh got right, what they missed, and what the research actually says about edtech's impact on student learning.We get into the surprising inflection point around 2010, why schools will spend millions on unproven tech tools but can't pay teachers fairly, the concept of "instructional theater" (a phrase you won't forget), and whether there's such a thing as an ideal learning device. Plus: AI's weird commencement season, a graduation name-reading disaster, and Josh pitching a learning tablet that may or may not just be a pencil.It's a follow-up episode that somehow has even more banter than the original. You've been warned.

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